An Interview with the Guy Who Named the ‘Nones’
By Wendy Thomas Russell | January 10, 2013
There was a time, in the extremely recent past, when Americans with no religion were “the others.”
For decades, religious affiliation has fascinated researchers. Countless studies and surveys show document a painstaking analysis of each minor population shift. A switch from, say, Methodist to Baptist or Catholic to Protestant has been marked with great interest, year by year. Sure, the numbers of Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists have remained relatively small next to Christians — but they, too, have been counted. Their numbers seemed to matter.
Always absent from these studies and surveys was a specific category for Americans with no religion. Those of us who didn’t “belong” in an established group — for whatever reason. We were simply the “others.” Too few to name, much less care about.
But that all changed in the first years of the 21st Century.
http://wendythomasrussell.com/nones/
