Canadian scholars weigh in on recent Angus Reid study of religion in Canada

I call them my "scholarly hive mind," people who study religion in Canada from different perspectives. Whenever a new report about religion in Canada comes out, I ask them to weigh in. Like happened recently with a new Angus Reid Institute study that I wrote about in the Winnipeg Free Press.

I can never include everything they share with me in my columns in the newspaper, so here are their full comments on the report.

John Stackhouse, Crandall University 

Of course Canadians-in-general are leery of evangelicals and Muslims. They represent the only two religions visible on the cultural landscape that disrupt the easy course of the post-Sixties agenda of self-realization, prosperity, security, and justice (for approved minorities). 

Hindus in Canada are neither populous nor prominent. Sikhs show up significantly only in the Vancouver and Toronto suburbs. Buddhists have that nice Dalai Lama to speak for them, while most Canadians couldn’t name four more important facts about that religion. (“Aren’t they into compassion and mindfulness? That’s nice!”) 

If the Chinese who have helped overheat Vancouver’s housing market were identifiable with a religion, that religion would be named alongside evangelicalism and Islam. And God help our Jewish neighbours if Canada experiences an economic downturn. 

Meanwhile, then, it’s those noisy, Trump-loving, sport-spoiling evangelicals and those ominous, women-shrouding, terrorist-abetting Muslims we have to watch out for. 

And why not the Catholics? Everyone knows that Catholicism in Canada nowadays has only the slightest purchase on its members (exhibit A: artificial birth control; exhibit B: abortion; exhibit C: attendance at mass and confession). 

The clergy are so utterly disqualified from public respect because of the continuing tide of sexual scandals around the world that the junior members just long to be quiet and kind while the senior members speak irrelevantly into the air, when they dare to speak at all. 

We are not yet in an era of cultural wars, thank God. But the dominant attitude of Boomerish consumerism, fervent-but-selective moralism, and as-you-like-it spirituality militates against conspicuous recalcitrance. 

Witness the brief nod by court after legislature after professional college toward religious rights per the Charter as they are then swiftly set aside in the interests of What Matters More. Evangelicals and Muslims are the two most obvious groups who refuse to entirely get with the program. 

So no wonder the rest of the crowd suspect and resent them. They’re always threatening to ruin the party and rain on the parade. 

Sam Reimer, Crandall University 

I suspect that part of the reason that evangelicals’ religiosity is so high is because the less committed evangelicals are disaffiliating. It is, after all, the least popular religion. Interestingly, this disaffiliation trend does not seem to be the case for Muslims, who (based on some reports) often increase their religiosity when they land in Canada (at least for the first generation). 

The majority of Canadians were raised in a religious tradition: I wonder if the questions asked here help us understand much about faith transmission (e.g., Did you go through your religion’s formal entry process?).  

We know that parental commitment is the highest predictor of faith transmission, but it requires two parents who share the same religious views and who both model active religiosity at home. The questions don’t really get at these factors.   

My (late, RIP) friend Gary Bouma said that Australians and Canadians are fine with religion unless it is serious religion. I assume he meant commitment to those religions that makes exclusive claims.  

Of course, past and present failures, and media coverage of them, affect perceptions of religious groups as well. It is not surprising then, that Evangelicals and Muslims are viewed as more damaging and also feel the most “shut out” by society. This is much higher for evangelicals who feel the society is moving away from their beliefs, and a more privileged Christianity in the past. 

Will immigration help sustain Canada’s religious communities? Well, that depends which ones. Obviously, they will not help sustain the United Church much, nor most mainline Protestant groups.  

Immigration will help maintain (particularly charismatic) evangelical churches, and Catholicism to a lesser degree, but obviously they will sustain and grow non-Christian world religions. But for how many generations? That we don’t know.  

Joel Thiessen, Ambrose University 

Subcultural narratives, attitudes, and practices related to ‘us’ and ‘them’ go a long way to explain Evangelicals and Muslims as outsiders on several fronts (e.g., more religiously committed). 

This is reinforced with the one question on ‘your family participated in religious events.’ Evangelicals (50%) and Muslims (42%) stand out in this regard, reinforcing the role of family-based religious socialization behaviours in particular.    

Several markers that cultural Catholicism persists (far higher affiliation than belief or practice), alongside clear markers akin to the secular end of the continuum among those who identify as Catholic (e.g., 28% of Catholics don’t believe in God or a higher power; only 43% of Catholics want a religious funeral). 

I was surprised to see the proportion of people who find themselves in religious traditions who were not raised in a religious tradition (as high as 30% among Mainline Protestants and as low as 14% among Muslims). More recent qualitative research into conversion experiences, pathways, and narratives in late modern Canadian society would be fascinating here. I was surprised with how high some of these figures were. 

