Hope for the ‘Nones’?

Last week I was called by a producer from Radio 5, asking me to comment on a new report that claimed: ‘For every one person brought up with no religion who has become a Christian, 26 people brought up as Christians now identify as Nones (having no religion).’ To the radio producer this was clear evidence that Christianity was on a losing wicket and we’d be all out before tea.

I asked him to send me the report before I commented and, for a change, what I found there was both encouraging and challenging. Mark Twain is reported to have said: ‘Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are pliable’, so it is with some trepidation that I recommend reading the report, The ‘No- Religion’ Population of Britain, and the survey on which it is based. However, I think they offer a helpful insight into the backgrounds of those with whom we seek to share the Good News.

Conversions

The first encouragement is that people from non-religious homes are being converted. One in 20 people brought up in a non-religious home now identifies as some type of Christian. In an increasingly hostile world this is good news indeed.

The second encouragement is that the author suggests that the high rate of ‘non-verts’, those who say they were brought up in a Christian home but now identify as Nones, has more to do with a rejection of ‘weak, cultural, nostalgic ties’, than a rejection of the gospel itself. Ticking ‘Christian’ or ‘Church of England’ is no longer the default option. Again, this is a reason to give thanks, if it means fewer people are assuming that they are Christian by virtue of being born in England.

Unknown entity

But as we remove the ‘baggage’ of assumed Christianity, we also lose some of the benefits. About 60% of 18– 44-year-olds identify as Nones, and another 10% of people of this age range claim some religious identity, but never attend a service of worship. Statistically, most of these people will have grown up in a non-religious home and attended a non-religious school. The truth is that, for the majority of those under 45, the church and Christianity have never played any role in their life at all. We are not just an irrelevance, we are unknown.

This is the challenge. It is all too easy to assume a certain amount of cultural ‘capital’ when we invite people to evangelistic events; we expect people to be familiar with Christmas carols or the Easter story; we invite people to a special church service, but don’t tell them they are welcome to come back next week or the week after that; we think that modern (or traditional) songs will make all the difference, without recognising how rarely most people sing at all.

A few years ago, a friend told me about a window display she had seen in Japan. It was December and the store had spent considerable time and effort on their centrepiece – a large, fat Father Christmas, hanging on a cross. Incongruous maybe, but as a symbol of the challenge we face sharing the gospel with Nones, perhaps it is telling.