{"id":3228,"date":"2012-11-24T12:41:48","date_gmt":"2012-11-24T12:41:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/?p=3228"},"modified":"2012-11-24T12:41:48","modified_gmt":"2012-11-24T12:41:48","slug":"why-our-restless-souls-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2012\/11\/why-our-restless-souls-matter.html","title":{"rendered":"Why Our Restless Souls Matter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We writers try to find ways to remind ourselves that what we are writing really matters. \u00a0One way I do this is to remember who I&#8217;m writing <em>for<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Some of you know by now that Grace<em> Sticks\u00a0<\/em>is a book for restless souls- all of us religious misfits disillusioned by the church with one foot in and one foot out, to be sure, but also the many so-called &#8220;Nones&#8221; (all those folks who put &#8220;None&#8221; next to religious affiliation in any demographic survey).<\/p>\n<p>And, it turns out that these Nones matter\u00a0with the kind of force that can influence a presidential election, this, according to the latest findings of the <a href=\"http:\/\/freethoughtblogs.com\/dispatches\/2012\/11\/21\/the-political-influence-of-nones\/\">Public Religion Research Service<\/a>. \u00a0(Special thanks to Ed Brayton and his &#8220;Dispatches from the Culture Wars&#8221; here.)<\/p>\n<p>Most strikingly, Nones are not only growing rapidly, but growing most rapidly among my generation and younger. \u00a0Mark Silk discusses these numbers as they contrast with electoral representation by self-identified evangelicals, in a post titled &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.religionnews.com\/blogs\/mark-silk\/romneys-religious-coalition-should-terrify-the-gop\">Why Romney&#8217;s religious coalition should terrify the GOP<\/a>.&#8221;: &#8220;What\u2019s most striking is how evangelicals and Nones change places through the four age cohorts. From old to young, the evangelicals go 30-25-18-9, while the Nones go 9-14-19-32. Romney\u2019s coalition was composed of 37 percent evangelicals and eight percent Nones. Obama\u2019s coalition had 9 percent evangelicals and 23 percent Nones.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>All of this is to say&#8230;restless souls and their pursuit of meaning, truth and life matter a whole lot to me. \u00a0They matter not just because I, as an evangelical also count myself among them, but because what they think is already changing history, and will for years to come.<\/p>\n<p>As a mostly younger, rapidly growing demographic, the Nones will be around for years to come; so, it would behoove the church- and maybe most especially evangelicals- to find ways to be in conversation with them&#8230;hence, <em>Grace Sticks<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We writers try to find ways to remind ourselves that what we are writing really matters. \u00a0One way I do this is to remember who I&#8217;m writing for. Some of you know by now that Grace Sticks\u00a0is a book for restless souls- all of us religious misfits disillusioned by the church with one foot in&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":461,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,180,119,149],"tags":[1332,1330,1259,1328,1329,1331,531],"class_list":["post-3228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity-and-culture","category-christianity-in-politics","category-church","category-evangelical","tag-ed-brayton","tag-gen-x-and-y","tag-mark-silk","tag-nones-and-evangelicals","tag-obama-and-younger-generations","tag-political-influence-of-nones","tag-religion-and-politics"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Why Our Restless Souls Matter - Fellowship of Saints and Sinners<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2012\/11\/why-our-restless-souls-matter.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Our Restless Souls Matter - Fellowship of Saints and Sinners\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We writers try to find ways to remind ourselves that what we are writing really matters. \u00a0One way I do this is to remember who I&#8217;m writing for. Some of you know by now that Grace Sticks\u00a0is a book for restless souls- all of us religious misfits disillusioned by the church with one foot in&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2012\/11\/why-our-restless-souls-matter.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Fellowship of Saints and Sinners\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/kristina.robbdover\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-11-24T12:41:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kristina Robb-Dover\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@saintplussinner\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@saintplussinner\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Why Our Restless Souls Matter - Fellowship of Saints and Sinners","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2012\/11\/why-our-restless-souls-matter.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Why Our Restless Souls Matter - Fellowship of Saints and Sinners","og_description":"We writers try to find ways to remind ourselves that what we are writing really matters. \u00a0One way I do this is to remember who I&#8217;m writing for. Some of you know by now that Grace Sticks\u00a0is a book for restless souls- all of us religious misfits disillusioned by the church with one foot in&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2012\/11\/why-our-restless-souls-matter.html","og_site_name":"Fellowship of Saints and Sinners","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/kristina.robbdover","article_published_time":"2012-11-24T12:41:48+00:00","author":"Kristina Robb-Dover","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@saintplussinner","twitter_site":"@saintplussinner","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2012\/11\/why-our-restless-souls-matter.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2012\/11\/why-our-restless-souls-matter.html","name":"Why Our Restless Souls Matter - Fellowship of Saints and Sinners","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/#website"},"datePublished":"2012-11-24T12:41:48+00:00","dateModified":"2012-11-24T12:41:48+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/#\/schema\/person\/4c3cdf7104b785db2790c0ea54388e75"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2012\/11\/why-our-restless-souls-matter.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2012\/11\/why-our-restless-souls-matter.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/2012\/11\/why-our-restless-souls-matter.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Why Our Restless Souls Matter"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/","name":"Fellowship of Saints and Sinners","description":"Beliefnet Voices...thoughts at the intersection between life and God for anyone converted, unconverted or under conversion","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/#\/schema\/person\/4c3cdf7104b785db2790c0ea54388e75","name":"Kristina Robb-Dover","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/dcf\/dcfc687b5670420584dc52026042422ax96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/dcf\/dcfc687b5670420584dc52026042422ax96.jpg","caption":"Kristina Robb-Dover"},"description":"Thoughts at the intersection of life and God from one saint and sinner for anyone \"converted,\" \"unconverted,\" or \"under conversion.\"","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/author\/krobbdover"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/461"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3228"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3229,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3228\/revisions\/3229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fellowshipofsaintsandsinners\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}