Author: Emmett O'Connell (Page 35 of 176)

Cascadian religion is pretty unique. Compared to other parts of the country, religions up here are fairly diverse overall and we have the highest percentage of people that don’t claim any particular religion at all.

There is some debate whether that means we’re godless up here, but it is at least one of the things that makes us unique.

I’ve also pointed out that this isn’t a recent development. At least since just before World War I we’ve had this tendency of not going to church.

So, where does this come from. How did Cascadians become the least churched region?

It has to do with Cascadia’s joint Appalachian and New England roots. Modern Cascadian culture is the joining of New England and Appalachian cultures cooked over 150 years in the cool rain of the west coast.

Those impacts, from personal freedom to friendly business politics, had a deep impact on religion. At, least from what I can see.

In my first Cascadian religion post I pointed to two maps, one on religious diversity, the other on religious adherence. Cascadia was one region that was high in the former and low in the later. There was one other region (actually a subset of a region) that showed the same trends, the upper Ohio Valley of Appalachia:

High in diversity:

Low in adherence:

 

…the southern areas with the highest numbers of unaffiliated and uncounted people are in the Appalachian counties of West Virginia, Virginia and eastern Kentucky — home to countless evangelical Protestant churches that are part of no denomination.

 And, here:

Appalachian religion is often associated with fiercely independent  Holiness sects and their rejection of educated clergy. This is but part of a pattern of persistent forms of rejection of the authority of educated professionals…

So, compared to other regions that were more homogenized and church going, Appalachia, in particular the upper Ohio Valley where many early Cascadians came from, was a rebellious soup of religion.

Compare that to New England, which by the 1840s (when migration to Cascadia had first begun) had just gone through a massive religious upheval. The Second Great Awakening was well into recession by this time, leaving behind its impact on other religious communities and New England in general:

Outside the evangelical churches there were also problems. In the
early stages of revivals, Episcopalians, Universalists, and Unitarians
were tolerant and sometimes mildly supportive. However, as passions
heated, denominational bigotry and a doctrinaire attitude was manifested
by many revivalists who denounced all who were not “born again.” Often
these were socially prominent people. This behavior alienated religious
liberals as well as non-Christians who resented the self-righteous
presumption of authority displayed by some revivalists. In and out of
churches, it often became a question of power and control.

For the New England businessmen that moved to Cascadia, what they thought of religion was likely colored by cultural attitudes of the conflict after the Second Great Awakening. One New England founded frontier area (eastern New York) that predates Cascadia by a few decades was so impacted by the Awaking that it was eventually called “the burned-over district.”

The number of new sects (from proto-Mormons, to Shakers and straight up utopians) rivals the home spun religion of Appalachia.

Cascadia wasn’t founded by groups of godless settlers. But, it also wasn’t founded by a monolithic group that subscribed to one religion. Rather, both the Appalachians and Yankees that settled Cascadia came from fractured religious cultures where individual freedom and personal attachment to belief was valued over discipline.

It is also no wonder that the impacts of the Second Great Awakening, which in addition to utopians also produced social activists pushing towards feminism and anti-slavery would grow into Cascadia’s political liberals.

It is sometimes implied that what makes Cascadia so darn Cascadian is a product of post Big Sort social impacts. Despite @ancientportland, you can often assume that the most blue and green parts of what makes us us are post World War II developments. But, certainly post 1960s.

Before that, Cascadia was a land of tree cutting, aluminum smelting Republicans bent on damming every river that could give a gigawatt, right?

Well, like the Cascadia Calm (ahem aka Seattle Freeze), how Cascadians approach religion has a much longer history, much longer than you’d assume.

In short, compared to other parts of the country, we don’t go to church that much. Not that we aren’t spiritual, we just as a region don’t go into churches. And, we haven’t for a very long time.

We’ve been the least churched part of the country since at least 1951, the date of the oldest survey data I could find. Both Oregon and Washington topped the list of least churched that year, with 27 and 30 percent respectively claiming membership in a church.

