Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
States & Territories

Washington

West

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Seattle and the Puget Sound region have among the highest rates of religious non affiliation of any metropolitan area in the country, a marked contrast with the coastal Salish peoples' continuing ceremonial traditions, including potlatch and winter spirit dancing, revived after decades in which federal policy banned them outright. Immigration since the late twentieth century has brought sizable Sikh, Hindu and Buddhist communities to the Seattle area, including one of the largest gurdwaras in the Pacific Northwest, alongside older Scandinavian Lutheran congregations founded by the region's fishing and logging communities.

Facts
Religion
Leading Religious Affiliation
Evangelical Protestant 2
Washington: Evangelical Protestant is 23% of adults, ahead of Nothing in particular at 17%. Margin of error plus or minus 4.7 points. Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/religious-landscape-study/state/washington/
Identity
Jurisdiction Status
U.S. state 1
Law and State
Establishment Status
No Establishment 1
Washington has had no established church since its admission as a state in 1889.
Geography
Census Region
West 1
Origins
Origin of the Name
Named for George Washington, the only U.S. state named for a president. 1
Learn More
A Different Kind of Shaker Church, Founded by a Squaxin Prophet

The Indian Shaker Church shares its name with the celibate New England sect but has no other connection to it, a distinct new religious movement Squaxin Island prophet John Slocum founded in 1881 on the shore of Puget Sound after an experience his followers describe as a return from death. Slocum, by his own and his community's account, had died and revived during his own wake, reporting that he had been told in the afterlife to abandon old ways and begin a new form of worship, and the church that grew from that experience took its defining practice two years later, in 1883, when Slocum's wife Mary was overcome by an uncontrollable trembling while praying over her ill husband, a shaking his recovery afterward led the community to treat as a form of divine healing power. The church spread among coastal Salish communities through the following decades, blending elements of Christian worship with Native ceremonial practice on the tribe's own terms rather than through missionary imposition, and it formally incorporated in Washington in 1910 after already gaining recognition in Oregon in 1907, a legal status it still holds.

That syncretic tradition sits alongside a Puget Sound region with among the highest rates of religious non affiliation of any metropolitan area in the country, and alongside Scandinavian Lutheran congregations founded by the region's fishing and logging communities and newer Sikh, Hindu and Buddhist communities brought by more recent immigration. Evangelical Protestant identification leads the state at twenty three percent of adults, per Pew's 2023-24 study.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

This source names Washington directly: "Adventist Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C."

This source names Washington directly: "Publication Society, founded 1824 in Washington, D.C."

Source American Baptist Publication Society (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Washington directly: "Washington Post reporting, read 2026-08-22, on the FY2013 US intelligence community 'black budget' leaked by Edward Snowden, breaking out the CIA's requested budget share among sixteen intelligence..."

This source names Washington directly: "Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., under accession number NPG.80.284, and is the portrait Wikipedia itself uses as the lead image of its Brigham Young article."

This source names Washington directly: "Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., accession number NPG.80.284, measuring 156mm by 103mm, in the public domain following Carter's 1918 death."

This source names Washington directly: "Vinh, travelling from California, Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts, Virginia and Texas, organized several sessions there, among them a multi faith panel on Cao Dai's practices of self realization..."

This source names Washington directly: "An article by Mariah Cooper in the Washington Blade, dated 16 December 2015, reporting that the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster was officially granted permission by New Zealand's..."

This source names Washington directly: "Luke's Episcopal Church in Seattle, Washington; national coverage in Newsweek and Time carried word of an Episcopal priest speaking in tongues to a wide public."

This source names Washington directly: "WMCA New York, WFIL Philadelphia, WAVA Washington D.C., KKHT Houston, WNIV Atlanta and KPDQ Portland, alongside additional independent Christian radio affiliates."

This source names Washington directly: "held at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C."

This source names Washington directly: "Ballard traveled to Washington to explain the program to President Franklin D."

This source names Washington directly: "St Clair Smith on 21 August 1953 in Washington, D.C., is an American writer, filmmaker and broadcaster who co-founded the Church of the SubGenius with Philo Drummond, publishing the first SubGenius..."

Source Ivan Stang (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Washington directly: "St Clair Smith on 21 August 1953 in Washington, D.C., co-founded the Church of the SubGenius, published the first SubGenius pamphlet in 1980 under the name J."

