November 15, 2025 • 48 mins
The religiously unaffiliated, often called "nones", represent one of the fastest-growing segments of populations across North America, Europe, and beyond. Jonathan Evans, Senior Researcher at Pew Research Center and lead author of a groundbreaking 22-country study, joins us to discuss surprising findings about what "nones" believe, how they practice (or don't), and what their growth means for religious life around the world.
Show Notes:
- Many Religious ‘Nones’ Around the World Hold Spiritual Beliefs (https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/09/04/many-religious-nones-around-the-world-hold-spiritual-beliefs/)
- In U.S., familiarity with religious groups is associated with warmer feelings toward them (https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/10/31/in-u-s-familiarity-with-religious-groups-is-associated-with-warmer-feelings-toward-them/)
- Pew Research Center, Religion (https://www.pewresearch.org/topic/religion/)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chip Gruen (00:04):
Welcome to ReligionWise. I'm your host,
Chip Gruen. I'm super excitedabout today's episode. It
features Jonathan Evans, who isa senior researcher at the Pew
Research Center, about theirrecent report entitled 'Many
Religious Nones Around the WorldHold Spiritual Beliefs', that
was released in just Septemberof this year, in 2025 so if
(00:26):
you're a longtime listener toreligion wise, you know this is
a question that we've addressedon a few occasions. And I think,
as I refer to in thisconversation, that this is a
very 21st Century question aboutreligious affiliation, about
people with a lack of religiousaffiliation, and I wanted to
have Jonathan on the show totalk about that and to talk
about what it means, becausewhat it doesn't mean, as you'll
(00:51):
hear him describe, is that thereis a total lack of religious
belief and practice for peoplewho don't see themselves as
religious affiliated. And so wedig into that a little bit, we
dig into the questions thatsurround that and about what
that means. I think as we writethe story of the late 20th and
early 21st Century narrative ofreligious identity and what's
(01:15):
going on religiously in the USand around the world, it's not
as if people who lackinstitutional religious
affiliation don't ask the bigquestions. You know, where did
we come from? What does it meanto be human? What is the good
life? Etc. Like those are a partof being human, to ask those
questions. As it turns out, thecorrelation between how we
(01:40):
answer those questions, andeither religious institutions or
religious affiliation largerthan that don't always neatly
match up, and so I reallyappreciate Jonathan's
perspective here on thecomplexity of how we as humans
navigate our world, and how thatbears out in the quantitative
data that pew collected in thisstudy that happens in a number
(02:04):
of different contexts around theworld. So with all that being
said, I hope you enjoy myconversation with Jonathan
Evans. As always, if you haveideas for a show or a topic
you'd like to hear more about orquestions, please reach out to
us. And also, if you think whatwe're doing is useful for the
public conversation on religionand is helpful in the public
(02:26):
discourse on religion on yourfavorite podcast app, please go
and give us a review and arating so that we can be even
more broadly consumed.
Jonathan Evans, thanks forcoming on ReligionWise.
Jonathan Evans (02:40):
Thank you so much for having me.
Chip Gruen (02:42):
So before we get started in thinking about the
report itself, I was hopefulthat you could just give us a
little bit of an introductionabout who you are, what your
role is at Pew Research, andjust a little bit about Pew
Research in general, for thosewho aren't familiar with it.
Jonathan Evans (02:59):
Certainly, Pew Research Center is an
organization where we collectdata from surveys and
demographic data, all sorts ofdata sources to then provide
analysis for the public. Ourgoal is to make our data and our
analysis available as a publicgood, because we believe that a
(03:20):
foundation of facts is usefulfor society. So I work on a team
that specializes in looking atreligion, specifically religion
around the world is what Istudy. But there are folks at
the center who also study raceand ethnicity, politics, the
intersection of science with ourdaily lives and how people are
(03:42):
interacting with newtechnologies. And so there's a
lot of different research beatsthat are here at the center, and
I've been at the center a littleover nine years, all of that
looking at religion in differentcontexts. I've been parts of
studies where we look atreligion and public life in
Central and Eastern Europe, forexample. Or we did a big survey
(04:04):
of religion in India. And thenthe project we're talking about
today is about 36 countrieswhere we surveyed in 2024 all
around the world. And yeah,excited to talk about it today.
Chip Gruen (04:18):
All right, so let's get right into that report then.
So this recent report that youmentioned considers or examines
religiously unaffiliated adults,or what we will refer to here as
nones. I always, since none is areligious term, I always like to
hesitate over that, because it'snot 'n u n', the people in the
(04:39):
black and white habits, but 'N ON E S', people who say that they
have no affiliation. But beforewe dive into that and we'll
think about the sort of thetexture of that report itself,
can you talk about themethodological challenges of
studying religious identitythrough polling and some of the.
(04:59):
Opportunities and limitationsfor you to get what you're
after. You're after this factualbase, but that's you know, as as
we know from political pollingin the last decade, right, that
that's not always the easiestthing thing to do. So can you
talk a little bit about thatconfluence?
Jonathan Evans (05:15):
Certainly, I can talk about that. Surveys, we
find are really useful instudying religion, because they
allow people to tell us how theysee themselves. They allow us,
you know, what religiousidentity do they use? What do
they say that they believe? Whatdo they or how do they practice?
What are they doing to bereligious or spiritual or not in
(05:38):
their lives? And I think it'sreally important to to do this,
because it tells us about them.
They are the experts onthemselves, and we're asking for
how they are practicing andbelieving. And it's true that
there are situations, it's notuncommon, where people will tell
us that they have differentbeliefs or practices that might
(05:59):
be considered unorthodox in thefaith tradition that they say is
their identity. But we rely onthis survey data because it
allows people to really tell ushow they are practicing their
faith, and this might bedifferent, yes, from what a set
of scriptures or holy texts say,or what a religious leader says
(06:21):
people should be doing to bepart of this tradition, and
allows us to have pointestimates for what is the
prevalence of this practice orthis belief in a society. And at
the same time, we acknowledgethat surveys, while they are a
great tool, they are just onetool for for quality research
efforts, so they can't tell useverything. It's really great to
(06:44):
pair survey work that we do,it's a lot of what we do at the
Pew Research Center, and it'sgreat to pair that with
qualitative work from otherscholars, other academics, to
gain a more full picture.
Because when you do qualitativework, when you're doing focus
groups, or you're doing in depthinterviews, it allows for a lot
(07:06):
more nuance, perhaps than we canget in a closed ended like here
are your four answer options.
Pick one of the four, but weneed both to understand what's
going on, because we also don'tknow from a qualitative data
collection, how prevalent isthis belief or practice? And so
the two two sides of things canwork really well together. And
the times where I've been ableto do some qualitative work, it
(07:29):
has been very rewarding anduseful as well. But like I said,
in our closed ended or in oursurveys, we frequently are using
closed ended answers, becausethat's how we can tell you, 52%
of Americans say this, or 48Brits say that.
Chip Gruen (07:48):
So on that issue of what, what you can get, and some
of the method questions, I mean,particularly since you're
working across a number ofdifferent countries here. So
actually, could you straightensomething out? In my mind, I've
seen the number 36 and 22. So,so this is a study of 36
countries, but there's data from22. Can you help me with that?
Jonathan Evans (08:10):
Certainly, this was part of a larger effort,
this report, where we did surveyin three dozen countries in 2024
looking at religious beliefs andpractices, religious identity,
and also we did had somequestions about the relationship
between church and state, sortsof things like, how involved
should religion be in public, inpublic affairs at the
(08:32):
governmental level? So that wasthree dozen countries. However,
as we look to analyze in moredetail, the, the nones, the 'N O
N E S', we. We only had enoughsample in 22 countries to start
looking at what they think andfeel, because in other places,
(08:54):
there's far too few respondentsfor us to responsibly report on
their views. So for example,Turkey, only 3% of Turkish
adults said that they arereligiously unaffiliated. And so
when our sample size in acountry is roughly 1000 people,
(09:14):
that would end up being far toofew respondents for us to
responsibly say, okay, then Xpercent of Turkish nones say
this or feel that way or do thispractice that wouldn't be
responsible. So that's where the22 versus the 36 comes from.
Chip Gruen (09:29):
All right. So on a similar note, then, because
you're dealing in these youknow, what you're reporting on
is the 22 countries, which willhave a variety of cultural and
linguistic contexts. I mean, itis, I think, a common place to
talk about how the concept ofreligion, right? It's a Latin
word that has very western styleroots, and as we think about
(09:51):
belonging and organization,those things are culturally
embedded as well. What are thechallenges of thinking about
this across cultural contexts? Imean, how do we think about your
data and the language that youuse when you're in a, you know,
in Northern Europe versus LatinAmerica versus the US? What have
you what are the, you know, thechannel, or the challenges, or
(10:15):
say, the opportunities you see,and in thinking closely about
those sorts of method issues.
Jonathan Evans (10:22):
Yeah, methodological concerns really
do - they are important as weapproach a project like this. It
is a lot of different contextslike you, you highlighted, from
Northern Europe to Sub SaharanAfrica to East Asia, and it, of
course, is the case forreligion. But it's even more
(10:43):
broadly, just any topic thatwe're asking about in that many
cultures and languages can, canlead to some challenges. And so
when we conduct our crossnational studies with with
several dozen countries and lotsof languages, we work with
local, reputable survey firms.
