{"id":11747,"date":"2012-10-09T15:18:57","date_gmt":"2012-10-09T22:18:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=11747"},"modified":"2012-10-09T15:18:57","modified_gmt":"2012-10-09T22:18:57","slug":"the-rise-of-the-nones-or-what-i-learned-at-four-in-the-morning-on-the-god-beat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/the-rise-of-the-nones-or-what-i-learned-at-four-in-the-morning-on-the-god-beat\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rise of the &#8220;Nones&#8221; \u2013 Young Americans Are Doing Without Church"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_11751\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-11751\" style=\"width: 180px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-11751 \" title=\"national-cathedral-washington-dc\" src=\"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/national-cathedral-2012-10-04-387x580-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"Facade of the National Cathedral, Washington, DC. Photo by BF Newhall\" width=\"180\" height=\"270\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-11751\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The National Cathedral. Photo by BF Newhall.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><em>By Barbara Falconer Newhall<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I sleep in till a comfy 8 or 9 most mornings. But last weekend I had to rise and shine at 4 a.m. my time to get the latest news on the God beat &#8212; most strikingly the rise of the &#8220;nones,&#8221; the religiously unaffiliated.<\/p>\n<p>I was in Bethesda, Maryland, for the annual Religion Newswriters Association conference, and the conference got underway each day at 8 a.m. sharp.<\/p>\n<p>Upright, pen in hand, and fortified with a cup of tea, here\u2019s what I found out one morning:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Organized religion is a tough sell these days, especially among the young.<!--more--><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>One in three Americans ages 18 to 29 say they have no religion, according to a <a href=\"http:\/\/pewresearch.org\/\">Pew Research Center<\/a> poll conducted with PBS\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pbs.org\/wnet\/religionandethics\/\">Religion &amp; Ethics Newsweekly<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Of Americans of all ages, one in five is unaffiliated.<\/li>\n<li>The unaffiliated tend to be heavily Democratic and liberal &#8212; 38 percent say they had liberal views, compared to 20 percent with conservative views.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The religiously unaffiliated \u2013 aka the \u201cnones\u201d &#8212; are on the rise in the U.S. In the past five years, Americans who say \u201cnone\u201d when asked their religion have risen to about 20 percent in 2012 from about 15 percent in 2007.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>But that doesn\u2019t mean \u201cnones\u201d in America aren\u2019t religious or spiritual. Two-thirds say they believe in God.\u00a0 And of all Americans, fewer than 6 percent describe themselves as atheists or agnostics.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Still, a majority of \u201cnones\u201d say they are not looking for a religion. They say religious organizations are too focused on money, power, rules and politics. A full sixty-seven percent say churches and other religious institutions are too concerned with politics.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>That\u2019s it for now. Excuse me. I\u2019m going to take a nap. For a more detailed report, see JoAnne Viviano&#8217;s story on the Columbus Dispatch website.<\/p>\n<p><em>More <a href=\"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=11770\">news from the God beat<\/a> in my next post, coming soon. Meanwhile read about Harvard&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/2009\/12\/12\/books-openers-harvey-cox-you-dont-have-to-believe-to-be-a-christian-not-any-more\/\">Harvey Cox on belief and unbelief<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_11825\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-11825\" style=\"width: 500px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-11825\" title=\"Religion-Newswriters-Association-conferees-at-National- Cathedral-2012\" src=\"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/RNAers-at-National-Cath-2012-10-04-580x301-500x259.jpg\" alt=\"Religion Newswriters Association conferrees visit the National Cathedral at sunset, 2012. Photo by BF Newhall.\" width=\"500\" height=\"259\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-11825\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Light from the setting sun reflects from the National Cathedral onto the faces of visiting Religion Newswriters Association conferees. Photo by BF Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><em><br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=11747\" rel=\"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=11747\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-11756\" title=\"national-cathedral-rose-window-DC\" src=\"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/IMG_5225-580x457-300x236.jpg\" alt=\"Rose window from interior of the National Cathedral, Washinton, DC. Photo by BF Newhall\" width=\"300\" height=\"236\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I was in Bethesda, Maryland, for the annual Religion Newswriters Association conference last weekend. Here\u2019s what I found out about the religiously unaffiliated in America. <a href=\"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=11747\">Read more<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11751,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[34,785,801,164,327,433,802],"class_list":["post-11747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-my-rocky-spiritual-journey","tag-dont-miss","tag-non-belief","tag-nones","tag-pew-forum","tag-religion-in-america","tag-religion-newswriters-association","tag-religiously-unaffiliated"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11747\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}