Full Description
The Cascadia bioregion - British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon - has long been at the forefront of cultural shifts occurring throughout North America, in particular regarding religious institutions, ideas, and practices. Religion at the Edge explores the rise of religious "nones," the decline of mainstream Christian denominations, spiritual and environmental innovation, increasing religious pluralism, and the growth of smaller, more traditional faith groups in Cascadia. This volume is the first research-driven book to address religion, spirituality, and irreligion in the Pacific Northwest, past and present. Employing surveys, archival sources, interviews, and focus groups, contributors showcase a spectrum of adherents from Christian, Sikh, Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, Baha'i, New Age, Indigenous, and irreligious communities. Religion at the Edge expands our understanding of contemporary society, pursuing empirical and theoretical debates about the nature, scale, and implications of socio-religious changes in North America, and the relevance of regionalism to that discussion.
Contents
Introduction: Religion, Spirituality, and Irreligion in The Best Place on Earth / Paul Bramadat
1 Reverential Naturalism: From the Fancy to the Sublime / Paul Bramadat
2 On Religion, Irreligion, and Settler Colonialism in the Pacific Northwest: A Snapshot from the Field / Chelsea Horton
3 Border Crossings: Indigenous Spirituality and Culture in Cascadia / Suzanne Crawford O'Brien
4 But People Tend to Go the Way Their Families Go: Irreligion across the Generations in the Pacific Northwest / Tina Block and Lynne Marks
5 Second to None: Religious Nonaffiliation in the Pacific Northwest / Sarah Wilkins-Laflamme
6 From Outlier to Advance Guard: Cascadia in Its North American Context / Mark Silk
7 Questing for Home: Place, Spirit, and Religious Community in the Pacific Northwest / Patricia O'Connell Killen
8 The Precarious Nature of Cascadia's Protestants: New Strategies for Evangelical and Liberal Christians in the Region / James K. Wellman Jr. and Katie E. Corcoran
9 Evangelicals in the Pacific Northwest: Navigating the "None Zone" / Michael Wilkinson
10 "To Be or Not to Be" Religious: Minority Religions in a Region of Nones / Rachel D. Brown
11 Everything Old is New Again: Reverential Naturalism in Cascadian Poetry / Susanna Morrill
12 Conclusion: Religion at the Edge of the Continent / Paul Bramadat and Patricia O'Connell Killen
List of Contributors; Index
