When it comes to religiosity, what if we are measuring the wrong thing?

When it comes to religiosity, what if we are measuring the wrong thing? That’s the question that came to mind when I read a report about the decline in church attendance in Canada. 

I ask the question because attendance at religious services is one of the important ways Statistics Canada measures religiosity — along with religious affiliation (what faith you identify with), frequency of participation in private religious or spiritual activities (prayer or devotions) and the importance of religious or spiritual beliefs in how to live one’s life. 

Of those four markers, attendance at worship services is one of the more easy to measure. (And also one of the easiest to fib about since many people say what they think they should be doing, but not what they are actually doing.)

Whether people are fibbing or not, attendance at Christian worship services is clearly in decline (with some exceptions). That's what a 2021 report by the Association for Canadian Studies (ACS) and Leger, a Canadian-owned marketing and analytics company, found. 

According to the survey, respondents who said they never attend services increased from 30 per cent pre-pandemic to 67 per cent in 2021. 

And not only that; the poll found while 60.5 per cent of Canadians who say they strongly believe in God never or rarely attended a religious service since the beginning of the pandemic. 

Those findings echo a survey in fall by the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada. It found that weekly religious service attendance in Canada fell from 11 per cent pre-COVID — a figure that was stable for several years — to nine per cent during COVID. This included online services. 

It’s easy to blame the pandemic for the decline. After 22 months of interruptions and cancellations to in-person services, it’s easy for people to fall out of old habits or develop new ones. 

But attendance was falling even before COVID-19. According to Statistics Canada, from 1985 to 2019 the number of people who said they attended a group religious activity at least once a month fell by almost half, from 43 per cent to 23 per cent.  The pandemic didn’t cause the decline, in other words — it just accelerated it.   

And it’s not like not attending services is affecting the way many Canadians view spirituality. Despite the drop in attendance, the poll by ACS and Leger found a third of Canadians still say religion is important in their lives. At the same time, there was only a slight decrease in belief in God. 

A survey in spring by Angus Reid found something similar related to attendance. It prompted Angus Reid president Shachi Kurl to say while some people suffered in terms of spiritual health, “others came out stronger than ever before . . . people saw that God is not in a building, God is also inside us.” 

The drop in attendance makes me wonder if the counting the number of people who attend religious services isn’t a good way to measure religiosity in Canada any longer. 

That’s the view of Brian Clarke, who teaches at the Toronto School of Theology. “The idea that gathering for weekly congregational worship is the chief form of religious observance is a Christian one,” he said, referencing how Christianity has traditionally operated with saved or unsaved, heaven or Hell and member or non-member categories. 

As fewer Canadians identify with organized religion today, Clarke is becoming interested in the concept of “lived religion,” the study of what people do outside of sanctioned sacred spaces and activities like worship services. 

For him, it’s about looking at what practices people engage in and asking how they appropriate them, refashion them and cobble ideas and practices from various religious traditions together — with or without attending formal religious services. 

Lori Beaman of the University of Ottawa feels similarly. Yet, as someone who studies religion in Canada, she is reluctant to give up counting bodies at services. By dropping that marker, it would be tough to compare changes in religion in Canada over time. 

“I think in a perfect world we’d keep the old categories and introduce several more to capture the dynamic nature of religion and nonreligion,” she said — things like including alternative spiritual practices like doing yoga, a walk in the woods or walking a labyrinth. 

This will be hard, she acknowledged; how do you measure the spiritual influence of a daily walk in the woods? And yet, it’s the same with attendance. Going to services can only provide a limited amount of information about the role it plays in people’s spiritual lives. Just being at a service doesn’t reveal much about a person’s individual spirituality. 

This is not a new question. Back in the late 1990s, William Closson James addressed this topic in Locations of the Sacred: Essays on Religion, Literature and Canadian Culture. (Wilfred Laurier University Press.) 

In the book, the professor emeritus of Queen’s University said: “To the extent that our culture is secular, or the extent that we exist amidst a plurality of cultural forms infused with religious material, to that extent it is impossible to generalize about a single sacred anchoring point for Canadian culture, as if there were only one.” 

For that reason, he preferred to speak in the plural of “locations of the sacred,” in Canadian life, something he regarded as being “multiple, fluid and impossible to fix in any permanent or lasting way.” 

