Personal Stories and Testimonials
A reading guide to religion in people’s lives
People describe their relationship to religion in different ways, and that relationship can change. These readings move from experience and affiliation to examples of how a person's views can be interpreted from the public record.
Experience and changing affiliation
Interpreting a public record
Leaving the Latter-day Saints | What Ex-Mormon Can Mean
“Ex-Mormon” usually refers to someone who no longer identifies with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and regards ...
Albert Einstein’s Religious Views: God, Spinoza and Jewish Identity
Albert Einstein rejected belief in a personal God who intervenes in human affairs, while also using religious language for his ...
Becoming Muslim | The Shahada, Prayer and Community
Becoming Muslim centres on the shahada, the testimony of faith in one God and in Muhammad as God’s messenger. A ...
Religious Experience | Teresa of Ávila’s Four Waters
How can someone describe an experience in prayer that is difficult to put into words? Teresa of Ávila, a sixteenth-century ...
What Amber Heard Has Said About Religion
Amber Heard discussed religion in interviews with Missbehave in 2008 and Time Out Chicago in 2011. In the first, she ...
Dua Lipa’s Religion and Spirituality: Her Public Comments and Kosovo Roots
In a 2024 conversation with Dan Harris, Dua Lipa said she was not active in a specific faith and described ...
Freddie Mercury’s Religious Background: Parsi Heritage and Zoroastrian Family Life
Freddie Mercury came from a Parsi Zoroastrian family. That religious and cultural background is a documented part of his biography, ...
Olivia Newton-John and Religion: Her Public Views on Spirituality
Olivia Newton-John described a personal spirituality drawing on more than one religious tradition. In a 1997 interview, she said, “I ...
Bob Dylan and Religion: Biblical Imagery, Gospel and a 2022 Interview
Bob Dylan has used biblical stories and religious language in songs as different as the comic title track of Highway ...
