{"id":328,"date":"2009-04-28T07:49:08","date_gmt":"2009-04-28T07:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/tonyjones\/2009\/04\/the-rise-of-the-nones.html"},"modified":"2009-04-28T07:49:08","modified_gmt":"2009-04-28T07:49:08","slug":"the-rise-of-the-nones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/04\/the-rise-of-the-nones.html","title":{"rendered":"The Rise of the &#8220;Nones&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday, <a href=\"http:\/\/pewforum.org\/docs\/?DocID=409\">Pew<\/a> released a follow-up to their much ballyhooed religion survey that showed a 10 percent rise in a decade in the number of Americans that, when asked their religious affiliation, declared, &#8220;None.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>The original press reports declared, and the <a href=\"http:\/\/pewforum.org\/docs\/?DocID=415\">in-depth graphics<\/a> make clear, that the younger an American is, the more likely s\/he is a None; Catholics leave their religion more frequently than Protestants; and most Nones, though not practicing a religion, still consider themselves spiritual and tend to believe in God.<\/p>\n<p>At Explore the Spirit, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.readthespirit.com\/explore\/2009\/04\/readthespirit-on-pew.html\">David Crumm digs a little deeper<\/a> to find some hidden gems in the study, and he lays out a Top Ten list of &#8220;secrets&#8221; in the Pew Report.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\nAmong David&#8217;s observations,<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Nones may be coming to a church near you.<\/li>\n<li>If you&#8217;re Catholic, learn Spanish.<\/li>\n<li>Diversity and switching are signs of health.<\/li>\n<li>Church attendance is NOT declining.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Interestingly, here&#8217;s David&#8217;s lede under Secret #1:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The biggest headlines on religion over the past year or so concern the<br \/>\ngrowing number of Americans who have rejected the time-honored social<br \/>\npressure to at least claim they&#8217;re part of some religious group.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This reminds me of Charles Taylor&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0674026764?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=theoblogy-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0674026764\"><i>A Secular Age<\/i><\/a> (which, yes, I&#8217;m still reading (slowly) and planning to <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/tonyjones\/2009\/02\/a-secular-age-introduction.html\">blog about<\/a> more). Taylor&#8217;s contention is that the rise of secularity in the modern West is not a failure of religion, but is instead a reflection of this simple fact: For the first time in human history, lack of belief in a divine being is socially acceptable.<\/p>\n<p>Methinks this is good news for those of us who think religion is important and who encourage others to consider faith in God. Faith is becoming voluntary instead of socially mandatory. This will, in turn, lead to more robust faith among those of us who do believe and, I think, result in great theological adventures as we navigate an unprecendentedly globalized world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday, Pew released a follow-up to their much ballyhooed religion survey that showed a 10 percent rise in a decade in the number of Americans that, when asked their religious affiliation, declared, &#8220;None.&#8221; The original press reports declared, and the in-depth graphics make clear, that the younger an American is, the more likely s\/he is&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Rise of the &quot;Nones&quot; - The New Christians<\/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\/tonyjones\/2009\/04\/the-rise-of-the-nones.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Rise of the &quot;Nones&quot; - The New Christians\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Yesterday, Pew released a follow-up to their much ballyhooed religion survey that showed a 10 percent rise in a decade in the number of Americans that, when asked their religious affiliation, declared, &#8220;None.&#8221; The original press reports declared, and the in-depth graphics make clear, that the younger an American is, the more likely s\/he is&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/04\/the-rise-of-the-nones.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The New Christians\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-04-28T07:49:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tony Jones\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Rise of the \"Nones\" - The New Christians","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\/tonyjones\/2009\/04\/the-rise-of-the-nones.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Rise of the \"Nones\" - The New Christians","og_description":"Yesterday, Pew released a follow-up to their much ballyhooed religion survey that showed a 10 percent rise in a decade in the number of Americans that, when asked their religious affiliation, declared, &#8220;None.&#8221; The original press reports declared, and the in-depth graphics make clear, that the younger an American is, the more likely s\/he is&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/04\/the-rise-of-the-nones.html","og_site_name":"The New Christians","article_published_time":"2009-04-28T07:49:08+00:00","author":"Tony Jones","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/04\/the-rise-of-the-nones.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/04\/the-rise-of-the-nones.html","name":"The Rise of the \"Nones\" - The New Christians","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-04-28T07:49:08+00:00","dateModified":"2009-04-28T07:49:08+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/#\/schema\/person\/a5d6dffe0f41c25b4bd8136be22c4074"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/04\/the-rise-of-the-nones.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/04\/the-rise-of-the-nones.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/04\/the-rise-of-the-nones.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Rise of the &#8220;Nones&#8221;"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/","name":"The New Christians","description":"Tony Jones on Christianity and the Emerging Church","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/?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\/tonyjones\/#\/schema\/person\/a5d6dffe0f41c25b4bd8136be22c4074","name":"Tony Jones","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/d50\/d50708c3731048719806adf9c6f6df30x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/d50\/d50708c3731048719806adf9c6f6df30x96.jpg","caption":"Tony Jones"},"description":"Tony Jones is the author of The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier and several other books on Christianity and prayer.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/author\/tjones"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}