secular songs about religion tend to do things that wouldn't pass muster in a house of worship: assume God's perspective, cast God as a villain, or just take a sardonic view of God's relationship with humankind.
Because our culture denies grief — and because it denies the things which precipitate grief, most especially death — there is something profoundly freeing about escaping the denial, at least for an hour or two.
Attending the 2015 Parliament of Religions alongside 10,000 other people an hour's drive from where I was born with my mother has had a powerful effect on me.