New research shows God-believing ‘nones’ align more closely with religious Americans

Religious nones who believe in God are far more likely than other nones to hold conservative views

University of Nebraska-Lincoln

FacebookXLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

 

image: 

Philip Schwadel is a leading researcher on the growing population of religious "nones."

view more 

Credit: Craig Chandler, University Communication and Marketing

Nearly one in three Americans now identify as religious “nones,” and new research from University of Nebraska–Lincoln sociologist Philip Schwadel suggests that this fast‑growing group is far more ideologically diverse than commonly assumed.

In a new study, published in Sociology of Religion, Schwadel found that religious nones who believe in God are far more likely than other nones to have similar policy preferences to their religiously affiliated counterparts. Nones — or those who identify as atheist, agnostic or nothing in particular — have grown from approximately 16% of the population in 2007 to 28% according to the most recent data from the Pew Research Center.

Using data from the General Social Survey, a nationally representative survey of adults in the United States, Schwadel examined 16 measures ranging from attitudes on capital punishment to government spending and political intolerance. God-believing nones are more likely to support school prayer, the death penalty and making pornography illegal, while opposing abortion. They are less likely than other nones to support increased spending on welfare, scientific research, education or to protect the environment.

These findings build on Schwadel’s previous work documenting the growing diversity among the religiously unaffiliated. While Americans increasingly disaffiliate from religion, many still assume the nones represent a single ideological bloc. Schwadel’s new research points out that isn’t true.

“We tend to think of these people as all atheists,” Schwadel, Happold Professor of Sociology, said. “I see in popular discourse, people often conflate the non-religious with atheists, but very few of them are atheists. The biggest takeaway is that we treat these people as one group, but as 28% or so of Americans, they have tremendous diversity.”

Schwadel said the conservatism he found among God-believing religious nones compared to other nones was somewhat surprising.

“I did expect God-believing nones to be different from the other nones, the atheists and agnostics,” he said. “I did not expect it to be this different. I did not expect that in many cases, they are just as conservative on a lot of these issues as religious affiliates who believe in God. Nones who believe in God look more like religious Americans than they do other nones. Many of these people, as this article shows, support the death penalty, oppose abortion, support school prayer.”

And God-believing religious nones are a large subsection. Schwadel noted that among the religiously unaffiliated, 35% believe in God, 28% believe in a higher power, 21% are agnostic and 16% are atheists.

That God-believing nones are growing could have political implications, Schwadel said, and he is exploring the religious language politicians use in future research.

“I think there's a clear implication for Republican politicians,” he said. “I do think that they can appeal to some of these nones who believe in God or even believe in a higher power, whose policy perspectives align with the Republican Party, if they tone down a little bit of the Christian-specific language.”

---

Journal

Sociology of Religion

DOI

10.1093/socrel/sraf037 

Method of Research

Survey

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

The Social and Political Perspectives of Believing and Non-Believing Religious Nones

Why conservative Mormon women derailed Republicans in Utah

Shutterstock Asset id: 1918280681

Adam Lynch

January 28, 2026 

ALTERNET

The Guardian reports it was largely the work of a hyper-conservative group of Mormon women who derailed Republican efforts to gerrymander a new Republican district in Utah this year.

The Pew Research Center reveals that Mormons, also known as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, were among Trump’s strongest supporters in 2016, with about 61 percent of church members backing him, making the group his second-largest religious support base.

But in 2018, the Mormon Women for Ethical Government (MWEG) helped gather enough signatures to pass Utah’s Proposition 4, with 50.34 percent of the vote. This created an independent state commission to draw state and congressional maps using nonpartisan criteria, rather than let legislators cherry-pick their own voters.

But in 2020, state Republican lawmakers told MWEG to take a hike and repealed Proposition 4. Then they redrew maps that split Salt Lake County – Utah’s youngest, most diverse and bluest region – into four districts. This packed urban Democratic votes into red outlying regions and entrenched GOP dominance for the next election. The MWEG group sued their state government along, arguing that the Republican-led legislature violated the state constitution when it altered a legitimate voter-approved proposition.

“Last summer, the women’s groups won,” reports the Guardian. “Now state lawmakers must draw new maps that could pave the way for a Democratic congressional seat in the 2026 midterm elections.”