While the narrative earlier in the report is that QC and BC are among the most secular provinces, we shouldn’t lose sight of the data half-way through the report on the two provinces with the highest proportion of people to not be raised in a religious tradition – BC (36%) and AB (34%) – the two provinces with the highest proportion of religious nones, as my research with Sarah showed.   

Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised, but it was noteworthy to see how few wanted a religious funeral. Maybe qualitative research exists on this social shift, but if not, a study should be done. I am co-teaching an interdisciplinary course on ‘death and dying’ next year, and this would be an interesting line of inquiry.   

Perceived and/or Experienced Polarization – fascinating (and unsurprising) to see the negative views among many in Canada toward Evangelicals and Muslims, especially Evangelicals. In turn, Evangelical perceptions of persecution toward their group are very strong. 

Paying attention to polarization rhetoric, perceptions, and experiences is worth tracking closely in the years ahead, and we need more qualitative data to understand better the processes, mechanisms, and narratives that give rise to group perceptions of the ‘other.’ 

Media is certainly part of the story, but I think there is more in play too (e.g., family, school, politics, social media). Sarah and I explored some of this in one of our chapters on religious nones ,and I look forward to learning more here from the recent book by Paul, Patricia, and Sarah, Religion at the Edge.   

Intriguing to see that Muslims (38%) and Sikhs (39%) were the most likely to say that Canadian society makes room for their personal values and faith. This might suggest that prevailing narratives on multiculturalism and diversity are progressively taking root. 

However, Muslims were also the second most likely to say Canadian society shuts out their personal values and faith (26%). Clearly, a lot of work remains on the diversity/inclusion front too. 

Sarah Wilkins-Laflamme, University of Waterloo 

Those with no religion/non-believers don't get much exposure to organized religion in their everyday lives anymore. Their religious literacy is usually quite low. 

Often one of the only places they hear about religion now is in the media when there's a negative news story about religion (unmarked graves at formerly Catholic-run residential schools; sex abuse scandals; right-wing evangelicalism from the US and in the Freedom Convoy; the occasional pastor who refuses to comply with health restrictions; etc.). 

The nonreligious don't come into much contact with the 'better' sides of religion, such as the social services certain religious groups provide, or the sense of community religion often provides for more religiously committed individuals. 

The negative views are also picked up and reinforced by non-religious individuals' social networks who often share the same nonreligion and views. 

Muslims and Evangelicals still get the short end of the stick here, being the most disliked groups for many years now. Buddhists are usually the most liked group, although this Angus Reid/Cardus series of surveys didn't ask about Buddhists. 

And I also think it's worth pointing out the extremely negative views Evangelicals hold towards atheists and Muslims, although the report did not focus on this result. 

Most of the trends presented in the report were not all that surprising, and are a continuation of what's been found in previous surveys and years. The one finding that was more surprising for me was the one Joel also mentioned: the high rates of individuals who said they come from a no religion background but are now into religion. These rates are higher than other surveys have shown them to be. 

It might be that a currently religiously committed individual has a different definition of what a nonreligious upbringing looks like (some, but not as much, religion), versus a currently nonreligious individual. More research needed on this. 

Recent Stats Can General Social Surveys (from 2018 and 2019) are showing a steep decline in rates of cultural Catholicism in QC (in favor of no religion). Also, the report got the 2019 Stats Can GSS rate of no religion wrong...it's not just over one quarter, but now over one third of the general adult population in Canada who says they have no religion. 

Rick Hiemstra, Evangelical Fellowship of Canada 

The headline grabbing question in this poll was “In your view, would you say the overall presence of each of these in Canadian public life is benefitting or damaging Canada or Canadian society?” and the possible responses were:

• Damaging;
• No real impact;
• Benefitting;
• Don’t know/Can’t say. 

The question itself was about “presence,” not what these groups did or did not do. I think we should be concerned that the mere presence or existence of a group is being characterized as damaging, or that people are being pushed to think of their neighbours in these terms. 

This is polarizing language (damaging-benefitting) and one can only hope that those writing the survey were unaware of what they were doing. We have far too many historical and contemporary examples of what happens in societies when a group is reduced in the public consciousness to a threat. 

It is reasonable to ask, “What does a society do with a damaging group?” If their existence is damaging, is their existence tolerated? 

Listing “damaging” groups validates and reinforces prejudice. Surely we can all be more careful with each other’s safety and reputations. 

Kevin Flatt, Redeemer University 

From the point of view of Canadian history, dealing with deep religious and cultural differences has been a recurring challenge that we've sometimes handled reasonably well (coexistence of English-Protestant majority and French-Canadian minority) and sometimes very poorly (relations with Indigenous peoples). 

Our federal structure of government can be understood primarily as an attempt to allow for religious-cultural difference in the perennially contested areas of education, access to public institutions, and customs/laws regarding family, marriage, and children. 

This structure has worked reasonably well for safeguarding the distinct identity of French Canadians in Quebec, and to some extent (though less well) for French Canadian minorities in other provinces. 