And, the non-pew sitting Cascadia goes further back than that even. In 1915, several church leaders put out their views on religion in the region(h/t Patricia O’Connell Killen).

Floyd Daggett:

The great problem, to my mind, in the Pacific Northwest is lack of religious life. Many causes contribute to this. The newness of the country, its people coming here from all parts of the world, strangers to each other, without the family and home connections; the population is cosmopolitan, with nearly every nationality represented, with a large proportion of Southern Europeans and Orientals, who have no religious life nor Sunday observance.

E.J. Klemme:

The people that builded this empire were compelled to push ahead or be pushed aside. They accepted the challenge and began crowding those in front with the same energy that they were being crowded by those behind. They knew no limit and recognized no master. Science was their handmaiden, and to succeed was the goal of their ambition.

This condition forced them to leave the Golden Rule beyond the Rockies, and they proceeded to do others before others could do them. In the East they were faithful church members; now they are not even church tenders. The ascent of the Great Divide seemed too steep for church letters. The air of the Northwest seemed too rare for prayer.

And, finally M.M. Higley. This fellow, instead of blaming the mountains and the air, might be hitting on something:

Another stumbling-block to a great many is the multiplicity of churches and creeds.

So, we know that the complaint of the unchurched Cascadia goes pretty far back. It would seem realistic that if it was true in 1915 and 1951 that it was also true in 1854 and won’t likely change for the near future.

I have a pretty good reason (better than blaming the hills) why Cascadia doesn’t go to church, but I’ll save it for next time. What’s your theory?

Generally speaking, Cascadia is understood to be the “Pacific Northwest.” I don’t like that PNW term, mostly because it is inelegant, but also because it is a bad description. Seriously, northwest of what exactly. I live in the center of the universe.

But, this discussion of the geography of Cascadia, what is inside the region and what is not, is pretty vital to every other discussion about Cascadia. Where you draw the borders defines what politics, culture and social structures belong inside Cascadia.

There are three major lines of thinking in terms of defining what is Cascadia.

1. Oregon and Washington, maybe some of B.C.  

This is the
simplest map and the worst of all three. Basically take the state and
provincial boundaries for the three existing subdivisions and there you
go.

I’m not even going to bother trying to show you this map. What, don’t you know where Washington and Oregon are?

It lacks the elegance or real world common sense of both of the maps below. It ignores any similarity the Alaska or California might
allow parts of them to be included. Bad map.

2. Biogregionalism

This is definition of the region bases its definition on natural features. This is a strictly accurate definition based on the original concept of Cascadia from the 1970s. The original Cascadian thinkers brought a lot of ecology into their definition, so a bioregion made absolute sense to them.

Especially when you look a map of the “Salmon Nation,” it looks surprisingly similar to the Cascadian bioregion.

3. West of the mountains.

The limitations of the bioregion map is that it includes so many human communities that are different from the population core of Cascadia. In short, there is very little cultural, social or political connections between Moses Lake and Seattle. 

The best map of this region is from Colin Woodard’s “American Nations,” basically showing a Chile shaped country hugging the Pacific Coast.

While is may seem too small to be real, this strip of coast is densely populated with a consistent climate, culture and politics. Even going back to the formation of California, Oregon and Washington, this region has a common origin and settlement pattern.

Even when places like the interior of Washington and Oregon were attached to the Willamette Valley and Puget Sound, it didn’t take long for them to want to leave. In a much larger, bioregional nation, the interior communities would constantly be at odds with the urban coastal cities. While geographically close to Seattle, Portland and Vancouver, they are culturally and politically closer to the broader interior west.
 
May favorite map, if you were wondering, is #3. And, I know I’m well in the minority here. Most people it seems want to include some portion east of the Cascades. While I think there is some parts of Cascadia that are leaking across the mountains (Cle Elum and Hood River), more often than not, those dry side places have more to do with Wyoming or Idaho than Edmonds.

In a recent discussion on the Cacadia subreddit, the bioregional map by default chosen as the better map (and with percentages). Though, the coastal areas scored the highest overall, much of the interior was still included in the final map. Strangely (to me at least) the Bay Area scored very low.