Forty years ago, nine out of ten Americans believed in God, more than 70 percent belonged to a synagogue, church or mosque and most were suffused with optimism about their own and America’s futures.
Despite the poverty and racism around him, Don Lemon was one of them: a boy imbued with innocent faith who spent Sunday mornings in a well-pressed suit, seated next to his mother in a pew of a fundamentalist church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Then reality intruded and, like so many others, Lemon began reeling from the buffeting of his faith. Realizing he was gay alienated him from his Evangelical roots. His work as a reporter forced him to confront the rising sense of gloom and distrust that pervaded the nation. The obvious clash between evolving social values and once-sacred traditions felt like a growing peril.
After being ousted from his seat at the pinnacle of American journalism, struggling to recover his equanimity, Lemon began sensing parallels between his own dilemmas and America’s, connections between the waning of faith – not just in a higher power but in ourselves, in each other and our institutions – and the national epidemic of pessimism.
In his new memoir, I Once Was Lost: My Search for God in America, Lemon takes readers along on his journey to explore those connections and his discovery that what he was seeking, and ultimately found, was a new version of what he had felt as a boy: grace, within himself and in this country we call home.
Don Lemon joins us to discuss how his faith was tested, how tribulations made him stronger, the importance of believing in something bigger than self and how we, as individuals and as a nation, can regain our belief in ourselves, our communities and our country.
Don Lemon spent three decades as a local and national news correspondent for NBC and CNN before anchoring his own show on CNN for eight years. The Don Lemon Show currently streams on all major platforms. His last book, This Is the Fire, was a #1 New York Times bestseller.
In conversation with Jeff Zucker, former president of CNN Worldwide and CEO of NBCUniversal.
More about the book:
In a deeply personal follow-up to his #1 bestseller, This is the Fire: What I Say to My Friends about Racism, a modern media iconoclast faces a test of faith – and reveals how such tribulations can make us stronger, as individuals and as a nation.
Renowned journalist Don Lemon always had a complicated relationship with God. He cherished the Southern Black church he was raised in but struggled with the fundamentalist rejection of his right to exist as a gay man – one who wanted to marry his longtime love in a church wedding with all the traditional trimmings. In his work as a reporter, moreover, he saw his fellow Americans losing faith in a higher power, in institutions and in each other.
Setting out to understand the place that religion has in our lives today, Don turned a journalistic eye on ancient stories and found connections that sparked memories, conversations, and chance encounters. Then, suddenly, his world unraveled: In a blaze of inglorious headlines, Don was ousted from his high-profile network news job and tasked with redefining his role in the shifting media landscape. But through a year of personal changes and professional whiplash, he kept his “eyes on the prize” and ultimately found what he was seeking: grace, within himself and in this nation we call home.
Rich with humor and Louisiana realness, I Once Was Lost is a prayer for a country that reflects the multifaceted image of God and a clarion call to those who believe in our common humanity enough to fight for it.