So that's our first step isgetting these local firms and
they collaborate with us. We,they provide their feedback on
(11:04):
questionnaire design and thesurvey administration. We also
consult with linguistic andcultural experts, just to make
sure that the questionnaire willbe as easy as possible to
translate into differentlanguages, because grammar, of
course, what works in English,doesn't work say in French or or
Hausa or Japanese, and soworking to iron out as much of
(11:27):
that as possible, even just inthe core questionnaire, before
it starts getting translated oradministered, and then during
the translation process, wealso, what we do is we work with
that same local firm that willend up doing the survey
administration, they provide usa translation of it, but then we
have a separate, independenttranslation agency that then
(11:49):
goes through the each languageand basically reviews it and
tells us 'Are There issues withthis' and the two sides then
have to reach an agreement. Anypoint where they disagree, they
have to reach consensus. And soit does take a lot of effort to
(12:10):
make sure that we are getting atthe same concepts. While I do
not speak the 60 plus languagesthat these surveys are
administered in, there are timeswhere the translators, or the
people who are verifying theirwork will come back to us and
say, Well, what is theunderlying concept that you're
trying to get? There are threewords we could use in our
language. And here's sort of thedefinition of the three. Which
(12:32):
of these is more aligned? It'slike at times we will weigh in
when they ask for our guidance.
We also, you know, just providesome notes up front, like this
is what we're going for, butit's, it's very important to be
aware of that. And you touchedon just even the regional
variation. And, yeah, one of thekey findings we do find, I know
(12:53):
we'll get to findings a littlelater, but it's just that being
religiously unaffiliated canlook very different in different
parts of the world. We seemajorities of nones in Latin
America, in the countries yousurveyed there, expressing a
belief in God. But it's verydifferent in Europe, where it's,
you know, tends to be a quarteror less of the nones who say
(13:14):
that they have a belief in God.
So there is a lot of regionalvariation, even after paying
attention to all the nuancesnecessary on the methodological
side.
Chip Gruen (13:23):
So even beyond the concept of religion, I mean
something, as I was readingthrough the report again and
thinking about was the conceptof affiliation, right? Which,
even that might vary religioustradition to religious
tradition. So to say that you'rean affiliate of a Catholic
church, right? That there arevery clear boundary maintenance
markers that are there, whereas,if you're a adherent to, I don't
(13:49):
know, an Evangelical Church,just to stay within
Christianity, right, thosemarkers of membership might be
different, much less, if youthink about a Buddhist
practitioner or a pagan orsomething you know that is
different institutionalstructures. So even even that,
that concept of affiliation,like, what exactly were We were
you going for here? Were yougoing for something that looks
(14:10):
like membership or just a selfunderstanding? Can you tease
that out a little bit, too?
Jonathan Evans (14:18):
Sure, we use a very we have a core question
that is asked all around theworld when we ask this. So we
ask, what is your currentreligion, if any? So that is
there. But then in each country,we do list off some of the most
common options, so that peopleknow what we are getting at and
then, but we leave it up tothem. So it's not asking if they
(14:40):
are a member of a church. It isnot asking. We don't ask first,
are you religious or not, or doyou have a religion? We just
say, What is your currentreligion, if any? And then, you
know, would would list off a fewand pertinent to the study on
the nones in every country atthe end of the list goes:
(15:01):
atheist, agnostic, somethingelse or nothing in particular.
So if, for whatever reason,you're maybe in a super small
group relative to your countrypopulation, you can still give
us your answer, and people, wedo code the write ins that our
interviewers take of people whoare in some of the potentially
smaller groups, and then theother three groups that I just
(15:24):
read off the atheist, agnosticand people who say they have no
particular religion, those arethe three that all around the
world we combine to beconsidered the religiously
unaffiliated or the nones.
Chip Gruen (15:37):
Interesting. I want to take host prerogative and
just share something that I findparticularly interesting when I
teach my Christian traditionsclass and we go and we visit
local communities. If you gosomewhere like the local
Presbyterian Church, forexample, they will say, we have,
you know, 2000 members and 150people who come on any given
(16:01):
Sunday. And then you go down thenext week, and you go to the
evangelical community, andthey'll say, we have, you know,
200 members and 3000 people whocome on any given Sunday, right?
So that the idea about, like,what it means to a belong to a
community is just so totallydifferent. And so, I mean, the
the answer that you give isactually very satisfying that
(16:23):
you don't define, you know what,what constitutes affiliation
for, for anybody in particular,but, but I think it's
interesting to think about howeven something like that can be
slippery, right when you're whenyou're looking across different
types of religious groups,
Jonathan Evans (16:39):
For sure. And I think this is part of why we do
surveys, is to let people selfidentify, self categorize. We,
we don't want to makeassumptions about who they are.
We want them to tell us., 'Thisis how I see myself'. Now,
whether or not other people inthat community would consider
(17:01):
themselves part of thecommunity, or say that those
beliefs are right or wrong, likethat's not what matters for us.
It's how does the individual seethemselves? How do they define
themselves? How do they definetheir life? Because, yeah,
that's what a survey can tell us
Chip Gruen (17:17):
Alright, so the moment we've all been waiting
for, let's turn to the substanceof the report itself. So one of
the most striking findings isthat many of these nones
actually hold religious orspiritual beliefs, or at least
they believe things that wewould normally categorize as
religious or spiritual,including things like belief in
(17:38):
God and afterlife or the spiritson one level. I mean, as a
professor of religion, thisdoesn't surprise me at all,
right, but on, I think onanother sort of a public
discourse level, I think thatthis would seem counterintuitive
or surprising, right? If you sayyou don't have religious
affiliation, why do you havethese religious beliefs? So what
(17:58):
do you think explains thatapparent contradiction.
Jonathan Evans (18:03):
I'm so glad you brought this up and you
highlighted about being ascholar and academic looking at
religion, because there are, ofcourse, some scholars who have
argued that inconsistency orincongruence is actually what
should be expected; it is notthe exception, it is the norm,
by some scholars' understandingthat when we start looking
(18:24):
deeply into how people belongand believe and behave, and this
also highlights just howcomplicated all of us are as as
people, that we as humans do attimes, hold beliefs or attitudes
that maybe to others might seeminconsistent, but to ourselves,
that's, That is who we are, thatis what we believe. And I think
(18:49):
you're, you highlighted this.
You mentioned belief in God. Ithink this is an interesting
example of this that, of course,people probably would expect
that atheists are among theleast likely to self identified
atheist when asked about theirreligion, are among the least
likely to say that they believein God. We find that even within
(19:09):
the religiously unaffiliated,that atheists are less likely
than people who are in thenothing in particular religious
identity, but they are lesslikely than them, even within
the unaffiliated community, tosay they believe in God. But
that doesn't mean that allpeople who say 'I am an atheist'
when asked about their religionsay that they don't believe in
(19:32):
God. So for example, in Germany,14% of people who self identify
as an atheist when asked abouttheir religion, 14% say that
they on a separate questionbelieve in God when given the
yes, no option of that. And thisisn't just limited to people who
are in the broader nones bucketthat it is. This is not just
(19:55):
limited there. It also appliesto people. People who are, for
example, Christians. So if welook at the report we published
earlier this year that waslooking at not just the nones,
but also Christians and Muslimsand others all around the world,
perhaps an outsider might think,or someone not too involved in
(20:16):
the literature might expect,that it's universal, or near
universal belief in God amongChristians that okay, well, to
be Christian, you must believein God, and that's not always
the case there. That's not thecase in all countries. So in the
countries where we surveyed,where we had enough Christians
(20:37):
to do the analysis, in nocountry was it a minority belief
that there is God. But inSweden, 58% of Christians said
that they believe in God, whichis, you know, a far cry from
universal belief in God. Or wealso had a few country other
countries in Europe where it wasabout three quarters, France,
Germany and Hungary, about threequarters of Christians in those
(20:59):
countries saying they believe inGod. So still, of course, a
majority, but potentially tosomeone on the outside, maybe
that would seem as some degreeof incongruence or whatnot. And
so it isn't just theunaffiliated who potentially
appear this way to to anoutsider. And so I think that's
a really interesting finding ofthis, this study.
Chip Gruen (21:24):
So another distinction that you sometimes
see here is is between those whosay none, that is, they have no
religious affiliation, andsometimes referred to
colloquially as the dones.
They're people who might havegrown up with a religious
affiliation, or have saidthey're finished with religion,
or they're disenchanted withreligion, and so they're just
(21:45):
not any part of it. So we mightsay that they were actively
religious, but left out ofdissatisfaction. Does your
research allow you to make thatkind of distinction about sort
of someone's religiosity overtime, rather than just a
snapshot of the survey dataitself?
Jonathan Evans (22:06):
Our research design and survey samples do
allow us in about a dozen of thecountries where we did our work
to see if there are differencesbetween lifelong nones and those
who have disaffiliated withintheir lifetime. So in addition
to asking about people's currentreligion, what is your current
religion, if any, and giving theexamples, we also ask people
(22:27):
what religion they were raisedin. So while we do not have
every point in time and can'ttrack if they've been in and out
or something, we can tell Okay,is the general trajectory,
perhaps from from lifelongunaffiliated or switching to
that category, and we candetermine, then if someone was
raised Christian, Muslim, whathave you. And then, then is out.
(22:50):
We did look at the two groups asyou call them, the nones and the
dones, and to see if there werebig differences. And we did not
find an overarching, majorstory, that, that people who
have disaffiliated in theirlifetime or are much less likely
to believe these things, orsomething like that. We did not
(23:10):
find that we had lots ofinstances where the two groups
were very similar in most of thecountries where we could do this
comparison.
Chip Gruen (23:19):
Yeah, I always think about again, from my own, you
know, work and interactions withreligious communities. I
remember a priest basicallysaying something like, you know,
if we have someone within aCatholic educational setting,
you know, until they're eight or10 years old, it doesn't matter
what they say. They're aCatholic all their lives. You
know, like the idea that there'skind of a, you know, an
(23:41):
imprinting of worldview thathappens, happens really early.
