All posts How should we think about the “Nones” of the Pew Forum report?
10/11/2012 2:56:11 PM
By Carmen Fowler LaBerge with Scott Lamb
As was noted at The Layman Online, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released its latest report, “Nones” on the Rise:
One-in-Five Adults Have No Religious Affiliation” see here for the full 80-page PDF report or here for the summary.
Here is the bottom line:
The number of Americans who do not identify with any religion continues to grow at a rapid pace. One-fifth of the U.S. public – and a third of adults under 30 – are religiously unaffiliated today, the highest percentages ever in Pew Research Center polling.
In the last five years alone, the unaffiliated have increased from just over 15 percent to just under 20 percent of all U.S. adults. Their ranks now include more than 13 million self-described atheists and agnostics (nearly 6 percent of the U.S. public), as well as nearly 33 million people who say they have no particular religious affiliation (14% percent).
Depending on who you ask, this data is either doom-and-gloom for American Christianity, or it simply reflects the growing reality that “census Christians” are “losing their religion.” That is to say, there have always been a certain amount of the population who never darken the door of a Christian church. But, 20 years ago, a larger percentage of those people would have still answered “Christian” to a census taker. Today, fewer people respond in this manner, preferring instead to answer “None” to the question of which religion do they practice.
Does the rising number of people who answer “None” indicate that Biblical Christianity is on the wane in America? Perhaps not.
Read the full report and consider what these stats indicate.
Here are some additional sound-bytes of analysis –
Ed Stetzer, Southern Baptist author, professor, and missiologist writes:
The “squishy middle” is collapsing. Nominalism will go its way. I believe the future of Christianity in North America will look more like the present-day Pacific Northwest, as I have explained here.
For me, it is both a concern and an opportunity.
I see an opportunity for churches to clearly state what a Christian is, as others are no longer claiming that title as frequently. Furthermore, teaching believers to live on mission in their contexts, rather than just to bring their friends to church, is how we will reach the Nones.
So, as society moves away from Christian identification, let’s meet them on the road and say, “We did not believe in that expression of Christianity anyway. Let me tell you about Jesus and how he changes everything.”
Peter Smith, religion reporter for Louisville’s The Courier-Journal reports:
Michael Jinkins, president of the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, said the report’s findings likely will fuel “anxiety among Protestants nationally around the perceived loss of influence, and numbers, over the past 40 years.”
Although many individual congregations are still vibrant, he said, the report may also act as a positive catalyst to re-examine Protestant outreach and approach, particularly in an era when many time-pressed families are joining fewer group activities.
“It may do us a lot of good as Protestants to lose that dominance,” he said. “Instead of reacting, we need to listen to this carefully. It could help Protestants to reflect more critically on our purpose as a people of faith.”
Also from Peter Smith:
Greg Wills, professor of church history at Louisville’s Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said the report reflects Christianity’s diminishing influence on American culture. He noted there hadn’t been a nationwide religious wave or “awakening” since the 1970s. However, he predicted that the Protestant church “will survive, whether American culture honors it or scorns it.”
Finally, in this video, Greg Smith, senior researcher for the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, which released the study, explains the significance of the report.