Today, as attendance at religious services declines, maybe researchers will need to find new ways to understand the many ways Canadians encounter the sacred. I look forward to what they discover.

From the January, 2021 Free Press.

Do lakes have rights? Indigenous people in Manitoba say yes

Are Indigenous people in Canada the William Wilberforces of our time when it comes to the environment and protecting creation? 

That’s what I ask in my most recent Free Press column, in response to a lawsuit filed by the Southern Chiefs’ Organization in Manitoba declaring Lake Winnipeg a person with constitutional rights to life, liberty and security of person. 

That may strike non-Indigenous Canadians as unusual. That’s how some viewed Wilberforce 200 yearw ago, when he argued for an end to the slave trade in Great Britain. Opponents cited the negative economic consequences if it was ended. Some even used the Bible to justify its continuation. 

Wilberforce was not swayed. Saying he felt called by God to end slavery, for 20 years he advocated tirelessly for an end to the buying and selling of human beings. In 1807, his efforts were rewarded when the slave trade was abolished in that country. 

Today, Indigenous people are doing something similar, arguing that the earth has rights—just as Wilberforce argued that enslaved people had inherent rights, too. He concluded one speech about the horrors of slavery by telling his fellow Parliamentarians: “Having heard all of this, you may choose to look the other way. But you can never again say you did not know.” 

Because of the Southern Chiefs, maybe when it comes to the health of Lake Winnipeg we can never say we didn’t know, either. 

Read the column here. 

Photo above: Southern Chiefs’ Organization Grand Chief Jerry Daniels. Credit Brook Jones of the Free Press.

Jewish, Muslim and Christian communities mark Oct. 7 anniversary

Monday is the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, and the subsequent war in Gaza. 

It’s a tough time for Jewish and Palestinian/Muslim communities alike. As religion reporter at the Winnipeg Free Press, I looked at how those two communities in the city are responding to the anniversary, along with what some Christian groups are doing. Find the links below. 

Anniversary of Oct. 7 trauma colours High Holiday observance for city’s Jewish community 

Churches lament war’s anniversary 

A ‘very hard’ time for Muslims (sidebar to story above) 

And this one, about how Palestinians in Gaza honoured the memory of Israeli peace activist Vivian Silver, originally from Winnipeg, who was killed in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. An aid station in Gaza was named in her honour. (See photo above.)

Indigenous Christian scholars respond to the First Nations Version of the New Testament

 

I didn't have room in my column for responses from Indigenous Christians and scholars to the First Nations Version (FNV) of the New Testament—what did they think of it? Find a couple of responses below, Read the original column here.  

Shari Russell is the director of NAIITS, an Indigenous learning community (formerly the North American Institute for Indigenous Theological Studies). She is treaty status Saulteaux (Anishinaabe) from Yellow Quill First Nation in Saskatchewan and an ordained Officer in The Salvation Army where she serves as the Territorial Indigenous Ministries Consultant and has been actively involved in Indigenous ministry since 2004.

One issue is context. This version was written in the U.S. context. There isn’t very much Canadian representation in it, or in the advisory group that helped create it. It would have been helpful if that was noted. 

It’s very challenging to create something that addresses all First Nations, to make a monocultural document. For example, in the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem in the book of Mark, it talks about people throwing their buffalo robes on the ground. That works for some Indigenous people (on the prairies where there was bison), but not necessarily for others on the west coast or in the eastern part of the country. 

It’s impossible to make a singular First Nations Bible. There are over 600 First Nations in Canada alone with different languages. Within the same languages there are different dialects and images and expressions that grow from within their contexts. 

I do appreciate the storytelling approach they take to it. It can bring new life and vitality to the scriptures, providing new insights that can touch hearts in new ways. It can bring new life to the scriptures, showing how the Gospel story isn’t limited to one people group or place. It’s good news for all people.

The way they render John 3:16 is problematic from an Indigenous perspective. It says that “for God so loved human beings.” That is very limiting from an Indigenous perspective. Like in the original Greek, that uses the word “cosmos,” Indigenous people think of God loving the whole creation, not an anthropocentric, or human, point of view.   

