Gennaro Brooks-Church

Most people don't talk about their personal spiritual beliefs. Yet these beliefs are very much the foundation of how a person lives their life.

The God Project is a series of interviews and photographic portraits focusing on peoples' individual interpretation of God.

I have always loved spirituality. But I never really talked to people about it. I don't belong to a church and have always thought organized religion was kooky.

I realized that my idea of God was very personal and that I was making presumptions about people based on that personal viewpoint.

It occurred to me that these presumptions were causing me to misinterpret people. I actually had no idea how they saw God or spirituality. I never asked them. God was a personal thing as far as I was concerned.

And to be honest I didn't really care what they believed. It was all good to me as long as it didn't hurt anyone.

But people's spirituality is often at the core of what makes them tick. To not know how others work in this aspect means I am really not seeing them. I am possibly having totally misinformed relationships with them and don't even know it.

I realized I needed to do some research into this. So I chose a random group of peers and asked them questions. The results gave me a great insight into other people's spirituality. It broadened my understanding of humanity.

The deepest learning was with the people who had religions that I had always considered suspect, like born again Christians as one example. My bias was that born again Christians were weird and annoying. Yet I found out that people I knew and respected were born again Christians.