Something besides monotheism: Sociotheological boundary work among the spiritual, but not religious

Rescuing Nones From the Reference Category: Civic Engagement Among the Nonreligious in America

“…As a result, these scholars have urged us not to reify religious and nonreligious identifications in our studies (Ammerman, 2013;Cotter, 2015). Understanding the changing nature of nonreligious identification and the existence of more than one classification system, our research is part of a growing body of studies (e.g., Baker & Smith, 2015;McClure, 2017;Silver et al, 2014) that use survey data to identify meaningful variation in nonreligious identification, belief, and belonging in an effort to develop better measures and to establish areas of inquiry in which such variation may affect social behavior. Our specific contribution is to analyze whether including a range of nonreligious identities, rather than a single "nonreligious" reference group, improves our understanding of the relationship between nonreligion and civic engagement.…”

“…Most surveys do not give "SBNR" as a response option, however, recent work urges the provision of survey response options that distinguish between religiosity and spirituality (Cragun, Hammer, & Nielsen, 2015;Schnell, 2015). Mercadante (2014) and McClure (2017) argue that SBNRs are distinctive, with beliefs that deviate from dominant forms of Judeo-Christian theology. Therefore, we include SBNR as an additional option for expressing an intentional distancing from organized religion.…”

Religion and Spirituality among American Indian, South Asian, Black, Hispanic/Latina, and White Women in the Study on Stress, Spirituality, and Health

“…Interestingly, more than 25 percent of SA women reported being “religious but not spiritual,” an unusually large percentage relative to the U.S. general population (4.13 percent, see McClure 2017). This high proportion may reflect culturally driven engagement in religious rites and rituals, though it might also reflect basic differences in Eastern and Western conceptions of the term “spiritual.” SA religions involve a number of rites, rituals, and habits that lend themselves to “religious” practice, that is, to forms of participation grounded in institutions and doctrine (Zinnbauer et al.…”

Low Religion or No Religion? Improving Research with the Logic of Machine Learning

“…disaffiliate from formal religious institutions (Ammerman 2013(Ammerman , 2014McClure 2017). The inverse is also true; evidence also suggests that some people may be labeled as religious when they are substantively nonreligious, as in the case of people who "belong without believing" (Kasselstrand 2015) or those who navigate conflicting religious and social identities (Wedow et al 2017).…”

“…To date, the literature has addressed these problems by adding depth to our original classification categories, both through in-depth qualitative interviews and through the creation of disaggregated sub-categories such as "unchurched believers," "nothing in particular" respondents, and the "spiritual but not religious" (Baker and Smith 2015;McClure 2017;Thiessen and Wilkins-Laflamme 2020;Zuckerman 2011). These strategies are useful because they bring researchers' analytic categories more closely in line with the reality of people's lived experiences-if more people feel the categories fit their experiences, they may be more likely to select them.…”