“I live in a district that’s likely going to become Democratic,” said MWEG Founder Emma Petty Addams. “I’ll lose a Republican representative I respect, and I’m 100 percent OK with that if it means my neighbors get representative government.”

Defying lawmakers was not easy, said Addams, a mother of three and a piano teacher. But the legal battle was necessary to deal with “an overreach of power” that Utah voters opted to protect with “guardrails”.

“People want to see Mormon women as either the secret wives or as a trad wife,” Addams said. “We’re neither of those.”

The organization’s is already saddling up for its next fight, however, as the Utah Republican Party pushes to repeal Proposition 4. In an effort to gerrymander Utah to protect Trump’s narrow House GOP majority, the party is seeking 141,000 signatures by February to place the repeal on the November ballot.

Trump posted on Truth Social, urging Utah residents to repeal the proposition and let politicians pick their own voters. This follow his nationwide effort to restructure districts to enshrine his majority for the foreseeable future — some with more success than others.

“Organizers had gathered around 56,000 signatures as of 26 January,” reports the Guardian. “The Utah Republican party did not respond to a request for comment about its repeal efforts.”

Read the Guardian report at this link

Republican politics is killing the modern-day church: analysis

Photo by Edward Cisneros on Unsplash

Sarah K. Burris

January 22, 2026 

ALTERNET

Over the years, traditional religious practice has declined in both the United States and globally, according to one political scientist.

Speaking to The New York Times' "Interesting Times" podcast, Ryan Burge, an ordained Christian minister who became a professor, analyzed data trends for his new book, "The Vanishing Church: How the Hollowing Out of Moderate Congregations Is Hurting Democracy, Faith, and Us."

The number of people declaring they aren't affiliated with any church appears to have stalled, Burge said, but this has not benefited traditional Christian churches.

Burge argues that polarization and sorting are central to the trend, with moderate, mainline Protestant churches hollowing out while more intense, ideologically defined communities remain. White evangelical congregations on the right remain comparatively stable.

Burge emphasizes that "nones" are not secretly spiritual seekers in disguise. Many are neither religious nor particularly spiritual. Instead, they reject the institutions themselves, reflecting a broader anti-establishment sentiment in the U.S.

"I think education, social trust, and institutional trust are all locked together in this matrix of things that make you either more willing to engage in polite society, or less willing to engage in polite society. Educated people have a level of trust that less educated people do not," Burge said on the podcast.

One consistent theme is that "dropping out begets dropping out." Those who drop out of church also have lower educational attainment rates. Only about 25 percent have four-year college degrees.

"So they're dropping out of education, they're dropping out of religion, and they're dropping out of politics. They're basically isolating themselves from American society," Burge said.

Unlike in previous decades, politics is shaping the religious mindset of those who do not return to the churches in which they were raised. While churches were once places where Democrats and Republicans could sit in the same pews, today people seek out others who are largely similar to themselves. Families are seeking out churches based on political alignment rather than other factors.

"What's happened in America, especially with white Christianity, is that it is coded as Republican — and that's not always been the case," Burge said. "I think this is a point that people forget: Even in the 1980s, among the white evangelical church, the share who were Republicans and the share who were Democrats was the same."

The sorting of people by similar beliefs has increased the decline of politically mixed, moderate congregations, while reinforcing the perception that white evangelical churches are an extension of the Republican Party.

"So what we're seeing here is a unique moment. The number one predictor of whether you're going to be religious or not in America — besides the religion question itself — is: What is your political ideology? If you're a liberal, there's a 50-50 chance you're a nonreligious person. If you're a conservative, it's about a 12 percent chance that you're a nonreligious person," Burge said.

Young people are most affected by political ideologies in determining religious behavior.

"Young people think, 'I'm a liberal, so I'm going to be irreligious,'" Burge said. "They don't even accept the possibility that you can be a liberal Christian anymore."

Burge noted that responses to right-wing churches have included setting up left-wing alternatives. However, mainline church members want a completely non-political space. While the Covid lockdown brought many people to watch services online, once it ended, Burge said people wanted in-person attendance. He has observed this with young people as well: only 15 percent preferred online learning, and 15 percent had no preference. The rest preferred to meet in person.

