NiNOs aren’t aligned with organized religion but still pray and maintain belief in God. Rather than assuming they’ve rejected Christianity (as the Dones have), we can understand better by simply listening to them. We might be surprised to find they’re unaffiliated with organized faith not because they’ve rejected it but simply because they’re unfamiliar with it. They might be a NiNo simply because no one has ever invited them to a gospel-proclaiming church. Engagement with SBNRs will likely look much different.

The Story: A major new survey reveals the religiously unaffiliated “nones” aren’t all the same. How should that shape our approach to reaching them with the gospel?

The Background: In a study of 15,296 Americans, researchers Ryan P. Burge and Tony Jones used machine learning to better classify those who claim no religious affiliation (a.k.a., the “nones”). The researchers identify four distinct categories of nonreligious Americans.

The first group they labeled Nones in Name Only (NiNos). Despite not identifying with organized religion, this group—21 percent of the entire nonreligious sample—is actually quite religious. About half of this group pray daily. One-third also believe in God without doubt, and one-third attend worship services annually. Burge notes this group represents a methodological challenge for researchers studying religious affiliation because they “aren’t able to classify themselves properly based on the current approach to asking about religious affiliation.”

The second, and largest, group is Spiritual but Not Religious (SBNRs). This group, 36 percent of the respondents, rejects organized religion but embraces spirituality through practices like meditation, yoga, and nature walks. They rarely attend services or pray, and only 5 percent believe in God with certainty. Instead, they believe in a “Higher Power.”

The Dones, who make up 33 percent of the sample, are completely finished with religion and spirituality. They engage in virtually no religious practices, with 99 percent saying they never pray, and only 2 percent saying they attend worship. Seventy-seven percent of this group believe human existence ends entirely at death, compared to 26 percent of NiNos and 39 percent of the SBNRs.

The smallest group, at 11 percent, is the Zealous Atheists. They try to convince others to abandon religion (75 percent say they attempted this in the past year). Zealous Atheists are often encountered in online religious debates and tend to be combative and mocking toward religious beliefs, yet they maintain slightly more engagement with religion than the Dones (about 17 percent of this group say they attend a house of worship once a year, and about that same number have prayed just a little bit in the prior year).

What It Means: What do you think of when you hear the term “nones”?

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