Having none of it

Religion | Americans who claim no religion make up a growing demographic–and an opening for the church | Alisa Harris

Illustration by Krieg Barrie

NEW YORK—When everyone in Luke Heinkel's Lutheran church stood to say the Apostles' Creed, no one seemed to feel the weight of it like Heinkel did.

"The Apostles' Creed stressed me out," he said. "We would say it every time and we would make these huge statements, and I would remember as a little 12-year-old being, 'What? Can we talk about these things?'" For a while he decided which ones he believed and only said those, mumbling so his dad wouldn't chide him for skipping around. Fifteen years later, he can still say the Creed.

Heinkel, now 27, is a sunny guy who spent three and a half years in the Peace Corps and applied to New York University's School of Public Service because he could no longer stomach the thought of planning subdivisions with his civil engineering degree. All his life, he has balanced extremes: the urbanism of his mom's home in Chicago and the rural mores of his dad's dairy farm, the liberalism of his University of Wisconsin alma mater and the conservatism of his home community, his reticence to choose a religion with his belief in God.