Religious Nones

The sociology of religion traditionally neglected the study of secularity in favor of an idea of religious decline informed by secularization theory. For decades, the analysis of religiously unaffiliated people—known as “religious nones”—therefore remained underexplored and purely instrumental for testing religion-centered hypotheses related to the fading supremacy of traditional religious forms in the West. The recent “rediscovery” of secularity as a research object by nonreligion studies has sparked a new wave of criticism fueled by researchers’ emphasis on the sprawling—and previously unengaged—variety of nonreligious positions that range from alternative forms of secular spiritualities all the way to dogmatic antireligion. This introductory article aims to provide an overview of these changes in the landscape of religious and nonreligious studies. Starting from a brief historical contextualization of the contemporary debate about nonreligion, relevant concepts and an overview of the emerging field of nonreligion studies are presented to the readers. Particular attention is then dedicated to the characteristics of religious nones. By highlighting the fundamental difference between “religiosity” and “affiliation,” the article shows how these two elements influenced the ways in which religious nones were conceptualized and approached in nonreligion studies. The article then moves to a discussion of the secularization debate presenting the theoretical and methodological criticism that scholars studying nonreligion directed to this classical theory. Finally, the main challenges that researchers interested in nonreligion are currently facing are introduced and discussed.