Source Ivan Stang (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors

This source names Washington directly: "The Washington Times, running the Associated Press's wire report, on Kenya's High Court dismissal at Nairobi's Milimani Law Courts of the Rastafari Society of Kenya's petition for a religious..."

This source names Washington directly: "McGee Media, Inkwell Media and WETA Washington as producing companies."

This source names Washington directly: "PBS documentary produced by WETA Washington, D.C."

This source names Washington directly: "documentary "My Journey Home" (WETA Washington, D.C., 2004), naming its producers and directors, its 7 April 2004 broadcast date, and its three featured subjects."

This source names Washington directly: "Nannie Helen Burroughs grew up in Washington, D.C., after her family moved there from Virginia, and excelled academically, though she was passed over for a teaching position in the segregated D.C."

This source names Washington directly: "quadrennial conference in Washington, D.C., read to about 1,000 delegates and visitors as the church's definitive statement of policy and direction."

This source names Washington directly: "Vinh, travelling from California, Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts, Virginia and Texas, and lists the sessions they organized, including a multi faith panel on Cao Dai's practices of self..."

This source names Washington directly: "Mountains spanning present-day eastern Washington, Oregon, Idaho and southern British Columbia, including the Wanapum, Yakama, Nez Perce, Umatilla and related nations."

This source names Washington directly: "1946) near Yelm, Washington, following her 1977 claimed contact with the entity Ramtha."

This source names Washington directly: "by the German Historical Institute Washington for classroom and research use."

This source names Washington directly: "A news article by Daniel Halper in the Washington Examiner, dated 26 July 2012, independently reporting the same May 2012 California Convention Center address."

This source names Washington directly: "A University of Washington digital collections record for a photograph of an eleventh century Dikpala Agni relief from the southeast Jagmohan of the Brahmeshwar temple, Bhubaneshwar, Orissa, a..."

This source names Washington directly: "1850 near present-day Priest Rapids, Washington, preached what came to be called the Washani or Dreamer religion."

This source names Washington directly: "A December 2018 Washington Diplomat article explaining that the Sovereign Military Order of Malta has neither citizens nor territory yet maintains sovereign diplomatic status, citing 14,500 members..."

This source names Washington directly: "by the Carnegie Institution of Washington, is the standard scholarly English translation and study of the best documented single volume in the Chilam Balam corpus, with an extended introduction..."

Source The Book of Chilam Balam of Chumayel (Ralph L. Roys)Ralph L. Roys, translator

This source names Washington directly: "Mark Gregory Pegg is a historian at Washington University in St Louis."

This source names Washington directly: "at the General Conference's Washington headquarters produced an early text, and scholars at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary in Berrien Springs, Michigan, then reworked it before..."

This source names Washington directly: "The plot follows Langdon through Washington, D.C."

This source names Washington directly: "Scottish Rite's House of the Temple in Washington, D.C."

This source names Washington directly: "Hymnal was published in 1976 in Washington, D.C."

This source names Washington directly: "Rockhill, reported the decree to Washington within weeks, recording the six signatory officials' argument that China's new schools could not compete with the old examinations for talented students..."

This source names Washington directly: "their years of dedication at the prior Washington state site and directing visitors to the new centre for all further contact."

This source names Washington directly: "its longtime home in Granite Falls, Washington, to Shin Mei Spiritual Centre on Knapp Island, near Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, the North American branch shrine of Tsubaki Grand Shrine near..."

This source names Washington directly: "2000 elevation to Archbishop of Washington."

This source names Washington directly: "Inc (EIN 95-1922279, Federal Way, Washington), the network's founding and largest single national support office, distinct from the World Vision International Partnership Office that coordinates..."

Source World Vision Inc. IRS Form 990 (ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer)World Vision Inc. (filed with the US Internal Revenue Service, reproduced by ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer)

Principal Tradition Of

Evangelicalism, Denominations

Plurality religious identification among the state's adults per the source's survey.

Sources
1. Encyclopaedia Britannica (online academic reference)
Encyclopaedia Britannica editors, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 2024View the Source
2. Pew Research Center: 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study
Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 2025View the Source
A Religious History of the American People
Sydney E. Ahlstrom, Yale University Press, 1972View the Source
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