Should people buy it? If it helps people on their spiritual journey, then it is appropriate. 

Christopher Hoklotubbe associate professor of Religion at Cornell College and director of graduate studies for NAIITS. He is a member of the Choctaw Nation.

The FNV is a Native American paraphrase of the Bible that exemplifies Native American interpretations of the Bible, similar to how other cultures have interpreted the Bible.

It has been said that the FNV is best described as a paraphrase, not as a translation. For many who think this way, they regard translation projects to consist of trained biblical scholars and theologians pouring over ancient fragments and manuscripts. While the FNV isn’t this, there is something to be admired and celebrated in the theological poetry that results from the collective wisdom of the Native translation council working together with Terry Wildman.

One concern is the voice Wildman selected to use. He wanted the voice to sound like an elder speaking to a grandchild. And what greater elder for many Indigenous people of Wildman’s generation than Black Elk. Black Elk's book Black Elk Speaks, in which he discussed his religious views, visions, and events from his life, inspired many Native Americans to begin a process of investigating and reclaiming their own Indigenous spiritualities.

For some, this resonated—as illustrated by one appreciative letter Terry received from a Native reader of the FNV who expressed how in reading the translation they could hear their own grandparent’s voice.  For others, this choice is problematic as it does not reflect how the vast majority of North American Natives speak and it can easily fall into caricature, or the trope of the Hollywood Indian.

But that is true for all biblical interpretation and reading. Each culture reads into the verses its own characters—for generations western Christians in Europe and North America have seen Jesus and others in the New Testament as white people or at least behaving and thinking like ‘white people’ in Galilean cosplay (or costume).

Why shouldn’t Indigenous people also see it through the eyes of their culture? And what fresh new ways of reading and finding meaning in the text might Native readers encounter when they are encouraged to hold close the goodness of their own Indigenous heritage, which we hold was given to us by the Creator.

If we recognize that the cultures, economies, and ways of life of the ancient Hebrews and early Christians were more akin to Indigenous cultures than modern Canadian and United States societies, might such works like the FNV help us to better appreciate both biblical and Indigenous worlds? I really think there is something here for Indigenous and non-Indigenous readers. Non-Indigenous ministers that I have encountered have greatly appreciated the FNV.

Doing any translation or paraphrase of the Bible is a charged project. Doing one for Indigenous people is even more so, considering how the Bible was used to inspire, justify, and facilitate the physical and cultural genocide of Indigenous peoples across Turtle Island and the placement of our parents and grandparents into residential and boarding schools. I’m not surprised it has elicited a whole range of responses.

Personally, as a biblical scholar, I find it refreshing to read. It makes me stop and think in new ways about the passages, like when it talks in the Beatitudes about the Creator’s blessing resting on “the ones who walk a trail of tears, for he will wipe the tears from their eyes and comfort them” (Matthew 5:4 FNV). My Choctaw ancestors walked that literal trail of tears, and I found tears in my own eyes when I read that. It was a poetic and spiritual moment for me.

The name for Jesus, Creator Sets Free, helps readers think differently about Jesus. It helps us to imagine how Jesus’ healing and teaching ministry, Jesus’ exorcism of demons and criticism of religious teachers and priests who had lost their way, Jesus’s communion among the poor and broken, are all manifestations of how Creator Sets his people Free.

Reading the FNV distinct translation helps me to connect dots in the stories and theological themes that I hadn’t thought to connect before. Also, it’s a reminder about the importance and meaning of names in Indigenous culture.

Some elders I have spoken with think the FNV dropped the ball in paraphrasing John 3:16. It’s translation of the Greek cosmos as “world of human beings” that “the Great Spirit so loves" is too anthropocentric, too focused on humans. Indigenous people would see cosmos as including all of creation, which includes non-human persons like animals, plants, and even rocks.

And yet, it would be true for the Greek culture when the New Testament was written; they had a very human-centric mindset—a mindset that I would say doesn’t reflect the heart of Creator nor the broader witness of Scripture.

I have deep regard for the challenge that faces any paraphrase or translation in trying determine the nuance of a given word or theological vision of sacred texts that were written thousands of years ago in times and cultures that are only partially accessible and known to us.  