Burge concluded by saying, "Listen, religion's endured for all of Western civilization because it works for lots and lots of people. And no matter how much we try to remake it with technology and A.I. and the internet, showing up on an average Sunday with a bunch of people and singing some songs and saying some creeds and hearing a sermon is transformative and will be for all of human history, as far as I can tell."

Read or listen to the full interview here.

Why do some people stay in their faith and others leave? A Pew report offers clues.

(RNS) — Americans who had a good experience as children were likely to keep their faith. Those with bad experiences left, according to a new study from Pew Research Center.

Religious pluralism means more than living around people of different faiths. (Thai Noipho/iStock via Getty Images Plus)

Bob Smietana
December 15, 2025

RNS


(RNS) — Americans who had a positive religious experience as kids are most likely to keep the same faith as adults. Those who had negative experiences are most likely to change faiths or give up on religion. And while a majority (56%) of Americans still identify with their childhood faith, a third (35%) have switched — including 20% who now say they have no religion.

Those are among the findings of a new report from Pew Research Center, based on data from Pew’s 2023-24 U.S. Religious Landscape Study and a survey of 8,937 American adults conducted between May 5 and May 11.

Researchers asked Americans what religion they’d been raised in as well as their current religion, then asked those who switched or left their childhood faith about why things changed. They also asked Americans who are religious why they remain part of that faith.

Nine percent indicated they weren’t raised in a religion and don’t have one today either.

For this study, released Monday (Dec. 15), changing from one brand of Protestantism to another did not count as switching faiths.

The study found that 86% of Americans were raised in a religion, but those who stayed tended to have a different experience from those who left.

According to Pew research, Americans who were raised in a religion and had a positive experience are more likely to have stayed. Chart courtesy Pew Research Center

“Our data shows that the nature of their religious experiences as children — that is, whether they were mostly positive or negative — plays a significant role in whether they stay in their childhood religion as adults,” the study’s authors wrote.

Eighty-four percent of those who had a positive experience as children stayed in the same faith when they became adults, while 69% of those who had a negative experience now have no religion, according to the report

Americans who grew up in what Pew called “highly religious” homes were more likely to keep their childhood faith (82%) than those raised in homes with “low levels of religiosity” (47%). Those most likely to keep their childhood faith were Hindus (82%), followed by Muslims (77%), Jews (76%), those with no religion (73%), Protestants (70%), Catholics (57%), Latter-day Saints (54%) and Buddhists (45%).

Most switching between faiths comes before people turn 30 years old, according to the report. Of those who switched religion, 85% percent did so before age 30, including 46% who switched as teenagers or children.

About half of Americans (53%) who no longer claim a religion, known as nones, after growing up religious did so by age 18. Of those who switched religions, about 3 in 10 did so as teenagers.

Americans who stick with their childhood faith do so because it works for them, according to the report.

Many cited their faith’s beliefs (64%) as the top reason they retained their faith, along with having their spiritual needs met (61%) or finding meaning in life (51%) through faith. Only about a third (32%) said the faith’s social or political teachings are important reasons to keep their faith.

Protestants (70%) and Catholics (53%) were more likely to indicate their faith’s teachings were an important reason to stay compared to Jews (45%). Protestants (65%) and Catholics (54%) were also most likely to say their faith fulfills their spiritual needs. Jews were more likely to cite a sense of community (57%) or their faith’s traditions (60%) as why they stay with their religion.

Few Americans say they stay in their childhood faith out of a sense of religious obligation, including 33% of Jews, 30% of Catholics and 24% of Protestants.

Many of those who left their childhood faith and now have no religion say they don’t need religion and don’t believe, the survey suggests. Among the most important factors were that they stopped believing their faith’s teachings (51%), that religion was no longer important to them (44%) and that they gradually drifted away (42%). Scandals involving religious leaders (34%), unhappiness about social and political teachings (38%) or the way that the religion treats women (29%) were also factors.

According to Pew research, 56% of U.S. adults identify with their childhood religion. Chart courtesy Pew Research Center

Researchers also asked those who have no religion about why they are not affiliated with a faith. Among the most important reasons were that they feel they can be moral without a religion (78%), that they question religious teaching (64%) and that they don’t need religion to be spiritual (54%). About half said they don’t trust religious organizations (50%) or religious leaders (49%).

About 30% of Americans say they have no religion — a figure that has remained constant since 2020.

