2018 General Social Survey Shows ‘nones’ Are The Largest “Religious” Group In America

The General Social Survey (GSS), that was taken in 2018, was just released. Its results show that people who do not identify with a particular religion, ‘nones’, are not only the fastest growing religious group in America, but they are actually the largest group in America statistically. For years Evangelical and Catholic religious groups have been the dominant religion in America, with both claiming just less than 25 percent of the population according to the GSS. There was fear that Trumps presidency would scare a large number of people away from Evangelical churches, but this recent survey has show that there has not been any significant decrease in evangelicals. However, over the last 20 years there has been a massive increase in the number of people who do not identify with a religion, which correlates with a similarly sharp decline in the number of followers of “Mainline Christianity” (Mainline Christians include Methodists, Episcopalians, and Baptists). According to the GSS 23.1 percent of Americans identify as ‘nones’.

Even though the percentage of the population that claims no religious affiliation is staggering the percentage of ‘nones’ that don’t believe in God is actually very low, only 22 percent. This suggest that the vast majority of ‘nones’ in America are non-practicing people with Christian/Muslim/Jewish beliefs or are agnostics. Additionally, the largest number of people becoming ‘nones’ are Mainline Christians, who were at one point the largest religious affiliation in America, but have now fallen to roughly 12 percent of affiliation. The theory is that many Mainline Christians have steadily stopped practicing at their churches and have begun identifying as non-practicing.

One of the articles about this recent census discussed the political ramifications of this recent increase in ‘nones’. Allegedly, white evangelicals vote mostly conservative and compose roughly 26 percent of electors at the polls. This means that evangelicals have a disproportionately large political impact compared to their actual population percentage. The reason for this is, according to Religion News, evangelicals are, generally speaking, Caucasian and are comprised of an older population group. On the flip side, the religiously non-affiliated tend to vote more liberal because of their younger and more racially diverse demographic. However, they have, traditionally, had low turnout at the polls. The continuing rise in ‘nones’ will no doubt cause a shift in the political scene, favoring Democrats.

Links:

https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2019/march/evangelical-nones-mainline-us-general-social-survey-gss.html

‘Nones’ now as big as evangelicals, Catholics in the US

United Methodist LGBT Decision

Earlier this month a General Conference of roughly 1,000 representatives from the United Methodist Church convened to decide an official stance on issues such as gay marriage, and gay ministry and clergy. Before this meeting there had been bitter debate for the better part of 20 years. Ordination of gay clergy has been officially banned by the Church since 1984 but some churches have chosen to ordain gay clergy nonetheless. However, the much larger issue being presented here is whether or not same-sex marriage should be administered within the UMC.

Same-sex marriage was officially “barred” within the UMC back in 1996, but the issue became heated when the US formally recognized same-sex marriage in 2015. Immediately after, many questions of same-sex marriage were brought up in the 2016, more than 100 times according to the article! The issue is split right down the middle in the US with 41% of people in favor of maintaining the current ban and 42% of people in favor of allowing same-sex marriage within the UMC. This bodes very poorly for unity within the UMC, but apparently the UMC has laws preventing any church from leaving the denomination, lest it have its property reclaimed by the UMC.

According to the article there are three possible outcomes for the meeting. First, the “One Church Plan” will effectively let clergy decide whether or not to provide same-sex marriages, where the UMC cannot penalize them for doing so. The second plan known as the “Connectional Conference Plan” would allow the church to split into different branches based on ideology, but still remain under a collective organization despite being mostly autonomous. Lastly, the “Modified Traditional Plan” would essentially maintain the status quo in terms of same-sex marriage, but would allow any churches that choose to leave the denomination to keep their property. No matter what plan is chosen the UMC will not be able to maintain there current state.

The second article talks about the decision that was reached by the General Conference. Ultimately, it was decided that the “Modified Traditional Plan” was the best plan. Much of this decision was attributed to the growing involvement in the UMC abroad, particularly in Africa, who espouse more “conservative” ideas about same-sex marriage. However, in the US there is a great deal of uncertainty because many here feel that same-sex marriage, and homosexuality as whole, should not be excluded from the church. Additionally, there is a lot of fear that many churches will leave the denomination.

https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2019/february/united-methodists-lgbt-vote-umc-general-conference-denomina.html

https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2019/february/united-methodist-lgbt-vote-conference-plan.html