Where They came From,
Who They are, and Where They are Going

By Ryan P. Burge

 

A Review by Dwight A Moody

 

I don’t know who invented the NONES, or when; but they have become a dominant category of the American population among sociologists, politicians, and ministers. The NONES are those people who answer on questionnaires: “I have no particular religious preference.” And they are now one of the top three religion classifications in the United States, right there with Roman Catholics and Evangelical Christians, each with about a quarter of the total population.

 

It hasn’t always been this way, and how it got this way is the narrative offered in this wonderful little book. I read it straight through, graphs and all, and so will you; and I predict many of you will find it as intriguing as I did.

 

Dr. Burge teaches at Eastern Illinois University and is impressively published. But he is also the pastor of First Baptist Church of Mt. Vernon, Illinois. In fact, his testimony is this: my own congregation is a microcosm of what is happening throughout the United States: Christianity in decline.

 

There are five chapters in this 136-page book: a description of the current religious situation in the U.S. including the dramatic rise in those who are disaffiliated with religion; six possible explanations for this recent trend; who has joined the group known as NONES; the diversity within the NONES; and how can religious leaders (Christians, mostly, are in his mind) respond to this new situation.

 

As a trained sociologist, Burge gathers his data from two broadly-available sources. The first is the General Social Survey, administered to approximately 3,000 random members of the general public in even numbered years, going back to 1972, by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. The second is the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, a project of 39 universities administered by Harvard University which gathers information from as many as 65,000 members of the American electorate.

 

These tools segregate the American population into seven broad categories—a classification system—of religion in America: evangelical Protestant, mainline Protestant, black Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, others, and NONES. Pentecostals are included in Evangelical Protestants; others include Mormons, Buddhists and various Asian religions, Baha’i, and such. The NONES includes atheists, agnostics, and those with no preference whatsoever. It is unclear where Orthodox Christians fit in.

 

A third useful tool comes from the Pew Research Center. It uses a 12-option category for respondents, including categories for Mormon, Buddhist, Muslim, Atheist, Agnostic, and Nothing.

 

Among the most interesting results of this approach to understanding religion in America are:

  • The United States remains a very religious country, which makes it an outlier among other advanced and wealthy countries.
  • Evangelical Christianity, Roman Catholicism, and the NONES each comprise about the same percentage of the American population.
  • All forms of Christianity have suffered decline, especially Mainline Protestants.
  • The percentage of church attending Christians who are Democrats has fallen from 50% in 1972 to 25% in 2018.
  • The dramatic rise of the NONES began in the early to mid-1990s.
  • Evangelicals peaked (as a percentage of the population) about 2000 and have been in slow but steady decline since.

 

To explain these trends, Burge offers six common ideas: 1) secularization supplants religion; 2) people respond to questions in the way they think the questioner prefers (known as Social Desirability Bias); 3) modern technology (especially the internet) has given people more information, opportunity, and connection; 4) politicization of Evangelical Christianity has redrawn the lines; 5) people are, in general, more socially isolated; and 6) people have lost trust in all social institutions (especially as a result of the rise of 24-7 news culture). Burge prefers a combination of 1, 3, and 4 but admits that it is difficult to offer a convincing explanation.

 

The next chapter describes these NONES in terms of education, age, gender, race and concludes that there is no category that dominates the newly-minted NONES. He then describes the NONES in their three groups:  atheists, agnostics, and the generally disconnected; he finds sharp differences between them. A final chapter reflects, from the perspective of a pastor, on what Christians are to make of the new religious landscape and how we are to respond; he has few ideas but ends up quoting (or paraphrasing) the Apostle Paul (who led a minority movement many years ago!): Don’t Give Up!

 

As a theologian and a pastor, I have long believed that the overarching reason Christianity flourishes or founders in any given culture is tied to its ability to give a comprehensive and compelling interpretation of life. In the West, Christianity has struggled with things like science, race, sex, and nationalism; this reality has drained much of its legitimacy and influence. As a citizen and a Christian, I have bemoaned the slow merging of white Christianity with Republican politics; this trend bodes ill for the future of both. And finally, as a scholar and a writer, I am fascinated by this question: what happened in the mid to middle 1990s to shift the direction of religion in America?

 

 

 

(March 2021)