The Many Meanings of Non-Affiliation

This chapter shows that non-affiliation means different things in different cultural contexts and among people with different social resources. Some religious traditions, such as Judaism, do not make affiliation central, so non-affiliation matters less. Similarly, many immigrants come from places where belonging and belief are not typical ways of being religious. Not all “nones” are alike. Nor are less well-off nones like the more privileged non-affiliates often imagined. Using the Faith Matters Survey, this chapter shows that less highly educated nones are more likely to hold religious folk beliefs and less likely to be politically liberal, for example. But most important is that the people who are at the bottom of the status hierarchy are—if they are also unaffiliated—more pessimistic, less trusting, less engaged in their communities, and less empowered. They may even be less healthy. The absence of religious ties exacerbates the effects of being on the social and economic margins.