Non-religious Americans seek community

A new study shows nearly one-third of Americans have no religious affiliation. Some secular organizations are trying to create the community of church — without the religion.

SCOTT DETROW, HOST:

People with no religious affiliation now make up nearly a third of the U.S. That’s according to the latest data from the Pew Research Center out this past week. The group is called nones, as in none of the above. It’s a bit of a wide net, comprised of atheists or agnostics and also people who say that even if they believe in God, they have no particular religious affiliation.

And while this group is growing, they are less likely than their religious counterparts to be civically engaged and socially connected. But some nones have found a way to create community without religion through secular meetups and organizations, and one of those groups is called Sunday Assembly. We are joined now by Kelsey Derringer, the vice president for Sunday Assembly Pittsburgh. Kelsey, welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.

KELSEY DERRINGER: Thank you so much for having me.

DETROW: So for people who haven’t heard about it before, how would you describe Sunday Assembly?

DERRINGER: Well, Sunday Assembly, we are – we describe ourselves as a secular community that celebrates life. So we are not atheist. We are not agnostic. We’re not dogmatic. We’re not religious. We’re just really a group of people who come together once a month or sometimes more frequently to just try to figure out how to be good people without turning to ancient religious texts to do so. So we’re trying to be good people and trying to figure out how to do that well.

DETROW: Tell us a little bit about your community. Who comes out?

DERRINGER: Yeah. You know, that’s one of my favorite things about Sunday Assembly. There is a lot of age diversity and diversity of background and life experience. So a lot of people in Pittsburgh – and I bet this is in a lot of big cities all over the country…