In today's context, it's mainly evangelical Protestants and Muslims who have thick religious commitments that are out of step with the predominantly secular hegemonic culture. 

Like the old Anglo-Protestant/French-Catholic and the continuing Indigenous/settler divide, these differences have profound implications for education, access to the public square, and family/marriage/sexuality. 

And like them, the differences between evangelicals and Muslims and the Canadian majority tend to produce fear and distrust on all sides. 

Unfortunately, the structures we built to accommodate the Anglo-Protestant/French-Catholic "two solitudes" have not been adapted or extended to accommodate evangelicals and Muslims now that mainline Protestants, most Catholics, and "nones" have largely converged around a shared secular progressivism since the 1960s. 

Our main creative response to the English-French divide—provincial jurisdiction—can't really help evangelicals and Muslims due to their geographical distribution as fairly small minorities in most places. 

Let's take the example of evangelicals and education in Ontario. In the 1950s and 1960s, when my parents were in school, most evangelicals would have found the public school system hospitable if somewhat uninspiring (it had, after all, a generically mainline Protestant ethos). 

By the 1980s and 1990s, when my generation was in school, overtly Christian elements had been stripped from the system due to the combined effects of social change and the Charter, and the system seemed somewhat alien to evangelicals but more or less religiously neutral. 

Today, in my children's generation, most of the evangelicals I know (including several public school teachers) perceive the system as overtly hostile and heavily invested in disabusing their children of their parents' core values. Most of those who can afford to do so are sending their kids to private Christian schools or homeschooling them, usually at great financial sacrifice, while they pay public school taxes and watch their Catholic and progressive secular neighbours enjoy public funding for the schools that reflect their values and teach them to their children. 

Even leaving aside the question of whether this is just, it is not a formula for long-term social harmony. It is likely, in fact, to produce alienation and even radicalization. (Side note: is anyone tracking trends in the area of withdrawal from public schooling? Anecdotally, the evangelical exodus from public schools seemed to have accelerated massively even before COVID, and I have heard similar things about the Muslim community.) 

Sadly, these survey results do not provide much hope for the future improvement of the prospects of religious outlier groups in Canada. I find it alarming that on balance nearly all groups think the mere presence of evangelicals and Muslims is "damaging to Canada." I share Rick's concern about the wording of that question, too. 

Speaking purely as an evangelical, I'm painfully aware that some of our more newsworthy representatives don't do us any favours. But as a society we can't make our willingness to tolerate the very existence of a group contingent on their perceived approvability according to the tastes of the majority. 

On a more hopeful note, it was very encouraging to see that large majorities of Canadians of all stripes think that freedom of conscience and religion makes Canada a better country. 

It is worrisome to see that most groups of Canadians think freedom of conscience and religion is diminishing in Canada; even more worrisome if they are correct (as they probably are, in my view). 

But combined with the on-balance positive view of religious contributions that most Canadians have, maybe there is a small opening here for a more tolerant and accommodating approach to deep religious difference.

New Statistics Canada report showing religious decline not a surprise, scholars say

 

When I asked my scholar’s brain trust for response to the recent Statistics Canada survey of religion—for use in my Free Press column on that topic—like usual, I got way more good stuff than I could use in the newspaper. 

So I’ve published their responses below verbatim for you to read, to learn more about their take on the findings. In a few cases, I went back to some for follow up questions. Those responses are included as addendums. 

For me, having a chance to consult these scholars is like a master class in Canadian religiosity. I hope you find it helpful, too. 

John Stackhouse, Crandall University 

No big surprises to anyone on this list, I’m pretty sure! 

Not much comfort to be found for religious groups in immigration, since it remains to be seen whether the 2nd and 3rd generations will go the way of all (Canadian) flesh and give up traditional religion for hockey+NETFLIX+snacks+whatever. 

No surprise to those of us out here in Atlantic Canada that religiosity of any sort is apparently lower among young people. I teach many of those young people and their knowledge and practice of Christianity or of other religions is, um, low. 

The one data set I find bemusing is the self-reporting of how “important” religious belief, identity, etc., is to people. “Important” or “Very Important,” say ‘way more people than actually show up in church, mosque, gurdwara, etc. or in any other way demonstrate religious or spiritual commitment. The old problem of self-reporting is quite stark here again: You say that religion/spirituality/whatever is important, but how would you prove that it is?  

I think of the Thiessen-Bibby debate in particular as to whether the problem of low religiosity is a “supply” problem—churches, etc., aren’t doing what they ought to do (Bibby)—or a “demand” problem—those currently not interested in churches, etc., won’t become interested no matter what those institutions do (Thiessen). 

Okay, so maybe lots of people are hypocrites, or sentimentalists, or delusional, or whatever. It remains interesting to try to understand why so many Canadians profess to take seriously what most of them manifestly do not take seriously. Is this simply a kind of cultural residuum, a mark of ethnicity seen in secular Quebecers staunchly defending the cross in the National Assembly? Or is there a lingering sense that identifying wholly with atheism/secularism (which precious few Canadians do) is a bridge too far, a kind of closing the door on Something or Someone that one ought not to entirely shut out?  

