For the past fifteen years or so there has been a heightened focus on the rising category of “nones” in church research. Mostly there has been a panic that our younger generations are leaving organized religion, that the institutional church is in danger, that Christian spirituality is suffering, as well as a glut of manipulative and disingenuous gimmicks to trick young people to want to come back to mom & dad’s/grandma’s & grandpa’s church. There has been a surge of alternative “styles” of church – church that doesn’t feel like church; come and believe whatever the hell you want to, watch TV and videos and listen to Taylor Swift and call it worship — you name it.

Much has been made of some of the reasoning of those who are abandoning traditional church structures and systems – Christians are too judgmental, hypocritical, unreasonable, gullible, hostile, exclusive, etc., but looking into the raw data and survey responses, two factors emerge that receive very little attention, but I believe explain a LOT.

First, a majority of people who are disillusioned by organized religion are turned off by certainty masked as faith. Young people are attracted by the mystery of our creation, but call bullshit when leaders pretend to know more than what can be proven. Nothing will turn a young person off faster than being told that their questions, doubts, skepticism, and wonder is unacceptable. Belief couched as certainty smacks of dishonesty. Urban T. Holmes, in his seminal A History of Christian Spirituality, distinguishes apophatic spirituality from kataphatic spirituality; apophatic meaning “unknowable; defined by what something is not, or not fully comprehended – beyond human understanding,” and kataphatic meaning “Known, realized, readily grasped and understood – visualized and comprehended.” Holmes also contrasts affective and speculative, essentially heart-based, emotional, appealing to the feelings vs. head-based, cognitive, appealing to reason and logic. Modern Western conservative Christianity tends to be predominantly affective and kataphatic; progressive Christianity leans speculative and kataphatic; older GenX, Millennials, and Alphas tend toward speculative, heavily apophatic. Younger people want to deep dive toward understanding faith which they discover to be deeply shrouded in unknowing. Most institutional churches are not designed to meet younger seekers where they are. It doesn’t make sense to speak with certainty about things that cannot be fully known and understood.

If you read through responses given by “nones,” you will find a commonality. It is not that they don’t have faith or beliefs; it is that they will not subscribe to declarations of faith professed as fact and certainty. If you ask if they believe in heaven and/or hell, they will say “no.” If you ask if they believe there is some form of existence beyond earthly, physical life, the majority say “yes.” If you ask if they believe in the God of the Old Testament, they tend toward “no,” but if you talk about a creative force or energy from which all things emerged? “Yes,” is the overwhelming response. If you ask them if they need a church connection, they generally say “no,” but a majority prefer a community of people with which to question, study, discuss, and explore. If you ask younger people if God’s Holy Spirit provides us with “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” they will tell you that God is not necessary for these life values to be true, authentic, or valuable. They also will tell you that they do not witness these principles/values/behaviors in the majority of Christians that they know, but they do often see them in non-believers.

Calling non-conformist believers “nones” is about as disrespectful, dismissive, and destructive as possible, and it simply confirms all the misgivings younger people believe about organized religion. The second “hidden” aspect of those rejecting the institutional church is the lack of unity and the radical amount of division and disagreement. In 1950, it was estimated that there were approximately 290 different Christian faith communions/denominations. By 1980? Researcher David Barrett identified approximately 21,000. In 2026? Estimates are around 45,000. Younger spiritual seekers feel/think that an authentic faith will bring people together instead of driving them apart. When young people hear “unity in Christ,” or witness tenuous ecumenism or interfaith engagement, they are turned off because it does not track with rampant denominational divisiveness and disunity. Where communities are reconciled and unified across a diversity of beliefs and practices, they are attracted. Where communities split over theological, ethical, biblical, or moral differences, young people are repulsed.

Young people simply want an honest agnosticism – we don’t know what we don’t know, and we shouldn’t declare certainty about things that cannot be known absolutely. Belief is great, but when beliefs lead people to judge, to condemn, to oppress, to punish, to abuse, to kill, to attack, to insult, to harm, or to reject, then such belief is toxic, deadly, and quite frankly false. What young people want is integrity, honesty, and the safe and supportive space to explore options and possibilities. They look at the religions of the world across time and space seeking commonalities and synchronicity, not reasons to argue, condescend, and determine who is right and who is wrong. Young people are asking for a healthy agnostification; to admit that there are many things that we do not, cannot, will not know in this lifetime, but that are worth exploring – together (but not in traditional churches locked into the fallacies of institutional dogma and organized autocratic religion).