When asked their religious identification, more people answer "none" in the Pacific Northwest than in any other region of the United States. But this does not mean that the region's religious institutions are without power or that Northwesterners who do attend no place of worship are without spiritual commitments. With no dominant denomination, Evangelicals, Mainline Protestants, Catholics, Jews, adherents of Pacific Rim religious traditions, indigenous groups, spiritual environmentalists, and secularists must vie or sometimes must cooperate with each other to address the regions' pressing economic, environmental, and social issues. One cannot understand this complex region without understanding the fluid religious commitments of its inhabitants. And one cannot understand religion in Oregon, Washington, and Alaska without Religion and Public Life in the Pacific Northwest.

This is a genuine innovation, because it is the ONLY text available which demonstrates how social science theory/research can be APPLIED to successful collaborative work with community groups. "Sustainable Communities on an Aging Planet is a course I am designing for Fall, 1996. This text is exactly what I need for the course. I was very impressed with the case material." --Stan Ingman, University of North Texas "I will be teaching a new course next semester entitled 'Community Building.' I would love to have a text that emphasizes case studies, while providing some information on needs assessment and evaluation research. It looks like [this book] would be exactly what I need." --Roland Liebert, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana Twenty-seven instructive cases, originally written for this volume, are framed by two introductory chapters and a concluding chapter, which draw out the principles and perspectives underlying the case materials. Each case also concludes with extensive editorial commentary.