Addendum: I think Thiessen’s findings are an important advance over Bibby’s. It’s a case of “asking the second question” that Bibby’s polls aren’t set up to do. “Yes, but if the churches did in fact do things differently, would you go then?” 

Still, since so few Canadian churches show evidence that they offer what I would say is the “core offerings” of a church—a powerful encounter with the divine plus a strong supportive group—but instead offer mostly a Sunday morning show plus weekday opt-in services, it may be that Bibby is right. And Thiessen’s subjects literally don’t know what they’re missing.

Sarah Wilkins-Laflamme, University of Waterloo

Yes, I echo a lot in John Stackhouse’s email on this: no big surprises in these trends. In fact, we discussed many of these trends during our April Zoom chat earlier this year.

As for the proportion of Canadians saying their religious and/or spiritual beliefs are important in their lives, without attending religious services regularly, this isn’t that surprising to me. Religious and spiritual beliefs across Western societies tend to decline more slowly than activities with organized religious groups. 

A significant proportion of adults across Canada (in all regions) prefer to have their own set of beliefs that they consider as religious or spiritual, in some cases coming from religious traditions and in some cases not, and without having to grapple with the external authority of religious leaders and involvement with religious groups. Similar to Luckmann’s concept of ‘invisible religion’ or to what a number of researchers refer to as self-spirituality, many individuals keep beliefs that they feel best reflect their ‘authentic’ selves (in Taylor’s age of individual authenticity), without the perceived baggage of organized religion. 

This said, this measure of the salience of religious or spiritual beliefs in life is also on the decline in Canada, and is found among a smaller proportion of Gen X and Millennials than among older generations. 

Addendum: You find all sorts across a population (people who attend religious services regularly for family reasons, but don’t believe; people who are both religious and spiritual; people who are not religious nor spiritual; SBNR; etc.). 

But a common form of religious decline is an initial move away from organized religion (stop regular activities with a religious group) while still maintaining some religious beliefs and occasional practice for holidays and rites of passage. This is the move that many among the Boomer generation made in Canada over the past half century. 

But religious beliefs are more difficult to pass on to the next generation with no institutional and community support in religious socialization, and so we then begin to see declines in religious and spiritual belief, and in the salience of beliefs among younger generations. 

Charles Taylor’s massive subjective turn in an age of authenticity argument, along with literature on growing self-spirituality, see many individuals no longer feeling the need for religious groups to support their own belief system. External sources of authority, such as relying on religious leaders or an external God to inform what individuals should believe and do, is not something that’s valued in our individualized societies as much anymore. 

Instead, individuals prefer to be their own arbitrators of their belief system, in an attempt to connect more with their ‘authentic’ selves removed from institutional, familial and societal pressures (even though in reality individuals are often strongly influenced by their socialization and social environments). 

The impact of more individualized values in our current societies. This doesn’t mean that everyone is SBNR in society, but it does mean that a sizeable chunk are, especially those who received a religious socialization as kids but chose to move away from organized religion as adults. 

Sam Reimer, Crandall University 

Not surprisingly, the link between group and private religious practice shows a strong positive correlation. So, we should not assume that any move from religious to spiritual means that private practices are increasing for many, while their public/group religiosity is decreasing. They seem to decline together. 

I like the emphasis on cohort change here, where we see younger cohorts are less religious, indicating the trend found by Voas and Chaves (Is the US a counterexample of secularization?) on the importance of generational decline. 

Some research shows that Muslims increase in commitment once they land on Canadian soil. Whether that lasts into the second/third generation is an important question. 

I find it interesting that StatsCan data (with their complex methods that include both phone and online sampling, I think) finds higher levels of affiliation and religious practice than other quality online panels. I wonder if this is a combination of sampling bias (StatsCan gets more religious people and online panels get less religious people) and that Canadians are more likely to report affiliation to StatsCanada than online panels (since they feel they are representing their family and its history more than their personal convictions?).

Addendum: Those with high public ritual practice like attendance also tend to have high levels of private devotional practices like prayer. So yes, both measures of religiosity decline together.

Generational cohort change means that religious transmission is not going well. We are not keeping our kids in the faith, as many of them are no longer affiliating with their parents’ religion once they become young adults.  Based on research we know that a leading cause of denominational growth is fertility rates (having lots of kids) and retention (keeping those kids in the fold).

So if immigration is not favorable to a religious group, then they will normally decline in size.

Re: evangelism, we are not seeing a lot of people in Canada switching or being converted to another religion.  Nearly all switchers are becoming "nonverts," or becoming religious nones.

A study of Muslims shows they become MORE dedicated to their faith once they arrive in Canadian soil, which seems to be exceptional. However, it is not clear what happens over generations, but my guess is that they become less committed, following Canadian trends. 

