Byron R. Johnson and Thomas S. Kidd are the authors of “The Death of Religion? Nones, Others, and the Flourishing of Faith.”
One of the most persistent news stories about religion in recent years has been the decline of Christianity and the rise of the “nones,” or people who have no religion in particular. The nones narrative suggests that American Christianity is in free fall. One headline in recent weeks announced that even young Latinos, part of what is often regarded as one of the most religious ethnic groups, are “abandoning churches to be ‘nones.’”
Look closer, however, and you can find data suggesting that Christianity is flourishing. Some signs indicate that young American men are attending church more than they did in previous generations. High-profile intellectuals such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who was one of the leading figures of the New Atheist movement, have publicly announced their conversion to Christianity. And even the Pew Research Center, a chief promoter of the nones story, has admitted that the nones have plateaued at less than 30 percent of respondents.
What is really happening? Rather than experiencing simple growth or decline, American religion is in a state of churn. Some sectors are falling fast, while others show phenomenal growth.
Throughout history, Americans have routinely misinterpreted religious change as decline. Headlines about the demise of faith may be attention-grabbing, but they conceal a more complicated and interesting reality.
What are the key factors behind the confusion about religious change? One is an overreaction to the rise of the nones. Today, more Americans claim adherence to no religion than did in the late 20th century. A generation ago, more adults would have said they were Christians even if they had no connection to a church.
Today, people are more candid about their religious identities. Outside of the Bible Belt, there is little shame in telling a pollster that you simply aren’t religious.
This does not mean that the nones are atheists or agnostics, though they are often labeled as such. Treating atheists, agnostics and nones as a unit allows observers to tout the blockbuster headline that “religious ‘nones’ are now the largest single group in the U.S.” This strained math obscures the fact that the number of self-identified Christians today remains more than twice the combined total of nones, atheists and agnostics.
Outside of its statistical charts, Pew acknowledges that nones are generally not agnostics or atheists. The numbers of atheists and agnostics have stayed fairly constant in recent decades, while the share of nones increased steadily until about 2024.
The nones overwhelmingly believe in God or a higher power, and they consistently report engaging in spiritual practices such as prayer. Some of them even attend church.
Another major source of confusion is a failure to recognize the large group of religious people who could be called the “others.” The others include millions of people who attend church faithfully but who never appear on the media’s radar.
The standard count of American congregations is known as the congregational census. This important decennial survey gives scholars and journalists detailed county-by-county information on faith groups. As valuable as the census is, studies by religion scholar Gordon Melton have shown that this census undercounts the total number of congregations by at least 25 percent.
The uncounted churches are disproportionately nondenominational, evangelical or Pentecostal. They often minister to Black Americans, Latinos and recent immigrants. Sometimes these churches meet in small storefronts or another church’s facility. But sometimes the others go to megachurches with thousands of attendees.
The others are strong in urban areas. This helps explain intriguing patterns, like the fact that the total number of congregations in metropolitan Boston doubled between the 1960s and early 2000s. Church planting in Boston has only accelerated over the past two decades. Many of the new congregations cater to immigrants, such as Haitian Baptists or Nigerian Pentecostals.
A final reason for the confusion about spiritual decay is that progressive Christian denominations — the mainline churches — are indeed in a long-standing pattern of decline. The Episcopal Church and similar denominations began a dramatic downturn in the 1960s, one that has only gotten worse in the 21st century. Episcopalians dropped from about 3.4 million members in the late 1950s to about 1.6 million in 2022 — a period in which the U.S. population nearly doubled.
The United Methodist Church used to be one of the largest denominations in the country, but membership losses and schisms have turned the church into a shadow of its former self. The fading of the Methodists and similar denominations may seem disproportionately significant, given their historic salience. But there’s much more to American religion than the mainline churches.
So, yes, progressive denominations are in a virtual state of collapse. Nominal religiosity is becoming a thing of the past. But evangelical, Pentecostal and immigrant-focused nondenominational ministries are rallying from behind. This helps explain why the growth of the nones has come to a stop. American religion is changing fast. That’s the way it’s always been in America’s dynamic spiritual marketplace.
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