{"id":947,"date":"2014-01-21T08:48:00","date_gmt":"2014-01-21T08:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/01\/non-theism-and-the-nones-part-1.html"},"modified":"2014-01-21T08:48:00","modified_gmt":"2014-01-21T08:48:00","slug":"non-theism-and-the-nones-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/01\/non-theism-and-the-nones-part-1.html","title":{"rendered":"Non-theism and the \u201cNones\u201d: Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
Scholarly Production of the Religiously Unaffiliated \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/div>\n
Sitting in the audience at the \u201cDiscussing the Nones\u201d panel, I found myself nodding as the speakers offered their criticisms of the use and misuse of a much-discussed category.\u00a0It surprised me, however, that the panelists focused mostly on the popular media rather than the work of social scientists publishing in peer-reviewed journals. In an attention economy in which clicks are dollars and \u201cdiscursive production\u201d is a job at a savvy marketing firm, I confess to having little trust in how reporters, op-ed columnists, and activists interpret complex demographic data.<\/span><\/div>\n
Though I commend Professors Miller and Ramey for fighting an uphill battle against the reverberating misappropriation that seems\u00a0de rigueur<\/em>\u00a0on the Internet, I feel too insignificant to make the same effort. Instead, I\u2019d like to focus my comments on the scholarly discussion of the \u201creligiously unaffiliated\u201d with the hope of pointing to some meaningful insights.<\/span><\/div>\n
Miller and Ramey are correct\u00a0to criticize<\/a>\u00a0an assumed \u201ccorrelation between affiliation\/identity, belief\/religion and spiritual\/not religious.\u201d The so-called \u201creligious nones\u201d are merely those who claim no religious affiliation in surveys. As\u00a0Chaeyoon\u00a0Lim, Carol Ann MacGregor, and Robert D. Putnam (2010) show, the \u201cNones\u201d are a deeply heterogeneous group that includes the spiritual but not religious, unchurched believers, avowed nonbelievers, and those who only intermittently affiliate with a religion.<\/span><\/div>\n
My own research focuses on organized nonbelievers and secular activism in the United States, and those I study fit within both the \u201cNones\u201d and the religiously affiliated. Because some nonbelievers are part of organizations that are non-theistic religions, such as\u00a0Ethical Culture<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Humanistic Judaism<\/a>, they would not be counted among the \u201cNones.\u201d The same is true for avowedly non-theistic members of the Unitarian Universalist Church, as well as members of other religions who \u201cbelong\u201d without \u201cbelieving.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
So what\u00a0can\u00a0<\/i>we conclude? As it turns out, some pretty interesting things. The \u201creligiously unaffiliated\u201d is far from a meaningless category, and if we approach it carefully, it actually helps us understand the present restructuring of American religion.<\/span><\/div>\n
Read the rest here<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scholarly Production of the Religiously Unaffiliated \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 Sitting in the audience at the \u201cDiscussing the Nones\u201d panel, I found myself nodding as the speakers offered their criticisms of the use and misuse of a much-discussed category.\u00a0It surprised me, however, that the panelists focused mostly on the popular media rather than the work of […]<\/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-947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nNon-theism and the \u201cNones\u201d: Part 1<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Scholarly Production of the Religiously Unaffiliated       Sitting in the audience at the \u201cDiscussing the Nones\u201d panel, I found myself\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, 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