Many of the first-time visitors to your church who drop in to the bookstore may have some sort of belief in God, but they are unlikely to claim allegiance to any particular form of faith.

They are the "Nones," whose growth is noted as "a national phenomenon" in a new study by researchers at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.

According to American Nones: The Profile of the No Religion Population, 34 million American adults do not identify with any particular religious group. They hold a variety of beliefs in God, however, from theism to atheism-though the largest group (59%) is agnostic or deist. They are "simply more likely to be skeptics" and are not particularly "partial" to New Age thinking.

"The secularity of the American public is undoubtedly increasing, but the pace varies considerably between how individuals belong, believe and behave," said Professor Barry Kosmin, one of the authors of the report. "The overall trend is being pushed by men and the young, but slowed down by women's greater religiosity."

The "Nones" findings come from an in-depth look at part of the broader American Religious Identification Survey, which questioned more than 54,000 adults. The study found the 1990s to have been "the decade of the secular boom," with those claiming no religious affiliation growing from 8.2% in 1990 to 14.2% in 2001 and 15% by last year.

To read more about the report, go to http://www.americanreligionsurvey-aris.org/2009/09/american_nones_the_profile_of_the_no_religion_population.html.

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