Quiet among Gov. Kulongoski's 'Nones' in Oregon; Thunderstorms down South

Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski clearly didn't just stumble into what Mark Silk termed "None Zone" during a recent NPR interview with Melissa Block.

Kulongoski was born in rural Missouri in 1940 and reared from age four (when his father died) in a St. Louis Catholic boys' home, Kulongoski acknowledged last year that he hadn't attended his apparent home church, Queen of Peace Catholic Church in Salem, since 2006. That was part of the uproar when Archbishop John Vlazny of Portland denounced Kulongoski for being among the honorary hosts at a National Abortion Rights Action Leagued fund raiser.

Copyright Claude W. Rankin and Southern Connections Inc.

Kulongoski's supporters probably didn't pause last week when he told Block during the interview [transcript]:

Sometimes, you have to get out like this to really understand why you do what you do," he says. "This is what Oregon's all about. This is who we are as people — on the natural resource side of our lives. ... I must admit, I may not be as religious but I'm very spiritual — and I believe if there is a God, this is where he lives. He's on the river, he's in the mountains — this is what it's all about."

In a different state this would likely be of more political import, but as Silk observers:

. . . not (as he implies) in Oregon. Its rate of religious identification is among the lowest in the country; and environmentalism is its civil religion. Kulongoski's statement is more or less equivalent to the governor of Alabama talking about what a devoted Baptist he is.

Annual % change in SBC membership

Nor should it be startling at this juncture that a governor reared by Catholic nuns is a member of what demographic history suggests will become the largest U.S. religious denomination.

How Southern Baptists and others of evangelical bent will respond is an important issue hereabouts. For decades Southern Baptists have explored exclusionst rhetoric as a solution. Not effective, thus far. Membership numbers are in unarrested decline. And the increasing shrillness of rhetoric from Southern Baptist political spokesmen like Richard Land is whipsawing whatever civility was left in public discourse.

Whatever the political weather is like among the Oregon fly fishermen, the forecast down South is more thunderstorms.