I've recently been reading a lot of statistics about "Nones." Nones are those in the U.S. who report no religious affiliation. The latest Pew Research, published in May, showed that between 2007 and 2014, Nones grew to 23% of the U.S. population. Among Americans under the age of 30, the percentage of Nones has jumped to nearly 40%. There is great concern among Christians about how Christian symbols, rituals, doctrines, ways of perceiving and interpreting reality can be transmitted to others. The most interesting factor is that our sacred stories - our Scriptures - can still resonate among the unaffiliated; many find especially the parables of Jesus spiritually meaningful and morally relevant. And these truths can literally set them on fire to save the world.
The Nones are not unspiritual people; they seek for spiritual meaning in their lives. Often their spiritual beliefs have been chosen from among many religious traditions. Their respect for Jesus has nothing to do with Christians' doctrinal beliefs about him - that he is the Messiah, the Son of God, Who died for us and then was resurrected from the dead. No, they love the human Jesus, who courageously called the religious leaders "hypocrites," who called for social justice, whose friends included social outcasts, who reached out to women, like the woman caught in adultery.
Christians who belong to congregations tend to give most of their care to members of their congregation and their community: the sick, the widowed, the children, the elderly, the hungry and poor, those in need of counseling and support - all worthy and necessary works of compassion.
The Nones are more wide-ranging in their compassion, often idealistic, and they remember the Jesus who reached out to those who were different, to the "other." They have a global mentality, a greater acceptance of diversity, realizing that all people of every race, religion, ( or no religion), and sexual orientation are interconnected - we're all on this earth together. And, as Ben Franklin said, we'll all hang together or we'll all hang separately. And the environmentalists among them are on fire for the non-humans - animals, birds, aquatic life, rivers, plains, forests, and mountains, especially all those species facing extinction because of pollution that threatens our world itself.
Many of these Nones can teach Christians about being on fire. We speak of being empowered by the Holy Spirit, but so often we are trapped by our fears, our stereotypes, our pre-conceived notions of morality and reality. So many Nones have their own visions of what's wrong with the world and how it needs to be made healed and whole again, and then, fired up by their visions, they go out to labor in their world. We Christians should not be so arrogant as to think that we are the only ones who are holy people. If God has created all of us and lives in the souls of all of us, then God is at work in all who understand and live a life of sacrificial love, - whether they recognize God yet or not. God cannot be constrained by our narrow ideas of where the Spirit blows or where God dwells or how God is at work.
We Christians may long and yearn for the Nones we know and love to discover or re-discover the beauty of Christianity and a God Who loves us so much that He became one of us, saved us by His death, gave us the gift of eternal life. But like our God, so patient, we need to love them and accept them where they are right now. We need to care about them as precious human beings. We need to have gentle conversations with them, learn their spiritual language and beliefs, humbly learn from them about what they see wrong in this world. We need to listen to God's Voice of Truth Which can speak so clearly through them and be means of conversion for us!.
We also need to become humbly aware of the limits of our own Christian institutions and individual church communities. Many are still sexist: women have not yet been integrated into leadership positions as they should be. Some believe that God is a Male, even though yes, Jesus is male, in his human form, but God is pure Spirit, and can be seen as Mother or Father, encompassing both male and female in Mystery. Some are not especially welcoming to people of different races, ethnicities, or sexual orientations. The Nones watch us; they observe; and where they see hypocrisy in us, a lack of love in us, they back away from organized religion.
We can honestly say and witness to Nones: yes, our church institutions are not perfect, but neither are our families or our government. But it is important to us to commit to our churches, to work for them to mature and grow. Because we have a vision for them, a vision of their maturing, and we can patiently wait with them and within them and help to make this growth happen. And, yes, we are on fire with love for our churches, our people, our beliefs. Commitment to all of that is the most important reality in our lives.
We especially can thank the Nones among us for calling attention to any hypocrisies they see in us, and especially for expanding our vision to Jesus' vision of care for all people, not just the ones we know and are like us, not just the people in our church communities, but the people outside the walls of our churches. With the Nones, beside the Nones, standing in unity, we want to be on fire to save this world! And with faith, hope, and love, we leave our precious Nones in God's Hands, as we plant seeds and let God bring in the harvest.