THE QUESTION:

How do the three main categories differ among America’s rising non-religious “nones”?     

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:     

 Political scientist Ryan Burge of Eastern Illinois University (a contributor here at GetReligion) has lately emerged as the most prolific analyst of the religion factor in U.S. politics, The Religion Guy contends. He’s now out with a book examining the biggest trend of our times within U.S. religion: “The Nones: Where Thy Came From, Who They Are, and Where They Are Going.”

“Nones” refers to Americans who say they have “none” when pollsters ask about their religious affiliation or religious identity. Since the turn of the century they’ve grown rapidly and make up around a fourth of the U.S. adult population, so this book is highly recommended for anyone interested in contemporary American religion.

Burge is an interesting figure. On the one hand, he’s a hard-nosed, objective observer of poll-driven facts, while on the other a religious practitioner as a long-serving, part-time pastor of a American Baptist congregation. His local flock typifies our era’s second major trend, the unprecedented membership decline in aging white “mainline” Protestant denominations that in former times dominated the national culture, as distinguished from conservative “evangelical” Protestantism.

The most revelatory material in this data-rich survey of all things “none” is the distinctions among the three subcategories of non-religious people carefully marked out by Pew Research Center surveys. Atheists are those who are certain God does not exist, and the same for all supernatural aspects. Agnostics say we do not or cannot know such things. By far the largest segment of nones, however, choose Pew’s third option of “nothing in particular” (NIP).

Burge thinks the NIPs “might be the most consequential religious group in the United States, and no one is talking about them the way they talk about atheists or agnostics.” NIPs are one-fifth of the population and “the fastest-growing religious group in the United States.” On point after point, they are notably different from both atheists and agnostics. Lumping all the non-religious together as the same “glosses over vast differences in the lifestyles, occupations and political worldviews.”

On basic demographics, NIPs are evenly split by gender and thus reflect the general public, while atheists and agnostics are heavily male. On education, 44.2% of atheists have bachelor’s degrees with agnostics ranking nearly as high, but only one in five NIPs are college grads. Regarding income, half the U.S. population earns less than $50,000 a year but nearly 60% of NIPs, while atheists and agnostics are affluent over-all.             

On politics, atheists and agnostics are among the most liberal of groups, a vital and growing slice of the Democratic Party vote and unusually active in political matters. Meanwhile the NIPs are slightly more conservative than average Americans. Further, “on every measure of political participation they fall far behind,” which is not the case for other social groups having lower social and economic status.

His blunt summary: NIPs “are often the most distant, isolated, and checked-out members of society.” They have no religious ties, but it’s the same with all other sorts of ties. “They are one of the most educationally and economically disadvantaged groups in the United States today.”

NIPs also stand out on religion, where they’re less negative toward belief and religious activities than atheists and agnostics. For example, they are more likely to attend worship services occasionally, though half never attend. Surprisingly, 35% of NIPs even say that religion is “somewhat” or even “very” important in their lives. In one longitudinal study over time (2010 through 2014) 16.4% of NIPs switched from none status to identify as Christian and nearly 9% switched into  a non-Christian religious identity.

Burge advises church strategists to forget hopes of winning settled atheists and agnostics and target outreach to the one in five Americans who are currently NIPs.

By and large, they are struggling. They are more “receptive to faith” than other nones and are “the most likely to gain real social and economic benefits from being part of a religious community.”

What other guidance does the author have for fellow religionists?

CONTINUE READING: “How do categories differ among America’s rising non-religious ‘nones’?