The report found that about 3% of Americans who were raised without any religion now identify with a faith — largely for the same reasons as religious Americans. They embrace their new faith’s beliefs (61%), say the faith meets their spiritual needs (60%) and say the faith gives their life meaning (55%), they indicated.

As part of the study, researchers also looked at the religious practices of children in the U.S. from the viewpoint of their parents. Just under half of parents with kids under 18 said their children say prayers at night (46%), say grace at meals (43%), read religious stories (43%) or attend services at least monthly (43%).

Protestant parents (61%) were most likely to say their children attend services monthly. They are also most likely (35%) to say their children are being raised in a highly religious household. Nones are least likely to say their children attend services monthly (7%) or are being raised in a highly religious household (1%).

Mothers (39%) are about twice as likely as fathers (17%) to say they play the primary role in teaching their kids about religion, according to the study.

New Age spiritual group Eckankar will soon have its first new leader in 44 years

(RNS) — This weekend (Oct. 25) marks 60 years since the founding of Eckankar, a New Age American faith movement.

The Temple of ECK, the home of Eckankar, is located in Chanhassen, MN, and is open to the public for visits, tours, and spiritual events. Photo courtesy Eckankar

Richa Karmarkar
October 24, 2025
RNS


(RNS) — In 1970s New England, then-25-year-old Sharon Kunin, a pastor’s daughter, was full of out-of-the-box questions her Presbyterian upbringing didn’t quite answer — a typical countercultural shift seen in her generation.

“I had my own little truth detector,” Kunin told RNS. “I looked at so many different paths, and then I’d come to, like, a cul-de-sac where it would end, or there was something that wasn’t quite fitting.”

But everything changed when Kunin found a book by Paul Twitchell, the founder of the 1965-born American new religious movement Eckankar, also known as the Path of Spiritual Freedom. Inspired by Eastern mysticism, Eckankar, which means “coworker with God,” is a Western spiritual path that teaches that each unique soul can connect directly with God through personal experience — a belief, Kunin said, that can coexist with any religion

“I actually started trembling because I was thinking, ‘Oh, my God, these are my thoughts,'” she said. “This is what I think, they’re addressing the very questions that I have. And I thought, ‘I have found it.'”

Sharon Kunin speaks on the theme of “Connect with the God Current” at a spiritual event at the Temple of ECK, home of Eckankar, in July 2025. Photo courtesy Eckankar

A few years later, Kunin moved to be near the Temple of ECK in rural Minnesota, the headquarters for thousands of what are known as ECKists worldwide. She is now a senior cleric and spiritual educator. In her role, Kunin facilitates workshops to help ECKists connect with God through chanting the sacred mantra HU (pronounced “hyoo”), analyzing dreams and “soul travel,” or one’s consciousness moving beyond the physical plane into higher spiritual realms.

“All kinds of people come here, and they want to talk about a spiritual experience that they had — an awakening, a dream, some miraculous coincidence, something that changed them,” she said. “They are so grateful that they can share their journey with people in Eckankar who just nod and smile and say, ‘yeah.’ What we offer is understanding, openness, acceptance and validation.”

This Saturday (Oct. 25), some of the world’s ECKists, who reside in more than 120 countries, predominately in Europe and Africa, will converge at the temple for their annual Worldwide Soul Adventure seminar. This year, they will also celebrate 60 years since Eckankar’s founding and ring in a new spiritual year, themed “the year of light and sound.”

But this year’s gathering is significant for another reason: Sri Harold Klemp, the living ECK master, will formally introduce his successor, marking the first transition in Eckankar’s leadership in more than four decades. An unknown male considered to be part of Klemp’s spiritual lineage, to be announced at the event, is to carry the group into the next 60-year cycle.

The transition lining up at the 60-year mark is pure “divine coincidence,” Kunin said, decided between the Mahanta, another name for the leader, and God.

“This transition doesn’t happen until that’s what’s needed for the consciousness of the worlds to take another step, which isn’t something necessarily visible to human eyes, ears, hearts or understanding,” said Kunin, who has worked closely with the 83-year-old Klemp. “But no matter what happens in the world or around us, there is always a path to inner peace and purpose and the rightness of life and living, and it’s waiting to be awakened. The living ECK master’s job is to awaken that love and knowledge for the divine things that are already in the beating human heart.”

