According to Bullivant's data, at the start of Gallup polling in 1948 about 2% of the US population were Nones. That number held pretty steady up until the '60s and '70s when it ticked up to about 6%-9%. That new baseline held steady up until 2001. From there, the number has been steadily climbing, doubling to the current 20%-22%.
So, something happened in early 2000's.
Actually, Bullivant argues that something also happened in the 60s and 70s. In the 60s and 70s, due to the cultural upheavals of the time, the Nones started growing in Europe. And yet, there was only a slight uptick in America. According to Bullivant, a suppressing effect was at work in America during this tumultuous time, something that kept Americans in their churches while Europeans were abandoning theirs.
What was suppressing deconversion in America during the 60s and 70s?
Bullivant points his finger at the Cold War. The battle against the USSR was framed in explicitly religious terms, Christian America against a godless, atheistic Communism. To be an atheist during the Cold War was to support the Russians. In short, while the cultural and values revolution of the 60s and 70s should have resulted in a large uptick in the Nones, only a small change was observed due to the stigmas associated with atheism during the Cold War.
However, after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, younger generations were raised in a post-Cold War nation where the bogeyman of "atheistic communism" was absent. With that suppressing Cold War stigma fading in cultural memory, more and more Americans felt freer to identify as a None. Held partly in check by the Cold War, the values gap that was created in the 60s and 70s began to affect American culture more broadly in the 80s and 90s.
The biggest global threat for post-Cold War generations happened on 9/11. Suddenly, atheism wasn't the problem anymore. The problem was religious extremism. The terrorist attacks on 9/11 prompted Sam Harris to write The End of Faith, kicking off the New Atheist moment, much of which was directed at Islamic extremism.
And yet, while these geo-political events played a role in the rise of the Nones, according to Bullivant the biggest driver of religious deconversion over the last twenty years has been the Internet.
In 1999, Web 2.0 began to emerge. Users of the Internet no longer looked at static pages, but were allowed to share their own content. Discussion boards and chatrooms emerged. Facebook shows up in 2003. The rest is history. Instagram. Reddit. Snapchat. Twitter. YouTube. TikTok.
If you look at the trends, Bullivant argues that social media has been the biggest driver in the rise of the Nones. Starting in the early 2000s, when social media arrived, the Nones have been steadily increasing. Bullivant's interviews with Nones supports this conclusion. The impact here is fourfold. First, social media reinforces pluralism, the vast diversity of belief and unbelief. This diversity encourages us to explore and find our own niche. In this diverse marketplace unbelief is normalized and destigmatized as just one among many options and lifestyles. Second, people are exposed to criticisms of faith. Arguments against religion are encountered online and can be explored. Over time, a person can click their way out of faith. Third, with social media minority groups were able to find each other online. A lonely journey of deconversion could now be celebrated, supported and shared with others. Lastly, in the case of church trauma and abuse, social media allowed victims to whistleblow and find support in ways they were denied in the past.
In short, social media has catalyzed deconversion.
Now, a response here might be, "Damn the Internet! I knew it was evil."
The Internet probably is evil, but I say that typing on a social media platform that you are now reading. People living in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Evil or not, I don't think social media is going anywhere. Clearly, you and I haven't given upon it. The internet is here to stay.
Also, to throw away the Internet is to throw away the testimonies of victims and whistleblowers who have named and brought much evil in the church out into the daylight.
A challenge, then, must faced. If the church wants to address the evangelism gap of the modern world--one convert to five nonverts--it is going to have to figure out how to do spiritual formation and evangelism in a world saturated by social media.
I don't think anyone has figured this out yet, but it is the most pressing and urgent challenge facing the modern church.
