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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We're going to wrap up the show today for our last 15 minutes or so by inviting calls from anyone listening right now who has recently returned to organized religion. Listeners, did you grow up Catholic or any kind of Christian or maybe Jewish or Muslim at some point, and then leave or just stop practicing, and then decide to return in a more active way? 212-433-WNYC. Tell us a story like that. What was missing in your life after you left your religion and why did you decide to return to more observancy? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Why do I ask? We're in a particularly holy time of year, right?

Easter was Sunday, we're still in Ramadan, Passover is right around the corner. October 7th and the aftermath might be affecting people's identification, particularly in the Muslim and Jewish communities. Probably a lot of you are thinking about your religion at this moment more than at other times of year or other times in history. We've heavily documented the rising trend of the nones, the N-O-N-E-S, nones, meaning the growing number of people who would answer "none" when asked about their religious identification, but there are people who go the other way too. 212-433--WNYC, if you are one of them. 212-433-9692.

By contrast by the way, on tomorrow's show, we're going to have NPR Sarah McCammon, who, as some of you know, has a new book called The Evangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church. That's her personal story. The ex, I'm sorry, I said the evangelicals, it is the exvangelicals, so you get the meaning just from that. Sarah McCammon is one, so we're going to talk about that tomorrow, but maybe you are a reverse exvangelical. You were an exvangelical and now you're a, what should we call it? A revangelical. Or are you a reverse none in any religion? Did you feel like something was missing, eventually?

Maybe it's just because you had kids and you want them to grow up with some structure even if you don't totally buy the whole thing. By the way, the religious organizations, many of them do recruit, right? Maybe you remember hearing an ad like this from Cardinal Dolan on the radio in the past?

Speaker 1: Please join us at any Catholic Church this holy week, this Easter week as we celebrate our faith in Him. Come, He is risen.

Speaker 2: Brought to you by Catholic Voices.

Brian Lehrer: That happens to be 10 years old, but things like that get out there and there are posters around and people get mailings and all of that. If you've recently or at any point returned to the organized religion that you grew up in after leaving it, tell us why. 212-433-WNYC. It's Easter, it's Ramadan, Passover is right around the corner. It's the time people are thinking about this. 212-433-9692. We'll take your stories right after this.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now to your stories of returning to religion after leaving it at some point in your life. Just don't tell me it was because you saw the new Donald Trump God Bless America Bible last week, okay? Anything else is okay. Elizabeth in Manhattan. All right, even that. Elizabeth in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Elizabeth: Hi. Thanks, Brian. Great to talk to you. I came back to the church when my father died, and cautiously, the Catholic church. I live on the Upper West Side going to St. Paul the Apostle. Yes, I think I returned when my dad died. That was the religion I grew up in. I totally turned away from it, walked away from it, and decided to creep back cautiously again because of community and maybe just going back to something I recognized.

Brian Lehrer: Many people, I think, even if they stray from religion, when there's a death in the family, they'll return to the rituals that they grew up with that are familiar with out of maybe respect to the elder or because it's just comforting and familiar enough because, "What do I do? My loved one died. What do I do now?" but then they don't necessarily stay with it in a more sustained way, you know what I mean? Did you?

Elizabeth: Yes. No, I've stayed with it incrementally. I go to church on Sunday, "Let's go." However, I will say I did take on praying the Rosary every single Sunday when COVID happened with my mom because I knew that brought her a lot of comfort. Then I was like, "Wow, this actually brought me comfort as well." I think it's returning to just the rituals that we knew and that are familiar because I would've never have had any hesitation saying a Buddhist prayer. Let's do it, but then, obviously, growing up in the Catholic church, I was hesitant. As a New Yorker, it's like, "No, I don't want to do that," but hey, here I am and I'm sneaking back in a little bit.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, and it's got some personal, meaning, for you, obviously. Thank you for sharing that, Elizabeth. Phyllis in Hewlett, you're on WNYC. Hi, Phyllis.