This can be a helpful Bible for non-Indigenous people, to help them see the scriptures in a new way, and for Indigenous people, to help them see themselves at the centre of the biblical story, not at its margins.

First Nations version of the New Testament appeals to Indigenous and non-Indigenous people alike

 

“The Great Spirit loves this world of human beings so deeply he gave us his Son—the only Son who fully represents him. All who trust in him and his way will not come to a bad end, but will have the life of the world to come that never fades — full of beauty and harmony.”

That’s how John 3:16 sounds in the First Nations Version (FNV) of the New Testament, a “retelling of Creator’s Story” that follows in the tradition of Indigenous storytelling.

Read my interview with Terry Wildman, the person behind the FNV—including his regret about how that verse was rendered. Bonus: Learn about “dynamic equivalence translation.”

Also, read responses to the FNV by two Indigenous Christian scholars. 

Christianity and Canoeing: A Metaphor for Deconstructing Faith in Canada

 

Is there a uniquely Canadian way of describing how Christians in this country are deconstructing their faith? 

Yes, say Angela Bick and Peter Schuurman, co-authors of the new book Blessed are the Undone: Testimonies of the Quiet Deconstruction of Faith in Canada (2024, New Leaf Network). And it is canoeing. 

In the book, the two interviewed 28 Canadians, most of them former evangelicals, who went through the process of examining long-held beliefs and seeking new ways to understand God—a process that led all of them to quietly leave the faith of their childhoods for new forms of spirituality, or for no religion at all. 

As Bick and Schuurman listened to their stories, they heard them talk in ways that reminded them of being in a canoe — feelings of “capsizing, going underwater, running aground, being adrift and portaging to a new lake or another kind of spirituality or faith community,” said Bick. 

It was sort of like quietly paddling away on a calm lake, prompting them to leave their churches “politely, almost apologetically, in what we call a ‘Quiet Deconstruction,’” said Schuurman, drawing a comparison to Quebec’s Quiet revolution. 

Why did they deconstruct? They gave seven main reasons, with the top two being the impact of right-wing evangelicalism in the U.S. and the way some churches treat LGBTQ+ people. 

Read more about deconstruction and canoeing in my Free Press column.

A priest on the front page--and he wasn't even in trouble! Reflections on the 5th anniversary of the Religion in the News Project

On Sept. 10, I gave the keynote address at the annual Manitoba Multifaith Council annual general meeting. I used the occasion to give an update on the Religion in the News project at the Free Press, which is financially supported by about 25 faith groups and organizations and hundreds of individuals in Winnipeg.

I also added some personal reflections on what the last 11 months have been like for me as a religion reporter (hint: hard at times). I closed with some personal thoughts about how Indigenous people might be able to help the interfaith community find ways to address the current impasse due to the war between Hamas and Israel. If you are interested, read on.

2024 marks the fifth anniversary of the Religion in the News project at the Winnipeg Free Press.

It was in March, 2019 when the first story sponsored by the project appeared. It was written by Brenda Suderman and was about how Father Sam Argenziano was being honoured for decades of service to the city’s Italian Catholic community. 

As I like to tell people about the article: “There was a story about a priest on the front page of the Free Press the other day—and he wasn’t even in trouble!”

That was the first of what’s turned out to be over 975 stories about local faith in the Free Press since that time. When you add in the columns on the faith page, there have been over 1,200 stories and reflections about faith since 2019.

All of this is thanks to local faith groups, organizations and individuals that have supported the Project for the past five years—and especially to those who came on board the first year for this crazy idea to fund religious journalism at the Free Press.

Together, you have created something unique in all of Canada and, indeed, all of North America. There is no other daily media outlet in the U.S. and Canada that supports faith coverage in this way.

At the same time, you have made Winnipeg the only city in Canada that not only has a faith page, but also a faith beat—no other newspaper covers local faith the way the Free Press does.  

This is a big change from 25 years ago, when most daily newspapers in this country had a faith page and a faith reporter. Since Mary Hynes retired from the CBC in December, 2023, and wasn’t replaced by that media organization, that makes me the only faith reporter in the country—a strange position to be in, I have to say.

So, take a bow! You created something special here in Winnipeg.

