The percentage of Americans who claim no religious affiliation nearly doubled from 2007 (16 percent) to 2022 (31 percent).

They're becoming a force in American culture and one of the largest segments of the religious landscape, according to Pew Research.

Waning nones

But all things pass. And the skyrocketing growth of the nones may be fading.

"They are not growing as fast as they used to," said Ryan Burge.

He's an associate professor of political science at Southern Illinois University and author of "The Nones: Where They Came From, Who They Are, and Where They Are Going."

Burge, known for his popular graphs depicting religion trends, told Religion News Service in an interview that the growth of the nones appears to be waning.

He pointed to data from Pew, the General Social Survey and the Cooperative Election Study, all of which appear to show a slowdown in the percentage of Americans who claim no religion.

Pew data

Pew's most recent published data found that 28 percent of Americans did not identify with a religion in 2023, a slight dip from the previous year.

The CES data, the latest of which was released in May, showed that from 2020 to 2023, the percentage of nones was relatively stable.

In 2020, the CES found that 34 percent of those surveyed were nones, while in 2021 and 2023, that percentage was 36 percent. (In 2022, 35 percent of those surveyed were nones.)

From a pure statistical standpoint, I don't know if we can say with any certainty whether there's a larger share of nones in the United States today than there was in 2019," Burge wrote in a recent edition of his Substack newsletter.

Burge compared the growth of the nones to the growth curve of popular products such as the Peloton bikes or tech companies like Apple and Google.

Those brands grew rapidly at first but could not keep up that rapid growth forever.

"They became mature businesses," said Burge.

"That's what the nones are — they're not going to grow at this unbelievable pace going forward."

Burge also suspects that most of the Americans who were eager or ready to give up on identifying with a religion have already done so.

Any future growth, he said, will likely come from generational replacement — as older, more religious Americans die off and younger, less religious Americans take their place.

Greg Smith, associate director of research at Pew Research Center, said it's too early to tell what exactly is happening with the nones.

There have been some signs in recent years that the percentage of nones is stabilising, he said, but that may be due to the normal fluctuations in survey responses from year to year.

In 2022, he said, the percentage of nones jumped to 31 percent, then dropped back down to 28 percent. He added that in 2016, the growth of the nones appeared to pause and then started to grow again.

"As we looked at the data, the conclusion we've come to, even it is kind of wishy-washy, is that it's way too early to tell if the rise of the religious nones has come to an end," he said.

More data needed

Conrad Hackett, a senior demographer and associate director of research at Pew, said there are signs that "something interesting" is happening with nones right now but more data is needed.

Hackett said the conditions that fueled the rise of the nones are still in place.

Younger Americans are less religious than older Americans, many Americans still switch their religious faith, and being nonreligious has become "stickier," said Hackett — so that people who are born without a religious identity are more likely to stay nonreligious.

Nonreligious people in the U.S. also tend to be younger than religious people.

Hackett is the co-author of a 2022 Pew report that projected what religion in American could look like in the next 50 years.

That report looked at the birth and mortality rates as well as rates of switching religious identities and projected a long, slow growth in the nones for the foreseeable future.

Researchers projected that by 2070, the nones would make up between 41 percent and 52 percent of Americans.

Christians, according to Pew's projections, would make up just under half of Americans, with non-Christian religious people making up about 12 percent) of the population.

Complicating matters is that Pew, like other organisations that survey religion in America, has moved to a probability-based online model for surveys — rather than mostly phone interviews.

The GSS, a well-respected and long-running survey, switched from in-person interviews to a hybrid phone and online model during COVID — making it harder to compare its most recent data with past versions.

The CES data has consistently found higher percentages of nones than the GSS and Pew. But Burge said all three sources appear to show that something has changed with the growth of the nones.

Democracy at risk

The slowing growth of the nones doesn't mean a religious revival in the U.S.

Instead, Burge said, the U.S. will likely end up in the future with large numbers of religious people and nonreligious people, with neither group having a sizable majority.

That will pose challenges for democracy, he said, which relies on cooperation and compromise.

That is difficult when many people are feeling unnerved by the changes in the country and where religious and nonreligious people have different ideas on how the country should be run.

And those conflicting ideas lead to polarisation and at times, hostility. That hostility, if it continues to grow, "will be bad for democracy," said Burge.

"We can't function in a democracy where you have two very large groups who hate each other."

• First published in Religion News Service
• Bob Smietana is a veteran religion writer and national reporter for Religion News Service.

He's starting by taking a sabbatical and collecting food for his faith.

After more than a decade of providing written and audio reflections for the popular Food for Faith podcast, the Christchurch priest (pictured) will 'take a breather' and hopes to return, having further cemented a new kind of outreach.

