| Summary: | This article challenges the conventional wisdom about the reported decline of Christianity and Protestantism in the U.S. and the rise of the “nones” among Latinos. It does so by cross-examining the growth of the “nones” (those respondents reportedly having no religion and/or no religious preference) in the U.S. Latino community, which is slated to make up almost 28 percent of the U.S. population by 2060. In 2000, we stumbled, quite by accident, upon a remarkable discovery in the Latino community: that many of the so-called “nones” were, in fact, under cross examination against other religious identity questions, religious, spiritual, and/or believed in God or a higher power. In some cases they were born-again Christians who rejected the label “religion” (and thus reported having “no religion”) as a descriptor of their faith. Many self-identified as and/or attended independent and non-denominational Evangelical and/or Pentecostal/Charismatic churches. To test these initial findings and to try to secure a more accurate reading of the “nones” respondents, our research team added a follow-up question for the “no religion” respondents to the screening questions section so they could explain what they actually meant in the Latino Religions and Politics (LRAP) national surveys in 2012 and 2020. We also cross-analyzed the “no religion” and “no religious preference” respondents against other religious identity questions, such as being born-again and church attendance, and was surprised to find that more than 60% of them reported believing in God or a higher power and/or being Christian, Catholic, or Protestant, religious, spiritual, or something other than having no religion. More surprising and counterintuitively, we found that more than 40% of those reporting “no religious preference” and 17% of those who reported having “no religion” also self-reported being born-again Christians. All of this problematizes the conventional wisdom about the identity and growth of the “nones” in the Latino community and could (though we do not claim or explore this here) problematize our understanding of the “nones” and the changing contours of religion and secularization in American society.
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