While I am glad about the number of articles that have been published, for me the Project is more than the volume of stories. When it was created, I had other less tangible goals in mind.

One of those goals was to highlight the role that faith plays in the not only in the faith community, but also in the wider community. It’s impossible to tell the story of combatting hunger or homelessness in Winnipeg without also telling the story of faith-related groups that provide food, shelter and other services to hungry and homeless people.

In other words, I wanted Winnipeggers to see that faith was more than something that some people did in their places of worship, or that only was featured on the faith page. It impacts much of daily life in the city through people of faith and through those places of worship—and those stories are found all throughout the paper.

Another goal was to provide balance. News about scandals and religiously-motivated violence will always make the news. But through the Project, I wanted to make sure the positive side was also reported—like the majority of priests like Father Sam who never get into trouble.

Which isn’t to say I have reported about some of the negative things associated with faith—things like the legacy of residential schools. And I have chronicled the relentless decline in religion in Manitoba and across the country as attendance and affiliation falls.

But there are also many positive stories about how people of faith are making a difference in this city. Those deserve to be shared, too.

It was also a goal of the Project to try to reduce hatred. This is important at a time when antisemitism and Islamophobia are on the rise. My hope is that it would be harder for people to hate if they saw the face of another person in a story we wrote.

Is it working? I don’t know; it’s hard to measure and there’s no way to prove it. But I do know that, unlike places like Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto, we in Winnipeg have not seen the dramatic violence and vitriol over the October 7 Hamas attacks and the war in Gaza—even if there have been some incidents and tension.

Which is not to say Jews and Muslims in Winnipeg don’t feel anxious, insecure and unsafe; many do. There have been reports of threats, hateful e-mails and intimidation by members of both communities, and a few cases of vandalism.

But at least we haven’t seen a firebombing of a synagogue or mosque—so far. I hope it stays that way.

Speaking personally, it was my goal to use my skills to celebrate faith in Winnipeg—to stay busy and engaged in meaningful activity in semi-retirement. And that has been fulfilled! It’s been my privilege to serve the faith community as a faith reporter and columnist. Through it, I have made many new friends and learned many new and interesting things about different faith groups in the city—and enjoyed some wonderful food! Thank-you for the privilege of serving in this way.

And yet, I wouldn’t be honest with you if I didn’t acknowledge that the last 11 months have been hard.

I have watched—and reported—as tensions over the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the war in Gaza have damaged interfaith relations and relationships in Winnipeg and across Canada.

One Winnipegger who has been involved in interfaith relations for over 50 years told me he has never seen relations between people of different faith groups as strained as they are today.

“This is the most discouraging time I’ve experienced,” he said, adding that social media is one of the biggest contributors to challenges since it “gets people all heated up.”

I know a little bit about that heat. The past 11 months have been hard for me as a faith reporter. No matter what I write about that situation—or what I don’t write—it seems that someone will be angry and will let me know about it.

For some in Winnipeg, I am pro-Hamas if I write about Palestinian and Muslim perspectives and pain. Others see me as an Israeli government dupe if I write about the pain being felt by local members of the Jewish community. 

I suppose I could take some comfort from being attacked by both sides—it means I’m in the middle. But the e-mails can still sting.

And let me quick to say, as clearly as I can, that what’s happening in the Middle East today is not a religious conflict. Yes, there are religious undertones. And yes, there are some on both sides who use religion to support the conflict. But foundationally it is not a war between differing religious groups, ideas and beliefs—and I hope it will never become that in Winnipeg.

If the conflict isn’t about religion, then why am I—the religion reporter—writing about it? That’s a good question.

The reason is because I have good connections and relationships in the Jewish and Muslim communities. The  Free Press knows that and has called on me to use those connections to reach out to people in both groups in order to hear their concerns and fears—and then write about them.

It's an honour to be trusted by members of both communities to tell their stories. But it’s also a burden, since it can sometimes lead to criticism as some people misunderstand my role.

Some, it seems, can’t distinguish between a news story—reporting what people are saying and thinking about an issue—and a column, which contains my thoughts and opinions. I try to tell them the difference, but not everyone seems interested in knowing about it.

And so a story about how Muslims are observing Ramadan while feeling the pain of people in Gaza is seen by some as being anti-Jewish. For others, a story about local Jews going to Israel on a service trip is seen as being anti-Palestinian.