So it's interesting to see thatthat that doesn't really bear
out that much in in your data.
So the next place I want to goin the report shows pretty
dramatic regional variation. Solarge majorities of nones in
Latin American countries believein God, for example, while very
(24:02):
few of those self describednones in Northern Europe do
given the historically strongrole of Catholicism, for
example, in Latin America,perhaps this isn't surprising,
but what does it tell us aboutthe nature of religious
disaffiliation in thesedifferent contexts? Does leaving
organized religion meansomething fundamentally
(24:24):
different in these places, orthe nones in Latin America on a
similar trajectory, or whatwe've already seen happen in
Europe, right? So is there anargument to be made here that if
we had thought about a surveylike this in Europe 50 years ago
or 75 years ago, right? It wouldlook very much like what the
Latin American data looks likenow, given the historical
differences? Does that makesense where I'm trying to go
(24:47):
here?
Jonathan Evans (24:48):
Yeah. There, there really is some dramatic
regional variation in in thesurvey, I think a great question
that we can use to highlight thevariation is just the sort of
standard survey question wherewe ask people, How important is
religion in your life? So inabout half of the analyzed
(25:09):
countries here, we find that 60%or more of the unaffiliated give
the least religious answer. Sothey're saying that religion is
not at all important. So that'smajorities, solid majorities, in
about half the countries, but ina few countries, about half or
more of nones say that religionis either somewhat or even very
(25:31):
important in their lives. Thisis the case in Brazil, Colombia,
Peru and also South Africa. Andthis could possibly reflect the
prevalence in these countries oftraditional African or Afro
Caribbean or indigenous andIndian religious beliefs and
practices, even among people whodon't themselves necessarily
identify with their religion,there are scholars who study in
(25:55):
detail how and why people areleaving and changing. So I am
not one of those scholars whoknows a ton for my own data
about that, but I am excited tosee how much or how this
regional variation continues orchanges in the future. We hope
to be able to ask some of thesequestions again in future years
(26:16):
to see are religiouslyunaffiliated becoming more or
less religious by thesemeasures, are they more, more
likely to be attending religiousservices, or what have you? So
I'm curious to see what thefuture holds.
Chip Gruen (26:30):
So let me ask that question then that you point to
about sort of a longitudinalstudy, then. Is, so is this the
first time that this design hasbeen done in this way by Pew, if
not, when was it donepreviously? If so, do you it
sounds like you plan on doing avery similar instrument into the
future? What would the intervalof that look like? How long
(26:53):
would it take to bear thatfruit?
Jonathan Evans (26:56):
So the team I'm on has previously done more
focused deeper dives on specificregions of the world. So
previously, the team has donework specific to Latin America
and the Caribbean and surveyedclose to 20 countries in the
region, and did was able to dovery deep dives on topics that
were very specific to Catholic,Protestant switching and all of
(27:20):
the dynamics there, versus wedid a project in Central and
Eastern Europe where, again, we,we did more than a dozen
countries there, but it waslooking in part at like the fall
of, you know, post Berlin Wallfalling, and the collapse of
communism in the region, and howthat played into religion and
national identity and all ofthat. So we, we've sort of done
(27:40):
that sort of that kind of workall around the world in
different regions, and this,then as far as the religion
focuses, the first time, we'vedone three dozen countries all
at the same time. And designedthe questionnaire not to be
specific to a region or aspecific religious tradition,
but we designed the questions,really, to work in as many
(28:03):
cultures, as many religious,traditional backgrounds as
possible, not using in language,but just getting at what are we
underlying, trying to measurehere. So this is the first time
we've done that. I havecolleagues where they do surveys
in dozens of countries everyyear. We work together on this
work, but a lot of their topicstend to be more on political and
(28:27):
looking at global dynamics. Sothis, yes, this is sort of a
continuation of earlier work,but with a new a new angle. Yes,
we are hoping to continue itforward into the future. But
it's not the sort of thing wherewe would ask these exact
questions and a year or two,because a lot of times,
(28:48):
religious change takes a while,so it will be a few years before
we ask these exact questions,though, we we plan to ask other
questions related to religionand public life in a broad
spectrum of countries and theinterval.
Chip Gruen (29:02):
Yeah. I mean, it seems to me like, I mean, this
is a very 21st Century framingof this conversation. That seems
like, I mean, I can't imaginethis conversation happening in
this way when, when I was a kid,you know, 30 years ago, or
whatever. So, I mean, that's notsurprising. And I sort of
wonder, you know, I wonder howrelevant this particular framing
(29:27):
this conversation will seem in adecade, or 20 years or 30 years,
because it might be, you know,this might be the opening volley
of a new way of thinking aboutreligious identity, and it might
be a flash in the pan. I mean,it's very, it's very hard to
know at this point, I think
Jonathan Evans (29:41):
I'm really excited to see as we take the
time, it will be a long time,but yet to see how it how these
beliefs and practices do changeand evolve. Are are things
stable, that that is apossibility? Are they declining?
Are they increasing and, and notjust within the religiously
unaffiliated, but the broadersocieties at large, in these
(30:02):
three dozen countries wherewe're able, where we were able
to survey, it'll be veryinteresting as we were able to
to track the potential forchange.
Chip Gruen (30:11):
So thinking about that change, I mean, one thing
that I think is is undeniable,and it bears out in a million
different data sets, is thatthat number of unaffiliated
adults has climbed rapidly inrecent years. I mean, just as a,
to satisfy my own curiosity, forexample, I look at data at
Muhlenberg College, where theinstitute is located, and the
(30:32):
number of, you know,unaffiliated, what the
classifications that you used? Iuse something very similar. When
I first got to the college 20years ago was 5,6,7, percent.
Now it's something like 40,right? So that's obviously a
particular kind of demographicof who attends a residential
liberal arts college in thenortheast, but, but I think it's
clear to see this kind of thingis growing, you know, not only
(30:55):
in the US, but, but around theworld. However, it's not
uniform, right? And we can't saythat religious, every religious
institution is being affectedsimilarly around this issue of
disaffiliation, or peoplechoosing not to affiliate at
all. Can we see, and maybe thisisn't part of this study, but
(31:17):
maybe the previous study thatyou that you did, can we see
places where there are religiouscommunities or traditions that
are bucking the trend? Can wesee particular kinds of
religious institutions, orworldviews, in a more in a less
institutional way, that arebecoming, you know, more
(31:38):
prevalent and are, maybe, youknow, getting a larger share or
religious people, as opposed toother groups that might be be
suffering more because of thesetrends.
Jonathan Evans (31:48):
So I have colleagues who study the
demographic trends of religionaround the world and how, how
all these things intersect. It'snot my area of expertise. So I
can only give a few high levelfindings from what I know
they've done, but their mostrecent study looked at the
change globally between 2010 and2020, so the last decade,
(32:11):
basically, and they found thatover that decade, that Muslims
were the fastest growingreligious group in the world.
Over that decade, and that wasfollowed by the religiously
unaffiliated, so the nones werethe second had the second
highest rate of growth.
Meanwhile, the overall number ofChristians around the world
(32:32):
grew, the overall number, butthe share of the world's
population that is Christiandeclined. So as for what the
future holds, I don't know ifnones of the future will look
more like the ones you werehighlighting in Europe or like
we were talking about in LatinAmerica, but I do think that
it's a really fertile ground forfuture research to test those
(32:56):
theories and see, see if thingsare staying the same. If, as you
highlighted, maybe is LatinAmerica going to end up looking
more like Europe or whatnot?
That's something we can, in thefuture, test with the data. So
I'm excited to see what whathappens.
Chip Gruen (33:15):
So let's focus on the United States specifically
for a couple of questions here,and dig into that, because, you
know, we have a global audiencefor the show, but we're in the
United States, and you know, alot of our listeners are in the
in the US. How do American nonescompare to those in the other
countries you you studied, ifyou could paint with a broad
(33:36):
brush, are there distinctlyAmerican patterns in terms of
what the unaffiliated believe,or how they relate to religion.
Jonathan Evans (33:44):
For many of the religious beliefs, the
practices, the attitudes towardsreligion that we asked about, we
found that nones in the UnitedStates are toward the middle of
the 22 countries that we weresurveying and are able to
analyze this time. So a goodexample could be the shares who
say that animals can havespirits or spiritual energy. So
(34:05):
we asked this question allaround the world. The 22 country
median among the unaffiliatedwas 60% of nones saying that,
yes, animals can have spirits inthe US. 59% of the unaffiliated
say this, and that was roughlytypical of what we were seeing,
similar to the median towardsthe middle of the list of
(34:26):
countries, if you ordered themfrom from highest to lowest. But
there are some items where theUS did stand out. So we asked
all of our survey respondentshow often they pray, and among
nones, the median across the 22countries, was 26% saying that
they ever pray. And in the US,it's 55% of nones who say that
(34:50):
they ever pray. Still, nones insome of the countries we
mentioned earlier, Brazil,Colombia, Peru and South Africa
were more likely than nones inthe US to say they ever pray.
But still, 55% is quite a bitdifferent from the 26% medium we
saw around the 22 countries.
Another item where the US, thereligiously unaffiliated in the
(35:11):
US, stand out, was about theBible and how much influence
they see that the Bible has onthe laws of their country. So
70% of the nones in the US saythat the Bible has a great deal
or a fair amount of influence onthe laws of the United States.
And the next closest countryamong the nones was Greece,
(35:34):
where it was 56% of nones sayingthis. So that was one where the
US did stand out.
