Census 2023 found that almost half of New Zealanders (48 percent) identified as belonging to an organised religion while 51.6 percent said they had none at all.

Further Census analysis shows that although a third of us identify as Christian, the proportion of people with "no religion" increased by 3.4 percent between 2018 and 2023.

The Census found New Zealand's next largest religious groupings were Hindu at 2.9 percent, then Islam at 1.5 percent.

What's happening?

"The message of Jesus Christ and his Gospel continues to resonate with more than 1.5 million people [a third of us] around our country" the NZ Catholic Bishops Conference comments.

But what does that even mean, wonders Facebook correspondent Russell Hoban as he ponders the Bishops' Conference Facebook announcement.

He says it begs the question - what does it mean for someone to identify as Christian, is it a cultural and social identity as well?

Is it about how often they attend church? Only 12 percent attend a church service at least once a week and 38 percent go only on special occasions - or never go.

Anglican Archbishop Justin Duckworth says New Zealand has moved past a time where there was a "cultural normality" around the Christian faith.

He thinks this is because of a greater recognition of te ao Maori - which is a good thing.

"Across the Western world, there has also been a continuing move towards a secular materialist worldview and a move away from traditional religious beliefs" he observes.

Massey University's Professor Emeritus of History Peter Lineham says young people lead the move away from Christian affiliation.

"The shift is taking place in younger people who no longer see any need to connect with a religious organisation unless they have a strong commitment to it."

Where most parents sent their children to Sunday School, most don't these days - "so, there's very little natural attraction that religions have to widespread numbers of young people".

The sacredness of Sunday had gone and religion was no longer automatically assumed to be good, he says.

Feed the people

Duckworth thinks people are spiritually hungry and aware but are withdrawing from inherited faith traditions in some places.

"A question we always have to ask ourselves is: Are the forms of our worshipping tradition limiting the ability for people to connect with the ultimate message that we think is important?"

The Census provides further encouragement to ask that question deeply, he says.

Source

• NZ Herald
• Facebook
• Newstalk ZB

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.