The Question is Why? Nearly one quarter of Americans are now “Nones” or religiously-unaffiliated. The question is “Why?” One could infer that if we can figure out why people are leaving the church we could work against the answer to Why. Photo by Nicholas Green
What a tantalizing question! Okay, while I've tried to stop buying books (at age 90), I've ordered this one on the Nones. I probably won't be ready to post anything until I've read that book. But at the same time this lies right next to a host of other social changes over the last quarter-century. The Nones sit parallel to the major changes in attitudes toward marriage (now with a majority seeing shacking up a wiser choice) (see my 2004 book Marriage Made in Eden). Once any kind of question about the validity of a stricture is entertained, that willingness to consider an alternative punches a hole in the "invincible" religious wall constructed to protect a belief structure. It's all those rocks rolling down the hill and striking the sides of the paradigm until eventually the paradigm is tattered.
I have to comment on the statement, "devout Protestant Christians are Republicans, with very few exceptions.” As a Black Christian, it surprises me to see this statement which is true of white Christians but decidedly false among Black. Increasingly, I believe Black Christians are invisible to the white world. Black Christians are leaving white Evangelical spaces but not necessarily the church as in the #LeaveLoud movement. Perhaps our invisibility to the Evangelical church is part of the problem.
Interesting. I wonder if Josh Packard, who researched the Dones, has seen this? Being Done myself, with 3 sons who are not married and don't have children, my eldest is also Done and the younger 2 are Nones -- so I have been living this up close and personal.
I see this as a commentary on the religious institution's focus on outward moral control to the detriment of true attachment (emotional, spiritual, and intellectual) to God as adopted children. Nones are done with the hypocrisy of moral judgment from conservative Christianity.
Until they meet the real Jesus and begin to experience the life Jesus lives in Father with the Spirit... they'll continue to be Nones, because the Jesus of the institutions -- whether conservative or liberal -- is more of a political motivational scheme than the personal and relational God-Man-brother who shows us what Father is really like. Family trumps institution every time...in the opinion of your wee Purple Abbess, that is.
I'm wondering if Burge was able to take into account the Trump factor related to this topic. Some people believe Trump has had an extremely negative effect on Christianity.
What a tantalizing question! Okay, while I've tried to stop buying books (at age 90), I've ordered this one on the Nones. I probably won't be ready to post anything until I've read that book. But at the same time this lies right next to a host of other social changes over the last quarter-century. The Nones sit parallel to the major changes in attitudes toward marriage (now with a majority seeing shacking up a wiser choice) (see my 2004 book Marriage Made in Eden). Once any kind of question about the validity of a stricture is entertained, that willingness to consider an alternative punches a hole in the "invincible" religious wall constructed to protect a belief structure. It's all those rocks rolling down the hill and striking the sides of the paradigm until eventually the paradigm is tattered.
I have to comment on the statement, "devout Protestant Christians are Republicans, with very few exceptions.” As a Black Christian, it surprises me to see this statement which is true of white Christians but decidedly false among Black. Increasingly, I believe Black Christians are invisible to the white world. Black Christians are leaving white Evangelical spaces but not necessarily the church as in the #LeaveLoud movement. Perhaps our invisibility to the Evangelical church is part of the problem.
Interesting. I wonder if Josh Packard, who researched the Dones, has seen this? Being Done myself, with 3 sons who are not married and don't have children, my eldest is also Done and the younger 2 are Nones -- so I have been living this up close and personal.
I see this as a commentary on the religious institution's focus on outward moral control to the detriment of true attachment (emotional, spiritual, and intellectual) to God as adopted children. Nones are done with the hypocrisy of moral judgment from conservative Christianity.
Until they meet the real Jesus and begin to experience the life Jesus lives in Father with the Spirit... they'll continue to be Nones, because the Jesus of the institutions -- whether conservative or liberal -- is more of a political motivational scheme than the personal and relational God-Man-brother who shows us what Father is really like. Family trumps institution every time...in the opinion of your wee Purple Abbess, that is.
Lord have mercy 😔🙏
I'm wondering if Burge was able to take into account the Trump factor related to this topic. Some people believe Trump has had an extremely negative effect on Christianity.
Secularism, politics, internet. Seems to me the church can only hope to change its position on one of these things...