The Secular Northwest: Religion and Irreligion in Everyday Postwar Life

Tina Block

Jul 2016 · UBC Press

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The image of a rough frontier – where working men were tempted away from church on Sundays by more profane concerns – was perpetuated by postwar church leaders, who decried the decline of religious involvement.

In this pioneering book, Tina Block debunks the myth of a godless frontier, revealing a Pacific Northwest that consciously rejected the trappings of organized religion but not necessarily spirituality – and not necessarily God.

Secularism was not only the domain of the working man: women, families, and middle-class communities all helped to shape the region’s secular identity. But rejection of religion led to family, gender, and class tensions.

Drawing on oral histories, census data, newspapers, and archival sources, Block explores the dynamics of Northwest secularity, grounded in the cultural permeability of the Canada–United States border, the independent spirit of those who called the region home, and their openness to secular ways of experiencing the world.

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Tina Block is an associate professor of history at Thompson Rivers University. Her research interests include religion, irreligion, gender, and family in the postwar era. Her work has been published in the Journal of Women’s History and BC Studies.