Pope visiting an increasingly less religious US

When Pope Francis arrives in the United States Tuesday, he is coming to a nation where religion is in decline. This is particularly true in our corner of that nation.

A recently released study by Public Religion Research Institute tells us that the fastest-growing group in the Pacific Northwest is the religiously unaffiliated. In our state, 33 percent of those surveyed say they are unaffiliated. Evangelical Protestant comes in a distant second place at 16 percent.

A city-by-city survey indicates that our neighbor to the south, Portland, is the least religious city with 42 percent identifying as non-religious. Seattle-Tacoma is tied with San Francisco for second place with 33 percent.

Statistical studies like this raise questions about how people understand the words “religion” and “affiliation.” Yet even with those questions the evidence presented resonates as true and dovetails with what many of us experience: Religion is on the decline in the United States and in rapid decline in the Pacific Northwest.

Is this a good thing? I want to look at that question from the perspective of religion’s impact on our community.

I know that many, even within faith communities, say yes, it is a good thing, that religion has cast a dark shadow over human history for too long with its intolerance, violence and anti-science viewpoints.

When looking at some of what is done in the name of religion, the conclusion seems obvious: Religion’s decline is exactly what we need to find peace, increase human kindness and create a sustainable and positive future for the planet and our children.

But before we breathe a collective sigh of relief at religion’s decline and start imagining how to repurpose churches, mosques and temples into bars and performance spaces, it might be good to pause and remember the positive role of religion in society and what is lost as religion recedes.

Many religious communities are valuable resources for their communities as religious people enact their faith by feeding the hungry, welcoming immigrants and housing the homeless. Religious communities equip individuals to be a positive force for creating a just and compassionate society. How will declining religious affiliation impact the community services and resources?

Religion teaches core values like love, compassion and unity. As religion declines in America and around the world, what happens to these core values? Religious communities do not have exclusive claim to compassion, unity and love but they are well-established places where these values are taught, celebrated and nurtured by spiritual practice.

Does the decline of communities that nurture these values enhance our life as a nation? these communities provide? Does this enhance our life as a nation?

Over the past 50 years we have become a more secular nation. Has this reality increased the quality of discourse in public life? Do we experience life becoming less harsh and more kind as religious communities’ influence wains? I have a hard time answering those questions in the positive.

I do not write this as a nostalgic, hand-wringing look back at the past or as a call to religious revival, a revival I do not expect. I write this because as the religiously unaffiliated continues to be the largest "religious" group in our state, it feels important to name what may be lost and to recognize the contributions of religion not just to individuals but to our common life and to wonder what will take its place.

I don't know what the future holds but expect the decline will continue until religion finds its stable place even further on the margins of American life than today. The growth of the unaffiliated is an occasion for those of us involved in religious communities to reflect on what is good and what would be lost if they disappeared and then to find a way to tell that story to the larger community.

It is an occasion for those not engaged in religious communities to pause and consider what is being lost as churches, synagogues, mosques, cathedrals and temples vanish from their neighborhoods and the national landscape. What if anything will take its place? What will be preserved or transformed?

What is our preferred future?

This story was originally published September 18, 2015 at 2:49 AM with the headline "Pope visiting an increasingly less religious US."