Although he's been able to study during the 38 years since his ordination, O'Connor says he's never taken a sabbatical of more than a month or two.

This time, Bishop Michael Gielan has offered him five months to study in Italy.

Opportunity

The basis for O'Connor's outreach is the 2018 census data.

This data shows that many who call themselves Catholic in New Zealand are not regularly connected with their parishes or Catholic schools, and many others have drifted to the point where on the census they say they have "no religion".

O'Connor says he's met many disconnected and 'non-practising' Catholics when they request sacraments for their children or as they bury their parents or grandparents.

During a conversation with them, he discoverd they want to reconnect with the Church.

But some see themselves to be too distant to return easily, or say Catholic Christian life has not been presented to them in a life-giving way.

However, O'Connor's Food for Faith ministry reinforces the need for a concerted effort to encourage Catholics to return to the faith.

New wine-skins

During his sabbatical, O'Connor says he will work on ways to present the Catholic faith in a new, relevant, digestible and attractive way.

He has a test group for his ideas in the world's smallest diocese.

In that diocese, there are usually 1,000 people at Mass on Sundays.

During the past 20 years, an average of 350 people have taken a week's faith-centred vacation together.

They know O'Connor well as, 12 years ago, they invited him to serve as their vacation chaplain.

O'Connor says the community focuses on the centrality of Christ.

Moreover, it steers clear of the moralism and legalism that many Catholics experience as the prime focus of their faith.

"As my local ministry in New Zealand allows, I have tried to be with them as often as possible for their annual August gathering.

Excited for the future

O'Connor told CathNews that, while he is away, the frequent reflections, daily Lectio and weekly Homily Studio will continue.

He plans to return to NZ in September, ready to use some of the methods he experiences in Italy to reach out to those who might be open to greater maturity of Catholic faith.

"I am convinced more than ever that this Food For Faith mission, associated retreats and seminars have the capacity to rekindle the faith of many who may feel as though they are distant" he says.

"I'm excited about where all this can go in the future" he said.

• Food for Faith

The data from last year's census, released this week, shows that 48.59 per cent of New Zealanders indicated 'no religion' in 2018, up from 41.92 per cent in the 2013 census.

The number of New Zealanders without any religion has overtaken the number of Christians for the first time.

The findings have prompted lobby group Humanist NZ to call an end to "discrimination" that they claim non-religious New Zealanders face.

"Christianity has a privileged position in public policy today that is out of step with modern New Zealand," said Jolene Phipps, president of Humanist NZ.

"From parliamentary prayers to classrooms 'closing' during the school day so that Christian groups can run religious instruction, the concessions awarded to religious organisations clash with human rights and our concept of a free and fair society."

The latest census records that there are 663 humanists in New Zealand.

Out of the different Christian churches, Anglicans topped the list at 314,913, while 295,734 people identified as Roman Catholic, 221,199 as Presbyterian and 52,743 as Methodist.

The Census figures show an increasing number of people who follow other religions than Christianity.

The number of Muslims or those practising Islam has risen from 46,149 in 2013 to 61,455 in 2018.

Hinduism has increased to 40,908 in 2018, while Sikhs more than double to 40,908.

Satanism had 1149 adherents, more than Scientologists (321) and Druids (189), but below Wiccans (1482) and Jedi (20,409).

Source

• sightmagazine.com.au
• newshub.co.nz
• tvnz.co.nz
• Image: 218 New Zealand census

I had missed my bus and ducked into a church to escape a downpour. An hour later, I emerged a convert to going to church, if not to God. Read more

In the previous census in 2011, "Catholic" was the top option, with "no religion" at the bottom of the list, below a large "other please specify" box.

The change came after rationalist and sceptic groups lobbied the Australian Bureau of Statistics, following the 2011 census.

The groups argued the change would improve accuracy.

In the 2011 census, 5.4 million people picked the "Catholic" box and a total of 13.1 million Australians (61.1 per cent) indicated their religion was some type of Christianity.

Meanwhile, 4.7 million (22.2 per cent) of Australians picked "no religion", or wrote down agnosticism, atheism, humanism or rationalism.

The next Australian census is in 2016, with results being known the following year.

A change in the percentage of people affiliating as Christians could impact Australian government spending programmes, such as school chaplaincy services.

When a similar change was introduced into the New Zealand census, the country's Christians lost their position as the majority and the number of people recording no religion jumped from 35 per cent to 42 per cent, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Placing the 'no religion' box at the top of the list could swing the results significantly, according to Associate Professor Roger Wilkins at the University of Melbourne, who produces the annual Household, Income, and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey.

