THE ‘NONES’ ARE ANYTHING BUT

I don’t recall where I first saw the term or who first coined it, but it’s popular in the circles that I run in.

Sociologists and other observers of religious trends call them “Nones,” or people who choose not to engage with organized religion.

The way that I usually explain the term, it comes from the idea that, on a survey that has a lengthy and detailed list of diflerent religious traditions and lots of boxes for a person to check, a person looks for the “none” option. The Pew Research Center uses the term “none” as “a shorthand we use to refer to people who self-identify as atheists or agnostics, as well as those who say their religion is ‘nothing in particular.’ ”

The data are fascinating on this group. Again, the Pew Center notes that “Nones”:

• As of 2014, make up roughly 23 percent of the U.S. adult population. This is an increase from 2007, the last time a similar Pew Research study was conducted, when 16 percent of Americans were “nones.”

• Overall, religiously unafiliated people are more concentrated among young adults than other age groups — 35 percent of millennials (those born 1981-1996) are “nones,” and are getting younger.

• At the same time, older generations have grown somewhat more unafiliated in recent years. For example, 14 percent of baby boomers were unafiliated in 2007, and 17 percent now identify as “nones.”

• “Nones” are more heavily concentrated among men than women. But the growth of the unafiliated has not been limited to certain demographic categories; a rise in the share of unafiliated has been seen across a variety of racial and ethnic groups, among people with diflerent levels of education and income, among immigrants and the native born and throughout all major regions of the country.

But, I don’t wish to overly focus on the data. I’m more interested in the label. This popular term, “None,” is both inaccurate and does a disservice to how we look at people and belief.

The data show that skeptics and true believers, researchers and churchgoers, need to take this demographic seriously, but more than the numbers of people represented, we need to take their “None” faith seriously.

In my work at Interfaith Ministries, I travel among diflerent religious populations on a relatively regular basis. For example, just a few weeks ago I had a Saturday lunch at a mosque in River Oaks, dinner at the Hindu Youth Awards in Staflord, and then I taught a Sunday morning class at a church in the Museum District. These travels allow me to have conversations with people not only from diflerent religions but from diflerent demographics and parts of Greater Houston.

In all of my conversations, it becomes clear that a “None” faith is anything but that. I’d like to start calling them the “Somes” rather than the “Nones” because they definitely have beliefs.

Is it sometimes more a spirituality than a religion?

Sure.

Is it sometimes an “I’m not quite sure?”

Absolutely.

But my conversations show me more that theirs is a faith; it often looks very diflerent than that of their parents, but that doesn’t make it any more or less what we are all on: a journey of discovery and understanding.

And is this any diflerent than the religious diflerences between any past generations? I would think that the faith of baby boomers, the religion of political unrest of the 1960s, would be perceived as very diflerent than the faith of their “Greatest Generation” parents who came of age during the Great Depression and then fought World War II. The belief of the “Somes” has come of age in the era of globalization, and here in Houston, a milieu of diflerent beliefs living in proximity to one another.

Some may argue that we are dangerously close to religious syncretism, or the rise of the “Nones” is a harbinger of cultural or religious subjectivism, that there is no truth, or that we are now in an era unmoored from the anchor of belief.

I hear and understand these fears, but again I would argue we have mislabeled the “Nones.” Such a label makes it sound like they don’t believe in anything, and that has not been my experience. I would even posit that atheists and agnostics (two other complicated terms) “believe,” but that’s another discussion.

These “Somes,” in my experience, believe. They have faith in the power of compassion, of other people, often a sense of a “Greater Power,” but they don’t necessarily call it the God of their parents’ era.

As I said, they are on a journey, as we all are, that defies commonly held descriptors. I think it wise that we all think carefully about the ways we describe each other’s beliefs. Even more important, I think it would be wise that we take more time to listen to each other and be what I call “radically curious” about each other and our beliefs, our voyages of faith and our convictions, before we start labelling them.

Gregory Han is the director of Interfaith Relations at Interfaith Ministries for Greater Houston; imgh.org.