Who are those Nones?
If you want to pastor, minister to, or evangelize the Nones it’s a good idea to figure who they are and why they are now disaffiliated. Last week we looked at the Why? This week we look at the Who are they? question.
Every pastor, every professor, every church leader and every internet magazine needs to read Ryan Burge’s new book, The Nones: Where They Came From, Who They Are, and Where They Are Going.
Numbers matter. Numbers don’t tell the whole story but numbers also don’t lie.
Burge looks at cohort, education, gender, and race.
We begin by asking for stereotypes to die a quick death:
And while many people assume that the religiously unaffiliated are far-left political liberals who favor the Democratic party, that’s become less and less true every election cycle. … The data indicate that they come from all walks of life and represent what could accurately be described as the largest mission field in the United States today.
Education matters, not so much.
Simple theories won’t work.
A common theory of secularization is that education correlates with disaffiliation, but education has changed in the USA and that is challenging the heart of this secularization theory.
As previously noted, the share of Americans who have earned a college degree has grown astronomically over time, which means that type of people who went to college fifty years ago is likely much different from those who are attending classes today. A university education used to be reserved for those who came from upper-middle-class backgrounds, who may have been more inclined to shift away from religion anyway. Now people from all walks of life are earning bachelor’s degrees. So while it still may be true that some people are lured away from religion after taking a few college philosophy courses, that’s the exception, not the rule.
Gender matters.
Here are some disaffiliation numbers by gender:
1978: M 8% 2018: M c. 28%
1978: F 4% 2018: F 20%
But here’s the kicker: Unaffiliated women with no kids today are nearly identical with men with no kids (around 37-37%), while those with kids show differences. Men are at about 28% and women about 20%.
A willfully childless woman has to fight against a great variety of societal pressures, many of which emerge from traditional religious beliefs about gender roles. Thus these women may feel even greater relief when walking away from religion, as they are no longer subject to messages that try to undermine their lifestyle choices.
Race matters
For me this was the most interesting portion of the chapter. Note these stats:
Asian 2008 29.4% but in 2018 39.7% disaffiliated.
White 2008 20.8% and in 2018 33.4% disaffiliated.
Black 2008 17.7% and in 2018 they are at 32.1% disaffiliated.
Hispanic 2008 18.6% and in 2018 they are at 29.7%.
Burge:
What might be the most surprising racial group is Black Americans, however. In 2008, they were the least likely to be religiously unaffiliated (17.7 percent). In just a ten-year time period, the rate of disaffiliation has jumped a staggering 14.4 percentage points to 32.1 percent. It seems possible that the share of Black people who are nones might double in less than fifteen years.
A summary statement, worth reading slowly:
Taken together, the data paints a chilling picture. There is no segment of American society that has been immune to the rise of religious disaffiliation. While it would be easy to say that this is largely driven by young people moving away from a religious there’s also some evidence that older Americans are moving away from faith communities as they enter their twilight years. While churches used to rely on many of their young people moving back toward a religious tradition when they hit their thirties and forties, that seems to be less and less likely with each successive generation.
I think it's important to realize that the data are only representing church affiliation, not Christian commitment.
These numbers are interesting. I'm curious, however, why in dealing with differences in education, race, etc., it was possible to get startling changes within a decade or so (from 2008 to 2018), why reach all the way back to 1978 to get some "interesting" variance in gender? I think an entire book could be written about women and social change in light of these other "nones" stats. The various women's movements impacted church women as well as other women during that 40-year period skipped over in the published stats here. It's possible that the author has dealt with this variance elsewhere in the book. So I'll leave my question there....