Go West, Ye Unchurched

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Feb 15, 1999 | by Julia Duin

Recent research confirms an adage coined by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: `The Pacific Northwest may be God's country, but no region in the nation is less religious.'

It's official: Washington state is the country's leading bastion of the unchurched, according to a recent survey. In a massive sampling of 19,761 adults 18 and older during a six-year period, a pollster found that 29 percent of the Evergreen State's populace attend a worship service in a typical week -- compared with Louisiana, which has a 56 percent weekly attendance, the country's highest.

"It's always been the Northwest that's been the lowest in church-going," says George Gallup. "It may be the ethos of the state."

The poll defined the "unchurched" as those who are not members of a religion or have not attended services in the previous six months except for religious holidays, weddings or funerals. Forty-four percent of America's population falls into this category. The West Coast and New England both hover at 31 percent church or synagogue attendance.

Generally, the unchurched most likely are men younger than 30 living in the West, single or married to a spouse with a different religious background. This profile resembles a frontier archetype: the self-made young man who, like Horatio Alger, heads west to make his fortune.

"Life is good and challenging for them," Gallup says. "Their health is vibrant, and they don't see any need for God. Most people come to a stronger belief in God after going through valleys."

John Boonstra, executive minister of the 1,700-member Washington Association of Churches, says it's all a matter of regional culture. Congregations in the Pacific Northwest tend to be quite small, with most congregations numbering less than 1,000.

"As regions go, we have an extremely high percentage of nonchurched people who'd call themselves `spiritual,'" he says. "People who act out of their convictions here do it from their own spirituality or faith commitment, but they're not necessarily going to church."

Washington state also has attracted political mavericks and freethinkers who have rejected ties to established institutions, according to Barry Kosmin and Seymour Lachman, authors of the 1993 book One Nation Under God. Major denominations, such as Catholics and Baptists, are weak in the region, while smaller denominations and independent churches are stronger. The state's largest church, the 4,800-member Overlake Christian in Redmond, just east of Seattle, is an independent congregation.

"Independent churches market something the community doesn't have," says the Rev. Matt Studer of the Calvary Church of Walla Walla, in southeastern Washington. "The further west churches came, the more they were able to be innovative. There is a pioneering spirit in the Northwest because spiritually it's an open territory. All the legislative initiatives -- euthanasia, medical use of marijuana, homosexual rights -- all of them were started out this way."

The Very Rev. Gerald Porter, priest in charge and acting dean at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral in Seattle, calls the local lack of religiosity "the ethos" of the Pacific Northwest. "There's a spirit of independence and entrepreneurship and freethinking that's unique here," he says. "They're much more interested in satisfying their own personal hopes and individualistic lifestyles. People are not tradition-bound or institution-bound. The Pacific Northwest doesn't have the history of institutions the East Coast does."

Plus, people like to spend their weekends exploring Washington's mountains, beaches and waterways. "The spiritual satisfactions from the scenery and nature outweigh church services, which lose out in the battle for people's limited leisure time," write authors Kosmin and Lachman.

Seattle's young and the unchurched do flock to one religious service: St. Mark's late Sunday evening Compline ceremony, a monastic liturgy. Lasting a half-hour and sung by a male choir, the ceremony has been a popular draw since the 1970s. The quasimystical setting: a semi-dark cathedral packed with 550 high-school and college-age youth all listening to sonorous chant ricocheting off the walls.

America's population continues to be overwhelmingly Christian and Jewish, notes Gallup. Despite recent figures from Muslim groups claiming huge rates of growth, his researchers found that Muslims, along with Buddhists and Hindus, number less than 1 percent of all Americans.

CHURCHGOING, BY STATE

SOUTH                     46%
Southeast                 45%
Florida                   35%
North Carolina            47%
Georgia                   50%
Virginia                  41%
Tennessee                 49%
Rest                      49%
Southwest                 48%
Texas                     47%
Louisiana                 56%
Rest                      47%

WEST                      32%
Rocky Mountain            36%
Pacific                   31%
California                31%
Washington                29%
Oregon                    32%

EAST                      38%
New England               31%
New York                  36%
Pennsylvania              43%
New Jersey                39%
Maryland                  46%
Rest                      40%

MIDWEST                   43%
East Central              41%
Illinois                  44%
Ohio                      43%
Michigan                  37%
Indiana                   39%
West Central              45%
Wisconsin                 45%