Rick Hiemstra, Evangelical Fellowship of Canada 

I agree with what others have already said here. I would just add that this study takes us to 2019, or up to the start of COVID and that the religious landscape is now substantially different. 

The EFC recently did a survey about COVID and religious practice. In Canada, weekly religious service attendance fell from 11% pre-COVID to 9% during COVID, and the during-COVID attendance measure included online services. This is after having held steady at around 11% for several years. A two percent drop doesn’t seem like much until you consider that it represents almost a fifth weekly religious service attendance. 

Depending on the tradition, religious service attendance (attendance days) was likely off a fifth to a third during COVID even when you include online views. Significantly, a large portion of those who attended just a few times a year now never attend. Christmas and Easter Christians don’t typically evidence high levels of religiosity, but these occasional connections act as a break on our society’s tendency toward increasing polarization. 

Being inside a church a couple of times a year makes what goes on in there a little less strange. This is so important in an age where people develop their religious views on social media and by watching movies like King Arthur and The Kingdom of Heaven where true believers are the true villains.

From what I can see, church attendance is unlikely to rise above its during-COVID attendance levels once the pandemic ends. 

Our poll showed that Gen-Z reported higher attendance levels than other sociological generations. We worked with Andrew Grenville on this poll and when he saw the result, he ran the attendance questions with another 3,000 Canadians and found the same result. He then repeated the questions on a survey in the United States and found the same result. 

This doesn’t tell us why we’re seeing these numbers, but it is different than the usual narrative about young adults and religion. It could be COVID migration as students moved back to their parents’ houses to wait out the pandemic, or it could be that they’re reporting live-stream views or listening to podcasts. Nevertheless, we have this unexpected result. 

Churches are also split over COVID lockdowns and vaccine passports. This is true of all Christian traditions, although to differing extents. These different positions are often powerfully held, and they’ve introduced divisions into many congregations. 

Pastors have been living with their congregants’ viscerally felt internal tensions throughout the pandemic as they’ve pivoted and pivoted again to try to keep some semblance of church life going in very trying circumstances. 

Pastors, ministers and priests are tired with a kind of tiredness that four weeks off next summer will not cure. I expect that come next spring, when the pandemic “all clear” is likely to be sounded, that many of those pastors who have just been holding on will let go. This will likely be a big religion story in May 2022. 

Stats is concerned with trends and measures of central tendency. No church lives the average though. Staff and volunteers are still needed to run programs. Anecdotally, we’ve heard that volunteers are reluctant to return both, out of fear of COVID and because they’ve grown accustomed to other habits and rhythms of life over the last two years. 

What are trends and averages may cut many congregations deep enough that they’re no longer going concerns—at least not in their current forms. A 20% drop in religious participation, may take a congregation past a tipping point that seems all out of proportion to the seemingly slight decline. 

For those concerned about church, or even those who think churches provide some kind of beneficial social capital, these are the questions we should be talking about. The Statscan report is interesting and does confirm long-term trends that we’ve known about for years, but it does seem to be chronicling another time. It’s a pre-COVID report, and I think it’s somewhat of a truism to say, “We’re never going back.” 

I’m also an ordained minister who takes my turn in a preaching roster at our local church. My next sermon is scheduled for the fourth Sunday in Advent on the text in Luke about Mary’s visit to Elizabeth. As stories, numbers are the dead blow of a mallet. They lack nuance, feeling and any sense of history. They are a reduction of what has been measured with no consciousness of what lies beyond its blinders. I say this being reminded that the Holy Spirit intervened in the lives Elizabeth and Mary at a very dark time for his people. Numbers are not destiny. 

Addendum #1: Immigrants made up 15% of the sample, which is low because about 23% of Canada’s population are immigrants. 

Almost every public opinion survey you see in Canada will underrepresent New Canadians. To start with there are language barriers to taking surveys in English or French. Second, because most polling companies use online platforms now there is a technological barrier that is both knowing how to use the technology and being able to afford it. The good news for churches (and other religious groups) perhaps is that the more religious immigrants are underrepresented in all the bleak trends we see.  

This is a good reminder that polls are imperfect instruments. They’re helpful as long as we’re conscious of their limitations and maintain a healthy skepticism about what they’re telling us.   

Addendum #2: Attendance is unlikely to rise because although there are people who are planning to return that say they don’t currently attend there are others who previously attended that now say they will not return to an in-person service. It is an attendance estimate based on what those in different pre-COVID attendance groups say that they’ll do. 

For example, if the 84% of weekly pre-COVID attenders say they’ll return to in-person services, when an evangelical who attended pre-COVID, for example, says they’re going to return to in-person services I count them as 0.84 returners (1 * 84%) rather than one. 

