Is it time to move?
A Review of Canadian Perspectives on Evangelical Christians (October 2024)
A middle-aged couple arrives home from church one Sunday morning. They see the newly-moved-in young couple next door pull into their driveway. They haven’t met them yet, so they walk over and welcome them to the neighbourhood. After greetings all around, the elderly couple mentions they were just getting back from church. The young couple smiles and says so were they. Chitchat ensued with the elderly couple stating they went to the United Church, whereas the young couple just joined the local Baptist Church. Shortly afterwards, after going into his house, the elderly man looks out a window to see if the Baptists had gone inside. He says to his wife “Well, there goes the neighbourhood.” His wife replies fretfully, “Should we sell our house before property prices plummet? We were so fortunate to have that Jewish couple move in across the street. And now this happens.”
It made me cringe just to write that. But it is a crude analogy illustrating just one piece of data on how various religious people view other religions in Canada. And, by the way, the Baptist couple were tickled pink to have the United Church goers next door.
In early 2022, Angus Reid conducted a couple of comprehensive surveys (of 1,290 and 1,708 Canadians respectively) asking a whole range of questions about their religiosity1. One questioned the respondent’s religious affiliation. Another question asked: “In your view, would you say the overall presence of each of these in Canadian public life is benefiting or damaging Canada and Canadian society?” By ‘these’ they refer to a list of seven religious groupings, and atheists. The poll analysis produced a score for each ‘intersection’ that subtracted negative opinions from positives opinions; resulting in a net benefit score (with negative numbers indicating excess of negative over positive views.)
Polling results indicated that, whereas Evangelical Protestants have very high regards for mainstream Protestants (score of +55%), mainstream Protestants have low regard for Evangelicals (-10%). Further, aside from their own religious denomination, mainstreamers have the highest regard for adherents of Judaism (+26%).
Of the seven religious groupings covered by the poll, three were Christian: Roman Catholic, mainstream Protestantism, and Evangelical Protestantism. The mainstream Protestants were not alone in their disdain for the Evangelicals. The Roman Catholics gave them an even lower score of -15%.
What about the others, being Muslims, Hindu, Sikh, Jewish and non-believers. Bad news for the Evangelicals. They all gave Evangelicals a negative score. Ouch!
So, of the three Christian groupings, which ones love themselves the most? Of course, it’s the Evangelicals (+68%), with the Mainstream protestants giving themselves +32% and the Roman Catholics giving themselves +22%. (The only religious grouping giving themselves a higher score than the Evangelicals were the Sikhs at +74%.)
Let’s look at the big picture for a moment. Of all the Canadians polled, from each of the eight groups, who drew the greatest disdain? Need I tell you. Heck, the atheists (+7%) scored higher than the Evangelicals (-16%).
All-in-all, the Evangelicals are kinda starting to look like that noisy know-it-all kid in school who is always seeking attention and thinking they are the greatest thing since sliced-bread. He never seem to notice that the rest of the kids in the school yard don’t want to play with him. I’m not saying this is an accurate analogy for Evangelicals, but they should start looking around and ask why they aren’t being invited to the cool parties.
Drum roll please. We are about to announce the winner! Which religious grouping was thought to have the most positive influence on Canadian society. Wait for it . . . its Judaism. Nationally, they scored +14, and they and Hinduism (+9) were the only groups that received a net positive score from every other religious grouping, including non-believers. What makes this a little surprising is that Jews comprise a very small percentage of the total Canadian population (traditionally 1%).
All of this cries out for at least a mention of how the atheists fared in this poll. The net score for atheist was +7. I would have expected a higher score due to the large number of agnostics and atheists (65% of population) that responded to the survey. The atheists do very well with three religions: Jews at +17, Hindus at +15, and Sikhs at +19. Roman Catholics and mainstream Protestants believe their effect on Canadian society is virtually a wash, scoring +2 and -1 respectively. That leaves the Evangelicals alone in the corner taking a hissy-fit (scoring -43 for atheists). Well, it's mutual. Respondents with no religion scored -46 for the Evangelicals.
It doesn’t look good for the Evangelicals. Are they down and out? Are they done for? Stay tuned for episode two (next article): Revenge of the Evangelicals.
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1. Angus Reid, Canada across the religious spectrum: A portrait of the nation’s inter-faith perspectives during Holy Week, April 18, 2022, https://angusreid.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/2022.04.18_Religious_Spectrum.pdf