Erik Ellertson came from a long line of devout believers. His grandfather was a Lutheran missionary in the Republic of Cameroon, Africa, and his parents took him to church as soon as he was old enough to sit still in Sunday school classes.
Today, Ellertson, of Cheney, is one of the rising number of “nones,” those cited in census data and a recent Pew Forum and Religion and Public Life study as people who say they are unaffiliated with any particular faith. Examples include humanists, agnostics and atheists, among others.
He was raised in a series of non-denominational Christian churches that blend together in memory. He recalls a blur of liturgy, candles and responsive readings that appealed to his parents’ values, but held little interest for him.
“Overall, I enjoyed the church experience as a kid, but I didn’t always understand the traditions,” he said.
In high school Ellertson and his siblings found a church a little more to their liking — the modern songs and youth group appealed to their social sides, and they found themselves looking forward to church. Still, he acknowledges his faith was still a part of his parents’ beliefs.
“I listened, I went to church, I read the passages, but I wasn’t doing a whole lot of critical thinking,” he said.
Seeking a deeper involvement and direction in his own faith, Ellertson decided to try leading a Bible study.
“After my first year of college, I came back and became a small group leader at my church,” Ellertson said. “I wanted to become more involved. This meant something to me.”
He soon found himself leading a group of approximately 10 high school students in weekly Bible study, and enjoyed the challenge of connecting with younger kids sharing many of his struggles with faith and life. However, he still felt somewhat empty at church.
“I didn’t feel like I had a 100 percent grasp on the subject,” he said. “[I realized] I always believed [in God] because it didn’t make sense not to.”
Suddenly, that was no longer a good enough reason. Ellertson began to question why he had held his deep beliefs for so long and why they were so important to him. He says there was no life changing event that caused him to think differently. He met many people in college who held different views than he did, but they didn’t try to convince him his faith was wrong. It was the availability of other ideas that convinced him to question his beliefs.
“I was basically forcing myself to think critically about everything I was reading and there were some things I couldn’t justify,” he said. “So many people believe they have the right answers. I just came to the conclusion that my beliefs and upbringing had no more weight than other people’s.”
Ellertson doesn’t feel amnesty toward the church or his family, who still attends regularly.
“I love everything the church does, like provide community and help others,” he said. “I wish there were more places that did that that weren’t affiliated with a religion.”
Ellertson’s story is becoming more and more common. According to data from the 2012 US Census, self-declared Christianity in the United States has grown by approximately 15 percent from 1990 to 2008. Conversely, those who identify with no religion at all (atheism, agnosticism, humanism or no religion) have grown 138 percent in 18 years. Base numbers for Christianity (including denominations) are much larger, but the growth in atheism is telling. People are turning away from organized religion in record numbers.
The numbers aren’t surprising to Gonzaga University professors Matthew Rindge and the Rev. Timothy Clancy, who see several students leave class with different ideas about faith than they came in with. Even at Catholic universities like Gonzaga, students come in with doubts and questions. Clancy and Rindge are happy to answer them.
Rindge, who writes for the Huffington Post and the Journal of Lutheran Ethics, teaches a course on the Bible and Film, as well as one on Jesus. Citing the work of author M. Scott Peck on the stages of spiritual development, Rindge said some would see Ellertson’s departure from the church as a step forward, rather than a setback. According to Peck, spiritual development goes through four stages: initial chaos, order (the church or organized religion, depends strongly on structure and faith), a scientific skepticism stage, and a mystical stage. Peck argues that people in stage four still retain the ability to experience God or the divine, but in a way that does not depend on what they learned in stage two.
Rindge said many students he sees in his religious studies class struggle to reconcile the new information they’ve received about various religions, including Christianity, with what they’ve always been taught.
“Some students retreat into an insular bubble because they want to hold on to the beliefs they’ve been raised with. Other students love it,” he said.
Some students graduate and move on from the church and religion they were raised in, while others choose to hold on. Rindge doesn’t believe everyone has to pick one or the other.
“To me a person can be an atheist and still be religious if that person can find something that is deeply meaningful to them,” he said. “Most people would say the reasons why a person joins a religious group have little to do with what a person actually believes and more to do with communal or social forces.”
Clancy notices a similar trend in his classes. The philosophy of religion teacher tries to show students that religion and meaning can go beyond traditional boundaries of Sunday school and catechism.
“Everyone has to hold something sacred. That is the orienting focus of your life. It’s in terms of that thing that other things become meaningful,” he said.
The sacred is God or the divine for religious people, but it can also be something a seeker finds sacred – freedom, science, religion itself. Atheists strongly believe in sacred things, he said, such as the sanctity of human rights.
“To me, that’s a religious attitude. I think religiosity is just part of being human,” he said. “People just don’t recognize it as being religious.”
Clancy said the mass departure from organized religion makes sense, especially in young people. A disturbing percentage of people who were born Catholic leave the church and don’t come back until they’re much older, if they come back at all.
“They’re not finding anything in the church,” he said.
Although the Catholic church is aware of the problem and is trying to reach out to youth through various evangelization efforts, people are leaving faster than they’re being replaced. It’s a problem without an easy solution.
Why does atheism have such a draw, while traditional faiths like Catholicism and Christianity are struggling to retain members? For Rindge, the struggle was not with the appeal of atheism or agnosticism, but the way he saw people being treated or talked about by Christians and other religious people.
Ultimately, however, Rindge considers himself engaged in the Christian faith community. Although there are some elements in the faith that bother him, there are others that he feels allow him to pursue what matters to him — ending oppression for marginalized people in the world.
“There are so many resources in Christianity that can help me be that person,” he said.
