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Flunking Sainthood
THE ‘NONES’ ARE GROWING — AND GROWING MORE DIVERSE
‘CHURCH ATTENDANCE IS THE FIRST THING THAT GOES, THEN BELONGING, AND FINALLY
BELIEF—IN THAT ORDER,’ SAYS RYAN BURGE, AUTHOR OF A NEW BOOK ON WHO IS LEAVING
RELIGION AND WHY. ‘BELIEF GOES LAST.’
March 24, 2021
By
Jana Riess
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Author Ryan Burge
(RNS) — Ryan Burge is a political scientist at Eastern Illinois University, but
he’s also a Baptist minister. For him, questions about the growth of nonreligion
aren’t just theoretical. They’re personal too. During the decade or so he was
finishing his academic training and starting a family, he saw membership at the
small congregation he was pastoring drop by half.
“What was happening in American religion was also happening right in front of
me,” he says in his new book, “The Nones: Where They Came from, Who They Are,
and Where They Are Going.”
This is a book that draws on academic research but is written for ordinary
people — hooray! It’s a slim volume of only about 150 pages with no sociology
jargon. There are no p-values or alphas or deltas. Just straight-up information
about the questions a lot of people have about religion — and nonreligion — in
America today.
DAILY RELIGION NEWS, STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX. SUBSCRIBE TODAY.
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This Zoom interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Religious disaffiliation has risen in every generation, including even older
Americans, though the sharpest spike in nones is occurring with the millennials.
FIRST, LET’S TALK ABOUT EVANGELICALS. YOU POINT OUT IN THE BOOK THEIR RETENTION
ISN’T ACTUALLY QUITE AS BAD AS THE MEDIA MAY HAVE MADE IT SOUND.
If you only start in 1993, which is the peak of evangelicalism in America, then
the number of evangelicals goes down from that spot. But if you look at the
whole period from 1972 (when evangelicals were 17% of the U.S. population) to
2018 (21.5%), there’s actually a slight trend upward. The most intellectually
honest narrative is evangelicals are relatively stable, and the peak from the
late 1980s to the early 1990s (30%) was when they were overcooked.
But churches are a leaky vessel by nature. They lose people through death, and
an aging population is so acute for several traditions in the U.S. — mostly
mainline Protestantism, but evangelicals are also aging rapidly now. And
defections are up. You’ve got to add people into the cup to see the water at the
same level. We can all agree the birth and retention piece provides a much more
stable stream of members than the conversion piece. Most churches don’t grow by
bringing new people in, but by keeping their young people in their tradition as
adults. Evangelical retention is still surprisingly good (69% from 2010 to
2018), especially compared to mainline retention (55%), though it is declining.
Although retention for nones started out poorly, with only about a third of
those who grew up with no religion staying disaffiliated as adults, it has risen
by nearly 30 points. Today, nearly two-thirds of people who are raised as nones
are still nones in adulthood, and we’re starting to see second- and even
third-generation nones.
IN THE BOOK YOU GIVE SEVERAL POSSIBLE REASONS WHY MORE PEOPLE ARE LEAVING
RELIGION, INCLUDING THE INFLUENCE OF SECULARIZATION AND THE GROWING POLARIZATION
OF POLITICS. BUT YOU ALSO NOTE PART OF WHAT WE’RE SEEING IS THE REMOVAL OF A
“SOCIAL DESIRABILITY BIAS” ABOUT RELIGION. CAN YOU EXPLAIN?
People lie on surveys. We give it an academic name, “social desirability bias,”
but it means people want to give an answer on a survey that seems good but is
not true. America is still by default a religious country. That’s waning over
time, but it means when people are asked how often they go to church, they tend
to inflate that. If they go three times a year, they will say they go once a
month.
What I tried to do in the book is say is what we should see is that as the
number of “nones” went up, the share of Christians who say they never attend
church should go down. If I was a Christian who never went to church 30 years
ago, today I could say I am a none because it is more socially acceptable now.
So what we should see is the share of never-attending Christians drop as the
nones rise. But we don’t see that. The never-attending is still going up, and
the nones are also going up. Both things are rising at the same time.
ARE THE CHRISTIANS WHO STILL CLAIM THE IDENTITY BUT ARE NO LONGER ATTENDING
PEOPLE WHO ARE ON THE WAY OUT?
Probably. I think the never-attending category is a kind of way station. Most
nones are “somes.” Church attendance is the first thing that goes, then
belonging and finally belief — in that order. Belief goes last.
The “double hockey sticks” phenomenon: Religious disaffiliation has risen at a
fairly equal rate among both men and women, though the numbers are higher
overall for men.
ONE OF YOUR KEY ARGUMENTS IS AS THE NONES HAVE GROWN IN SIZE, THEY’VE ALSO
GOTTEN A LOT MORE DIVERSE. CAN YOU TALK ABOUT WHAT THAT MEANS FOR GENDER AND
RACE?
Regarding gender, men have always been more likely to be a none than women. The
gap between them has stayed shockingly consistent back to 1972. It’s really
stunning how the lines don’t converge. It’s the hockey stick effect. There is
some evidence the gender gap is getting slightly larger, but only by a point or
two. And in general, people without children are a lot more likely to be nones
than people with children, and that’s true for both women and men.
In terms of race, the nones have grown among all groups but not at the same
rate. It’s clear from the data Asian Americans are the outlier here. Thirty
percent of them identified as nones in 2008, which was 10 points higher than
white, non-Hispanics. By 2019, nearly 40% of Asian Americans had no affiliation.
During the same time period, disaffiliation among whites rose 13 points, and for
African Americans it rose just a bit more (18% to 32%). Hispanics have seen the
slowest growth in the nones, with only 30% indicating no affiliation in 2019.
However, what label each racial group chooses is noteworthy. For instance, 40%
of white nones are atheists or agnostics. It’s 35% of Asians and 28% of
Hispanics. African American nones stand out in that only 14% say they are
atheist or agnostic, likely a result of the pervasive stigma against atheism in
their communities.
Note: Ryan Burge is referencing data from the Cooperative Congressional Election
Study.
RELATED CONTENT:
“Allergic to religion”: Conservative politics can push people out of the pews,
study shows
Nones now as big as Catholics, evangelicals in the US
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