FāVS News News and Commentary about Religion and Ethics in Eastern Washington and North Idaho
Matthew Kaemingk, a 2003 Whitworth alum, recently founded the online journal, Christ & Cascadia, which focuses on Christianity in the Pacific Northwest.
The collaborative journal draws material from over 15 contributors, including Whitworth Professor of Political Science Julia Stronks and Whitworth Professor of History Dale Soden.
“Our mission is to cultivate conversations about faith and northwest life,” Kaemingk said in a press release. “We are convinced that the Pacific Northwest is a unique cultural environment that presents some distinct cultural challenges and opportunities for the Christian faith. Part of the reason why I started Christ & Cascadia sprung from the desire to explore what it means to be an evangelical minority in a progressive non-Christian culture.”
The Cascadia region includes Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and parts of Alaska, California, Idaho and Montana.
“The Pacific Northwest is known for being a rather challenging region for the church,” Kaemingk said in the release. “That said, while the church in the Northwest is small, we believe that its humble size makes it both nimble and creative. The Pacific Northwest is full of Christian individuals, organizations and churches that are creatively imagining what it means to follow Christ in this culture.”
In addition to launching the online journal, Kaemingk is the executive director of the Fuller Institute for Theology and Northwest Culture, in Seattle.
Tracy Simmons is an award-winning journalist specializing in religion reporting and digital entrepreneurship. In her approximate 20 years on the religion beat, Simmons has tucked a notepad in her pocket and found some of her favorite stories aboard cargo ships in New Jersey, on a police chase in Albuquerque, in dusty Texas church bell towers, on the streets of New York and in tent cities in Haiti. Simmons has worked as a multimedia journalist for newspapers across New Mexico, Texas, Connecticut and Washington. She is the executive director of SpokaneFāVS.com, a digital journalism start-up covering religion news and commentary in Spokane, Washington. She also writes for The Spokesman-Review and national publications. She is a Scholarly Assistant Professor of Journalism at Washington State University.
