Nones – Studying Religion in Culture

Something New From the “Nones” with the Pew Research Center’s Online Survey Results

December 17, 2021 by Steven Ramey

The Nones are causing “trouble” again, with sensationalized headlines about the decline of Christianity. These takes can easily reinforce the anxiety among some about changes in society and activate nostalgia for some mythic 1950’s America (which was certainly not experienced as peaceful or comfortable by many marginalized groups in the 1950s, or even today). Based on survey data that the Pew Research Center released this week, those who represent themselves as unaffiliated with religion have grown to almost 30% of […]

I Hope You’re Happy

February 8, 2019 by Russell McCutcheon

Did you see the recent study that the Pew Research Center has posted, on the positive correlation between being religious and being happy? It’s worth looking at, especially if you think scholarship on religion ought to be no less rigorous than scholarship on any other aspect of being human. […]

Religion on the Television (Part 1)

April 14, 2014 by Theodore Trost

A recent article in the online journal Religious Dispatches discusses the Southern Christian presence, or lack thereof, on the hit television show Nashville. In an intriguing analysis, writer Carrie Allen Tipton points to the popular “spirituality” the show displays instead of the evangelical piety one would expect to find in a program situated in the Bible Belt and devoted to the culture of country of music. Perhaps the a-religiosity of the show can be attributed to the presumed proliferation of the […]

Probing the Problematic Polls

March 25, 2014 by Russell McCutcheon

A few days ago I posted on Facebook and asked when someone was going to tackle a dissertation on the Pew Charitable Trust or its research wing, and the way in which their seemingly objective polling is actually constituting a very particular sort of social world into which it is trying to fit the entire population of the globe. And voila, here’s a piece of data for that hypothetical dissertation: an article from the New York Review of Books on […]

One Bad Apple Don’t Spoil the Whole Bunch

January 13, 2014 by Russell McCutcheon

In the news this past week was the FBI’s classification of the fans — the so-called Juggalos — of the hip hop duo, Insane Clown Posse (ICP), as members of a gang (a classification that allows law enforcement greater freedoms). The group is now suing the FBI. […]

Nones Panel Response and Discussion

December 18, 2013 by Andie Alexander

Did you miss the panel “Discussing the Nones: What They Say About the Category Religion and American Society” at the American Academy of Religion meetings in Baltimore last month? Our own Prof. Steven Ramey joined Chip Callahan (Missouri), Sean McCloud (UNC Charlotte), Monica Miller (Lehigh University) and Patricia O’Connell Killen (Gonzaga) for a lively panel discussion that is now available for your viewing pleasure. Steven and Monica have already written about their responses to the panel here. Now you can watch it for yourself, with a new segment posted each day this week. […]

Talking on the Nones at the AAR

December 17, 2013 by Andie Alexander

Did you miss the panel “Discussing the Nones: What They Say About the Category Religion and American Society” at the American Academy of Religion meetings in Baltimore last month? Our own Prof. Steven Ramey joined Chip Callahan (Missouri), Sean McCloud (UNC Charlotte), Monica Miller (Lehigh University) and Patricia O’Connell Killen (Gonzaga) for a lively panel discussion that is now available for your viewing pleasure. Steven and Monica have already written about their responses to the panel here. Now you can watch it for yourself, with a new segment posted each day this week. […]

Discussing the “Nones” at the AAR

December 16, 2013 by Andie Alexander

Did you miss the panel “Discussing the Nones: What They Say About the Category Religion and American Society” at the American Academy of Religion meetings in Baltimore last month? Our own Prof. Steven Ramey joined Chip Callahan (Missouri), Sean McCloud (UNC Charlotte), Monica Miller (Lehigh University) and Patricia O’Connell Killen (Gonzaga) for a lively panel discussion that is now available for your viewing pleasure. Steven and Monica have already written about their responses to the panel here. Now you can […]