Pew report: Number of nonreligious Americans is soaring

Over the past half-century, as the number of Americans with no religious affiliation has gone from 5% to nearly 30%, the emphasis has often been on what they were leaving. A report released Wednesday on the “nones” finds that they are diverse, young, left-leaning and may offer clues to the future of making meaning in a secularizing country.

The report, from the Pew Research Center, is one of the biggest yet on the nones, and it adds detail to this constituency that has been growing across a wide variety of demographic categories, including age, race, political leaning and education level. As the nation’s fastest-growing segment of religion (or nonreligion) in recent decades, the nones may reflect the front line of future spirituality. Fifty-six percent say they believe in “some higher power” aside from the God of the Bible; 67% say they believe that humans have a soul or spirit, and majorities say they believe that nonhuman animals and parts of nature can have spiritual energies.

The Pew findings seem to debunk, or at least complicate, the idea that people who leave religion are hostile toward it. The overwhelming majority of nones say religion causes division and intolerance and encourages superstition and illogical thinking, but 58% also say religion helps society by giving people meaning and purpose.

The report also challenges a notion often cited by faith-based groups and other civic leaders that secularization causes people to be less civically active. Pew asked about various civic metrics, including whether respondents had volunteered in the past year, had voted in recent midterm elections or follow public affairs closely. The rates for nones are similar to those of people who have a religious affiliation but don’t attend religious services. In other words, the issue appears to be more about involvement in groups than religious labels or associations.

Ryan Cragun, a sociologist at the University of Tampa who consulted with Pew on the report, said the data points to a new frontier of what might be called “meaning-making” research. The report adds more detail to what this huge swath of Americans believe about spirituality, but it’s not clear whether they are simply slowly letting go of the supernatural, or something else, he told the Washington Post.

“I think it’s possible these people don’t believe in anything (supernatural), we just don’t have the language yet to describe what they do believe,” he said. “When someone sees the stars and has an overwhelming, spiritual experience of awe, and they call it a ‘higher power,’ what does that actually mean? And that’s the next step in research. We don’t have answers yet. This report is showing where we need to do more research.”

Along with the Pew report, other research and books over the past couple of years have found that the nones are more of a bellwether or a canary in the coal mine – depending on the point of view – than a cohesive group coalescing around a new belief system. Nones, the Pew study finds, are 17% atheist, 20% agnostic and 63% “nothing in particular.” Atheists and agnostics are very different by most metrics from the nothing-in-particulars, who tend to be less educated, more politically moderate and less negative about religion.

In 1972, the General Social Survey found that 5% of Americans considered themselves nones. In 2007, it was 16%. The number reached 30% in 2022 before dipping back to 28% last year.

Several popular books have come out in recent years that take a new crack at determining the future effect of the nones, including one by Ryan Burge, a political scientist at Eastern Illinois University who wrote “The Nones: Where They Came From, Who They Are, and Where They Are Going.”

“This is really about the question: How do we live in a pluralistic society? Thirty years ago, 90% of Americans were Christian; now it’s 60%. How do Christians understand the nones? Are they your enemy? How much religious freedom do I get?” he said. “Religious people need to be able to talk about these questions. And how do nones feel about questions of religion? Can a woman wear a hijab in her driver’s license photo? Do they think religion plays a productive role?”

As far as the future, the new Pew survey finds that 69% of nones are younger than 50, compared with 45% of U.S. adults who identify with a religion.

In the growth of this complex, heterogenous group, Burge sees humans in a transitional, experimental period. “We’re in a ‘Let’s tear everything down and see how it goes’ phase,” he said.

Burge is focused on the nothing-in-particular segment of nones – the largest segment by far. According to his book, 32% of that group has a high school diploma and an annual household income of $50,000 or less, compared with 12% of atheists and 16% of agnostics.

“A third of this group is just struggling. From a societal standpoint, I think the nothing-in-particulars are really important for the future of American democracy and religion,” Burge said.

Another recent book about the nones is “Nonverts: The Making of Ex-Christian America,” by Stephen Bullivant, a professor of theology and the sociology of religion at St. Mary’s University in London. In an interview, Bullivant said a key aspect of the American experience – compared with countries in Europe that are further along in the secularization process – is that the nones grew so fast.

“What that also means is, it’s so real and personal for people. It’s in the space of a generation, in families, it’s a big, present, raw, very often painful issue for everyone,” Bullivant said. With growth and the passage of time, he said, “it will be a less big deal in many places because you’ll be another generation away from when it was a big deal.”

Indeed, the Pew study depicts nones not as opposed to religion, but simply caring less about it. Eighty-one percent say religion is not too important or not at all important in their lives. Ninety-seven percent attend religious services a few times a year or not at all, Pew found.

Trying to understand how nones construct their values, the study found that the group places a relatively high value on science. Forty-four percent of nones say there is a scientific explanation for everything, even if they don’t understand how everything works, compared with 16% of religiously affiliated Americans. Fifty-six percent of nones say science does more good than harm, compared with 40% of the religiously affiliated who say the same.

But when it comes to identifying important factors for deciding between right and wrong, nones and religiously affiliated Americans look similar, with 82% of the former and 83% of the latter saying “they don’t want to hurt people.” The motivation of “logic and reason” was picked by 82% of nones and 79% of the religiously affiliated.

The phase the country is in now, said Cragun – who co-wrote the book “Beyond Doubt: The Secularization of Society,” which was published last year – is moving past the debate among social scientists about whether the United States is becoming more secular. Decades of global research done by the World Values Survey, starting in the 1980s, showed by the 2010s that religion was declining, Cragun said.

“That debate is over. Now we’re debating: What will the future look like? What will people turn to?” he said.

Cragun said he subscribes to a theory of Swiss sociologist Jörg Stolz that a key driving force behind religion’s decline is “the culmination of growing autonomy in society. People don’t like being told what they should do or what they should not do, especially when the teller isn’t especially qualified. Increasingly, people are saying, ‘Why do I need a pastor to tell me what to do? What makes them any more insightful than this academic journal?’ The rise of the nones is the manifestation of a move toward greater autonomy of individuals.”