The longer the pandemic and its restrictions drag on, the more likely people will develop habits that don’t include church (or any other in-person social group). Social change is affected by those things that have your attention. Living in virtual, online worlds puts us more and more at the tender mercies of social media and companies that would like to form us into target advertising groups rather than into churches or social groups of mutual support and encouragement. 

The massive religion story that isn’t being told is really about the shift in cultural attention to screens. Google and Facebook’s entire business model that is disrupting everything from newspapers to churches is all about a societal shift in attention. We are formed by whatever holds our attention. It’s not so much that we don’t have time for each other or other activities anymore as it is that digital enterprises have figured out how to hack our attention to keep us from doing other things. 

Remember, if newspapers fail, it is because print media can’t compete with Facebook’s nudges. A newspaper can move online but if it can’t hold attention like cat videos (or other less savory things) then it will not be served up to users as often. Over time people’s tastes are cultivated toward what will predictably hold their eyeballs so that ads can be shown. 

Social media doesn’t bring us together; it segments us into target audiences, and because time is limited, every hour spent there is an hour not spent with family, at church, or just hanging out. The ties that bind are not so much actively broken as they are withered from inattention. It is such a banal thesis about religious decline, but I think it explains much. 

Addendum #3: As for churches that stake their reason for being on evangelism and church planting: This is complicated. I don’t think the pandemic changes the importance or urgency of either activity. The change is in the degree of cultural distance there now is between Christian belief and those we might once have called the unchurched. 

In the last 2 years, Christianity has become more distant and strange to most Canadians. So, in our evangelistic or church planting endeavors we can’t assume the level of familiarity with Christian touch points that we once could. In fact, the culture is likely more actively hostile because of things like media portrayals of a small minority of churches resisting pandemic restrictions. 

Then there’s that and the absence of the counterbalance of knowing real flesh-and-blood Christians, or at least real flesh-and-blood Christians who are open about their Christian faith. What Christians are is increasingly mediated through the toxic world of social media. 

I don’t think the pandemic really changed the trends for church planting and evangelism so much as they accelerated them. 

Joel Thiessen, Ambrose University College 

This is all very interesting. The only thing I would add pertains to those born outside vs inside Canada.

It struck me that older generations in both groups were more or less the same, suggesting a degree of assimilation among older generations of those born outside of Canada? 

As for younger generations, it is noteworthy that those born outside of Canada are notably more religious (likely driven by Muslims and possibly other conservative religious traditions?). This possibly reveals both higher (even growing?) rates of religiosity among those born outside of Canada and diminishing rates among young people born inside Canada. The question is what will happen to these younger generations of fairly devout religious folks in the coming decades?  

As for older immigrants who immigrated a few decades ago with even higher rates of religiosity when they were younger, it appears over time that rather than maintaining as high a level of religiosity they have “regressed to the mean” to be “like everyone else” in their age cohort with slightly lower levels of religiosity among those born in Canada. Granted, as part of older generations, they are still far more religious than the rest of the population. 

This is all consistent with the thesis that I think is accurate: immigrants are more religious in first generation, but this wanes with each passing generations. Of course, we’ll see if this new crop of first generation young immigrants buck this trend or not. 

Stuart Macdonald, Knox College 

I appreciated the wisdom of those who've responded, and I would agree this is confirming some long-term trends. What Covid will have done to this is a great question. 

One thing I found fascinating was how clear some of the data was regarding cohorts. This really confirms some of what Putnam suggested in Bowling Alone. In that book he noted Americans were still bowling, but they were bowling differently.  Where they used to bowl in leagues they now bowled "alone." 

What he found was that it wasn't that the older generation stopped bowling in their league; their children did not replace them. So what was causing the collapse of bowling leagues in America was that the younger generation (cohort) were not following the pattern established by their parents.  

Lori Beaman, University of Ottawa 

I think John Stackhouse gets at something interesting—the space between ‘I’m x [religion]’ and ‘I’m an atheist’ is perhaps the most interesting space, but the one that is also the most difficult to get at with surveys. 

I also thought Rick’s point was important, and one that has been a central preoccupation for me—in a diverse society how do we live well together? Contact theory would support what Rick suggests—that church attendance of the two times a year type may contribute to an ability to see things in more empathetic ways. There are other ways to have that contact too, though, by working together at food banks, for the environment, to support newcomers and so on. 

Is the glass half empty or half full? Lots of people claim a religious affiliation and have some involvement. They just don’t necessarily do it like they did 60 years ago. 

As for post-Covid, I think it might be too soon to tell.

 

Belief in God in Canada, 2020: Scholars of Religion Weigh In

After Reg Bibby published his most recent findings about belief in God in Canada, I asked some scholar friends to respond to his research. I used some of their comments in my January 16, 2021 Winnipeg Free Press column about Bibby's research. Their full comments are below.

The average Canadian has moved toward no religion

Sam Reimer, Crandall University

I’m delighted to see Reginald Bibby continue his decades-long examination of religion in Canada. Without Dr. Bibby’s important work, our understanding of Canadian religion’s trajectory and current reality would be much more fuzzy. Many of us are building on Bibby’s foundational work.

