Returning to Mormonism after Falling Away: Summur-Rayn Berrett Pt. 1 | Ep. 1887

When the Church You Were Raised In Was Never Quite Built for You

Summur-Rayn Berrett's story, shared on the Mormon Stories Podcast (Episode 1887), raises a question that Black Latter-day Saints have been quietly navigating for decades: what does it mean to return to a church that spent over a century telling people who look like you that they were spiritually inferior?

That question does not go away just because the policy changed in 1978.

Background: A Family Finds Mormonism Five Years After the Priesthood Ban

Berrett grew up in a household shaped by remarkable cross-cultural depth. Her father, a former NFL player who won a Super Bowl ring with the Oakland Raiders as part of the first wild card team to win the championship, came from a segregated Baptist community in the South. Her mother was raised Catholic in Venezuela, with East Indian and Hindu influences woven into the family's spiritual fabric.

Her parents converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the early 1980s, roughly five years after the 1978 revelation that finally extended priesthood and temple access to Black members. They came in with open eyes and genuine faith, and they raised their children inside a gospel framework that John Dehlin and co-host Margie describe as unusually generous and intellectually honest.