Christians and “Nones”: Action vs Affiliation

Pax Ahimsa Gethen
2 min readSep 17, 2022
Reverend Roland Stringfellow speaks outdoors in San Francisco at a podium displaying the sign “Love is never wrong”, surrounded by other religious leaders. Photo © 2013 Pax Ahimsa Gethen, Funcrunch Photo.

This week, the Pew Research Center released a study showing that Christians might become a minority group in the United States by the year 2070. If I live to see that day, I will be 100 years old, which is highly unlikely.

As a long-time atheist, you might think I’d rejoice at the decline of Christianity and the rise of “nones” — religiously-unaffiliated people — in the U.S. And in some ways I do, as Christians have been primarily responsible for the oppression of women, queer and trans people, and other marginalized groups in this country.

Here’s the thing, though. I care much more about people’s actions than their affiliations. There are countries—especially in Europe — with official state churches that are more socially progressive than the U.S., with our supposed separation of church and state.

Christians who promote anti-abortion and anti-trans legislation point to Jesus and the Bible to defend their actions. But many other Christians support pregnant people’s rights to bodily…

Pax Ahimsa Gethen

Queer agender trans male. Black vegan atheist, pacifist. Pronouns: they/them/their. funcrunch.org, patreon.com/funcrunch