RELATED: Reincarnating religion: Are the nones all that different from their parents?

Paul Twitchell, modern-day founder of Eckankar, in the late 1960s. Photo courtesy Eckankar

Kentucky-born Twitchell, who wrote that he studied with Indian spiritual teachers before forming his own group, is said to have been influenced by Sant Mat, a 19th-century Indian spiritual movement that blended elements of Sikh and Hindu mysticism. Like Sant Mat and other Dharmic traditions, Eckankar uses Sanskrit terminology, emphasizing karma, reincarnation, guru-student relationships and divine sound chanting, which the group believes links the soul to God.

The movement was once estimated to include 50,000 students. And although exact figures are unknown, over the last 60 years, even after the initial boom of Eastern philosophies in America, many are still involved in weekly services, discussion groups and classes geared toward all ages, Kunin said.

Longtime ECKist Rodney Jones, a decorated jazz guitarist and Juilliard School professor who once played alongside musician Dizzy Gillespie and on “The Rosie O’Donnell Show,” said whoever is named the new master, “whatever his approach is, and whatever his particular way of sharing it is, my work is the same.”

“The work is to be in service to all life, to make contact consciously with the divine spirit, to be a channel for that, to be a good neighbor, to be someone who honors other people’s pasts, and to see the good in everyone,” Jones told RNS. “(One’s) soul is on a journey to unfold and to experience more of God’s love, and to ultimately become a conduit and a vehicle for that love for others. The purpose of life is to learn to give and receive this love to that end.”

Like Kunin, Jones was raised by a Christian minister, Lawrence Jones, who served as the dean of Howard University’s divinity school for over a decade. Jones was initiated into Eckankar in 1978, after coming across an ECK book that resonated with him. However, he has not abandoned the faith of his upbringing. “The heart of God flows through many different rivers,” Jones said. “You don’t fit yourself to the teachings of Eckankar. You fit them to you.”

“I know for a fact that God is in the church, God is at an ECK seminar, God is at a temple, God is in a mosque, God is in a field and God is in a pet store, and I don’t put a separation on that,” he said. “What does make a difference is (asking), what is the channel through which divine spirit is working with me and helping me to unfold and serve life as best I can? And that’s an individual choice that’s sacred for every person.”

Rodney Jones performs at the 2019 Eckankar Worldwide Seminar in Minneapolis. Photo courtesy Eckankar

And through music, which is essential to the Eckankar tradition, Jones said God has designated his soul’s unique purpose to create a “doorway, portal and beautiful canvas” for others to “find their next step in whatever way that is, or maybe just have a sense of peace.”

Sam Woodward, a 28-year-old Maine native, was born and raised in a 30-person Eckankar congregation near his home, thanks to his father, who found the local branch in the 1980s. Though Woodward left the faith in 2019 after his father died, the teachings of Eckankar, Woodward said, undoubtedly shaped his moral compass as a young person.

“A lot of the teachings just have to do with caring for other people and understanding that what you see on the surface isn’t actually the reality of the way that people are thinking about you,” he said. “All of the people were just truly, insanely kind. Some of them had a lot, and some of them had nothing, but they all had just a very deep sense of compassion.”

Unlike institutional religions, he said, there are no strict rules in the Eckankar community, and most of the time ECKists spend together is in sharing and confiding in one another about their lives and meditating on HU. And though he is unsure if a wave of young people will revive Eckankar in this age — partially due to its open-door, rather than recruitment, policy — Woodward said the tradition is a possible spiritual answer today’s youth seem to be seeking.

“I think that any sort of community that gives people hope and that looks for something more than what is physically in front of us can have beneficial effects on people because I think that being nihilistic is hard for your mental well-being,” he said.

Nonreligious Americans might not be as spiritual as we thought

 Opinion

Nonreligious Americans might not be as spiritual as we thought

(RNS) — Our research shows that nonreligious Americans report being significantly less spiritual than people who identify with established traditions such as Christianity, Judaism or Islam.

(Photo by Helena Lopes/Pexels/Creative Commons)

Ryan Burge and Tony Jones

October 2, 2025

(RNS) — When French intellectual Alexis de Tocqueville toured the United States in the early 19th century, he was struck by how religious Americans were. He linked that religiosity with the success of our young democracy, observing that “religion is the first of the political institutions in that country,” for “it facilitates the use of liberty.” Religion, he argued, provided a moral foundation – a lingua franca – that allowed liberty to flourish.