Survey methods have changed over time (mail out surveys to online panels), and so comparisons over time should note this change. However, I don’t think this is an important factor.

Bibby’s findings are consistent with what other research has found—declining religiosity, with older, immigrants, women, and less educated being somewhat more religious. This strengthens his conclusions.

I continue to disagree with Bibby that “polarization” is the correct way to describe religion in Canada. For me, polarization requires Canadians vacating the middle (“somewhere in between” or “low religious”) category and moving toward BOTH poles (high religion and no religion). 

There is very little evidence that Canadians are moving to the more religious pole (they are moving to the no religion pole in droves), and we are requiring significant numbers of immigrants to even maintain numbers in the “high religious” category.

Nor is there clear evidence that the highly religious are becoming more committed or extreme in their views over time (even if there is greater space between them and the average Canadian. 

The average Canadian has moved toward no religion, while the high religious have hardly moved (which explains the increased gap).  

Finally, research over time shows increased disaffiliation, lower religious practice (like attendance) and lower belief is the dominate trend. Canadians become less religious as they age, yes, but the greater effect is that younger Canadians are less religious than older cohorts. In sum, it looks more like religious decline than polarization to me. 

Telling a pollster you believe that God exists means squat

John Stackhouse, Crandall University

A few thoughts:

Even though we’ve all seen similar statistics for decades, it’s still impressive that reported belief in God, even if qualified by occasional doubts (as I have them myself), has dropped from 70% in 1975 to 40% today. That’s just generic belief in whatever-you-want-to-define-as-“God.” We Canadians continue to race the Dutch—and perhaps the Aussies and Kiwis—for the steepest rate of de-Christianization since perhaps the French Revolution….

I’m more impressed this time by what isn’t different: 

First, there is no statistically important difference between men and women (when women typically are more religious than men as a global generalization); 

Second, there is no big difference regionally (not even “Prairies” as a unit, just SK standing out—an artifact of the survey?—and “Atlantic”…which I am learning from living here is slightly more “traditional” than the rest of the country, but not much).

Third, there is no big difference between older Canadians and Boomers—both now at around 40%…like the average for the country.

In sum, Canada is manifesting an increasingly homogeneous religious culture—with the exceptions being evangelical Protestants (whom Reg keeps calling “Conservative”—and in my new book on Evangelicalism I’ll show again what a bad adjective that is for evangelicals), observant Catholics, and observant members of other religions (who are still such a small group that they barely move the national needle). 

I’m looking forward to the National Household Survey/Census/Whatever the Heck We Have Left of What Used to Be One of the Great Religion Surveys in the World to see if indigenous Canadians continue to stand as the most Christian people-group in the country. But at the level Reg is measuring, yeah: it’s a pretty flat landscape, with those few spikes as exceptions.

I also have to shake my head at “God Is Still Doing Reasonably Well in the Polls.” I’m no political expert, but I should think that when a third of the country isn’t even confident you exist, no public figure should be beaming with pleasure.

And as a historian who also plies a trade as a theologian and teacher of world religions, I can’t help but recall James 2:19: "You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.”

Telling a pollster that you believe that God exists means (to use the technical Religionswissenschaftliche term) squat, the last time I checked with any theistic religion I know about….

Responses from the 1970s and today about belief in God not really comparable

Rick Heimstra, Evangelical Fellowship of Canada

Reg is a pioneer on the study of religion in Canada and his work is the basis for those who come after him.

When he first started asking this question in the mid-1970s it landed in a more homogenous culture. The idea of what belief in God might mean and what someone might be asserting if they claimed to believe in God was more defined.

This doesn’t mean that there wasn’t diversity then, but there wasn’t the same level of perspectivalism. Today one is more likely to say, “I believe in God, and this is what God means for me.”

In the past to say you believe in God was to assent to a creed, confession or other doctrinal statement. It was aligning with the perspective of your church or religious community, not with your own.

To the degree that we’ve seen this change, the responses from the 1970s and from today are not really comparable. The question may have stayed the same but the way it is understood has changed.

The more important questions both for the individual and for society are:

What are the consequences of what you believe about God?

How does it change the way you live and relate to others?

What is your relationship with God like?

Questions about what people believe are important, but questions about behavior are more likely to be predictive. When we do survey research we will often ask the eight questions making up Andrew Grenville’s Christian Evangelical Scale (CES). The question from this scale that will tell you the most about a person is still the question about frequency of attendance at religious services.

Weekly religious service attendance has fallen from 67% just after the Second World War to about 11% today. I think that religious service attendance and religious affiliation are better measures of religiosity because, not-withstanding that there are some more individual expressions of faith, for most people faith is communal.

The people for whom faith is most important are also those who participate most in a church or other religious community. 

For the most part, these findings don’t explain why we’ve seen these changes. What is striking, however, is that the changes in affiliation and attendance are fairly consistent across all sociological generations.