Some days, I just can’t win.

Despite this, I comfort myself by thinking that maybe it was just for such a time as this that the Project came into being, a time when times are tough and people are on edge.

Maybe—just maybe—through the Project people caught up in the situation in the Middle East can see themselves and their pain represented in the Free Press and feel heard.

And maybe—just maybe—people in pain can also read about the pain of others and empathize and sympathize just a little bit, realizing they aren’t the only ones feeling the hurt.

I don’t know if that will happen. I hope it does. But what I do know is there isn’t any other city in Canada where there has been as much local coverage about how people are dealing with events an ocean away. And for that, I take some satisfaction.

As I conclude this presentation, I want to take off my reporter hat for a moment and speak as a member of the larger inter-faith community.

Earlier this year Loraine MacKenzie Shepherd received the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for the Advancement of Interreligious Understanding.

Loraine is a former minister at the Augustine and Westworth United churches here in Winnipeg, and has been involved in interfaith work for decades.

At the ceremony, she spoke about the ways faith communities have traditionally—and usually successfully—sought to overcome differences, including during times of heightened tensions.

One way, she said, is by tapping into the compassion and wisdom found in all faith traditions to find the commonalities in each religion.

Another is by resisting “us/them binary thinking, especially in the heat of the moment,” and by being “equally concerned about violence and human rights violations on every side of a conflict.”

But what to do when those ways don’t seem to be working? That’s when Loraine wondered if it’s time to invite Indigenous people, with their traditions of circles of healing and reconciliation, to “help us sit by the fire and have difficult conversations,” as she put it.

Perhaps, she said, that might be “a third way out of our current impasse that deters interfaith gatherings.”

That idea intrigued me. Could Indigenous people offer a way out of our current challenges? I reached out to Stan McKay, an elder and knowledge keeper at Fisher River Cree Nation, to see what he thought about the idea.

For starters, McKay was pleased simply to have been asked the question. “We usually aren’t asked to contribute to solving some of the world’s problems,” he said. “Instead, we are often seen as the problem.”

If asked to help faith communities navigate this challenging time, McKay said he thought Indigenous people would be open to being “part of sharing ideas and possibilities.”

At the same time, he added, they would do it only if invited, and then with caution and humility. Indigenous people, he explained, “know only too well what it is like to be aggressively imposed upon.”

As for how they could help, it could be a series of circle meetings where various perspectives are shared in a way that “allows for conversation,” McKay said, noting that Indigenous people “understand there are many truths . . . it’s a mistake to think all truth is only in one culture or way of life.”

The circle meetings would not be opportunities for making statements and presenting research, as happens in many other settings, he said. Instead, it would be a time to share stories. “We are a people of story,” he said of Indigenous people, adding “everyone has a story, and needs a safe place to tell it.”

Also important would be taking time, not rushing things, McKay said. “It takes time to build consensus, to hear each story, to build community,” he said.

And if, after sharing, what if a decision about agreement can’t be reached? That happens, McKay said, adding that agreement “can’t be forced. People, and the health of the community, is more important than making a decision.”

For me, listening to MacKenzie Shepherd and McKay brought to mind something John Ralston Saul said in his book A Fair Country: Telling Truths About Canada.

In the book, he talked about how Canada is what he called a Métis nation, a country heavily influenced and shaped by Indigenous ideas of egalitarianism, of a proper balance between individual and group, and of a penchant for negotiation over violence.

But, he went on to say, the history of Canada shows how, over the past centuries, non-Indigenous Canadians forgot the wisdom offered by their Indigenous neighbours. Instead, we believed we, and we alone, had all the best answers.

If Canada is to be successful as a nation, and if we are to find ways to overcome the conflicts that raise tension between us, then maybe we need to reconnect with that original Indigenous wisdom and work together in this fair land.

If that’s true for Canada at large, perhaps it is also true for interfaith relations at this challenging time. Maybe Indigenous people have much to offer when it comes to finding ways share stories, to hear each other and to create space for difficult conversations. 

Considering the situation facing us these days, perhaps that’s a good option for how to move forward.

And if it happens, the Religion in the News Project will always be there to help.