Last week, United Church of Christ (UCC) Pastor Jeff Nelson wrote a very thoughtful, honest blog post about reaching individuals who say they’re “spiritual but not religious.” This group is also widely known as the “Nones” – the people who write down “none” when asked on surveys if they’re affiliated with any particular religious institution.
Nelson, who serves at a congregation in Uniontown, Ohio, argued that many “formal religious institutions” had trouble relating to Nones. In a post on the UCC’s blog New Sacred on March 1, he said this was because Mainline Protestantism has approached Nones with a “dismissive” attitude. He admitted that the UCC struggled with this problem, too.
“We as a denomination haven’t yet figured out how to listen to the ‘spiritual but not religious,'” Nelson said. “We’re too busy griping about them to do that.”
Instead of trying to engage this supposedly “lazy” group, Nelson said that religious leaders were busily leveling insults at them: “Entitled. Self-centered. Vapid. Unoriginal. Boring.” He maintained the solution was to better understand the Nones by actively listening to them and meeting them where they are, whether that’s at “daily yoga practice,” “through music,” or “with friends at the pub.”
There’s certainly precedent for Nelson’s approach. Jesus made friends with the spiritually confused, too. He even befriended the social outcasts – like prostitutes and tax collectors – who were open to hearing the truth. “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost,” Jesus said. (Luke 19:10, ESV)
Our Savior made clear his mission wasn’t primarily to rescue the hypocritical religious establishment, but messy, average people: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Mark 2:17, ESV)
Although an affront to Jewish customs, Jesus ate with sinners and visited their homes. We, too, should look for ways to relate to non-Christians. We imitate Christ when we find connecting points with “sinners” – whether it’s yoga, music, or the pub.
However, I think it’s important to take this approach one step further. We can’t just stop with meeting Nones where they are. We need to present them with Gospel truth and integrate them into the local church, where they can experience discipleship in community.
Like Jesus, we must rely on more than relatability to succeed. What ultimately drew the crowds to Jesus was His authority. He had life-giving truth which people knew they needed to hear. In one of numerous similar passages, Luke records that those who heard Jesus “were astonished at his teaching, for his word possessed authority.” (Luke 4:32, ESV)
Unlike conventional liberal wisdom, churches don’t achieve renewal by focusing on social justice or becoming more tolerant of sin. They transform the places they inhabit through persuasively presenting the Gospel.
Indeed, not even reaching the most cosmopolitan, “worldly” communities requires compromising on the core values of Christianity. Mark Tooley, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD), presented a case in point back in December 2015. Arlington, Virginia, is located just across the Potomac River from IRD’s offices in downtown Washington, D.C. It’s a yuppie, diverse, and densely populated suburb of the nation’s capital. But even there, formalized religion is meeting with success.
“A quick internet search, and my acquaintance with many young Arlington Christians, reveals many, many vibrant new evangelical churches with young congregations in Arlington, most of them in rented space, beyond what I could have imagined just a few years ago,” Tooley wrote.
Nones, whether they live in Arlington or Uniontown, need a sympathetic, listening ear. But they also need something more. They need to hear the truth. We must excel at providing both to fully imitate Jesus Christ.
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