In fact, we may be seeing more fall off in religiosity among the Boomers than the Millennials. This suggests a cultural change rather than one explained by generations.

Yes, high levels of Millennials are Atheist, Agnostic, Spiritual or None, but in most cases they started there and have never had a serious encounter with the church or other religious communities. It’s not that they’re leaving at greater rates than other sociological generations. 

Belief in God is only a small piece of the larger puzzle

Joel Thiessen, Ambrose University

Headlines grab, and this headline is in step with several decades of “positively” framed headlines. Technically the headline is not incorrect; it just doesn’t capture the main storyline and shifting trajectory of decline that I might stress.

This said, while I don’t like his use of and application of “polarization” language in recent years, this re-framing in his work better accounts for the religious declines that are present … seems to strike a better balance than Restless Gods in 2002, for instance.

We do, in fact, see a spread of varying beliefs across the more religious and secular ends of the continuum, and his descriptive data helpfully show this reality.

My take is that the question on belief in God is only a small piece of the larger puzzle on religion and religiosity in Canada. This question alone does not really tell us much about how salient this belief is for the rest of a person’s life.

For example, I’m thinking of Nancy Ammerman’s great work, Sacred Stories Spiritual Tribes, or the book I am currently reading, Prayer as Transgression? The Social Relations of Prayer in Healthcare Settings. Here we see what difference something like belief in God may or may not make in a person’s life, the particular aspects of one’s life, and so forth.

This is not a knock on Reg’s work; survey data can only tell us so much, where these other qualitative projects are very useful to give us thick description.

As such, my read of the data is “meh” – interesting data on belief in God that doesn’t really tell us a lot about what difference belief makes or not to people’s lived experiences, thus how high or low should people be in response to this data alone.

I am more interested in the saliency and importance of belief ramifications to better interpret the starting descriptive data on belief in God.

One more thing that I was thinking about was the diminished level of certainty in one’s belief in God. As Berger discussed in the 1960s, and Steve Bruce has since picked up on, with greater diversity of belief in a globalized world it stands that a greater segment of the population might become less certain as they see the variety of beliefs and practices around.

This diminished certainty happens simultaneous to the increased degrees of certainty at either end of the continuum (i.e., polarization in its worst form in society, as manifest in the USA, for instance).

Change from the past so striking

Stuart Macdonald, Knox College, University of Toronto

What I will say is that Christendom was alive in the 1950s! Amazingly so and for whatever reasons, but it was alive, and people were building new churches because there was a demand for them. 

What I would note is the contrast between then and now. 

Yes, people still believe in God... okay. But it all seems very vague. The change from the past is what I find so striking. 

I also think the headline misses far more important issues. 

One thing I'd be focusing on in the current situation (if I were doing polls) would be the potential damage being done to the "brand" of Christian within the broader Canadian culture, given its political associations in the United States and Russia with authoritarianism. 

I appreciate that's different research completely. Butto me far more relevant from a variety of perspectives.

A more complex picture

Lori Beaman, University of Ottawa

I don’t have much to add to the already insightful comments. I am not sure what measures of belief in God tell us about religion and social change.

I’d be more interested in exploring how people perceive God’s impact in their day to day lives and intersections around important issues like climate change, social justice and so on.

In other words, a more complex picture that focuses on practice rather than belief, or in addition to belief.

More important question is how belief affects behaviours

Kevin Flatt, Redeemer University College

I agree with what the others have said. Whether people believe in God, however defined, and how strongly, are interesting questions, but the more important question in my view is what their (non)belief means—if anything—for their values, priorities, behaviours, relationships, etc. 

That's where the action is. I suspect that over the past few decades a big chunk of Canadians have gone from saying "yes" to a belief-in-God question, but it not mattering very much for their priorities, behaviours, etc., to giving a "maybe" or "no" answer to the question that likewise doesn't matter much for the aforementioned list.

Shouldn’t forget magnitude of the trend

Sarah Wilkins-Laflamme, University of Waterloo

I echo most of what my esteemed colleagues have already said, and don’t have a huge amount more to add.

I will say this: It’s easy to get jaded or bored by a trend that we’ve seen develop over many decades, but we shouldn’t forget the magnitude of that trend nonetheless.

In Charles Taylor’s words, we’re transitioning from an age that lasted many hundreds of years during which the vast majority of Westerners believed in a Christian God, to an age now where belief and non-belief coexist and each group experiences the ‘cross-pressures’ of the other. It’s a fundamental shift in the composition and prevalence of worldviews that has many consequences throughout society.

Yes, the belief in God survey question is but one indicator and has its limits. And yes, there is a lot more complexity playing out in reality. But I do think it has its merits, and it is still a good indicator to help measure this overall shift going on.

I’m currently looking at Millennial numbers for the U.S. and Canada, and they are very much at the forefront and further along in this trend.