SEATTLE - It's Sunday morning in the state that leads the nation in a soul-shaking statistic: the highest percentage of people who say they have no religion.
A sense of identity with a religion does not always predict a person's involvement in community life. While churches, synagogues and mosques are wellsprings of charity and volunteerism, there's no clear connection between people's religious identity and their generosity. Itemized individual income tax returns in 1999 show the Mormon stronghold of Utah leads the nation with an average charitable contribution of 4.9% of adjusted gross income, according to the National Center for Charitable Statistics at The Urban Institute. Yet taxpayers in Texas, where 85% claim a religious identity in the American Religious Identification Survey, give the same 1.9% of their income to charity as taxpayers in Washington, where only 69% give themselves a religious label. In Oregon, where 71% identified with a religion, the average taxpayer gave 2.2% For civic markers such as voting, the least religious states still scored high in turnout of registered voters. According to the Federal Election Commission's tally in the last presidential election, Wyoming - where 20% say they have no religion - was No. 1, and Washington, Colorado and Oregon ranked in the top five for turnout by registered voters. By contrast, deeply religious Mississippi ranked 47th. People who don't choose a religion are also less inclined to pick a political party: 43% register as independents, compared with 30% of Catholics and 22% of Baptists. Education is not the ticket out of church that some expect it to be. Washington and South Dakota led the nation in residents ages 25 and older in 2000 holding at least a high school diploma, each with nearly 92%. But 90% of people in South Dakota claim a religious identity. No. 3, with 90.8% holding diplomas, was Minnesota, where 14% say they have no religion, the same as the national average. - Cathy Lynn Grossman and Anthony DeBarros
Jason Wilson, 32, is likely to be sleeping in - at least until the weather tells him which gear to pull out of the garage of his suburban Seattle home. Skis, snowboard, bikes, skates or golf clubs? No church for him. "I don't spend a lot of time fretting about the meaning of the universe," he says.
The indefatigable Terry sisters of nearby Whidbey Island - Ivy, 6, and Pearl, 8 - might be climbing, canoeing, hiking or skiing, their baby brother trailing not far behind. They are breathing in life lessons of the good earth, say their parents, Laura and Eric. Who needs Sunday school?
And many of their neighbors say amen to those ideas. According to the American Religious Identification Survey 2001 (ARIS), 25% of people in Washington say they have no religion at all, or call themselves atheist, agnostic or secular. Only 42% say someone in their household is affiliated with a church, synagogue or mosque.
When Barbara Huston of Seattle told a hospital clerk her religion, "she asked me, 'How do you spell Episcopalian?' I don't think she had ever heard of us."
Huston may be right. Fewer than one in 100 people in Washington call themselves Episcopalian.
Never mind asking church attendance. Regulars in the pew, such as John Paget, 31, who makes documentary films, often feel like an oddity among peers.
Paget, an Olympia, Wash., native, worships weekly at the First Baptist Church there "to get back in rhythm with God. But I totally understand my friends who hate church or think it's boring or react negatively because of the formalities and customs. They think it's strange, stuffy, weird and ritualistic."
Some say the West is a bellwether for the nation: 14% of Americans claim no religion. Others say the trend is exaggerated by Washington's particular history, rife with pioneers, radicals, immigrants and restless entrepreneurs arriving from the older, more traditional - and churched - communities of the East.
"There are 'movers' and 'stayers' in society, and everyone who went to the West Coast was a 'mover.' People in Seattle have lived three places in the last 10 years," says University of Washington sociologist Rodney Stark.
Yet Washington reflects many of the religious and social values seen worldwide today - "an emphasis on individuality, freedom of choice and an embrace of diversity," says sociologist Ronald Inglehart of the University of Michigan.
Linda Shields, 56, manager of the Quest Bookshop - selling crystals, chimes, charms and book titles from Alchemy to Zen - sees restless seekers every day. "We created a safe environment for people to bring their spiritual issues. We don't impose any belief but just help people along their path. The real spiritual center is inside all of us."
And out of doors as well.
"You have a lot of people who are just exceedingly appreciative of the beauty of God's creations - the trees, the mountains, lakes and rivers and all they provide - and who think that's enough," says Paul Hetrick, 59. He grew up a preacher's kid in eastern Washington and now lives in Colorado, where he finds a similar spirit.
"These people will tell you on Sunday, 'I feel closer to God in my boat in Puget Sound than I ever could in a building.' And they think they have a live-and-let-live approach," says Hetrick, a conservative evangelical. "It's all very self-absorbed and self-oriented, but you can't say these people are less moral, less caring or less anything else."
There are many ways outside of religion to transmit good values, says Dan Eder, a "cultural Jew" from New York who never attended a temple. Eder and his wife, a non-practicing Catholic, don't plan to give their three tots any specific religious training.
"I concentrate on the here and now, not the hereafter. I get personal satisfaction from feeling connected to my neighborhood and trying to do good there," says 35-year-old Eder. He contributes to Bike Works, a Seattle cycle shop where teens can earn bikes by learning repair. Donated and renovated bikes go to Fare Start, which trains homeless people for food service jobs.
"The young people I meet do a lot of good work," says Scott McDearmon, 22, who is spending this year in volunteer service with the Church of the Brethren, a Christian denomination devoted to tolerance and service.
He works at Bread and Roses, a drop-in day shelter offering meals and social services to street people in Olympia. By night, he goes clubbing with music-loving pals. But Sundays, he's the only one of them in church.
"These 'spiritual-but-not-religious' people are pretty vague," McDearmon says. "They still value peace and love and all that, but it's not connected to any higher power, to God. I've been to spirituality centers and events, and the feeling is definitely one of joy and fun, but it's all very self-enclosed. They are bright and happy and don't think they are missing anything. I think they are."
He's not alone. The ARIS also shows that 69% of Washingtonians do claim a religion, proudly and emphatically.
"We can't build churches and schools fast enough," says Bill Gallant, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Seattle, which counts 1 million Catholics. The archbishop led an interdenominational network of churches in battle with King County authorities for the right to build more and bigger churches and schools in the farmlands east of Seattle.
The church advocates called it a matter of religious free expression. Rural activists counterclaimed that they were trying to save the open spaces. The matter is still unresolved, but Gallant was amazed by the outpouring of "resentment and bile" toward the churches during hearings last year.
"The idea that Seattle or this part of the country is a bastion of liberalism and tolerance and open-mindedness is baloney," Gallant says. "It is just self-absorbed and trendy. These people are, in fact, very intolerant to anyone who doesn't agree with them. They want people of faith out here to be silent about their beliefs."
The Rev. Bill Keeton, 48, pastor of the tiny, yellow-frame Chapel of Grace in Olympia, dubs secular Washington "downright anti-religious."
"Every other house on the block is a New Age religion," he announces, exaggerating for effect. "We had neighbors complain when we had a cross in the parking lot. The city said technically we could have only one legal sign."
He conducts 150 non-denominational weddings a year in the chapel. "The average age of our couples is 24. They have no generational or historical perception of religion. Their religion is knowledge and self-sufficiency. That is truth to them."
Then who's buying all those Bibles? Scott Bolinder, head of Christian publishing house Zondervan, says the books sell well in Washington because "no matter what people say in a survey, they want to know, 'Who is God? Who am I? And how do we relate?' "