Non-theism And The “Nones”: Part 1

Scholarly Production of the Religiously Unaffiliated

Sitting in the audience at the “Discussing the Nones” panel, I found myself nodding as the speakers offered their criticisms of the use and misuse of a much-discussed category. It surprised me, however, that the panelists focused mostly on the popular media rather than the work of social scientists publishing in peer-reviewed journals. In an attention economy in which clicks are dollars and “discursive production” is a job at a savvy marketing firm, I confess to having little trust in how reporters, op-ed columnists, and activists interpret complex demographic data.

Though I commend Professors Miller and Ramey for fighting an uphill battle against the reverberating misappropriation that seems de rigueur on the Internet, I feel too insignificant to make the same effort. Instead, I’d like to focus my comments on the scholarly discussion of the “religiously unaffiliated” with the hope of pointing to some meaningful insights.

Miller and Ramey are correct to criticize an assumed “correlation between affiliation/identity, belief/religion and spiritual/not religious.” The so-called “religious nones” are merely those who claim no religious affiliation in surveys. As Chaeyoon Lim, Carol Ann MacGregor, and Robert D. Putnam (2010) show, the “Nones” are a deeply heterogeneous group that includes the spiritual but not religious, unchurched believers, avowed nonbelievers, and those who only intermittently affiliate with a religion.

My own research focuses on organized nonbelievers and secular activism in the United States, and those I study fit within both the “Nones” and the religiously affiliated. Because some nonbelievers are part of organizations that are non-theistic religions, such as Ethical Culture and Humanistic Judaism, they would not be counted among the “Nones.” The same is true for avowedly non-theistic members of the Unitarian Universalist Church, as well as members of other religions who “belong” without “believing.”

So what can we conclude? As it turns out, some pretty interesting things. The “religiously unaffiliated” is far from a meaningless category, and if we approach it carefully, it actually helps us understand the present restructuring of American religion.

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Non-theism and the “Nones”: Part 1