I read this book after listening to an interview with the author. He is writing about the rise of the "Nones" in America: the people who check None when asked about their religious affiliation. After listening to the podcast, I disagreed with him about the cause of the rise of the Nones.
Now I think he is right.
Bullivant says the rise of the Nones was caused by the end of the Cold War. I thought it was caused much earlier and only became evident at the end of the Cold War.
Bullivant and a team of researchers interviewed people across America about their religious affiliation or not. When they talked about when and why they believed, and when they changed their mind, Bullivant's thesis made more and more sense.
The national survey data certainly support the end of the Cold War as the point that the rise of the Nones began. From the 1960s through the 90s a steady six to nine percent of Americans identified as Nones. In the 1950s it dipped down to two percent. Any survey data before that was at five percent or below.
Since the late 90s, identification as None has risen to twenty percent in the most conservative polls, near thirty percent since the beginning of the pandemic in some estimates. That is a big change.
The trend in America from a culture of belonging to individualism has been documented in many places--think of Bowling Alone. Bullivant shows that America standing against the world of Godless Communism after World War II had a real effect on religious identification.
Bullivant carefully shows that the demise of religious affiliation varies greatly among different churches. Mainline protestant churches have lost the most members by every measure, but Catholic churches have also declined rapidly in some areas in this century. Evangelicals seemed immune for a while but are also losing members in recent decades. Even Mormons are becoming Nones at a rising rate.
The stories of individual Nones and Believers illustrate the trends Bullivant points to. It's a well written entertaining look at a major cultural shift in America.
Nonverts: The Making of Ex-Christian America by Stephen Bullivant
First 45 Books of 2022:
Poems in English by Samuel Beckett
Epigenetics: A Graphic Guide by Cath Ennis and Oliver Pugh
Life's Edge by Carl Zimmer
The Genius of Judaism by Bernard-Henri Levy
C.S.Lewis: A Very Short Introduction by James Como
English Literature in the Sixteenth Century excluding drama by C.S. Lewis
Le veritable histoire des petits cochons by Erik Belgard
The Iliad or the Poem of Force by Simone Weil
Game of Thrones, Book 5 by George R.R. Martin
Irony and Sarcasm by Roger Kreutz
Essential Elements by Matt Tweed
Les horloges marines de M. Berthoud
The Red Wheelbarrow and Other Poems by William Carlos Williams
The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck
Cochrane by David Cordingly
QED by Richard Feynman
Spirits in Bondage by C.S. Lewis
Reflections on the Psalms by C.S. Lewis
The Pope at War: The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler by David I. Kertzer
The Last Interview and Other Conversations by Hannah Arendt
Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut
The Echo of Greece by Edith Hamilton
If This Isn't Nice, What Is? by Kurt Vonnegut
The War That Made the Roman Empire: Antony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium by Barry S. Strauss.
Civil Rights Baby by Nita Wiggins
Lecture's on Kant's Political Philosophy by Hannah Arendt
The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen
Perelandra by C.S. Lewis
The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay
First Principles by Thomas Ricks
Political Tribes by Amy Chua
Book of Mercy by Leonard Cohen
A Brief History of Earth: Four Billion Years in Eight Chapters by Andrew Knoll
Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall
Understanding Beliefs by Nils Nilsson
1776 by David McCullough
The Life of the Mind by Hannah Arendt
Civilization: The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson
How to Fight Anti-Semitism by Bari Weiss
Unflattening by Nick Sousanis
Marie Curie by Agnieszka Biskup (en francais)
The Next Civil War by Stephen Marche
Fritz Haber, Volume 1 by David Vandermeulen