Chip Gruen (35:40):
So, I want to get back and particularly, I think
this is both in the US, but wecould think about it more
generally too, that you foundthat many people become nones,
not primarily because they don'tbelieve in God, as you've
highlighted earlier, right? Likethose two things do not
necessarily go together, thebeing religiously affiliated and
(36:02):
not believing in God, and as youjust underscored, even a
majority of those people who areunaffiliated say that they pray
at least sometimes, as you sayever so, it's not necessarily
about the content of belief orpractice or even worldview, but
because they've had negativeexperiences with religious
(36:26):
people or don't like religiousorganizations, the report also
reveals that many nones viewreligion negatively as
encouraging intolerance andsuperstitious thinking. So what?
What do you think these findingstell us about the current state
of religious institutions isthis, you know, a canary in the
coal mine for organizedreligion. Is there something
(36:49):
that organized religion shouldbe learning, maybe, from the
kind of data you collected here?
Jonathan Evans (36:54):
So some of what you highlight is from a 2023
study that we did in the UnitedStates asking nones why they are
non-religious, and we askedabout a variety of reasons that
they might be in that category.
And yeah, 32% said that theydon't believe in God or a higher
power, and that's why they'renon-religious. 30% of nones also
(37:15):
said that they werenon-religious because of bad
experiences with religiouspeople and approaching half of
nones, 47% of nones in theUnited States told us that they
don't like religiousorganizations. This is an
extremely or very importantreason why they're
non-religious. So while thatstudy was specifically within
(37:38):
the US fairly recently, it is ahelpful reminder that, as you
know, non-belief is not alwaysthe main reason people have no
religious affiliation. We findin this cross national project
from from this last year that,as you said, many nones do
express negative views about theinfluence of religion on
society. So in 12 of the 22countries that we study here,
(38:01):
religiously unaffiliated adultsare more likely to say that
religion encourages intolerancethan that it encourages
tolerance. So in Germany, nearlythree quarters of nones hold
this view that religionencourages intolerance, compared
with just about a quarter whosay that it encourages
tolerance. We also find that theviews of nones towards religion
(38:23):
are generally a lot morenegative than the corresponding
views of people who identifywith a religion. So in
Australia, for example, 76% ofnones say that religion
encourages intolerance, but it'sonly 35% among people who have
some sort of religiousaffiliation, be that, Buddhism,
Christianity, what have you. Butagain, as we talk about the
(38:47):
views that religion isintolerant or superstitious or
encouraging superstitiousthinking, there are, again, the
regional differences. So nonesin Europe tend to be especially
likely to voice these negativeviews. So it's 74% of nones in
Greece and 62% in Spain who saythat religion mostly hurts
(39:08):
society, as opposed to mostlyhelps society. But in other
places, there are more positiveviews towards religion from from
the unaffiliated. So in Brazil,Singapore, and South Africa,
majorities of nones take thatopposite view, that religion
mostly helps society. So again,I think it comes down to some
(39:28):
really strong regional variationthat makes it hard to paint too
broad a brush on on therelationship between the
unaffiliated and their viewstowards religion.
Chip Gruen (39:42):
So one of the reasons that this survey really
captures my imagination isbecause it's one of the few
places where, particularly whenyou're thinking about the
unaffiliated, we get acommentary about religion from,
not people who considerthemselves insiders. You know,
(40:04):
like that, as you say, you know,you give them, people the
opportunity to speak forthemselves. And we think about
religious authority residinginside religious institutions,
but we're thinking when we'rethinking about these questions
of tolerance or intolerance,superstitious thought patterns
or the other one, the relevanceor the impact of scriptural
(40:26):
traditions on the law. It'sinteresting to see people who
claim that they areunaffiliated, you know, sort of
holding forth on those sorts ofissues, because we don't really,
that's not really that often,the kind of thing that's
measured, which sort of getsback to one of my my points
about the Institute, and I'msorry I'm going to rattle on
here for a second, but that theconversation about religion,
(40:49):
whether you're religious or not,is an important conversation,
right? Like if, even if you seeyourself as not particularly
religious, that doesn't meanit's not impactful in your
society. So I think it's reallyinteresting to see some of those
data points that are sort ofcapturing people who don't see
themselves as affiliated and howthey think religion is impacting
their world related to that. AndI want to point to an older
(41:11):
survey, and I'm going to springthis one on you, but I'm sure
you're familiar with it, but Iuse it in almost all of my
professional development that Ido with teachers or what have
you, is the Pew finding thatwarmth towards religious
individuals increases whenliteracy for the tradition in
question increases, and I justfind that to be so affirming to
(41:36):
what we do when we teach aboutreligious literacy, that that
warmth towards a tradition inonly a few cases is not the case
or tolerance towards thetradition in the language of
this this instrument increaseswhen people know something about
the religion, rather than itbeing a point of ignorance. So I
don't know. I'm just looking foraffirmations that the religious
(42:00):
literacy product, project isreally worth doing here.
Jonathan Evans (42:04):
That's really interesting to hear. I do know,
yeah, that there has been otherwork as well. I've read some
other scholarly literature thatthat speaks about the
relationship between knowledgeof, or familiarity with people
in a community, and how peopleview it, so it is interesting to
have these, you know, dozens ofcountries, to look at the data.
(42:25):
I also think it's interesting tonote that the the questions we
asked about is religion mostlyhelping society, or mostly
harming, is it is encouragingintolerance? And separately
asking about, does it encouragesuperstitious thinking? It's
interesting that while broadlypatterns are aligned, that those
(42:46):
three items do not measure theexact same thing. So there are
people who potentially view thatreligion does more good than
harm, but they also thinkpotentially that it encourages
superstitious thinking and thatasking about a multitude of
items really helps us displaythe complex beliefs and
(43:08):
attitudes, whether people arereligious or not, that they feel
towards religion, and I thinkthat's important for us to
capture.
Chip Gruen (43:15):
Yeah, the complexity. And we'll put links
to the surveys that we'vementioned here in the show
notes, so people can go and findthem. But it's really worth
combing through, because thecomplexity at first blush might
seem, it might seem likecontradiction, right? But the
more you study this, it's notcontradiction. It's just that
people, people have complicatedways of thinking about these
(43:36):
things, and sometimes it's, youknow, potentially paradoxical or
ironic, right? But, but thatdoesn't mean that it that it is
random, right? So I think thatthat's been really useful is
sort of looking through all ofthese measures to keep in mind.
Jonathan Evans (43:50):
And I think that's why it's great to have
measures, not only of people'sidentity, but also their
beliefs, their practices and toask about a variety even within
those categories, to reallyallow people to give us as much
of the nuance and how they do ordon't live a spiritual or
(44:12):
religious life. And it'simportant to to give people the
chance to to express the detailsof that.
Chip Gruen (44:21):
So the question in these conversations I always
like to end on is, what am I notasking about? Like, what is
there? What is something, and Idon't know, it could be
something that surprised youthrough this study, or, you
know, just something that youknow, not being a data science
scientist myself, not being, youknow, having the same
quantitative, analytical mind Imight have looked past in
(44:42):
thinking about this, that youthink is really important, you
know, what's something that wecan end on here, that that you
think we should talk about, thatI haven't brought up yet.
Jonathan Evans (44:50):
Sure, I think we've talked about several of
the questions that we asked onthe survey, but I think maybe to
close out, just highlight a fewof the most widespread beliefs
among the religiouslyunaffiliated, we found that
sizable shares of of the nonessay that they believe something
spiritual exists beyond thenatural world, as opposed to
(45:11):
saying that the the naturalworld is all there is. About a
dozen countries, half or more ofthe nones hold this view that
there is something spiritualbeyond and it's a variety of
places, it includes, where it'sa majority or half or more
saying this, it's places likeBrazil and the US, but also
Singapore and France. So theseare a variety of cultures,
(45:34):
different backgrounds, thatpotentially the people who are
unaffiliated are exposed to on aregular basis, but sizable
shares do hold that belief. Wealso find that significant
shares also say that animals andparts of nature can have spirits
or spiritual energies. So Ithink it's interesting to think
(45:54):
about what things large sharesof the unaffiliated around the
world, what beliefs fall intothat category? I also we've hit
on it earlier, but just thinkingto the future. I'm excited that
this is a point in time and weare able to measure what's going
on, but I'm hopeful that othersdo similar studies in the
(46:16):
future, and also, as we have ahave a chance later, to
hopefully ask some of thesequestions again in some some of
these places, just to see how,how things are changing for the
religiously unaffiliated, or arethey? Are they staying constant?
And so that'll be an interestingthing for the future that I hope
we can or others can study.
Chip Gruen (46:35):
Yeah, it's interesting to think, just on
that note, like one mightimagine that when we're thinking
about these unaffiliated like,like, words like humanists or
materialists, or things likethat that are sort of been a, I
mean, particularly a product ofthe late 20th century, would
would really dominate the surveydata. But that doesn't seem
represented hardly at all here,you know, or at least it doesn't
(46:58):
show up in the questions you'reasking.
Jonathan Evans (47:00):
Well, we what we found is the most common
identity in a lot of theseplaces for the among the
unaffiliated is that category ofnothing in particular more
common than atheist or agnostic.
It's not to say it's the case inall of the countries, but it is
the overarching trend that a lotof these folks fall into just
(47:20):
the broad no religion inparticular, that's where they
feel most at home as far asreligious identity,
Chip Gruen (47:28):
Alright. Well, I think that is a great place for
us to leave this conversation.
As I said, we're gonna put linksin the show notes so people go
and read this stuff foryourself. It's super fascinating
to see. Jonathan Evans, thankyou so much for your time. I
really appreciate you coming onReligionWise.
Jonathan Evans (47:44):
Thank you so much for having me. It's been a
great conversation.
