The chapter draws on my longitudinal empirical research exploring mainstream religious belief and identity in Euro-American countries. Starting from a qualitative study based in northern England, and then broadening the data to include Europe and North America, I argue that many ‘believe in belonging’, sometimes choosing religious identi¿cations to complement other social and emotional experiences of ‘belongings’ and sometimes choosing secular identities. Between the sacred and the secular is ‘belief’, acting performatively like a hinge to allow different identities to swing into the foreground or recede. To understand how belief might operate in this manner requires an analytical exercise that moves belief from a narrow propositional or doctrinal meaning to one that embraces emotion, action and relationships. To ‘believe’ in this sense is to hold dear and close the people, places, ideas and values that give people their orientation to an otherwise chaotic universe. Much contemporary rich research into religion reveals such orientations and informs this chapter as we move beyond binary de¿nitions of secular and sacred.