The Rise of the Nones

Religion stories make the front page of the Denver Post a lot. This is a little surprising give this story off the front page of the Denver Post.

The Rocky Mountain West boasts an unusually high proportion of Roman Catholics, Mormons and "nones," or people who claim affiliation with no religious institution but may consider themselves spiritual, a new study has found.

Why is this case?

"When you do ask, there are a lot of people who claim a religious identity but are not affiliated," said Mark Silk, director of the Greenberg Center and project co-editor. "A true 'none' is someone who you call up, you ask them about their religious identity, and they say they have none."

Scholars connect the rise of the "nones" in the West to several factors: an independent spirit and distrust of institutions, newcomers who leave behind the religion of their upbringing, a desire to spend more time outdoors in nature and the fact that identifying oneself as nonreligious is no longer taboo.

Also, the nones are not really nones.

A more accurate gauge of "nones," scholars say, is the 2001 American Religious Identification Survey, which quizzed 50,000 U.S. households. That's the survey that found 23 percent of those in the Mountain West identified themselves as "no religion/humanists."

This has been what I have observed. The institutional aspect of religion is weak in the Rocky Mountain West. Part of the study contrasted Boulder and Colorado Springs. You get your usual New Age versus Evangelical analysis. But what was also found is the situation is more complicated in the case of Colorado Springs. It really isn't the Evangelical juggernaut.

The data, however, show Colorado Springs is not a one-religion town. In El Paso County, conservative Protestants account for 37 percent of religious adherents, followed by Catholics (25 percent), African-American Protestants (16 percent), mainline Protestants (16 percent) and Mormons (5 percent).

Nevertheless Evangelicals in the Springs were stated as being responsible for the strength of the Republican party. I think that this is overblown. The issue of gay marriage is bringing Black, White, and Hispanic Evangelicals (and conservative Catholics) together. The Washington Times reported, for example.

Evangelical Protestants, both black and white, appear to be one of the few remaining bulwarks against widespread acceptance of homosexuality in an American society where sodomy has been decriminalized and television shows feature homosexual characters.

Given the strength of Catholicism in the Rocky Mountain West I wonder whether the effect on politics here is being underestimated. For example, Ken Salazar, Peter Coors, and Bob Schaefer are all Roman Catholic. So, is Representative Marilyn Musgrave who is the author of the Family Marriage Amendment to the Constitution.

So-called media bias does not require a conspiracy, but rather a common worldview. The same can be said about religious people in the Rocky Mountain West. A common worldview drives the political agenda even if the people are not institutionally connected. In a sense it is a strength. When institutions fail the faith of the so-called "nones" can continue.