Who Are the “Dones”?

Across the Western world, growing numbers of people are reconsidering their relationship with Christianity. Some identify as religious “nones,” others as spiritual but not religious (SBNR), and still others have been described as the “dones”: people who were once part of a religious community but have since walked away.

These categories overlap, and the people within them are remarkably diverse. Leaving church does not necessarily mean abandoning belief in God, spirituality, or even Christianity. Likewise, identifying as having “no religion” tells us surprisingly little about what someone actually believes.

What is clear is that religious disaffiliation is reshaping the Christian landscape. In the United States, approximately 29–30% of adults now identify as religiously unaffiliated, and most religious “nones” were previously religious. Approximately 30% of “nones” can also be described as “dones,” and research estimates that there are now around 30 million “dones” in the United States. At the same time, the percentage of Americans identifying as Christian has declined substantially over the past several decades.

“Dones” Were More Than Nominal Christians

One of the most important findings about the “dones” is also one of the most easily overlooked: many were deeply committed Christians.

Research on the dechurched has found former church members who served in ministry, led Bible studies, participated in church leadership and worship, volunteered in their communities, tithed, and attended services faithfully. The people leaving churches have often been among their most active and committed members.

Their departure, then, cannot simply be explained by indifference or a lack of religious commitment.

Why Are They Leaving?

Research points to several recurring reasons why people leave Christianity. Some feel they have outgrown the religious framework in which they were raised or find that their inherited beliefs no longer fit with how they understand themselves and the world. Others leave because of religious trauma, whether experienced personally or witnessed in the treatment of others.

For some, questions about suffering make inherited Christian beliefs about God increasingly difficult to sustain. Others no longer want to identify with what the label “Christian” has come to represent, particularly when Christianity becomes associated with beliefs, practices, institutions, or public identities they can no longer support.

For some, leaving church means rejecting Christianity altogether. For others, elements of Christian belief and practice remain. Still others reconstruct religious or spiritual identities outside traditional institutions.

This complexity is precisely why the “dones” matter.

They raise questions that statistics about declining church attendance cannot answer on their own: What happens when people who once took Christianity seriously no longer find its beliefs, practices, institutions, or answers compelling? And what might theology learn by taking their reasons seriously?

These are among the questions at the heart of the Godless Religion project.