Your neighbor on the radio

Group 236

by Karen Krueger

It sounds dry, but when “nones”* are given voices in the current National Public Radio (NPR) series “Losing Our Religion,” my statistic-numbed brain quit droning “I know, I know,” and whispered “I hear you, I hear you.”

Listen live in the morning this week or online to Americans who say they don’t identify with any religion.  Themes in the series include:

  • After Tragedy, Nonbelievers Find Other Ways To Cope
  • More Young People Are Moving Away From Religion, But Why?

Start from www.npr.org/series/169065270/losing-our-religion to jump to a transcript or audio file of a recent broadcast.

Insulted? Sad? Condescending? Possible responses. But I found myself longing to continue the dialogue with my neighbor in this age in which we find ourselves about spiritual pulls and doubts and calls in our lives.

* The moniker “nones” comes from the Pew Research Center study, ‘Nones’ on the Rise, “that takes a closer look at the 46 million people who answered none to the religion question in 2012. According to Pew, one-fifth of American adults have no religious affiliation, a trend that has for years been on the rise,” said NPR of the study released in October 2013 (Losing Our Religion: The Growth Of The ‘Nones’, 1/13/13).