Religion in Canada is No Humpty Dumpty

Churches Aren't Tumbling Down

"The chimes of time ring out the news, another year is through." And the year-closing Christmas season would not be complete without the Canadian media's number one perpetrator of the secularization myth, religion writer Michael Valpy of the Globe and Mail, offering his annual proclamation of religion's demise. This year, the would-be news flash reads, "Churches come tumbling down" (December 22, 2007).

Funny thing. Valpy never called me. He used to call me routinely. Come to think of it, he hasn't called me much ever since our enjoyable session over coffee at the paper in the fall of 2004, when we energetically and enjoyable debated the direction religion in Canada seemed to be going. Our affable conclusion was that I didn't believe his take on secularization and he didn't believe my data.

These days, as in his current "tumbling down" article, Michael ignores me and draws on others whose views are more akin to his. I'm crushed.

Actually, I'm both envious and a shade frustrated. Michael is able to disseminate his views via the front page of a Saturday edition of the Globe and Mail, while I am left trying to get my side of the story out via this obscure blog. Who said life is fair.

We now have lots of data, as summarized in my book, The Boomer Factor (2006), that make it clear that organized religion in Canada isn't tumbling down. Far from it. Sure, anyone can point to the numerical problems of Mainline Protestantism, as Michael once again does to make his case. The identification and attendance numbers are down for the United Church, Anglicans, Lutherans, and Presbyterians. But by now we know that the reason is tied primarily to demographics, not disenchantment. Those groups used to benefit from immigration and relatively high birth rates; they no longer do.

Conversely, Roman Catholics outside Quebec continue to enjoy a robust immigration pipeline, and their numbers keep going up. In Quebec, most of the province continues to see itself as Catholic and, even though the majority of people attend services only occasionally, few are about to defect. The trick for the Catholic Church is to figure out how to engage Quebeckers; at this point it seems that the Church lacks both the motivation and the ability, although that could change. Evangelical Protestants are solid, as are other major world religions – the former largely because of vitality plus modest external outreach, the latter largely because of immigration plus a measure of vitality. All this doesn't add up to a lot of tumbling.

Contrary to Valpy's data-less claim that younger women rejected the church in the post-1960s, we have a fair amount of very good data that point to younger women becoming less involved for fairly pragmatic reasons. As growing numbers became employed outside the home, they had less time for a variety of activities, including churches where, frankly, the costs of involvement frequently outweighed the benefits. Most congregations were slow to adapt to the changing labour force and time crunch realities by making life easier for young mothers and young families. The result? Most young women, rather than being mad at anyone, simply found that church involvement warranted their showing up with their children every once in a while, rather than regularly (a paper summing up all this is found on my website, reginaldbibby.com, under Papers, "The Untold Story of the Role of Women in the Fall and Rise of Religion in Canada.").

But, as I see it, the resolution of the "tumbling or not tumbling" debate lies not only with data but also with some basic theorizing. If it's true that significant numbers of Canadians continue to (1) have needs that only the gods can satisfy, (2) have religious group preferences, and (3) find that those groups respond to their needs, it will be only a matter of time before they become more involved with those groups. Sociologist Rodney Stark's insightful argument about the persistence of religion is applicable to Canada: the demand persists; the onus lies with the suppliers.

The "Humpty Dumpty" argument is out of touch with the Canadian religious reality. There are signs that many Canadians and many churches are stirring. Neither the demand nor the suppliers are disappearing. What remains to be seen is when the connection will be made.