The “nones” or religiously unaffiliated are now the largest “religious” identity category in America. What does that mean for our culture? What does it mean for the church as we engage with people around us, who are today more likely to be a “none”? We will explore this topic in two parts.
For part one, we spoke with Dr. Dan Cox, Research Director of the Public Religion Research Institute, to help us understand better the trending “rise of the nones.” PRRI has been on the forefront of researching religion trends in the US and recently released an important study on this topic.
But more than just increase our awareness, we need to be equipped. Jana Harmon, fellow with the CS Lewis Institute, shared what it looks like to step into relationship with atheists with love and intentionality. We will address this in part two.
First, a quick introduction to a few terms. This is important because not all “nones” are the same:
Atheist: person with an affirmative expression of disbelief, who says, “There is no God. God does not exist.”
Agnostic: person who says, “I just don’t know.”
Apatheistic: person who says, “I just don’t care.”
If we were going to engage three different varieties of nones with the tools of propositional apologetics we would need: cosmological arguments to converse with the atheist and epistemological arguments to converse with the agnostic. But to converse with the apatheist we need to be equipped with both realism and hope. That means that we have to listen to the none before we can speak.
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In a global sense, especially in the global South and Asia the faith, the Church, and Christianity has never been more alive and vital. More new members are associating with the faith, getting baptized in Nigeria, India and China on a monthly basis than those on the roles currently of the PCUSA, In the US and Canada evangelical and free churches continue to grow, especially holiness-Pentecostal groups.
The extinction level event of the church seems to be confined to the older mainline liberal groups, no more so than the said PCUSA, whose de-population, systemic collapse is even at a greater rate than the EPCUSA and ELCA. And while true that many PCUSA congregations are simply at the end of their life cycles or in a hospice, comatose type existence, the fault of the death of the PCUSA lies squarely with its ruling liberal elites and their allies in academia and theological education. Who see the local church as either a mystery box where per capita is derived, or a commodity to extract resources from.
No more greater example of their epic miscalculations than sham known as 1001 new communities. Built upon the fallacy that there exists some great tsunami or tidal wave of progressive millennials just ready to bust the doors of the PCUSA due to its odd attraction of identity and tribal theologies mixed with a strong dose of social justice causes. The age 20-35 cohort want faith, meaning and purpose just like any generation previous, and a depth of relationship and commitment to a Savior, just as any other generation. To know forgiveness, and be forgiven. Any of that forthcoming from the PCUSA whose sole agenda seems to the polarization of politics, class and economic warfare. Co Moderators posting religious hate speech on their blogs. Why would anybody be attracted to that hot mess? So given a clear choice between “none” and warmed over 19th century social gospel with a added dash of Marxist dialectic, race and class warfare. “Nones” seems quite the informed and logical choice.
“Atheist: person with an affirmative expression of disbelief, who says, “There is no God. God does not exist.””
Well, you got that one wrong for a start. Atheism is generally defined by the most authoritative dictionaries as disbelief in a god or gods. That is not the same as saying that gods definitely don’t exist.