There’s good news under this sad news, I’m telling ya’.
CNA: Religiously unaffiliated people, often referred to as “nones,” now make up the largest religious category in the U.S., according to a new report by the Pew Research Center.
Pew’s new report, released Jan. 24, shows that nones now account for 28% of the total U.S. population, outstripping the next largest group, Catholics, who make up 20%.
The recent data is consistent with a long-term trend of Americans rejecting religious affiliation in growing numbers, with the percentage nearly doubling from 16% in 2007.
The rise of the nones has resulted in not only lessened religious participation but also a decrease in civic engagement with nones being less likely to vote, do volunteer work, or have strong friend groups or community, according to Pew.
Sooooooo, we’re talking about people who live their lives something like this:
But there is good news here. Only 17% of “nones” identify as atheist. That’s interesting because you might recall the great Atheist push from a decade ago. Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens and their unholy posse mocked and jeered Christians for believing in a fairy tale. Remember that? The media loved their whole flying spaghetti monster, Daddy in the sky act. All of their books and lectures were covered extensively and adoringly. We were told that the great atheit wave was coming and would wipe out Christianity.
So, what happened? It didn’t.
The great atheist wave of 2000 broke, ebbed, and disappeared. They succeeded in mocking the Church and villainizing it at every turn with the help of the media. The Church, in many ways, did not cover itself in glory at that time either with the sex abuse scandal. So yes, many people are rejecting the institutional Church but they’re also rejecting atheism. They’re rejecting the flat materialistic view of the universe. They still know there is something more to the world than what we can see or measure.
One of the great attributes of the Enlightenment is that it sought to create verifiable science but measuring reality. The problem it runs into is that anything outside of the measurable is just said not to exist. This is, of course, absurd. It seeks to define “love” as an evolutionary benefit of seeking safety in a group against predators. We know it’s more than that. That’s a shallow, ridiculous explanation and it has been widely rejected.
That’s the good news. But now these folks, especially young people are rejecting the institutional Church but also rejecting materialism. Where are they going?
Many are opting for “wokeness” which essentially twists Christian precepts of tolerance, love, and acceptance into affirmations of sin. It is a moral high ground without morality.
When many of these “nones” no longer have the Church to guide them, they become their own arbiters of right and wrong. It is essentially the ultimate end of the Reformation in many ways. Many others are choosing pagan, occult, New Age, and Wiccan practices because they know the world is a weird and enchanted place and they’ve been raised in a time when the Church has been maligned as a stale old institution Church run by out of touch old men who hate women.
I’ve always wondered how Catholics are accused of being anti-women while also being accused of worshipping Mary but I digress.
I think one of the major missteps of some in the Church over the past few decades is they’ve flattened out the weirdness of the faith. They dimmed its enchanted view of the world. Catholicism is the greatest story in the world and we’re not sharing it. Jesus Christ died on the cross, resurrected, and founded a Church. In every tabernacle in every part of the world, Christ lives. Not a symbol, but Christ Himself. We have martyrs, guardian angels, demons prowling about the world in search of your soul. We have grace, miracles, and extraordinary acts of love.
The great Atheist push died. The nones need saving. We have just the Church to do it. Let’s get busy.
