Phyllis Tickle is author of “The Night Offices.” See RNS-10-MINUTES, transmitted Dec. 20,
2006. Religion News Service photo courtesy Phyllis Tickle.

(UNDATED) Is the godless Pacific Northwest suddenly finding a little old time religion?

According to the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey released earlier this year, Vermont has overtaken Oregon as the country’s most unchurched state, with 34 percent of Vermonters reporting no religious affiliation.

In 2001, when the last ARIS study was conducted, Oregon was a national leader (at 21 percent) among the unaffiliated. They were called the “none’s,” as in, asked about their religious affiliation, they responded simply, “none.”

Oregon’s figure is now 24 percent, but that’s outpaced by Vermont, New Hampshire (29 percent) and Maine (25 percent), and even Wyoming (28 percent).

Through the years, scholars have offered several theories for the Northwest’s regional difference: a cultural emphasis on independence, less interest in connecting to religious institutions and the staggering beauty of the landscape.

They also argued that being “unchurched” didn’t mean that none’s weren’t interested in spirituality; Native American and Eastern traditions, New Age spiritualities and an intentional reverence for the natural world all figure in the Northwest’s religious landscape.

Mark A. Shibley, a sociology professor at Southern Oregon University in Ashland, Ore., has written extensively about religion in Oregon and contributed to “Religion and Public Life in the Pacific Northwest: The None Zone,” a book based on the 2001 ARIS statistics and published in 2004. His comments have been edited for length and clarity.

Q: What do you make of New England bumping the Pacific Northwest when it comes to none’s?

A: In terms of sub-regions — Vermont, New Hampshire — the northern section of New England has always been more frontier-like: the population less diffused, the country more rugged, less urban. I’ve got a book on my shelf published 20 years ago that argues the culture of Oregon is similar to that of Maine.

But in the southern region — Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island — that’s a little bit different. “None” numbers are going up.

Q: But Oregon’s none numbers are up, too, from 18 percent in 1990 to 21 percent in 2001 and 24 percent in 2008.

A: But historically … in the late 19th and into the 20th century, the trend in the Northwest was a growing connection to the church. Most of the changes happened before the 1990s. There’s been little change since then.

Q: Except in New England?

A: Protestant churches have had toeholds in those communities and have been a strengthening institution for hundreds of years. And there were waves of Catholic immigrants from Europe in the 19th century. But mainline Protestant churches began declining in the 1960s. It was only a matter of time until those changes started playing out in the Catholic churches.

Now from 1990 to 2008, in that 18-year window, the drop in the population of Catholics moved from 50 percent to 36 percent in New England, where Catholics have been dominant for years.

Q: The survey shows self-identified Catholics in Oregon declining 1 percent (to 14 percent) between 1990 and 2008. In what other ways does the Northwest differ from New England?

A: New England does not have the same kind of activity of nondenominational, conservative Protestants, the same pattern of mega-churches or the planting of new congregations that you see here in Oregon.

This is an open, competitive religious marketplace, where no institutional church dominates, and where evangelicals decide to plant churches — all those big churches that ring the Portland metropolitan area. All that’s happened in the last 20, 30 or 40 years.

Q: How do you describe spirituality in Oregon?

A: Established churches have been in decline, and evangelical Protestantism has been growing. Over time and generations, the mainline and Catholic churches are failing to hang on to young people, and some are being scooped up by mega-churches designed to appeal to the younger generation.

New religious movements and spiritualities, neo-paganism, New Age folks have all experimented, explored and are proliferating here in the Northwest. At the same time, the hip California style of evangelicalism has flourished here. Some of those movements have spread up the coast, planted churches and taken hold. Our landscape has gotten a little bit more religious, but in particular ways.

(Nancy Haught writes for The Oregonian in Portland, Ore.)