No to Church, Yes to Jesus?

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/atheologies/7478/no_to_church__yes_to_jesus/

January 2, 2014

Is the lingering importance of “Good Samaritan Jesus” for the religiously unaffiliated a yearning for a more ethically engaged, prophetic Christianity?

By ELIZABETH DRESCHER
Elizabeth Drescher is the author of the forthcoming book Choosing Our Religion: The Spiritual Lives of America’s None (Oxford University Press). She teaches religion at Santa Clara University, and lives online at www.elizabethdrescher.com and @edrescherphd on Twitter.

Right before the new year, a tweeted quote from comedian John Fugelsang made its way from the Huffington Post to the social media feeds of progressive Christians of my ilk:



But Fugelsang’s spin on the “Jesus was a Liberal” bumper sticker likewise appeared on the feeds of many atheists, agnostics, humanists, and sundry other Nones (people who do not claim an institutional religious affiliation) of my virtual acquaintance.

Many of these were participants in my study of the spiritual lives of the religiously unaffiliated in America, which has involved interviewing nearly a hundred Nones across the United States over the past eighteen months and gathering narrative input from another hundred-and-forty online.

While the appeal to this religiously unaffiliated cohort of such plainly religious (and, not for nothing, political) messaging might come as a surprise to some, according to the 2008 Pew “US Religious Landscape Survey,” seven-in-ten Nones emerge into Noneness from Christian backgrounds. So, it makes sense that the Christian idiom—its narratives, rituals, symbols, professed ethics, and so on—remains a significant resource for these folks, whether they’re arguing against it or adapting it to alternative spiritualities.

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