AUG. 7, 2014—Across the country, surveys show a sharp rise in a category of people dubbed the “nones” by social scientists. Who are the nones? They check “none” when asked to identify a religious affiliation.
The surveys indicate that many of the “nones” were born into a religion, even though now they don’t identify with it. Beyond that, according to Art Farnsley, a professor of religious studies at Indiana Purdue University Indianapolis and associate director of the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture, there’s a lot we don’t know. Especially about regional differences that may very well separate the “nones.”
Farnsley wrote a book about one very specific subculture: flea market dealers who work the gun shows in Friendship, Indiana. Judy Silber spoke to Farnsley about what he discovered about this group, who it turns out, are rejecting religious institutions, but not religious beliefs.
This is Part I of a two-part interview.
SILBER: In your book you say that you found a lot of spiritual and religious individualism in the gun show flea markets. Is that something new in American culture, or is it just a continuation of a trend that’s been happening for a long time?
FARNSLEY: Most of us structure our lives in pretty institutional ways. We’re affiliated with the organization we work for. Our kids go to schools. Most of us live our lives inside some pretty structured organizations.
However, in religion, there is no national church, no church of America.
There is an incredible amount of religious diversity. So if you’re not comfortable in your religious group and you don’t see something that makes you comfortable on the horizon, you can start your own. Or, more to the point, you can go it alone.
The part that’s recent, is that for most of American history you would still have thought of yourself as being a member of some religious culture, even if you never went. Even if you never attended, you thought of yourself as Baptist. Or Catholic.
Even 25 years ago, maybe only five percent of Americans would have said, I don’t have any religious organization in any sense. Now that number is much closer to 20%.
And so, the individualism and build your own thing, I think that’s always been there. But now there’s a change in how people identify themselves.
SILBER: What kinds of choices are the people you interviewed, the flea market dealers at the gun shows, making about religion and spirituality?
FARNSLEY: The flea market dealers primarily have beliefs that most Americans would call Conservative Christian. They would say they believe the Bible literally, that it is historically and scientifically true. They would say they believe that Jesus was born of a virgin, and that the miracles in the Bible are true.
And yet, they never attended worship. Moreover, they never read the Bible. I had very few people who could name for me a favorite story, a favorite verse. So they believe all of these things essentially as a matter of cultural fact.
SILBER: Do you think these gun show flea market dealers represent a bigger trend in the United States, that of rejecting the religious institutions, but hanging onto some kind of spiritual belief system?
FARNSLEY: Sure, that is a bigger trend.
When people talk about “the nones,” that’s a very large group of people. We need to be careful. Frequently who gets talked about are people who have rejected Western religion, and so they got interested in Eastern religions, New Age or other kinds of spiritual paths.
That’s not who my flea market dealers are. They’re not rejecting the doctrines. They’re rejecting the organization and the institution. It’s a little bit different. So I’d be careful of saying they represent that trend. What I would want to say is that the trend is a lot bigger than it’s sometimes portrayed. A lot of people fall under there.
SILBER: Although they still represent a trend, right? The trend of rejecting religious institutions.
FARNSLEY: They do represent the trend in this sense that we see a lot of people who are cautious about institutions.
When you think about the 60s and you move into the 70s — and you think about the Vietnam and Watergate, individual choice has gotten broader. What’s gotten weaker is tradition.
Fifty years ago, somebody was running for president, somebody was the CEO of a big business. You would have known what their religious affiliation was. Now it’s much less likely that that’s going to come up, or that it’s going to matter. John F. Kennedy ran for president, huge deal that he was Catholic. John Kerry ran for president, and it was much smaller deal that he was Catholic.
SILBER: Did you get a sense of where this is headed? If the connections to the Bible and religious institutions becomes weaker and weaker, what happens to religion?
FARNSLEY: Absent the discipline of attending worship in a congregation, of reading the (religious) magazines, of watching the television programs, one has to assume that over time, theological beliefs are going to drift away.
But we’re not talking about 20 or 40 or 60 years. The religious truths in folk culture are very strong. The idea that this is what a normal person believes. This is what a good person believes. I think that’s strong and anybody predicting kind of the immanent demise of religion — that’s a long, long way into the future.
Art Farnsley is the author of Flea Market Jesus
Interview edited for clarity.
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