Are the other religions doing better than Christians?

A Statistical Comparison of Christian and Non-Christian Religions in Canada (June 1, 2023)

Why is it that often when we think of those who hold faiths other than Christian, we envisage people who are much more devoted to their religion?  Such would be a good example of stereotyping, albeit of a more positive nature.  We also may think that a majority of those who immigrate to Canada hold non-Christian faiths.  But is this actually the case?

First, lets take a look at the prominence of other faiths in Canada, as compared to those who identify as Christians.  A 2021 Statistics Canada survey1 reported that 12.1% of the population identified with a faith other than Christianity, whereas 53.3% identified as Christian.   But that’s just a point in time.  The trend is more informative.  Whereas the number of people identifying as Christian dropped from 83% in 1991 to 53.3% in 2021 (a 36% decline), non-Christian adherents increased from 4.1% to 12.1% in the same time span (a 195% increase).  

Now, let’s take a quick look at some immigration figures.  A Statistics Canada General Social Survey conducted in 2012, as reported by Bibby3, addressed the religious faith of immigrants who arrived during the period 1996 to 2000.  It found that 24% were Christian, 56% were of other faiths, and 20% claimed no religion.  We can conclude that non-Christian faith groups in Canada are strengthened by immigration to a greater extent than Christian groups.  (I couldn’t find more recent data on this matter.)

But are the non-Christian adherents any more faithful to their religion than Christians are?  Using worship attendance as a crude proxy for strongly held religious faith, a 2019 poll7 found, whereas Christian attendance came in at 31%, non-Christian averaged 30%.  In another article I noted some figures for weekly attendance at religious services over time.4  Attendance for non-Christian faiths dropped from 35% in 1957 to 11% in 1980, and then rose to 22% in 2005.  Whereas there was a 37% overall drop, there was some recovery during the period of 1980 to 2005.

I described in a previous article a Bibby 2015 poll5 that asked respondents to claim whether they embrace religion, reject religion, or are somewhere in between.  I stated that only 30% of Canadians claimed to embrace religion.  The figure for non-Christian faiths is almost the same at 31%.  However, they have more adherents claiming to be in the middle (58% versus total Canadian of 44%) and fewer who reject religion (11% versus total Canadian of 26%).

What we have gleaned is that people identifying with non-Christian faiths are a small minority in Canada, but immigration patterns indicate that, in this period of declining birth rates6, the percentage will likely grow.  Weekly attendance in other faiths has similarly declined, but there is some indication of a possible rebound due to the larger number of religiously uncommitted people.  However, the percentage of people who identify with a non-Christian faith who claim to embrace religion is no greater than those who identify as Christians.

____________________

1. Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Canada

3. Bibby, Reginald W, Resilient Gods: being pro-religious, low religious or no religious in Canada,

     UBC Press, 2017, page 16

4. Bibby, page 33

5. Bibby, page 72

6. Statistics Canada, https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1310041801

7. Statistics Canada, Religiosity in Canada and its evolution from 1985 to 2019,

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/75-006-x/2021001/article/00010-eng.htm