This article was first published in the State of Faith newsletter. Sign up to receive the newsletter in your inbox each Monday night.
Last week, Pew Research Center released — and I wrote about — an in-depth new study on religious “nones,” the group of Americans who do not affiliate with a religious group.
As of 2023, 28% of U.S. adults fall into this category because they describe themselves as atheist (17%), agnostic (20%) or “nothing in particular” (63%).
In my story about the findings, I did my best to highlight key takeaways from the survey, but there were many interesting data points that didn’t make the cut.
I want to try something new in this week’s newsletter and highlight some of those numbers in the form of a quiz. The correct answers are listed at the bottom.
- Nearly 9 in 10 religiously affiliated Americans (87%) believe in heaven. What percentage of nones do?
A. 44%.
B. 17%.
C. 36%.
D. 57%.
- When Americans are asked to explain what factors help them decide between right and wrong, the same answer rises to the top among religiously affiliated people and nones. What is that answer?
A. They don’t want to hurt people.
B. How they were raised.
C. They don’t want to get in trouble.
D. Their religious beliefs.
- What percentage of nones identify as or lean Republican?
A. 31%.
B. 45%.
C. 11%.
D. 19%.
- Pew asked respondents to fill in this blank: Religion does ____________ in American society. What was the least common response among the nones?
A. More harm than good.
B. More good than harm.
C. Equal amounts of good and harm.
- What percentage of religiously affiliated Americans go to a worship service at least monthly?
A. 61%.
B. 73%.
C. 41%.
D. 50%.
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Survey offers new answers to an old question: What do religious ‘nones’ believe?
Term of the week: Religion
My recent reporting on the “nones” reminded me of a story I read earlier this month about the state of American religion in 2024. The story featured a conversation between Daniel Cox of the Survey Center for American Life and scholar Claude S. Fischer.
The conversation has stuck with me for weeks because of Fischer’s comments about how Americans define religion. He said that our fixation on practices like church attendance and church membership makes us overlook the other ways that people are engaging with faith.
“In the west, religion means predominantly the American grassroots Protestantism, with its emphasis on individuals’ personal theologies and on regular congregational prayer as practice. (Thus, survey researchers ask about weekly church attendance but not about, say, giving alms to holy men.) But historically and around the world, religion ... is much more varied, including emphases on ritual, vague theologies, ancestor worship, magic, and introspective disciplines. ... Perhaps Americans aren’t abandoning ‘religion’ but are altering their religion,” Fischer said.
It sort of blew my mind to think about how the conversation about religion in the U.S. would change if we redefined religion. If we thought of belief in God or a higher power as a core part of being religious, for example, very few Americans would be considered nonreligious.
What I’m reading...
Ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Saturday, The Washington Post reported on a recently completed effort to track survivors of the Holocaust who are still alive today. Researchers were able to identify 245,000 survivors: around 120,000 in Israel, 38,400 in the U.S., around 20,000 each in France and Russia, 14,200 in Germany and fewer than 10,000 each in Ukraine, Canada and several other countries.
In response to a recent uptick in major natural disasters, insurance companies across the country are increasing their rates and, in some cases, pulling out of states like Florida that are especially vulnerable to hurricane damage. Churches are among the organizations struggling to remain insured, according to The Christian Chronicle.
There’s a unique legal battle happening in a Michigan town about an hour outside of Grand Rapids. A couple wants to start a green cemetery, which is a burial site where people naturally decompose without the use of chemical or traditional caskets, and the township is seeking to block the development by prohibiting the construction of any and all cemeteries. Reason magazine recently reported on the dispute.
Odds and ends
Do I have any “Napoleon Dynamite” fans among my readers? The film, a former Sundance Film Festival darling, recently celebrated the 20th anniversary of its premiere, and the Deseret News wrote about its enduring appeal.
My baby is ready for Valentine’s Day early thanks to his cute new outfit.
Quiz answers: C, A, A, B, C.