Steven Barrie-Anthony:

Smart politicians and media observers will pay attention to this trend. There is the potential for spiritual voters to exert major influence this year and in 2016.

…This is not an impassable dilemma. With a third of young adults checking the “no religion” box, we can’t afford to let it be. For politicians, it may be a major opportunity, and for more than empty posturing. If the social project for spiritual people is to identify forms of community and civic participation with which they feel at home, then politicians have the opportunity to be partners from the inside, to help to shape these community and civic forms.

This includes, first and foremost, strategies of listening—polling, interviewing, researching—to understand not just how spiritual people vote but also the ways in which their relationships with the sacred open out into their civil involvements and political decisions. (Journalists and scholars need to become better listeners, too.)

Your mission — should you choose to accept it — is to lavish attention on these SNRs, make them aware of their heightened importance, and get them to open up and talk about themselves. Good luck — you’re going to need it.