Chip Gruen (47:49):
This has been ReligionWise, a podcast produced
by the Institute for Religiousand Cultural Understanding of
Muhlenberg College. ReligionWiseis produced and directed by
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programming, or to make aninquiry about a speaking
engagement, please visit ourwebsite at
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(48:10):
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subscribe to ReligionWisewherever you get your podcasts,
we look forward to seeing younext time.
Welcome to ReligionWise. I'm your host,
Chip Gruen. I'm super excitedabout today's episode. It
features Jonathan Evans, who isa senior researcher at the Pew
Research Center, about theirrecent report entitled 'Many
Religious Nones Around the WorldHold Spiritual Beliefs', that
was released in just Septemberof this year, in 2025 so if
(00:26):
you're a longtime listener toreligion wise, you know this is
a question that we've addressedon a few occasions. And I think,
as I refer to in thisconversation, that this is a
very 21st Century question aboutreligious affiliation, about
people with a lack of religiousaffiliation, and I wanted to
have Jonathan on the show totalk about that and to talk
about what it means, becausewhat it doesn't mean, as you'll
(00:51):
hear him describe, is that thereis a total lack of religious
belief and practice for peoplewho don't see themselves as
religious affiliated. And so wedig into that a little bit, we
dig into the questions thatsurround that and about what
that means. I think as we writethe story of the late 20th and
early 21st Century narrative ofreligious identity and what's
(01:15):
going on religiously in the USand around the world, it's not
as if people who lackinstitutional religious
affiliation don't ask the bigquestions. You know, where did
we come from? What does it meanto be human? What is the good
life? Etc. Like those are a partof being human, to ask those
questions. As it turns out, thecorrelation between how we
(01:40):
answer those questions, andeither religious institutions or
religious affiliation largerthan that don't always neatly
match up, and so I reallyappreciate Jonathan's
perspective here on thecomplexity of how we as humans
navigate our world, and how thatbears out in the quantitative
data that pew collected in thisstudy that happens in a number
(02:04):
of different contexts around theworld. So with all that being
said, I hope you enjoy myconversation with Jonathan
Evans. As always, if you haveideas for a show or a topic
you'd like to hear more about orquestions, please reach out to
us. And also, if you think whatwe're doing is useful for the
public conversation on religionand is helpful in the public
(02:26):
discourse on religion on yourfavorite podcast app, please go
and give us a review and arating so that we can be even
more broadly consumed.
Jonathan Evans, thanks forcoming on ReligionWise.
Jonathan Evans (02:40):
Thank you so much for having me.
Chip Gruen (02:42):
So before we get started in thinking about the
report itself, I was hopefulthat you could just give us a
little bit of an introductionabout who you are, what your
role is at Pew Research, andjust a little bit about Pew
Research in general, for thosewho aren't familiar with it.
Jonathan Evans (02:59):
Certainly, Pew Research Center is an
organization where we collectdata from surveys and
demographic data, all sorts ofdata sources to then provide
analysis for the public. Ourgoal is to make our data and our
analysis available as a publicgood, because we believe that a
(03:20):
foundation of facts is usefulfor society. So I work on a team
that specializes in looking atreligion, specifically religion
around the world is what Istudy. But there are folks at
the center who also study raceand ethnicity, politics, the
intersection of science with ourdaily lives and how people are
(03:42):
interacting with newtechnologies. And so there's a
lot of different research beatsthat are here at the center, and
I've been at the center a littleover nine years, all of that
looking at religion in differentcontexts. I've been parts of
studies where we look atreligion and public life in
Central and Eastern Europe, forexample. Or we did a big survey
(04:04):
of religion in India. And thenthe project we're talking about
today is about 36 countrieswhere we surveyed in 2024 all
around the world. And yeah,excited to talk about it today.
Chip Gruen (04:18):
All right, so let's get right into that report then.
So this recent report that youmentioned considers or examines
religiously unaffiliated adults,or what we will refer to here as
nones. I always, since none is areligious term, I always like to
hesitate over that, because it'snot 'n u n', the people in the
(04:39):
black and white habits, but 'N ON E S', people who say that they
have no affiliation. But beforewe dive into that and we'll
think about the sort of thetexture of that report itself,
can you talk about themethodological challenges of
studying religious identitythrough polling and some of the.
(04:59):
Opportunities and limitationsfor you to get what you're
after. You're after this factualbase, but that's you know, as as
we know from political pollingin the last decade, right, that
that's not always the easiestthing thing to do. So can you
talk a little bit about thatconfluence?
Jonathan Evans (05:15):
Certainly, I can talk about that. Surveys, we
find are really useful instudying religion, because they
allow people to tell us how theysee themselves. They allow us,
you know, what religiousidentity do they use? What do
they say that they believe? Whatdo they or how do they practice?
What are they doing to bereligious or spiritual or not in
(05:38):
their lives? And I think it'sreally important to to do this,
because it tells us about them.
They are the experts onthemselves, and we're asking for
how they are practicing andbelieving. And it's true that
there are situations, it's notuncommon, where people will tell
us that they have differentbeliefs or practices that might
(05:59):
be considered unorthodox in thefaith tradition that they say is
their identity. But we rely onthis survey data because it
allows people to really tell ushow they are practicing their
faith, and this might bedifferent, yes, from what a set
of scriptures or holy texts say,or what a religious leader says
(06:21):
people should be doing to bepart of this tradition, and
allows us to have pointestimates for what is the
prevalence of this practice orthis belief in a society. And at
the same time, we acknowledgethat surveys, while they are a
great tool, they are just onetool for for quality research
efforts, so they can't tell useverything. It's really great to
(06:44):
pair survey work that we do,it's a lot of what we do at the
Pew Research Center, and it'sgreat to pair that with
qualitative work from otherscholars, other academics, to
gain a more full picture.
Because when you do qualitativework, when you're doing focus
groups, or you're doing in depthinterviews, it allows for a lot
(07:06):
more nuance, perhaps than we canget in a closed ended like here
are your four answer options.
Pick one of the four, but weneed both to understand what's
going on, because we also don'tknow from a qualitative data
collection, how prevalent isthis belief or practice? And so
the two two sides of things canwork really well together. And
the times where I've been ableto do some qualitative work, it
(07:29):
has been very rewarding anduseful as well. But like I said,
in our closed ended or in oursurveys, we frequently are using
closed ended answers, becausethat's how we can tell you, 52%
of Americans say this, or 48Brits say that.
Chip Gruen (07:48):
So on that issue of what, what you can get, and some
of the method questions, I mean,particularly since you're
working across a number ofdifferent countries here. So
actually, could you straightensomething out? In my mind, I've
seen the number 36 and 22. So,so this is a study of 36
countries, but there's data from22. Can you help me with that?
Jonathan Evans (08:10):
Certainly, this was part of a larger effort,
this report, where we did surveyin three dozen countries in 2024
looking at religious beliefs andpractices, religious identity,
and also we did had somequestions about the relationship
between church and state, sortsof things like, how involved
should religion be in public, inpublic affairs at the
(08:32):
governmental level? So that wasthree dozen countries. However,
as we look to analyze in moredetail, the, the nones, the 'N O
N E S', we. We only had enoughsample in 22 countries to start
looking at what they think andfeel, because in other places,
(08:54):
there's far too few respondentsfor us to responsibly report on
their views. So for example,Turkey, only 3% of Turkish
adults said that they arereligiously unaffiliated. And so
when our sample size in acountry is roughly 1000 people,
(09:14):
that would end up being far toofew respondents for us to
responsibly say, okay, then Xpercent of Turkish nones say
this or feel that way or do thispractice that wouldn't be
responsible. So that's where the22 versus the 36 comes from.
Chip Gruen (09:29):
All right. So on a similar note, then, because
you're dealing in these youknow, what you're reporting on
is the 22 countries, which willhave a variety of cultural and
linguistic contexts. I mean, itis, I think, a common place to
talk about how the concept ofreligion, right? It's a Latin
word that has very western styleroots, and as we think about
(09:51):
belonging and organization,those things are culturally
embedded as well. What are thechallenges of thinking about
this across cultural contexts? Imean, how do we think about your
data and the language that youuse when you're in a, you know,
in Northern Europe versus LatinAmerica versus the US? What have
you what are the, you know, thechannel, or the challenges, or
(10:15):
say, the opportunities you see,and in thinking closely about
those sorts of method issues.
Jonathan Evans (10:22):
Yeah, methodological concerns really
do - they are important as weapproach a project like this. It
is a lot of different contextslike you, you highlighted, from
Northern Europe to Sub SaharanAfrica to East Asia, and it, of
course, is the case forreligion. But it's even more
(10:43):
broadly, just any topic thatwe're asking about in that many
cultures and languages can, canlead to some challenges. And so
when we conduct our crossnational studies with with
several dozen countries and lotsof languages, we work with
local, reputable survey firms.
So that's our first step isgetting these local firms and
they collaborate with us. We,they provide their feedback on
(11:04):
questionnaire design and thesurvey administration. We also
consult with linguistic andcultural experts, just to make
sure that the questionnaire willbe as easy as possible to
translate into differentlanguages, because grammar, of
course, what works in English,doesn't work say in French or or
Hausa or Japanese, and soworking to iron out as much of
(11:27):
that as possible, even just inthe core questionnaire, before
it starts getting translated oradministered, and then during
the translation process, wealso, what we do is we work with
that same local firm that willend up doing the survey
administration, they provide usa translation of it, but then we
have a separate, independenttranslation agency that then
(11:49):
goes through the each languageand basically reviews it and
tells us 'Are There issues withthis' and the two sides then
have to reach an agreement. Anypoint where they disagree, they
have to reach consensus. And soit does take a lot of effort to
(12:10):
make sure that we are getting atthe same concepts. While I do
not speak the 60 plus languagesthat these surveys are
administered in, there are timeswhere the translators, or the
people who are verifying theirwork will come back to us and
say, Well, what is theunderlying concept that you're
trying to get? There are threewords we could use in our
language. And here's sort of thedefinition of the three. Which
(12:32):
of these is more aligned? It'slike at times we will weigh in
when they ask for our guidance.
