Nonverts

Among the many books and articles recently published about “The Rise of the Nones,” it is hard to find one more engaging than Stephen Bullivant’s Nonverts: The Making of Ex-Christian America. His style is clear, direct, and at times even funny. It also includes multiple interviews, often held in distinctive places and with fascinating people. In most cases, he weaves these interviews into stories and biographical narratives. Bullivant also shares the occasional humorous story about himself and his geeky past (119). The book is an engaging and accessible introduction to the conversation and will likely be of particular interest to those in the churches, both clergy and lay persons. For anyone who is invested in the church, the growing number of Nones feels existential. Over the last few decades, a historic number of people have exited the church and declared their independence from Christianity. For those who have been left behind (pun intended), understanding why so many have left is an urgent matter. Nonverts speaks directly to this question, helping theologians, pastors, and the laity understand these developments in a way that is not fully captured by, for instance, a report by the Pew Forum on Religion.

The most helpful service that Bullivant provides is hinted at in the title, Nonverts, a term the author coins to shed light on the makeup of the Nones, most of whom are not born Nones, but are instead “converts” who have abandoned a religious tradition and embraced no other—in a word, they are “nonverts.” While the phenomenon of leaving my religion is hardly new, Bullivant’s interest in how one’s religious past continues to bear on one’s present identity is much needed, particularly if we are to have any hope of relating to one another as members of a shared society. Simply put, we should be wary of adopting labels and work to understand one another's stories.

With personal narratives and graphs throughout the book, Bullivant helps us see that departures from Christianity are often arduous journeys toward a new identity. In Chapter Three, for example, Bullivant explains that many of the Nones continue to hold beliefs associated with religion. For instance, most continue to believe in a higher power. For all the talk of the Nones representing a tectonic type of shift, then, Nones appear to be part of a decades-old story of our increasingly anti-institutional culture, in which many people retain some mix of religious beliefs and practices, but no longer identify with organized religion.

Readers are likely to be left wanting more help in understanding this culture that, if you scratch below the surface, is less a secular culture than a post-secular one. The stories of the different types of nonverts are helpful as far as they go, but I was surprised that the narratives didn’t go beyond familiar tropes. According to Bullivant, former Christians run away from strong forms of Christianity, or they drift away from churches thought to have accommodated mainstream culture. For example, what about those conservatives who have stormed away from the mainline churches? Might they complicate the standard narrative of the decline of institutional Christianity? Namely, the mainline churches have experienced our culture wars internally.

More problematic is that we don’t learn much about what is only growing Christian group, non-denominational churches. Bullivant lumps them in with the larger category of evangelicals, which allows their growth to be overlooked entirely. Having ignored this interesting countertrend, Bullivant offers us a more hopeful, less agonistic image of our culture than is warranted. This omission is understandable, given that non-denominational congregations and associations tend not to share statistics. We do know, however, that they include greater ethnic diversity than the mainline denominations and are more conservative politically overall.

Notwithstanding these criticisms, the book is an excellent introduction to the growing phenomenon of irreligiosity and thus is highly recommended for anyone interested in thinking more about the changing nature of American religious life.

David True is an editor at Political Theology.

David True

Date Of Review:

August 29, 2023