Is the Church failing in Canada?
A Review of Canadian Survey Data on Religious Practices and Beliefs (June 1, 2023)
From an analytical point of view, the short answer appears to be yes.
Even though anecdotal evidence of this is apparent, you still could argue that we should first develop a formal definition for ‘failing’ before coming to such a conclusion. However, even if you spend a lot of time to derive a comprehensive list of criteria for making this assessment, the most definitive ones will always be trends in the number of people attending Church, the percentage who claim to be religious, and the core beliefs of those who do. We have data on these now.
Reginal Bibby’s book Resilient Gods1, from which I have drawn data for these writings, provides a rigorous analysis of the state of religion in Canada based on extensive opinion surveying. The book examines religion as a whole, including data from people of faith in non-Christian religions. While much of the data is broken down by religious denomination, the summary figures below include all faiths. In looking at these, consider that around 12% of the national population2 claimed non-Christian affiliation in 2021.
First, let’s look at a couple of the high-level statistics. A series of Gallup polls, supplemented by a poll by Bibby in 20003, show a significant downward trend in weekly religious service attendance in Canada. Weekly attendance stood at 53% in 1957, dropped to 31% in 1975, went further down to 24% in 1990, and settled at 21% in 2000. I appreciate that weekly attendance is not a precise predictor of religiousness on its on, but it can be used to show trends in religiosity.
Another indicator of a trend in religiousness is the amount of religious education being provide to children. A series of Bibby polls4 illustrate a significant decline. In 1975, 46% of children attended religious education (outside of public school) often or regularly. This dropped to 35% in 1990, and further dropped to 25% in 2005.
A Bibby poll in 2015, involving 3,041 respondents5, got closer to the heart of religiousness in Canada by categorizing people into three groups: those who claim to embrace religion, those who claim to reject religion, and those who see themselves somewhere in between. The poll found that 30% of Canadians embrace religion, 26% reject it, with the remaining 44% in the middle.6 If you are wondering about the religiousness of the folks in the middle, consider that only 11% of them attend services on a weekly-plus or monthly-plus basis.
The 30% who self-identify as embracing religion represents a declining number. An earlier Bibby poll in 19857 resulted in 45% of Canadians saying they were ‘religiously committed.’ It is notable that the folks in the middle, of which 81% think or are convinced that God exists8, remain distant from their respective religious gathering places.
The story does not end there. Of the 30% of Canadian who claim to embrace religion, 44% of them claim to attend religious services only once a year or never9; 21% claim to be not definite about the existence of God; 40% agreed to the statement “What’s right or wrong is a matter of personal opinion”10; 20% do not believe that the overall impact of religion on the world is positive; and only 45% claim to read their respective religious texts on at least a monthly basis.11 Remember, these are the folks that identify as religious.
To sum up, fewer people are attending religious services. A minority of Canadians claim to embrace religion. Those who score themselves in the middle have some positive religious beliefs but they do not translate to organized religious practice. And, many who claim to embrace religion have personal religious practices and beliefs that strongly suggest that their claim to religion is not all that strongly held.
I will leave you with one final figure. Only 16% of Canadians claim to attend religious services weekly. (Another 7% put themselves down for monthly attendance.)12 All-in-all, statistics do not paint a very good picture for Christianity in Canada.
I will end with an explanation of the proviso in the first sentence of the article. Failure is the antithesis of success. How do you measure success in a church? A common and somewhat secular (and financial) view will tie success to membership, attendance and givings levels. A more nuanced, spiritual view may consider the population from which the church draws. If fewer people are called to God, a church may be viewed as successful as long as they meet their needs. Changing hearts in significant numbers is becoming very difficult in these modern times, regardless of church efforts. Think of the pancake syrup analogy. The person pouring cannot be blamed when at the end of the bottle the syrup flows slower and slower, ending with just drops.
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1. Bibby, Reginald W, Resilient Gods: being pro-religious, low religious or no religious in Canada,
UBC Press, 2017
2. Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Canada
3. Bibby, page 41
4. Bibby, page 15
5. Bibby, page 64
6. Bibby, page 64-67
7. Bibby, page 76
8. Bibby, page 67
9. Bibby, page 67
10. Bibby, page 68
11. Bibby, page 74
12. Bibby, page 66