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‘Nones’ is the buzziest word among mainline churches these days. It refers to the fastest growing religion in the United States: those individuals who, on surveys and census questionnaires, check the ‘none’ box for religion.
This diverse group may include atheists (those who don’t believe in a supernatural deity), agnostics (those who leave open the question of the divine), and the rapidly emerging group who are connected with the divine but not to organized religion, who are ‘spiritual but not religious.’
This group has captured the attention and imagination of church leaders, because people are leaving churches in droves and joining the ranks of the nones. There are seminars, books, blogs, discussion boards, Facebook pages, and more that are devoted to helping congregations and leaders unravel the mystery of the nones – so we can learn and do what really matters in the lives of people who want to follow Jesus but can’t because the church gets in the way.
I have one problem from the start: the word ‘nones’.
At best, it implies that a diverse group of people are lacking in some way, damaged, diminished, inadequate. They are ‘missing something’. Some will say, ‘Yes, they’re missing Jesus!’ But that flippant response confuses following the way of Jesus with being a Sunday morning goodie. At worst, calling a diverse group of people the nones is patronizing, vindictive, accusatory, and mean. Isn’t name calling wrong? “We’ve got God, you’ve got none.”
When the dust settles, and pastors and professors and church pundits have had their say about the nones, I predict we will discover that the problem all along hasn’t been them. It has been us. The church. We are the problem. We get in the way of people following the way of Jesus, living the life of the kingdom, because at the end of the day we are all about us and them, who’s in and who’s out, insiders and outsiders, who has some and who has none.
I have news for you, kids—Jesus was a none.
And if you don’t believe me, or see it, or realize why, then no amount of hand wringing over the nones will get us anywhere.
By calling these children of God, these diving images, these redeemed and beloved souls the nones we have already started the conversation on the wrong foot. I guess nones is better than ‘people formerly known as un-churched’. But remember, catch phrases never catch much of anything.
If we are the stumbling block, then how do we get out of the way? That’s the real question we should be asking ourselves. And perhaps a good place to start is to stop calling those who don’t go to church the nones.