Alien Invasion

Nones Emerge as Major Religious Category

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is the most terrifying thing I have ever witnessed . . . Wait a minute! Someone’s crawling out of the hollow top. Someone or . . . something. I can see peering out of that black hole two luminous disks . . are they eyes? It might be a face. It might be . . .”

In 1938, when Orson Welles is supposed to have sparked mass panic with his radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds, Americans could not have imagined that their cities, seventy-five years later, would be swarming with a different kind of alien, one born of their own people, but as foreign to them as the martians Welles described climbing out of their crash-landed saucer.

The religious Nones, people who claim no religious affiliation at all, have quietly increased in number to the point that they are now one of the top three largest religious groups in every major city in the country. In fact, Portland, Oregon, site of the dramatic Greenpeace protest that dangled sixteen activists from a  terrifyingly high bridge, has already succumbed; the Nones, ironically, make up the city’s largest religious group.

Were there are real alien invasion, our diplomatic and defensive systems would be at the ready, not necessarily in that order. Protocols would snap into place and, until we learned whether those who, beating infinitesimally small odds, had found our tiny planet were friendly or otherwise, we would move forward with caution, exploring, questioning, comparing, assessing. We would want to know everything so that we could create positive relationships, learn from them, pool resources so we could explore the universe together. Or, should we find them hostile, we’d exhaust every resource we had in our efforts to defend our “title” to this planet.

That isn’t what has happened with the Nones. Maybe it’s because we didn’t see it coming. Or maybe we just thought it was a few people here and there. But rather than trying to figure them out, entering into dialogue, using all our resources to learn who they are, what they like, need, or can offer, rather than finding ways to work with them to respond to global issues, Christian leaders have expended enormous effort to shore up the flagging foundations of religious bastions built to serve another time. Now, forced to acknowledge the growing presence of the Nones and reassuring themselves that those who eschew religious institutions are still spiritual, SBNRs, (Spiritual But Not Religious; translation: they really do believe in god they just don’t call it that), churches are redoubling their efforts to evangelize them, lure them with new packaging, contemporary spins on tired doctrinal claims, and Starbucks language that is believed to be the lingua franca of this hip and growing population.

It’s not going to work. We’ve been repackaging the same story for decades and, with the exception of a handful of congregations that either have extraordinary ministry leadership or are situated to their demographic advantage, churches are losing ground to the Nones who are slowly but surely taking over.

Is there any reason we should do something about that? Well, perhaps, but only if it isn’t calling them into a relationship with a supernatural deity or insisting that the only conversation we want to have with them is going to take place in a stand up sit down pass the plate (SUSDPTP) Sunday morning service.

The first thing we could do is ascertain if the Nones even need anything. Are they living lives of meaning, contributing to the betterment of society, caring for one another, themselves, and the earth? Are they already engaged in relationships marked by trust and forgiveness, relationships that honour dignity and assume worth? Are they working to leaving the world a better place and working to bring about a sustainable future? Are they committed to the ideals of democracy and engaged in civic discourse? Are they aware of and standing in solidarity with the First Nations and aboriginal peoples of their country? If they are already engaged, responsible, loving human beings, our role is to recognize and celebrate them and their endeavours. Maybe we’re the students here; maybe we have something to learn that we haven’t been able to teach ourselves.

And if it happens that they aren’t doing so well in some or all of those areas, we can examine our own resources and see if we can help. Our stuff doesn’t answer all the questions, remember. It’s just our stuff and, for most Nones, it’s probably irrelevant. We may use it to interpret our world but that doesn’t mean it makes any sense to those belonging to this growing demographic.

It might be better if we ask the Nones to a conversation, invite them to share with us how they are, what their lives are like, what scares them, what makes them laugh. Our role is to learn long before we see ourselves as teachers or providers. Whether we talk first and then read or read first and then talk, it is essential that we learn about the differences between generations, about urban tribes, and online relationships, about who this new demographic is, these people who emerged from our own church-going families.

Our steeple mentality has too long impressed us with our own message, our gifts, and our belief that we can change the world if the world would just show up. The Nones are here and growing. They’ve no interest in our ceremonies and beliefs and I don’t blame them, couched as church is in exclusive, archaic language language even when we insist we have clever new meanings for our once beautiful words. It’s time to see, really see, what people are up against in their lives and then, if and only if we have something meaningful to contribute, to offer ourselves to that work, ready to learn as much or more than we have to share.

If you’re a None, is there anything you need from the church? And if you’re not a None, but affiliate with a religious group, how do you think your religious community can benefit from or support those who identify as having no religious connection? Please comment below and feel free to respond to the comments of others!