How to Join a Religion

Many of us are born into religion. Our names, our family calendars and our sense of morality are built around ancient texts and holy days.

Our ability to see our own religion with any real objectivity takes a deep commitment to understanding different perspectives, and even then, what we are taught as children is notoriously difficult to unlearn. Whoever we were told God is, can be hard to forget.

And, for those of us who have always believed in the supernatural, it can be difficult to understand the faith struggles of somebody who is just dipping their toes in, well into adulthood.

But, just as it is hard to unlearn religion, it is hard to unlearn the belief in its impossibility. Yet, religion offers many things that may be attractive to the non-religious, such as an active community, a concrete moral code, or a connection to the past. Actually, The National Health Institute reported in 2025 that religious individuals across many different countries consistently report lower levels of loneliness and better health than their non-religious peers.

But how does a non-religious person who desires what religion can supply go about unlearning their disbelief and fully embracing a faith community? And how do religious people make their communities ones in which the curious and the seeking feel that they have the space and the resources to consider conversion?

Rabbi Noa Kushner’s new book, Pretend You Believe, might just have the answers. Kushner leads a San Francisco synagogue called The Kitchen, which she founded in 2011. Her latest work acts as a sort of guidebook to anyone who is seeking to enter religion, or seeking to help somebody do so.