By Jeff Brumley
New research shows that the religiously unaffiliated are gaining on Christian traditions across much of the United States.
The Public Religion Research Institute’s American Values Atlas, released earlier this month, finds that Catholics and the religiously unaffiliated make up 22 percent each of the American religious landscape. White evangelical Protestants trail at 18 percent.
But some experts, including those in states long dominated by non-Christian groups, say traditional churches, evangelical and otherwise, should look at such data as positive instead of negative.
“This presents a great opportunity for a more robust form of Christianity than we saw in the 20th century,” church leadership consultant and Baptist Mark Tidsworth said about PRRI’s findings.
While church memberships exploded during the middle part of that century and the church dominated the culture for decades, many people joined to further political career and social aspirations. The PRRI research and numerous other polls prove that just doesn’t work anymore, said Tidsworth, president of Pinnacle Leadership Associates in Chapin, S.C.
The positive is that those who continue as Christians or join churches from this point forward are doing it for solid spiritual reasons, he said.
“It’s becoming more counter-cultural” to be a Christian and to join the church “is more of a conscious choice,” he said.
Unaffilated gaining ground
Even so, those who self-identify as having no church or other faith affiliation are holding an increasingly important place in the nation, according to the PRRI research.
While not in the lead overall, the demographic holds sway in 13 states and is in second place in nearly every other state.
While PRRI identifies the group as a religious tradition, it ackowledges that diversity of belief, makes the group more difficult to define than others, said Dan Cox, PRRI director of research.
The overall leader in the PRRI research is Catholicism, followed by white evangelicals and then the religiously unaffiliated.
The state-by-state breakdowns are largely unsurprising. Catholics are strong mostly in the Northeast and parts of the Midwest, and evangelicals own most of the Southeast. The religiously unaffiliated are strongest in the Pacific Northwest and Northeast.
Catholicism rules the most number of states with 17, including Rhode Island and Connecticut but also Texas, Florida and Louisiana.
Tennessee leads the group of 15 white evangelical states, with others in that group including Alabama, Kentucky, the Carolinas and Georgia.
The 13 states dominated by the religiously unaffiliated are led by Oregon and followed by New Hampshire, Washington, Vermont and rounded out by Michigan.
PRRI noted that there are only five states — Alabama, Louisiana, Nebraska, and the Dakotas — where the religiously unaffiliated are not in the top three.
Black Protestants, meanwhile, are in the top three in eight states and white mainline Protestants are the dominant group in two states —Iowa and North Dakota.
‘Returning to our historic roots’
Churches have long contended with the decrease in church influence in states like Colorado, where the PRRI atlas shows the religiously unaffiliated in a strong lead over Catholics and white evangelicals.
And while struggling in some cases, the challenge has helped produce more creative and missional churches, said Bob Ballance, the senior minister at Pine Street Church in Boulder, Colo.
That American Baptist Churches USA congregation has spent years re-inventing itself. It’s hired younger ministers, transformed worship, stopped defining itself by its membership rolls and sought alternative sources of revenue, Ballance said.
All of that because attendance had plummeted as attitudes about church had changed.
“Most in Boulder do not go to church,” he said. Many of them explain that “‘we don’t need it, we don’t see the point’ or that ‘we used to go and there were too many fights — we’d rather stay home on Sunday morning and read the New York Times.’”
Ballance said it’s nothing for churches in other states to fret about — as long as they are willing to discern and embrace actions to make them relevant.
“One way to look at it is we’re actually returning to our historic roots and being more faithful … when we do those things,” he said.
‘Incarnate the gospel’
In Florida, where the religiously unaffiliated are just a percentage point behind Catholics and four points ahead of white evangelicals, another important demographic, Hispanics, have growing numbers.
Taken together, it gives Baptist and other Christian leaders plenty to think about.
“I don’t worry about the ‘nones,’ I worry about the church being culturally relevant,” said Ray Johnson, coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Florida.
“Nones” is a popular designation among pollsters for Americans who cite no religious affiliation on surveys and applications.
Johnson said he takes their needs seriously, along with those of the growing Hispanic population in the Sunshine State.
For the latter challenge, Johnson said CBF Florida is considering planting a Hispanic church in the not-too-distant future.
To embrace the religiously unaffiliated, Johnson said, means avoiding the hypocrisy and infighting that many non-Christians see and despise in the church.
“People know what Jesus said and what he means and they are seeing that churches aren’t doing that,” Johnson said.
“If the church gets out there and incarnates the gospel … I believe people will come to the church,” he said.
‘Step out of the box’
The impact of research like the PRRI atlas can be to help congregations do just that, Tidsworths said.
“This is driving Christian churches to get clear on who they are, get clear on their calling and it’s forcing them to ask ‘what’s it all about?’” he said.
For many, data showing the church’s decline often confirms what they’re already seeing in their own contexts, Tidsworth said.
The steady release of such surveys may help break through the denial of impending change, he said.
In both situations churches can begin to feel a sense of permission to be more adaptive and experimental in their ministries.
“They know God and they know it’s safe not to have to know everything and that they can step out of the box and be curious again,” he said.