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Note: This essay first appeared in the
March 2009 Baptist Studies Bulletin.
The news is echoing across America: in the land of megachurches
and religious-fawning politicians, the fastest-growing faith
demographic is ... nones. In a nation known for high religiosity
during the twentieth century, the past two decades have witnessed a
dramatic decline in the percentage of Americans who identify
themselves as religious.
The statistics are stark. Religion is declining
throughout the United States, and the number of Americans claiming no
religion (15%) is neck-and-neck with those who claim to be Baptists
(15.8%), the second largest religious group in the nation, trailing
Catholics (25%).
The receding tidal wave of religion is revealing
empty rural churches and thriving urban
coffee shops. (I'd like to see some data regarding how many
Americans spend their Sunday mornings in their favorite coffee shop.)
Not surprisingly,
senior citizens
are more likely than not to be the ones sitting in church pews
any given Sunday, while most
young adults
do not darken the doors of church.
Four centuries ago, an earlier group of nones slowly
elbowed their way to recognition within a religiously-dominated
landscape. Rejecting openly religious cultures and governments of the
colonial era, they adopted an alternative faith identity that church,
state, and society dismissed as heresy and even paganism. These nones
of old suffered generations of rejection and persecution, yet
eventually emerged from their wilderness travails to lead America into
a religiously-leveled landscape. While some establishment powers
resisted the changes wrought by Baptists and their allies, the die had
been cast: the vision of a lowly group of outsiders led America to
become the first nation to separate religion from the realm of the
state.
Today's reassertion of individuals who fall outside the
parameters of recognized faith expressions hints that once again
religion is viewed by many as a detriment rather than a force for good
or carrier of truth. Will the decline of religion force America's
faith groups to confront the internal causations of their
institutional struggles? Will the growing public rejection of
institutional faith once again serve to rescue America from the
shortcomings and fallacies of religion? Will the better elements of
faith and religion move to the public forefront? Will religion as we
know it today survive beyond the next generation or two? No one may
know the exact answers to these questions, but perhaps the nones
harbor insight into what the future of religion in America will look
like.
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