{"id":522,"date":"2014-07-22T13:26:00","date_gmt":"2014-07-22T13:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/07\/what-the-surveys-dont-and-cant-say-about-the-rise-of-the-spiritual-but-not-religious.html"},"modified":"2014-07-22T13:26:00","modified_gmt":"2014-07-22T13:26:00","slug":"what-the-surveys-dont-and-cant-say-about-the-rise-of-the-spiritual-but-not-religious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/07\/what-the-surveys-dont-and-cant-say-about-the-rise-of-the-spiritual-but-not-religious.html","title":{"rendered":"What the Surveys Don’t (and Can’t) say about the Rise of the Spiritual but Not Religious\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
It all begins with \u201csurvey says\u2026.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
The pollsters now regularly tell us that religion is on the decline and commentators can\u2019t say enough about the so called, \u201cSpiritual, but not Religious<\/a>\u201d (or SBNR)\u2014the now common moniker for many (but not all) of the religiously unaffiliated.<\/span><\/div>\n
But analysts\u00a0often misunderstand what the surveys actually tell us.\u00a0Some overplay their hand<\/a>\u00a0and try to predict the future.\u00a0Others<\/a>\u00a0fail to acknowledge that different surveys measure slightly different categories: \u201cno preference,\u201d \u201cnothing in particular\u201d and \u201cspiritual but not religious\u201d can\u2019t easily be lumped together.<\/span><\/div>\n
And yet others actually underplay the research. For instance, this past Friday, the\u00a0NY Times<\/em>\u2018 Mark Oppenheimer\u00a0wrote\u00a0<\/a>about four new books on the SBNR. His final takeaway?<\/span><\/div>\n
\n
At the very least, we might conclude that \u201cspiritual but not religious\u201disn\u2019t necessarily vague or wishy-washy. It\u2019s not nothing, although it may risk being everything.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Really? Everything? It\u2019s an awkward ending to an otherwise informative piece. But perhaps Oppenheimer didn\u2019t get the whole story.<\/span><\/div>\n
While many continue to speculate what the survey trends might mean for the future of American religion, sociologist\u00a0Nancy Ammerman<\/a>\u00a0has recognized the limits of the surveys and done\u00a0her own research.<\/span><\/div>\n
Read the rest here<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It all begins with \u201csurvey says\u2026.\u201d The pollsters now regularly tell us that religion is on the decline and commentators can\u2019t say enough about the so called, \u201cSpiritual, but not Religious\u201d (or SBNR)\u2014the now common moniker for many (but not all) of the religiously unaffiliated. But analysts\u00a0often misunderstand what the surveys actually tell us.\u00a0Some overplay […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat the Surveys Don't (and Can't) say about the Rise of the Spiritual but Not Religious\u201d<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It all begins with \u201csurvey says\u2026.\u201dThe pollsters now regularly tell us that religion is on the decline and commentators can\u2019t say enough about the so\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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