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(OPINION)The uber-trend in 21st Century American religion is the increase in “nones” who cite no religious affiliation or identity when pollsters phone. Last December, the Pew Research Center reported that 29% of the adult population currently self-describes as either atheist, agnostic or — by far the biggest category — “nothing in particular” regarding religion.

Thus the media and religious professionals will want to examine two new assessments of the situation.

Religion’s cup looks half-empty, a familiar scenario, in the book “Reorganized Religion: The Reshaping of the American Church and Why It Matters” by Bob Smietana. But the cup is half-full for a team at Baylor University’s top-flight Institute for Studies of Religion, whose findings are summarized in a (paywalled) Wall Street Journal item. For access to the full academic report on "nones" research (Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion, volume 18, article 7), contact the institute at ISR@baylor.edu or 254 -710-2841.

Smietana is a well-positioned veteran guide as a Religion News Service national reporter, formerly with the Nashville Tennessean and Christianity Today magazine. His book is especially useful for journalists new to the religion beat as he surveys this generation’s dire data of decline, mingled with interviews of assorted dropouts and questers.

His over-all theme is that America and Americans depend on what’s called “organized religion,” actual face-to-face gatherings now weakened by both COVID and societal undertow. Organized secularism simply cannot offer a substitute for building and serving communities. Pointed questions are posed by Eboo Patel, the founder of Interfaith America raised Ismaili Muslim, summed up as follows by Smietana.

“What would happen if all the religious and faith-based institutions in your community disappeared? All the churches and schools, the hospitals and medical clinics, homeless shelters and food pantries, all the tutoring programs and benevolence funds. Who would pick up the slack? Who would tutor kids, resettle refugees, run shelters for battered women, and devote themselves to the whole host of charitable activities, large and small, that faith groups do?”

That doesn’t even touch help to individuals that nobody notices or the religious aspect of religion, the inherent need to worship, the sense of wholeness and purpose within a puzzling cosmos that faith can provide, or the resulting emotional and even physical well-being demonstrated in many secular studies.

Turning personal, Smietana professes that congregations of his own Evangelical Covenant Church, and others, “shaped my family, my career, and my friends and, on more than one occasion, saved me.”

The book unfortunately lacks an index and is thin on Catholicism. It depicts some experimental startups and says White congregations must diversify, but provides no sure-fire schemes for turning things around. That’s OK. Nobody else has magic solutions on offer either.

The more upbeat Baylor team amassed a wealth of data, especially from five national polling organizations. The Journal article claims that “Americans are becoming more religious, and religious institutions are thriving.” The Guy urges readers to question those assertions, but this research deserves a careful look and the full academic journal article includes a valuable bibliography with 93 items.

The Baylor researchers find key flaws in polling methodology, for example posing limited lists of religious options that can force devout respondents to answer “none of the above.” They assert that surveys miss as many as 150,000 young congregations and “hundreds” of new denominations. We lack good numbers on Black and Hispanic Protestant groups that may be expanding.

Here is a key point for journalists: The Baylor team is very likely correct that independent evangelical congregations, large and small, are seriously undercounted. And so forth.

A major finding, on which Smietana and other observers would agree, is that the American people remain heavily “spiritual” even if often alienated from “organized religion.” Among self-identified agnostics in the 2018 General Social Survey, 27% attended worship at least monthly, 58% prayed at least weekly, 75% believed in life after death and 23% reported having had a religious experience.

The Baylor team says because unaffiliated Americans are not necessarily irreligious the media need to rethink terminology. Unaffiliated respondents may have been only nominal believers who now feel free to say “none” but meanwhile core believers are as numerous as they’ve been for the past century — and the same for atheists. Doom-sayers are affected especially by the slide among white “mainline” Protestants, etc. GetReligion has been noting many of these trends for years, frequently citing pollster and scholar John C. Green.

Note this upcoming news peg: The Baylor experts depict its limitations but the once-a-decade U.S. Religion Census is scheduled to report sometime later this year, so keep in touch with the census team or Rich Houseal or Dale Jones at 888–7658-2790.

Baylor contacts: The Journal article is by Byron R. Johnson (byron_johnson@baylor.edu and 254-710-7555), the institute’s director, and population health specialist Jeff Levin (jeff_levin@baylor.edu). They co-authored the detailed academic report with sociologists Matt Bradshaw and the late Rodney Stark.

Richard Ostling is a former religion reporter for The Associated Press and former correspondent for TIME Magazine. This piece first appeared at Get Religion.