The Rise of the Nones
Document Type
Book Review
Publication Title
Law & Liberty
Publication Date
3-15-2023
Abstract
(Excerpt)
In Nonverts: The Making of Ex-Christian America, scholar Stephen Bullivant explores the most discussed phenomenon in American religion today: the so-called “rise of the Nones.” Nones are people without a religious affiliation; when asked on surveys to identify the religion to which they belong, they check the box that says, “no religion,” or “nothing in particular,” or “none of the above.” Starting about thirty years ago, the percentage of Nones in the United States has risen dramatically, from something like 5 percent in the University of Chicago’s well-regarded General Social Survey (GSS) in 1990 to something like 25 percent today. That’s roughly 60 million Americans.
As Bullivant, a theologian and sociologist with positions at St. Mary’s University in London and the University of Notre Dame in Sydney, explains, this percentage seems likely to increase in the near term. According to the GSS, about a third of Americans below the age of 30 are Nones, though the percentage of Nones among the youngest Americans, so-called “Generation Z,” is a bit less. Although people sometimes become more religious as they age, that seems not to be happening with today’s Nones. “Barring some Great Millennial Revival,” Bullivant writes, the proportion of the religiously unaffiliated seems likely “to grow and grow for the foreseeable future.” He sets out to explain why this mass disaffiliation is occurring and what it might mean for American society.
Comments
Available at: https://lawliberty.org/book-review/the-rise-of-the-nones/