We also, you know, just providesome notes up front, like this
is what we're going for, butit's, it's very important to be
aware of that. And you touchedon just even the regional
variation. And, yeah, one of thekey findings we do find, I know
(12:53):
we'll get to findings a littlelater, but it's just that being
religiously unaffiliated canlook very different in different
parts of the world. We seemajorities of nones in Latin
America, in the countries yousurveyed there, expressing a
belief in God. But it's verydifferent in Europe, where it's,
you know, tends to be a quarteror less of the nones who say
(13:14):
that they have a belief in God.
So there is a lot of regionalvariation, even after paying
attention to all the nuancesnecessary on the methodological
side.
Chip Gruen (13:23):
So even beyond the concept of religion, I mean
something, as I was readingthrough the report again and
thinking about was the conceptof affiliation, right? Which,
even that might vary religioustradition to religious
tradition. So to say that you'rean affiliate of a Catholic
church, right? That there arevery clear boundary maintenance
markers that are there, whereas,if you're a adherent to, I don't
(13:49):
know, an Evangelical Church,just to stay within
Christianity, right, thosemarkers of membership might be
different, much less, if youthink about a Buddhist
practitioner or a pagan orsomething you know that is
different institutionalstructures. So even even that,
that concept of affiliation,like, what exactly were We were
you going for here? Were yougoing for something that looks
(14:10):
like membership or just a selfunderstanding? Can you tease
that out a little bit, too?
Jonathan Evans (14:18):
Sure, we use a very we have a core question
that is asked all around theworld when we ask this. So we
ask, what is your currentreligion, if any? So that is
there. But then in each country,we do list off some of the most
common options, so that peopleknow what we are getting at and
then, but we leave it up tothem. So it's not asking if they
(14:40):
are a member of a church. It isnot asking. We don't ask first,
are you religious or not, or doyou have a religion? We just
say, What is your currentreligion, if any? And then, you
know, would would list off a fewand pertinent to the study on
the nones in every country atthe end of the list goes:
(15:01):
atheist, agnostic, somethingelse or nothing in particular.
So if, for whatever reason,you're maybe in a super small
group relative to your countrypopulation, you can still give
us your answer, and people, wedo code the write ins that our
interviewers take of people whoare in some of the potentially
smaller groups, and then theother three groups that I just
(15:24):
read off the atheist, agnosticand people who say they have no
particular religion, those arethe three that all around the
world we combine to beconsidered the religiously
unaffiliated or the nones.
Chip Gruen (15:37):
Interesting. I want to take host prerogative and
just share something that I findparticularly interesting when I
teach my Christian traditionsclass and we go and we visit
local communities. If you gosomewhere like the local
Presbyterian Church, forexample, they will say, we have,
you know, 2000 members and 150people who come on any given
(16:01):
Sunday. And then you go down thenext week, and you go to the
evangelical community, andthey'll say, we have, you know,
200 members and 3000 people whocome on any given Sunday, right?
So that the idea about, like,what it means to a belong to a
community is just so totallydifferent. And so, I mean, the
the answer that you give isactually very satisfying that
(16:23):
you don't define, you know what,what constitutes affiliation
for, for anybody in particular,but, but I think it's
interesting to think about howeven something like that can be
slippery, right when you're whenyou're looking across different
types of religious groups,
Jonathan Evans (16:39):
For sure. And I think this is part of why we do
surveys, is to let people selfidentify, self categorize. We,
we don't want to makeassumptions about who they are.
We want them to tell us., 'Thisis how I see myself'. Now,
whether or not other people inthat community would consider
(17:01):
themselves part of thecommunity, or say that those
beliefs are right or wrong, likethat's not what matters for us.
It's how does the individual seethemselves? How do they define
themselves? How do they definetheir life? Because, yeah,
that's what a survey can tell us
Chip Gruen (17:17):
Alright, so the moment we've all been waiting
for, let's turn to the substanceof the report itself. So one of
the most striking findings isthat many of these nones
actually hold religious orspiritual beliefs, or at least
they believe things that wewould normally categorize as
religious or spiritual,including things like belief in
(17:38):
God and afterlife or the spiritson one level. I mean, as a
professor of religion, thisdoesn't surprise me at all,
right, but on, I think onanother sort of a public
discourse level, I think thatthis would seem counterintuitive
or surprising, right? If you sayyou don't have religious
affiliation, why do you havethese religious beliefs? So what
(17:58):
do you think explains thatapparent contradiction.
Jonathan Evans (18:03):
I'm so glad you brought this up and you
highlighted about being ascholar and academic looking at
religion, because there are, ofcourse, some scholars who have
argued that inconsistency orincongruence is actually what
should be expected; it is notthe exception, it is the norm,
by some scholars' understandingthat when we start looking
(18:24):
deeply into how people belongand believe and behave, and this
also highlights just howcomplicated all of us are as as
people, that we as humans do attimes, hold beliefs or attitudes
that maybe to others might seeminconsistent, but to ourselves,
that's, That is who we are, thatis what we believe. And I think
(18:49):
you're, you highlighted this.
You mentioned belief in God. Ithink this is an interesting
example of this that, of course,people probably would expect
that atheists are among theleast likely to self identified
atheist when asked about theirreligion, are among the least
likely to say that they believein God. We find that even within
(19:09):
the religiously unaffiliated,that atheists are less likely
than people who are in thenothing in particular religious
identity, but they are lesslikely than them, even within
the unaffiliated community, tosay they believe in God. But
that doesn't mean that allpeople who say 'I am an atheist'
when asked about their religionsay that they don't believe in
(19:32):
God. So for example, in Germany,14% of people who self identify
as an atheist when asked abouttheir religion, 14% say that
they on a separate questionbelieve in God when given the
yes, no option of that. And thisisn't just limited to people who
are in the broader nones bucketthat it is. This is not just
(19:55):
limited there. It also appliesto people. People who are, for
example, Christians. So if welook at the report we published
earlier this year that waslooking at not just the nones,
but also Christians and Muslimsand others all around the world,
perhaps an outsider might think,or someone not too involved in
(20:16):
the literature might expect,that it's universal, or near
universal belief in God amongChristians that okay, well, to
be Christian, you must believein God, and that's not always
the case there. That's not thecase in all countries. So in the
countries where we surveyed,where we had enough Christians
(20:37):
to do the analysis, in nocountry was it a minority belief
that there is God. But inSweden, 58% of Christians said
that they believe in God, whichis, you know, a far cry from
universal belief in God. Or wealso had a few country other
countries in Europe where it wasabout three quarters, France,
Germany and Hungary, about threequarters of Christians in those
(20:59):
countries saying they believe inGod. So still, of course, a
majority, but potentially tosomeone on the outside, maybe
that would seem as some degreeof incongruence or whatnot. And
so it isn't just theunaffiliated who potentially
appear this way to to anoutsider. And so I think that's
a really interesting finding ofthis, this study.
Chip Gruen (21:24):
So another distinction that you sometimes
see here is is between those whosay none, that is, they have no
religious affiliation, andsometimes referred to
colloquially as the dones.
They're people who might havegrown up with a religious
affiliation, or have saidthey're finished with religion,
or they're disenchanted withreligion, and so they're just
(21:45):
not any part of it. So we mightsay that they were actively
religious, but left out ofdissatisfaction. Does your
research allow you to make thatkind of distinction about sort
of someone's religiosity overtime, rather than just a
snapshot of the survey dataitself?
Jonathan Evans (22:06):
Our research design and survey samples do
allow us in about a dozen of thecountries where we did our work
to see if there are differencesbetween lifelong nones and those
who have disaffiliated withintheir lifetime. So in addition
to asking about people's currentreligion, what is your current
religion, if any, and giving theexamples, we also ask people
(22:27):
what religion they were raisedin. So while we do not have
every point in time and can'ttrack if they've been in and out
or something, we can tell Okay,is the general trajectory,
perhaps from from lifelongunaffiliated or switching to
that category, and we candetermine, then if someone was
raised Christian, Muslim, whathave you. And then, then is out.
(22:50):
We did look at the two groups asyou call them, the nones and the
dones, and to see if there werebig differences. And we did not
find an overarching, majorstory, that, that people who
have disaffiliated in theirlifetime or are much less likely
to believe these things, orsomething like that. We did not
(23:10):
find that we had lots ofinstances where the two groups
were very similar in most of thecountries where we could do this
comparison.
Chip Gruen (23:19):
Yeah, I always think about again, from my own, you
know, work and interactions withreligious communities. I
remember a priest basicallysaying something like, you know,
if we have someone within aCatholic educational setting,
you know, until they're eight or10 years old, it doesn't matter
what they say. They're aCatholic all their lives. You
know, like the idea that there'skind of a, you know, an
(23:41):
imprinting of worldview thathappens, happens really early.
So it's interesting to see thatthat that doesn't really bear
out that much in in your data.
