7 February 2020
In recent years, there have been many news reports touting the fact that the fastest growing religious group in the United States is the nones. Who are the nones? And when did we start using the term?
The nones are people who are not affiliated with any organized religion. The group includes atheists and agnostics, but it also includes those who are “spiritual but not religious,” people who believe in a God or gods or an eternal soul but who don’t ascribe to a faith tradition that has a label. The term has become rather common in recent years, but it was coined over fifty years ago.
None dates to at least 1967 when it was used in a paper by sociologist Glenn M. Vernon. The paper was published the following year, but it apparently circulated in mimeograph form before its formal publication. The paper is titled The Religious “Nones”: A Neglected Category and says of the term:
In fact, the label “No religion” is used in the 1957 U. S. Census and by some researchers to identify those who do not belong to a formal church. By way of contrast, the social scientist classifies as “independent” those who do not report affiliation with a particular political party. The use of the “independent” label suggests that the lack of political party affiliation does not mean that one is apolitical or has no political convictions. He is still viewed as a political person. Perhaps this is because the act of voting serves as the primary validation of political participation. There is no comparable religious phenomenon, no clearly recognized religious behavior other than membership, attendance, or other identification with a formal religious group. Thus, “none” is used in religious research, designating no religious affiliation, but also adding the gratuitous implication of a nonreligious person.
And he says of the nones:
Frequently included under this label are atheists, agnostics, those with “no preference,” those with no affiliation, and also members of small groups and others who, for one reason or another, do not fall within the classification scheme being used and who more properly belong in a residual or “other” category.
Vernon also uses nones in a second 1968 paper, “Marital Characteristics of Religious Independents.” This paper is actually published a few months before the one above, but it references the 1967, mimeographed version of that paper, so this second paper was clearly written later despite the earlier publication date. In this second paper he writes:
When the sociologist of religion reports his research, he at times includes a somewhat residual category of “none” under which is frequently included such diverse individuals as atheists, agnostics, those with “no preference,” those with “no affiliation” as well as practicing and/or believing “nones"—those without affiliation who engage in ritual behavior and/or accept premises incorporated in the beliefs of the affiliated religionists. These are the “religious nones” to which previous attention has been called.
Despite the wording, I’ve found no evidence in the sources he cites of anyone else using the term nones. The “previous attention” is a reference to the mimeographed version of his first paper. The word none had been used in surveys as a possible response when asking the question of religious affiliation prior to Vernon’s two articles, but they did not use it as a noun labeling a category of religious (non-)affiliation. While this is hardly ironclad evidence that he coined the term, it seems probable that he did.
None of the above has anything to do with the Christian liturgical term none (or nones), which has an entirely different origin. The liturgical term is borrowed from Latin and French and is reference to the ninth hour of the day or the prayers that were to be offered at that hour, from the Latin nona. This nones roughly corresponds to 3 pm, the ninth hour of daylight.
Sources:
I’d like to thank Garson O’Toole of the Quote Investigator website and Peter Reitan for assistance in my research on this term.
