Trying to find the good in religion.

John Legend: You know I have my issues with faith nowadays. I grew up in a religious home, but I’m not religious right now. But I’m trying to get back in touch with the things that were good about the faith that I grew up with.

I never lost the sense of moral compass. I never lost the sense that the world is bigger than just me, and that there’s more to life than just me as an individual, that there’s a lot more. And I try to live that way now, and I think I was influenced by my religious upbringing in that sense. I was taught that.

What I’ve tried to do is shed some of the less desirable sides of the religious upbringing as well. I saw a lot of hypocrisy. I felt like religion, in a lot of ways, was used to control and subdue people rather than to bring out the best in them sometimes. And so I’ve tried to shed some of those restrictions, but still keep the moral compass and the character development aspects of religion that I think were really important for me.

Recorded on: Jan 29, 2008