Description
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.
Contributor Notes
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.
Editorial Reviews
An excellent book will lead you through doors of thought and will open new pathways once the reading is done. Block does not disappoint.
— Pacific Historical Review
I am especially impressed by the ways in which Block uses the oral histories she has gathered to challenge the theoretical frameworks often imposed on lived reality. Secularity, she argues throughout the book, is a much more complicated and shifting phenomenon than many assume ... people interested in Pacific Northwest life are indebted to Tina Block for an admirable scholarly endeavor. It deserves wide circulation and consideration.
— BC Studies
...a thoughtful and thought-provoking work that offers a relatively uncommon analysis of secularism in postwar B.C.
— The Ormsby Review, April 2017
