- Collection:
- Interdenominational Theological Center Faculty Publications
- Title:
- What to Do about America’s Nones, 2021
- Creator:
- Ellingsen, Mark
- Date of Original:
- 2021
- Subject:
- Theology--Study and teaching
- Location:
- United States, Georgia, Atlanta Metropolitan Area, 33.8498, 84.4383
- Medium:
- publications (documents)
- Type:
- Text
- Format:
- application/pdf
- Description:
- The marked growth of the Religiously Unaffiliated (the so-called “Nones”) in the United States is a well-known fact. The topic made the headlines in the States in 2016 when it was reported that 21 percent of Americans fall in this category. The most recent Pew Research Center study found the number was 26 percent! These are striking statistics, given the fact that in the 1950s only 2 percent of Americans fit in this category, and even in the 1970s it was only descriptive of 10 percent of the population. The situation in Canada is not much different, though perhaps it is a little more dire. A 2018 Pew Research Center survey found that 29 percent of Canadians consider themselves religiously unaffiliated. Of course the situation in Canada is perhaps not as surprising as it is in the United States. We have always assumed that Canada tends to be more secular than the States. These intuitions are confirmed by an earlier 2017 Pew Research study, which found 53 percent of Americans and only 27 percent in Canada report that religion very important. Given similar levels of Nones in the populations, and despite the aforementioned differences, an analysis of why there is significant growth of the religiously unaffiliated in the States, and what to do about it could have some relevance to and for the Canadian context.
- External Identifiers:
- Metadata URL:
- http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12322/itc.ir:2021_ellingsen_mark
- Language:
- eng
- Original Collection:
- Interdenominational Theological Center Faculty Publications
- Holding Institution:
- Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library
- Rights:
-
