For demographers and social scientists who study religion in the U.S., the big story of recent years has been the rise of the “nones”—those who do not identify as belonging to any particular religion, faith, or denomination. Absent a major shift, it is likely that nones will by 2026 outnumber both evangelical Christians and Catholics. Philip Jenkins acknowledges various reasons to think that the state of American Christianity is not so dire as these data indicate at face value. But, he argues, it would be prudent to “consider the possibility that we really are seeing a precipitous decline in religion as such—in religious practice and faith—however broadly we define it.” He writes:
There are plenty of reasons why people would abandon their formal identification with churches. They might be appalled by religious activism in politics, or shocked by scandals involving clergy. However, those former adherents don’t necessarily reject religion as such. As repeated surveys show, many of those “nones” in fact seem to be quite religious-oriented, in terms of belief in God, and even of religious practice—in some cases, a surprising amount.
So perhaps what we are looking at just a restructuring, a reboot, not an actual decline. . . . But here is the problem. If a person rejects that church affiliation, and abandons the religious community, how long can he maintain that solitary or non-affiliated religious practice before it dies altogether? Ten years? Thirty? And can that attenuated practice be passed on to the next generation? When does “no religious affiliation” transform into a simple “No religion at all, seriously, and I mean it”?
European evidence suggest that countries do indeed reach this point. . . . [Moreover], there is no intrinsic reason why the changes that have overtaken Western religion should not have their impact on a global scale and, ultimately, even in Africa. If such views are correct, then Christianity has a specific expiration date, to be followed, after some delay, by the other great faiths.
In my recent book, . . . I suggested why we should take such views very seriously indeed, although my own conclusions were nothing like so pessimistic.
Read more on Anxious Bench: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiousbench/2021/03/in-search-of-christians-and-nones/