No Religion, Good Religion?

2013 is here and so are the lists of ‘top’ things from 2012.

I recently reviewed Huffington Post’s list of 2012’s top religion news stories. One of the more recent stories was the increase of the religiously unaffiliated. Surveys in both America and Britain showed an increase in those who claim no religious affiliation and a decrease in those who identitfy with a specific religious group. In particular, there was a marked drop in those identitfying as Christian in each report.

The Pew Forum report in America provides a detailed breakdown of those surveyed between 2007 and 2012 showing a 5% drop in those who identify as Christian and a 4.3% increase in those who identify as unaffiliated.

The British Office for National Statistics has also recently relased data showing a smiliar shift toward the non-religious, a 10.3% increase to be exact.

Though it is true that census data is far from complete and is unable to provide an ‘accurate’ depiction of the true beliefs of the masses, these reports nonetheless give a general sense (however incomplete) of the shifting religious trends in America and Britain.

This growing group of unaffiliated individuals, affectionately called ‘nones’, are now the third largest ‘religious’ grouping after Christianity and Islam.

So then, is no religion good religion?

Is this shift away from self identifying with a religious tradition arguably a religious movement of its own?

This assumption relies on the blurry distinctions made between what we call religion, the secular, and the spiritual; categories all ill defined at best.

Canada’s most recent census information on religious affiliation has yet to be released. For now one can only speculate as to what these results will show, let alone what they mean for the future of religiously plural nations.

This movement toward ‘none’-ness is fascinating and raises many questions about who exactly is leaving these religious categories behind, and, perhaps more importantly, who remains.