Black Americans are probably the most religious non-religious group within the country.
In a recent Pew Research Center report on the growing segment of unaffiliated “nones” within the US, they stand out for his or her faithfulness. Nearly all Black nones consider in a better power, and a 3rd still consider within the God of the Bible. Barely any consider themselves atheists.
Even amongst those that not label themselves with any faith, they pray more, attend church more, and see religion as more significant than some other unaffiliated demographic.
“Black nones are way more connected to the Black church than white nones are connected to Christianity overall,” said sociologist Jason E. Shelton, a professor and director of the Center for African American Studies on the University of Texas at Arlington. “These usually are not qualitatively the identical kinds of individuals.”
Though Black nones make up lower than 10 percent of all nones in America, their disaffiliation is especially significant for a culture historically tied to church and faith. One in five Black Americans are religiously unaffiliated.
Black Americans leave religion for a number of the same reasons as others do: They feel the church isn’t open to addressing their questions and doubts; they’ve been hurt by bad experiences; they’ve found a way of community and identity elsewhere.
Plus, there’s a segment of Black Americans who’ve left white evangelical churches and ministries in consequence of the extreme polarization around race and politics in recent times.
“They say, ‘I don’t need to be a component of this if that is what Christianity is about and also you dehumanize me,’” said Lisa Fields, apologist and founding father of the ministry the Jude 3 Project. “When Black people have been in white evangelical or multiethnic churches, I find they use the language of ‘deconstruction’ a bit bit greater than Black those that got here from the Black church.”
As more Americans overall deconstruct or drop their religious affiliations, so have more Black Christians; the proportion of nones who’re Black has held regular at 9 percent for at the least the past decade of Pew polling.
Across the board, though, Black nones don’t feel as negatively about religion or as adamant about their disaffiliation in comparison with some other demographic; in Pew’s findings, they stand out by double-digit margins for a lot of questions.
1 / 4 of Black nones say they feel like they don’t need religion of their lives, in comparison with 41 percent of nones overall. Thirty percent of Black nones don’t like religious organizations, versus 47 percent of all nones.
More than 80 percent of unaffiliated Black Americans consider within the spiritual world, the soul, and a better power, and greater than half still consider in heaven and hell. For this group, the everyday apologetics bent on proving the existence of God isn’t obligatory. They already agree.
“We are only so connected to faith as a community, from our families to how a lot of us were raised,” Fields told CT. “It’s hard for us to not consider there may be a God that exists, that God helps us navigate this world and has brought our people out of slavery.”
That sense of history and legacy for Black faith anchors many to their beliefs, though nones may lose ties with the church services, celebrations, and ministries that Black churches proceed to placed on. While Black nones are 4 times more likely than white nones to maintain going to church, three-quarters have largely stopped attending services.
Research shows that religious disaffiliation—particularly for the “nothing particularly” group that the overwhelming majority of Black nones find themselves in—is correlated with a drop in community involvement and engagement. While that’s true of all nones, Shelton worries that loss could have a disproportionate impact on Black America, which has relied so heavily on the church.
“The church has at all times been the vessel that we as Black people have used to have community and solidarity,” he said. “It’s the church that connects [Black society], so because the nones fall away from that, what does that mean for community? What does that mean for Black music? What does that mean for Black politics? And what does that mean for the long-standing legacy of racial discrimination on this country?”
“If we who fall away from organized religion aren’t there … to carry our nation to its standard of progress and equality for all of us, then who’s gonna do it?”
Shelton analyzes the implications of the massive shifts in Black faith in his upcoming book, The Contemporary Black Church: The New Dynamics of African American Religion, out in August from New York University Press.
He sees the Black church, in some ways, getting stung by its own success. It’s due to Black church’s role in education, civil rights, entrepreneurship, and community organizing, he says, that today’s African Americans reached a position where they produce other options and opportunities outside of it.
And Black churches across denominations see that playing out of their neighborhoods and Sunday sanctuaries. Shelton found that the nones now represent the second-biggest religious group amongst African American denominations, trailing only the Baptists.
“The future doesn’t look good for organized religion in Black America, especially the historic traditions,” he said. “The Baptists are still the most important, but they’re losing people. The Methodists are really down small. The Pentecostals are losing, but they’re not losing nearly as many since they’ve at all times been small.”
Even with emptier pews and a next generation that’s less tied to the Black church than some other in history, the lingering beliefs amongst Black nones can be an indication of hope.
Religious statistician Ryan Burge, who authored a book on the expansion of non secular nones, found that “the information indicates that Black nones have a stronger faith background and are rather more more likely to embrace religion in the long run than nones of other racial groups.”
Shelton said churches should confide in people’s questions quite than shutting them down. In the Pew study, Black nones are less likely than nones overall to depart religion over their skepticism, but slightly below half say they query “a number of religious teachings.”
The growing field of urban apologetics has taken up the challenge in Black communities, including addressing misgivings in regards to the faith that come from racism and injustice.
“It is giving Black people a reason for the hope of the gospel despite the cultural, historical, spiritual, and theological barriers Blacks need to the Christian faith,” writes Eric Mason in his 2021 book on the subject. “And on the core of urban apologetics is a restoration of the imago Dei.”
Fields takes the strategy of careful listening to listen to and understand the stories of Black Americans who left the church.
A number of years ago, Jude 3 hosted a discussion series called “Why I Don’t Go,” engaging and listening to African Americans who’ve left the church or are on the fence. Some of the areas of hurt, doubt, and disconnect inspired Field’s latest book, When Faith Disappoints: The Gap Between What We Believe and What We Experience, which comes out this summer.
The book acknowledges “how, for some, Christianity could have failed to fulfill those very valid needs, so that they turned to varied counterfeits” like syncretistic beliefs and spiritual practices like crystals or sage.
Field called it her plea for them to “come back or to remain.”
“I’m very optimistic,” she said. “What individuals are trying to find, Christianity possesses. We have the hope the world is in search of.”
