Connect with us on social media
Project Mission: Project 573 will show to our audience who the Nones are, and how they are affecting mid-Missouri at a time when traditional affiliation with religion is declining.
None of the Above
At this time, more than any other in our nation’s history, people are identifying themselves as religiously unaffiliated. According to a 2012 report from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, one in five adults consider themselves religious Nones, meaning they would "answer a survey question about their religion by saying they have no religion, no particular religion, no religious preference, or the like."
The 1906 U.S. Census of Religious Bodies reported more than 98 percent of congregants belonged to Christian or Catholic churches. That number now lies closer to 73 percent.
Though other non-Christian religions are seeing increases in affiliation, Catholicism and Protestantism, among other Christian denominations, are undergoing significant declines nationwide.
Introducing the religiously unaffiliated and exploring how they affect society
Debra Mason, director of the Center on Religion and the Professions at the University of Missouri, said there are a few reasons for these declining numbers. Previously, families would stay in the houses of worship and the community in which they were raised, but modern mobility has changed that.
“What has happened now is people move away,” Mason said. “They try other sorts of religious institutions. They may or may not feel as though they fit there or are welcome, and so some of them choose not to belong anymore.”
Religiosity also has a cyclical nature in which those in their teens and early 20s experiment with different faiths or don’t attend worship services. Typically, those who follow the trend return to church after starting families. Mason said this may be changing.
“People aren’t coming back to a faith tradition the way they used to with, say, the baby boomers,” she said.
Mason said it is difficult to track trends in religion because changes in the institution happen very gradually. However, there is a consensus within the religious acommunity that there is a declining trend in religious affiliation in general.
These numbers beg the question: who is replacing the faithful?
The Nones.
The Pew report found one-third of Americans younger than thirty are religiously unaffiliated. These millennials, or anyone born after 1981, are altering our country's norm by defining themselves as nonreligious, irreligious, anti-religious or anti-clerical.
In its third year, Project 573 seeks to explore the impact of the Nones and how it is playing out in mid-Missouri. We are not attempting to show that the national trend is reflected in Missouri. Rather, we are showing our audience how this emerging group of people is shaping our community. We are trying to answer the question: How is this shift unfolding in mid-Missouri? In a region traditionally located within the Bible Belt, we are exploring how the rise of the Nones is affecting our state’s politics, schools, churches and family values. We found the individuals affected by this national decline in affiliation and people who have decided to live without a traditional religion. We hope that in sharing their stories we, as Americans, can better grasp this trend.
MISSION: We will show to our audience who the Nones are, and how they are affecting mid-Missouri at a time when traditional affiliation with religion is declining.
by Melissa Roadman and Elizabeth Pierson