Those without religious affiliation aren't necessarily rejecting God

"The Rise of the Nones" is one of 10 trends changing American life, according to Time magazine's March 12 cover story. That's because the "nones" — those who mark "none" on surveys that ask them to identify their religious affiliation — are the fastest-growing religious group in the United States.

Not surprisingly, the increase in the unaffiliated comes at the expense of America's mainstream religions, which means that Christianity is taking the biggest hit. Mainstream Protestant churches have lost more than a third of their members since 1960. Evangelical churches are also feeling the pinch; Southern Baptists are hurting. Various surveys illuminate this trend: About 75 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 now consider themselves "spiritual but not religious." Furthermore, all traditional forms of Christian practice have sharply declined from previous decades (including church attendance, Bible study and prayer), and doubts are much sharper regarding traditional Christian beliefs.

Although a recent bumper crop of pundits likes to proclaim that we'd all be better off with no religion, I suspect that the majority of us believe that religion, in spite of its flaws, offers individuals the inspiration to be better people and to create a better nation. Seminary and church leaders, in particular, are highly motivated to staunch the decline. Unfortunately, many of them believe that what's really needed is a return to the "faith of our fathers," stricter adherence to creeds and (this is America, after all) better marketing methods.

I advocate a radically different solution: the Emerging Church. It's a movement based on understanding the reasons for mainstream religion's dramatic decline: improved scientific understanding, changing social norms, an increasingly pluralistic religious culture and more freedom to doubt and question — a freedom that until the last three centuries was mostly absent or suppressed and that is still resisted, sometimes violently, in much of the world today.

In my experience, the nones are not rejecting God. They are rejecting doctrinal requirements that they no longer find believable, along with the rigid structures of many organized religions. For that reason, the rise of the nones may well be a new kind of spiritual awakening, one in which doubters are welcome.

In the Christian tradition, for example, the Emerging Church invites participation from all who find themselves attracted to the teachings, actions and person of Jesus. It isn't crucial that members call themselves Christians, or that they believe Bible stories literally (rather than metaphorically), or even that they are believers rather than agnostics and atheists. As long as people want to sincerely engage with the teachings of Jesus and with the communities that seek to live by those values — "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," "Love your neighbor," "Blessed are the peacemakers" — they are welcome.

Given that there are already almost 10,000 religions in the world, Jewish author Eric Weiner writes that we need to "invent not a new religion but, rather, a new way of being religious." As the dean of a theology school, I see the Emerging Church attracting an incredible diversity of people into new and experimental kinds of religious community. The lapsed faithful, exhausted refugees from mainline faiths, former evangelicals, frustrated Catholics and seekers with no background at all in organized religion are creating (in Weiner's beautiful phrase) "a religious space that celebrates doubt, encourages experimentation and allows one to utter the word God without embarrassment."

The leaders of the movement share a common fascination with the radical teachings of Jesus, but the communities they form vary widely. Meeting sites range from homes to pubs to parks to churches to convention centers. These groups aren't rigidly hierarchical either; their leaders are more often hosts and conveners than preachers and teachers of doctrine.