by Alex Littlefield, Juicy Ecumenism
The Death of Religion?: Nones, Others, and the Flourishing of Faith
by Byron R. Johnson and Thomas S. KiddB&H Academic, 2026. 256 pages.
The claim that American religion is collapsing has become a standing feature of media coverage and academic commentary. In The Death of Religion? authors Byron R. Johnson, a social science professor at Baylor University, and Thomas S. Kidd, a church history professor at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, examine that claim and find it overstated. Drawing on survey data, congregational research, and the Global Flourishing Study, they argue that religious life is changing rather than disappearing, and that standard measures often miss the extent of continued practice.
Johnson and Kidd rely upon several large surveys that measure overlapping but distinct aspects of religious life and well-being. The Global Flourishing Study, a $43.4 million longitudinal project directed by Johnson and Tyler VanderWeele of Harvard and conducted with Gallup and the Center for Open Science, tracks more than 200,000 people across 22 countries. Its first-wave findings were presented at a launch event on April 30, 2025, at Gallup World Headquarters in Washington, DC. Pew Research Center’s Religious Landscape Studies, supported by The Pew Charitable Trusts and partners including the Lilly Endowment and Templeton Religion Trust, have surveyed tens of thousands of U.S. adults over successive waves and document affiliation, belief, and religious switching. Gallup’s World Poll and other national datasets provide additional cross-checks on attendance and identification.
The Pew survey has documented substantial movement among churches and denominations, with many Americans no longer attending the tradition in which they were raised. This switching is often cited as evidence of institutional weakness, but Johnson and Kidd read it differently. If religion had become peripheral, they contend, few would make the effort to leave one community and join another that better matches their convictions or circumstances.
The rise of the Nones, those who report no particular religious affiliation, has received extensive attention, but Johnson and Kidd observe that the category is more varied than the label suggests. Most are not atheists or agnostics. Many affirm belief in God or a higher power and report prayer or other spiritual practices, and a minority attend religious services. The authors also document many congregations that fall outside standard categories. These “Others,” concentrated among evangelical, Pentecostal, nondenominational, and immigrant churches, have been undercounted in some local studies by 25 to 40 percent, so the picture registers losses among older denominations while overlooking growth elsewhere.