Lauren Jackson

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This is The Daily.

Today, producer Aastha Chaturvedi talks to our colleague Lauren Jackson about why more and more Americans are now choosing to believe.

It's Tuesday, May 12th.

Hey, Lauren.

Hi, how are you?

I'm good.

and even The Daily's coverage of religion, has been about how politicized it has become, especially on the right.

It's true.

There was a recent face-off between the Pope and the president, but I'm also thinking about the overturning of Roe v. Wade, battles at the Southern Baptist Convention over female pastors and IVF.

Some of these episodes I've produced for The Daily.

But you haven't been reporting on religion from that angle.

Instead, you've been reporting on faith itself and how and why people in America believe.

And I want to understand how all of this started for you and why you decided to begin reporting on this now.

Yeah, there have been so many stories in the last few years of the ascendancy of a very muscular conservative Christianity and the ways in which that is expressing itself in politics.

I'm interested in all of them, but I was really interested in how most people in America wrestle with these really big questions of religion and spirituality and how they appear in their lives, their families and communities.

And as I started to look into that, something really dramatic emerged in my reporting, which was there is something hugely significant happening sociologically and demographically within America when it comes to American spirituality and religiosity.

And that is that we know people across the political spectrum, young and old, are expressing a renewed interest in