"People are looking for the first option that they think they can fit into . . . those sorts of people who are not strongly committed one way or the other are particularly prone to being influenced by the order of responses," he told Fairfax Media.

Managing director of the Australian Christian Lobby, Lyle Shelton, said the order of answers on the census form was irrelevant, but he did expect to see a continuing decline in the number of Christians.

Sources

• Sydney Morning Herald
• Image: ID blog

According to figures released to The Telegraph under the UK's Freedom of Information Act, almost 83 per cent of military personnel identified as Christian in 2012.

This figure came from almost 180,000 members of the forces who gave data to an internal system used to record information like next of kin details.

The Church of England was by far the highest affiliation given.

In a 2011 census, only 59 per cent of the UK population identified as Christian, and only 46 per cent did so in the British Social Attitudes Survey the following year.

The latter survey had Christian affiliation in British society on a par with those who said they had no religion.

But in 2013, the number of UK military personnel identifying as Christian had dropped by 10 per cent in 18 months.

At the same time, the number describing themselves as "secular " or "no religion" rose by almost nine per cent.

Part of the reason for the changes is cuts in numbers of military personnel.

But the National Secular Society calculated that the proportion of UK secular or non-religious servicemen and women would match that of Christians by 2032.

Society president Terry Sanderson said: "The rates of decline in Christian and increase in non-religious affiliation are so significant they can no longer be ignored."

"I call for an urgent and unvarnished re-examination of the appropriateness of the pervasive religious ethos in the armed forces."

Mr Sanderson called for consideration of how the needs of non-religious military personnel can be better catered for.

Across all the British defence forces, there are only 650 Muslims and 80 Jews.

There are only 130 Sikhs in the British Army, compared with 100,000 at the end of the Second World War.

Meanwhile, in the United States, a secular group has protested the US Navy's recent decision to reject a humanist chaplain, Jason Heap.

No branches of the US military currently have explicitly non-theistic chaplains.

Sources

• The Telegraph
• Washington Post
• Image: The Guardian

'Mum's dying.'

'Yes.'

We sat in silence for a bit.

'I've lost my faith.'

'Uh huh.'

'When my friend died.'

'Mm.'

We held hands and Mum's too, wondering in our own ways, about God and faith and people dying and what the universe meant, if anything.

As we fell silent I thought about all the people I had sat beside as life ebbed away and heard of faith being lost as though it was something material that could be found, discovered, or held before, judging by the stories I hear, inevitably lost.

Perhaps, I mused, faith is like the keys that I lose about ten times a day. They're always at the bottom of my bag. It's just that they're so much a part of my life that I can never quite recognise them in the jumble of my chaotic world.

'Could you do a prayer?' she asked.

I must have looked a bit quizzical.

She looked a bit coy.

'Mum stayed religious.'

'I'm not all that flash at praying myself.'

She laughed, 'but aren't you meant to be the chaplain?'

'Yeah, well, we could give it a go, you with your lost faith and me with my shortcomings.' She grinned.

We gave thanks for her Mum's life well lived. For the good times and the downright awful bits. For both pain and sorrow. Then we were still. That's all it was. No God involved, no pleas, no bargaining, just gratitude and acknowledgement of what is.

Someone else came into the room and the moment was over. I got up to go but turned back. 'Someone, I forget who, once said that faith is about courage. But the most important bit about that is to say that you've got heaps of it; faith, courage, whatever, to sit here with your mum whilst she dies.'

On the face of it, my offering into this situation was not particularly religious or Christian. It suited the situation of the person involved who would likely fit the None category, (atheists, agnostics, people who believe nothing in particular).

An experienced Humanist chaplain could have done the job as well as me, however in New Zealand, even although only 8-12% of Kiwis go to church, leaving a staggering 88% outside mainstream religion, the government continues to contract with a consortium of Christian churches to provide Christian hospital chaplaincy. A Humanist chaplain would not be employed.

Yet times have already changed and Kiwis have found new ways to express spirituality outside of the mainstream. As Dr Richard Egan from the University of Otago says:

'Spirituality means different things to different people. It may include (a search for) one's ultimate beliefs and values; a sense of meaning and a purpose in life; a sense of connectedness; identity and awareness; and for some people, religion. It may be understood at an individual or population level.'

Christianity has a part to play in that process of shared development, as do all religious, philosophical and wisdom traditions. We can draw from our rich tradition, a history of service and significant financial commitment to work with others to build a creative and compassionate spiritual healthcare service that meets the needs of Kiwis who are spiritually on the move.

Some may find this disturbing. I find it exciting to be part of what will inevitably be an enriching and stimulating challenge, for all of us. What do you think?

• Sande Ramage in Spirited Crone

Sande Ramage is an Anglican priest and blogger.