So the next place I want to goin the report shows pretty
dramatic regional variation. Solarge majorities of nones in
Latin American countries believein God, for example, while very
(24:02):
few of those self describednones in Northern Europe do
given the historically strongrole of Catholicism, for
example, in Latin America,perhaps this isn't surprising,
but what does it tell us aboutthe nature of religious
disaffiliation in thesedifferent contexts? Does leaving
organized religion meansomething fundamentally
(24:24):
different in these places, orthe nones in Latin America on a
similar trajectory, or whatwe've already seen happen in
Europe, right? So is there anargument to be made here that if
we had thought about a surveylike this in Europe 50 years ago
or 75 years ago, right? It wouldlook very much like what the
Latin American data looks likenow, given the historical
differences? Does that makesense where I'm trying to go
(24:47):
here?
Jonathan Evans (24:48):
Yeah. There, there really is some dramatic
regional variation in in thesurvey, I think a great question
that we can use to highlight thevariation is just the sort of
standard survey question wherewe ask people, How important is
religion in your life? So inabout half of the analyzed
(25:09):
countries here, we find that 60%or more of the unaffiliated give
the least religious answer. Sothey're saying that religion is
not at all important. So that'smajorities, solid majorities, in
about half the countries, but ina few countries, about half or
more of nones say that religionis either somewhat or even very
(25:31):
important in their lives. Thisis the case in Brazil, Colombia,
Peru and also South Africa. Andthis could possibly reflect the
prevalence in these countries oftraditional African or Afro
Caribbean or indigenous andIndian religious beliefs and
practices, even among people whodon't themselves necessarily
identify with their religion,there are scholars who study in
(25:55):
detail how and why people areleaving and changing. So I am
not one of those scholars whoknows a ton for my own data
about that, but I am excited tosee how much or how this
regional variation continues orchanges in the future. We hope
to be able to ask some of thesequestions again in future years
(26:16):
to see are religiouslyunaffiliated becoming more or
less religious by thesemeasures, are they more, more
likely to be attending religiousservices, or what have you? So
I'm curious to see what thefuture holds.
Chip Gruen (26:30):
So let me ask that question then that you point to
about sort of a longitudinalstudy, then. Is, so is this the
first time that this design hasbeen done in this way by Pew, if
not, when was it donepreviously? If so, do you it
sounds like you plan on doing avery similar instrument into the
future? What would the intervalof that look like? How long
(26:53):
would it take to bear thatfruit?
Jonathan Evans (26:56):
So the team I'm on has previously done more
focused deeper dives on specificregions of the world. So
previously, the team has donework specific to Latin America
and the Caribbean and surveyedclose to 20 countries in the
region, and did was able to dovery deep dives on topics that
were very specific to Catholic,Protestant switching and all of
(27:20):
the dynamics there, versus wedid a project in Central and
Eastern Europe where, again, we,we did more than a dozen
countries there, but it waslooking in part at like the fall
of, you know, post Berlin Wallfalling, and the collapse of
communism in the region, and howthat played into religion and
national identity and all ofthat. So we, we've sort of done
(27:40):
that sort of that kind of workall around the world in
different regions, and this,then as far as the religion
focuses, the first time, we'vedone three dozen countries all
at the same time. And designedthe questionnaire not to be
specific to a region or aspecific religious tradition,
but we designed the questions,really, to work in as many
(28:03):
cultures, as many religious,traditional backgrounds as
possible, not using in language,but just getting at what are we
underlying, trying to measurehere. So this is the first time
we've done that. I havecolleagues where they do surveys
in dozens of countries everyyear. We work together on this
work, but a lot of their topicstend to be more on political and
(28:27):
looking at global dynamics. Sothis, yes, this is sort of a
continuation of earlier work,but with a new a new angle. Yes,
we are hoping to continue itforward into the future. But
it's not the sort of thing wherewe would ask these exact
questions and a year or two,because a lot of times,
(28:48):
religious change takes a while,so it will be a few years before
we ask these exact questions,though, we we plan to ask other
questions related to religionand public life in a broad
spectrum of countries and theinterval.
Chip Gruen (29:02):
Yeah. I mean, it seems to me like, I mean, this
is a very 21st Century framingof this conversation. That seems
like, I mean, I can't imaginethis conversation happening in
this way when, when I was a kid,you know, 30 years ago, or
whatever. So, I mean, that's notsurprising. And I sort of
wonder, you know, I wonder howrelevant this particular framing
(29:27):
this conversation will seem in adecade, or 20 years or 30 years,
because it might be, you know,this might be the opening volley
of a new way of thinking aboutreligious identity, and it might
be a flash in the pan. I mean,it's very, it's very hard to
know at this point, I think
Jonathan Evans (29:41):
I'm really excited to see as we take the
time, it will be a long time,but yet to see how it how these
beliefs and practices do changeand evolve. Are are things
stable, that that is apossibility? Are they declining?
Are they increasing and, and notjust within the religiously
unaffiliated, but the broadersocieties at large, in these
(30:02):
three dozen countries wherewe're able, where we were able
to survey, it'll be veryinteresting as we were able to
to track the potential forchange.
Chip Gruen (30:11):
So thinking about that change, I mean, one thing
that I think is is undeniable,and it bears out in a million
different data sets, is thatthat number of unaffiliated
adults has climbed rapidly inrecent years. I mean, just as a,
to satisfy my own curiosity, forexample, I look at data at
Muhlenberg College, where theinstitute is located, and the
(30:32):
number of, you know,unaffiliated, what the
classifications that you used? Iuse something very similar. When
I first got to the college 20years ago was 5,6,7, percent.
Now it's something like 40,right? So that's obviously a
particular kind of demographicof who attends a residential
liberal arts college in thenortheast, but, but I think it's
clear to see this kind of thingis growing, you know, not only
(30:55):
in the US, but, but around theworld. However, it's not
uniform, right? And we can't saythat religious, every religious
institution is being affectedsimilarly around this issue of
disaffiliation, or peoplechoosing not to affiliate at
all. Can we see, and maybe thisisn't part of this study, but
(31:17):
maybe the previous study thatyou that you did, can we see
places where there are religiouscommunities or traditions that
are bucking the trend? Can wesee particular kinds of
religious institutions, orworldviews, in a more in a less
institutional way, that arebecoming, you know, more
(31:38):
prevalent and are, maybe, youknow, getting a larger share or
religious people, as opposed toother groups that might be be
suffering more because of thesetrends.
Jonathan Evans (31:48):
So I have colleagues who study the
demographic trends of religionaround the world and how, how
all these things intersect. It'snot my area of expertise. So I
can only give a few high levelfindings from what I know
they've done, but their mostrecent study looked at the
change globally between 2010 and2020, so the last decade,
(32:11):
basically, and they found thatover that decade, that Muslims
were the fastest growingreligious group in the world.
Over that decade, and that wasfollowed by the religiously
unaffiliated, so the nones werethe second had the second
highest rate of growth.
Meanwhile, the overall number ofChristians around the world
(32:32):
grew, the overall number, butthe share of the world's
population that is Christiandeclined. So as for what the
future holds, I don't know ifnones of the future will look
more like the ones you werehighlighting in Europe or like
we were talking about in LatinAmerica, but I do think that
it's a really fertile ground forfuture research to test those
(32:56):
theories and see, see if thingsare staying the same. If, as you
highlighted, maybe is LatinAmerica going to end up looking
more like Europe or whatnot?
That's something we can, in thefuture, test with the data. So
I'm excited to see what whathappens.
Chip Gruen (33:15):
So let's focus on the United States specifically
for a couple of questions here,and dig into that, because, you
know, we have a global audiencefor the show, but we're in the
United States, and you know, alot of our listeners are in the
in the US. How do American nonescompare to those in the other
countries you you studied, ifyou could paint with a broad
(33:36):
brush, are there distinctlyAmerican patterns in terms of
what the unaffiliated believe,or how they relate to religion.
Jonathan Evans (33:44):
For many of the religious beliefs, the
practices, the attitudes towardsreligion that we asked about, we
found that nones in the UnitedStates are toward the middle of
the 22 countries that we weresurveying and are able to
analyze this time. So a goodexample could be the shares who
say that animals can havespirits or spiritual energy. So
(34:05):
we asked this question allaround the world. The 22 country
median among the unaffiliatedwas 60% of nones saying that,
yes, animals can have spirits inthe US. 59% of the unaffiliated
say this, and that was roughlytypical of what we were seeing,
similar to the median towardsthe middle of the list of
(34:26):
countries, if you ordered themfrom from highest to lowest. But
there are some items where theUS did stand out. So we asked
all of our survey respondentshow often they pray, and among
nones, the median across the 22countries, was 26% saying that
they ever pray. And in the US,it's 55% of nones who say that
(34:50):
they ever pray. Still, nones insome of the countries we
mentioned earlier, Brazil,Colombia, Peru and South Africa
were more likely than nones inthe US to say they ever pray.
But still, 55% is quite a bitdifferent from the 26% medium we
saw around the 22 countries.
Another item where the US, thereligiously unaffiliated in the
(35:11):
US, stand out, was about theBible and how much influence
they see that the Bible has onthe laws of their country. So
70% of the nones in the US saythat the Bible has a great deal
or a fair amount of influence onthe laws of the United States.
And the next closest countryamong the nones was Greece,
(35:34):
where it was 56% of nones sayingthis. So that was one where the
US did stand out.
Chip Gruen (35:40):
So, I want to get back and particularly, I think
this is both in the US, but wecould think about it more
generally too, that you foundthat many people become nones,
not primarily because they don'tbelieve in God, as you've
highlighted earlier, right? Likethose two things do not
necessarily go together, thebeing religiously affiliated and
(36:02):
not believing in God, and as youjust underscored, even a
majority of those people who areunaffiliated say that they pray
at least sometimes, as you sayever so, it's not necessarily
about the content of belief orpractice or even worldview, but
because they've had negativeexperiences with religious
(36:26):
people or don't like religiousorganizations, the report also
reveals that many nones viewreligion negatively as
encouraging intolerance andsuperstitious thinking. So what?