Two centuries after de Tocqueville’s visit, the American experiment has entered a new chapter. The biggest story in American religion in the last three decades is the increasing number of Americans who report they have no religious affiliation, commonly called “nones.” According to the General Social Survey, nones made up 5% of the country in 1991. By 2022, they comprised nearly one-third of the adult population. Over the same period, the share of people who said they never attend religious services rose from 12% to 33%. We are just beginning to see how these changes will affect our democracy.

In the wake of this seismic shift in the religious landscape, countless commentators have argued that many nones are replacing traditional practices like church attendance and prayer with spiritual alternatives such as yoga, meditation, astrology or even spin classes. The implication is that while 100 million Americans have abandoned organized religion, they are still people of faith, so de Tocqueville’s thesis still holds.

But in spite of the ubiquity of the phrase, “I’m spiritual but not religious,” our research has found that most American nones have not replaced religion with alternative spiritual practices. Through a grant from the John Templeton Foundation, we conducted a survey of over 12,000 Americans who identify as atheist, agnostic or nothing-in-particular to determine just how spiritual they are and what types of spiritual activities they engage in.

---

RELATED: Americans may be going to church less, but most are still open to religion, spirituality

---

We found nonreligious Americans report being significantly less spiritual than people who identify with established traditions such as Christianity, Judaism or Islam. Among religious respondents, 62% said spirituality was “very important” to them compared with only 24% of nones. In contrast, 27% of the nonreligious said spirituality was “not at all important,” while just 4% of religious respondents said the same. In short, the religious are far more likely to report a deep well of spirituality than the nones.

That point was reinforced when we asked respondents to check boxes next to spiritual activities they engaged in over the prior month. Whether it be yoga, meditation, astrology, crystals or saging their home, we found no instance where nones were more likely to engage in an alternative spiritual practice than the religious control group in our sample. In fact, we found that 55% of nonreligious respondents selected none of eight possible spiritual activities. That’s a huge group of nones – over 50 million Americans – who don’t have a regular spiritual practice of any sort, our research shows.

Our data shows that 27% of nones said they practiced meditation in the last few weeks, and 15% had done yoga or astrology during the same time period. And the survey data reveals that while a lot of attention has been paid to alternative practices like using crystals and ingesting psychedelics for enlightenment, real engagement in those areas is actually rare: Less than 10% of nones engaged in either of those practices.

The conclusion that emerges from our survey is that a growing number of Americans who have walked away from churches, mosques and synagogues have not used their newfound freedom from religion to seek out new spiritual practices. In essence, they have traded religion for nothing at all.

But they don’t seem to be worse for it. For many religious Americans, there is a deeply held conviction that those who are neither religious nor spiritual must be living unsatisfied, meaningless lives. But our survey data strongly challenges that assumption. Among Protestants, 48% report being very satisfied with life — only slightly higher than the 46% among respondents who expressed no inclination toward religion or spirituality.

---

RELATED: Patricia Crowther, pioneering Wiccan priestess, is dead at 97

---

These results challenge assumptions about the future of American religious institutions. If nearly half of the nonreligious report high life satisfaction, the belief that faith is the only path to fulfillment becomes harder to defend. This raises difficult questions for religious leaders and believers. Tens of millions of Americans center their entire worldview on the conviction that an encounter with the divine gives life meaning and purpose. But when these true believers try to convince their friends and neighbors to join them in this way of thinking, they are met with little more than a shrug of the shoulders.

But this seismic shift in American life will change our democracy. Our research reveals a philosophical divide between people for whom faith is at the very heart of life and those who hardly think about it at all. And as Americans no longer share the lingua franca of religion — a widely held set of beliefs and a common language to articulate them — it becomes incumbent on our political and cultural leaders to find other areas of commonality to stabilize our democracy and reinforce our liberty before we sink further into polarization.

(Ryan Burge is a professor of practice at the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University and author, most recently, of “The American Religious Landscape: Facts, Trends, and the Future.” Tony Jones, a theologian and outdoorsman, is the author of “The God of Wild Places.” They co-direct the Making Meaning in a Post-Religious America Project. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of RNS.)