Phyllis: Hi, Brian. Thank you for taking my call. Longtime listener, first-time caller.

Brian Lehrer: Great. You're on.

Phyllis: I was raised in a fairly traditional Jewish household and I had drifted away over the years. I felt like I had all the tools I needed to live a good life without this structure of Judaism, but upon the birth of my firstborn, this Jewish concept of l'dor v'dor, from generation to generation, hit me like a ton of bricks. The need to continue the chain, the need that this wasn't going to end on my watch. Too many people in my family perished and didn't make it to America from the holocaust years. They died because of our religion. I couldn't walk away.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, so the birth of a child made you think.

Phyllis: Birth of a child and it wasn't so much to give them structure. I knew of other ways to do that. We were all prepared to be ethical humanists and could be good people in all the right ways without Judaism, in particular, but literally, the week he was born, I was like, "I can't do this." I need to raise Jewish children.

Brian Lehrer: That birth of a child, whether it leads to your exact decision or not, boy, does that connect us with the past and the future in ways that we didn't have to think about, right? When we were young adults just on our own.

Phyllis: Interesting thing, these are now grown men. Both of my sons are grown men and one has a child of his own. All of them are practicing reform observant Jews and it matters to all of them, and I feel very good about that.

Brian Lehrer: Phyllis, thank you for sharing that. Robin in Harlem, you're on WNYC. Hi, Robin. Robin, you're there? Robin, once. Robin, twice. How about Claudia in Newark? Do we have you, Claudia?

Claudia: You do. Thank you, Brian. I've been a long time listener and I listen to you religiously every Monday through Friday. Thank you for all the work that you do.

Brian Lehrer: That's not a good way to put it in this segment, but go ahead.

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Claudia: I was raised Catholic in a very Latino traditional home going to Spanish mass every Sunday, and I think that the Catholic religion in Latinos is intertwined with culture. In some ways, going to church is not just about being faithful, but it's also about living your cultural experience. For me, I had left it after college. Probably during college I didn't really go to church, but when the pandemic started, I found myself longing for that connection to my community and family. My family is in California so I'm the only one out here. I started streaming mass.

When it opened, then I started going back to church to the local parish. I find that even post pandemic, just being part of a community, it makes you feel less isolated and lonely. I think for me, that was the reason why I went back to church.

Brian Lehrer: So many people have political problems with the Catholic Church or ethical problems with the Catholic Church, whether it's from the abuse scandal or the treatment of women and LGBT people. Did you have any hesitation over any of that?

Claudia: Not at all. For the reason that I think that the Catholic Church is reckoning with all of those terrible decisions. I think that pope specifically being Latino and focusing more on modern-day ideas, I think has been helpful and it's helped me realign my values of being pro-choice, pro-LGBT, pro-women. I feel like there's definitely a space for me because at the church that I attend, it's all Latino, mostly immigrants, first generation, and they talk about social issues. I think that there's a space for that. Anything else, you just have to find it.

Brian Lehrer: Claudia, thank you so much. Call us again. We're going to give Robin in Harlem another shot here. I think she's ready now. Robin, you get our last 45 seconds. Hi there.

Robin: Yes, thanks. Sorry. I was raised in the Episcopal Church, my dad's an Episcopal priest. Partly as rebellion as a teenager, I walked away from it, like amputated it. Then I fell in with some Buddhists and life was fine, but then last summer I discovered the Cathedral St. John the Divine in Morningside Heights. I'm back in an Episcopal community, but in a place where 100% whoever you are when you walk in the door, you are welcome, warmly welcome. It has reignited just a cascade of exploration and question and gratitude, and it's been extraordinary. I invite the world to come to St. John.

Brian Lehrer: The way a church community is defined by the leadership can drive you away or it can attract you it sounds like.

Robin: Yes, exactly.

Brian Lehrer: Robin, thank you very much. Thank you for all those personal reflections in this call in, folks. Then listeners, yes, tomorrow, the opposite, Sarah McCammon with her book, The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church. Stay tuned for All Of It.

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