What do you think these findingstell us about the current state
of religious institutions isthis, you know, a canary in the
coal mine for organizedreligion. Is there something
(36:49):
that organized religion shouldbe learning, maybe, from the
kind of data you collected here?
Jonathan Evans (36:54):
So some of what you highlight is from a 2023
study that we did in the UnitedStates asking nones why they are
non-religious, and we askedabout a variety of reasons that
they might be in that category.
And yeah, 32% said that theydon't believe in God or a higher
power, and that's why they'renon-religious. 30% of nones also
(37:15):
said that they werenon-religious because of bad
experiences with religiouspeople and approaching half of
nones, 47% of nones in theUnited States told us that they
don't like religiousorganizations. This is an
extremely or very importantreason why they're
non-religious. So while thatstudy was specifically within
(37:38):
the US fairly recently, it is ahelpful reminder that, as you
know, non-belief is not alwaysthe main reason people have no
religious affiliation. We findin this cross national project
from from this last year that,as you said, many nones do
express negative views about theinfluence of religion on
society. So in 12 of the 22countries that we study here,
(38:01):
religiously unaffiliated adultsare more likely to say that
religion encourages intolerancethan that it encourages
tolerance. So in Germany, nearlythree quarters of nones hold
this view that religionencourages intolerance, compared
with just about a quarter whosay that it encourages
tolerance. We also find that theviews of nones towards religion
(38:23):
are generally a lot morenegative than the corresponding
views of people who identifywith a religion. So in
Australia, for example, 76% ofnones say that religion
encourages intolerance, but it'sonly 35% among people who have
some sort of religiousaffiliation, be that, Buddhism,
Christianity, what have you. Butagain, as we talk about the
(38:47):
views that religion isintolerant or superstitious or
encouraging superstitiousthinking, there are, again, the
regional differences. So nonesin Europe tend to be especially
likely to voice these negativeviews. So it's 74% of nones in
Greece and 62% in Spain who saythat religion mostly hurts
(39:08):
society, as opposed to mostlyhelps society. But in other
places, there are more positiveviews towards religion from from
the unaffiliated. So in Brazil,Singapore, and South Africa,
majorities of nones take thatopposite view, that religion
mostly helps society. So again,I think it comes down to some
(39:28):
really strong regional variationthat makes it hard to paint too
broad a brush on on therelationship between the
unaffiliated and their viewstowards religion.
Chip Gruen (39:42):
So one of the reasons that this survey really
captures my imagination isbecause it's one of the few
places where, particularly whenyou're thinking about the
unaffiliated, we get acommentary about religion from,
not people who considerthemselves insiders. You know,
(40:04):
like that, as you say, you know,you give them, people the
opportunity to speak forthemselves. And we think about
religious authority residinginside religious institutions,
but we're thinking when we'rethinking about these questions
of tolerance or intolerance,superstitious thought patterns
or the other one, the relevanceor the impact of scriptural
(40:26):
traditions on the law. It'sinteresting to see people who
claim that they areunaffiliated, you know, sort of
holding forth on those sorts ofissues, because we don't really,
that's not really that often,the kind of thing that's
measured, which sort of getsback to one of my my points
about the Institute, and I'msorry I'm going to rattle on
here for a second, but that theconversation about religion,
(40:49):
whether you're religious or not,is an important conversation,
right? Like if, even if you seeyourself as not particularly
religious, that doesn't meanit's not impactful in your
society. So I think it's reallyinteresting to see some of those
data points that are sort ofcapturing people who don't see
themselves as affiliated and howthey think religion is impacting
their world related to that. AndI want to point to an older
(41:11):
survey, and I'm going to springthis one on you, but I'm sure
you're familiar with it, but Iuse it in almost all of my
professional development that Ido with teachers or what have
you, is the Pew finding thatwarmth towards religious
individuals increases whenliteracy for the tradition in
question increases, and I justfind that to be so affirming to
(41:36):
what we do when we teach aboutreligious literacy, that that
warmth towards a tradition inonly a few cases is not the case
or tolerance towards thetradition in the language of
this this instrument increaseswhen people know something about
the religion, rather than itbeing a point of ignorance. So I
don't know. I'm just looking foraffirmations that the religious
(42:00):
literacy product, project isreally worth doing here.
Jonathan Evans (42:04):
That's really interesting to hear. I do know,
yeah, that there has been otherwork as well. I've read some
other scholarly literature thatthat speaks about the
relationship between knowledgeof, or familiarity with people
in a community, and how peopleview it, so it is interesting to
have these, you know, dozens ofcountries, to look at the data.
(42:25):
I also think it's interesting tonote that the the questions we
asked about is religion mostlyhelping society, or mostly
harming, is it is encouragingintolerance? And separately
asking about, does it encouragesuperstitious thinking? It's
interesting that while broadlypatterns are aligned, that those
(42:46):
three items do not measure theexact same thing. So there are
people who potentially view thatreligion does more good than
harm, but they also thinkpotentially that it encourages
superstitious thinking and thatasking about a multitude of
items really helps us displaythe complex beliefs and
(43:08):
attitudes, whether people arereligious or not, that they feel
towards religion, and I thinkthat's important for us to
capture.
Chip Gruen (43:15):
Yeah, the complexity. And we'll put links
to the surveys that we'vementioned here in the show
notes, so people can go and findthem. But it's really worth
combing through, because thecomplexity at first blush might
seem, it might seem likecontradiction, right? But the
more you study this, it's notcontradiction. It's just that
people, people have complicatedways of thinking about these
(43:36):
things, and sometimes it's, youknow, potentially paradoxical or
ironic, right? But, but thatdoesn't mean that it that it is
random, right? So I think thatthat's been really useful is
sort of looking through all ofthese measures to keep in mind.
Jonathan Evans (43:50):
And I think that's why it's great to have
measures, not only of people'sidentity, but also their
beliefs, their practices and toask about a variety even within
those categories, to reallyallow people to give us as much
of the nuance and how they do ordon't live a spiritual or
(44:12):
religious life. And it'simportant to to give people the
chance to to express the detailsof that.
Chip Gruen (44:21):
So the question in these conversations I always
like to end on is, what am I notasking about? Like, what is
there? What is something, and Idon't know, it could be
something that surprised youthrough this study, or, you
know, just something that youknow, not being a data science
scientist myself, not being, youknow, having the same
quantitative, analytical mind Imight have looked past in
(44:42):
thinking about this, that youthink is really important, you
know, what's something that wecan end on here, that that you
think we should talk about, thatI haven't brought up yet.
Jonathan Evans (44:50):
Sure, I think we've talked about several of
the questions that we asked onthe survey, but I think maybe to
close out, just highlight a fewof the most widespread beliefs
among the religiouslyunaffiliated, we found that
sizable shares of of the nonessay that they believe something
spiritual exists beyond thenatural world, as opposed to
(45:11):
saying that the the naturalworld is all there is. About a
dozen countries, half or more ofthe nones hold this view that
there is something spiritualbeyond and it's a variety of
places, it includes, where it'sa majority or half or more
saying this, it's places likeBrazil and the US, but also
Singapore and France. So theseare a variety of cultures,
(45:34):
different backgrounds, thatpotentially the people who are
unaffiliated are exposed to on aregular basis, but sizable
shares do hold that belief. Wealso find that significant
shares also say that animals andparts of nature can have spirits
or spiritual energies. So Ithink it's interesting to think
(45:54):
about what things large sharesof the unaffiliated around the
world, what beliefs fall intothat category? I also we've hit
on it earlier, but just thinkingto the future. I'm excited that
this is a point in time and weare able to measure what's going
on, but I'm hopeful that othersdo similar studies in the
(46:16):
future, and also, as we have ahave a chance later, to
hopefully ask some of thesequestions again in some some of
these places, just to see how,how things are changing for the
religiously unaffiliated, or arethey? Are they staying constant?
And so that'll be an interestingthing for the future that I hope
we can or others can study.
Chip Gruen (46:35):
Yeah, it's interesting to think, just on
that note, like one mightimagine that when we're thinking
about these unaffiliated like,like, words like humanists or
materialists, or things likethat that are sort of been a, I
mean, particularly a product ofthe late 20th century, would
would really dominate the surveydata. But that doesn't seem
represented hardly at all here,you know, or at least it doesn't
(46:58):
show up in the questions you'reasking.
Jonathan Evans (47:00):
Well, we what we found is the most common
identity in a lot of theseplaces for the among the
unaffiliated is that category ofnothing in particular more
common than atheist or agnostic.
It's not to say it's the case inall of the countries, but it is
the overarching trend that a lotof these folks fall into just
(47:20):
the broad no religion inparticular, that's where they
feel most at home as far asreligious identity,
Chip Gruen (47:28):
Alright. Well, I think that is a great place for
us to leave this conversation.
As I said, we're gonna put linksin the show notes so people go
and read this stuff foryourself. It's super fascinating
to see. Jonathan Evans, thankyou so much for your time. I
really appreciate you coming onReligionWise.
Jonathan Evans (47:44):
Thank you so much for having me. It's been a
great conversation.
Chip Gruen (47:49):
This has been ReligionWise, a podcast produced
by the Institute for Religiousand Cultural Understanding of
Muhlenberg College. ReligionWiseis produced and directed by
Christine Flicker. For moreinformation about additional
programming, or to make aninquiry about a speaking
engagement, please visit ourwebsite at
religionandculture.com. There,you'll find our contact
(48:10):
information, links to otherprogramming and have the
opportunity to support the workof the Institute. Please
subscribe to ReligionWisewherever you get your podcasts,
we look forward to seeing younext time.
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