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New book contradicts theory that industrial societies inevitably turn their
backs on organized religion.
Bob Harvey
Tuesday, April 02, 2002
Organized religion is undergoing a renaissance
in Canada, says Reg Bibby, the country's leading interpreter of religious
trends.
In Restless Gods, a new book that hit bookstore shelves this weekend, Mr.
Bibby says he and other leading sociologists of religion are finding signs of a
renaissance of religion everywhere in the world, and have abandoned the
secularization theory they taught from the 1960s on: that as societies
become more industrialized, they inevitably abandon religion.
"There is no way churches are being wiped out," says Mr. Bibby. He said
Canada's conservative Protestants managed to increase their numbers from
1.1 million in 1950 to 2.5 million today.
Now, for the first time in three decades, overall attendance among the
mainline Protestant denominations -- Anglican, Presbyterian, Lutheran and
United Churches -- has remained stable instead of declining.
More significant is that in these mainline churches, the percentage of teens
attending worship services has increased from 17 per cent in 1984 to 23
per cent in 2000. Among mainline Protestant 18- to 34-year-olds,
attendance also increased, from nine per cent in 1990 to 13 per cent in
2000.
"To paraphrase Mark Twain, rumours of the death of mainline
Protestantism in Canada appear to have been greatly exaggerated," says
Mr. Bibby.
There has also been an increase in attendance among Roman Catholic
teens living outside Quebec, with 27 per cent attending in 1992 and 31 per
cent in 2000, according to Mr. Bibby's own surveys of teens across
Canada.
He has been surveying Canadian adults and teens regularly since 1975 and
said Canadian churches may never again experience the boom in church
attendance that occurred in the 1950s and '60s, but they are not going to
die, either.
"Religion is showing surprising resilience," says Mr. Bibby. His polls and
others show that three in four Canadians say they talk to God, while almost
half say they have experienced God.
The one truly bleak area among Canadian churches is the Roman Catholic
church in Quebec. Statistics Canada data show that overall weekly
attendance among the province's Roman Catholics has dropped from 26
per cent of the population in 1990 to 14 per cent today, and only seven per
cent of Catholic teens now attend worship services. In 1945, when the
Gallup organization conducted the first poll of Canadian attendance at
worship services, 88 per cent of Quebec Roman Catholics attended
weekly.
The changing face of Canada is also reflected in the growing numbers of
people who are part of eastern religions. Today there are as many Muslim
teens (three per cent) as there are teenage Anglican and United Church
participants.
Mr. Bibby says that in the early 1980s, the statistics about attendance at
Canadian churches were so discouraging that "in the minds of some I was
'Bad-news Bibby.' " In his 1993 book Unknown Gods, Mr. Bibby wrote
that "life for organized religion in Canada's 21st century looks extremely
grim."
The churches floundered throughout the last half of the 20th century, says
Mr. Bibby. Mainline denominations like the Anglican and United churches
failed to build churches in growing suburbs, and failed to launch the youth
ministries that have been one of the keys to continuing growth among
evangelical Protestants.
But 55 per cent of Canadians also say they would be receptive to greater
involvement in churches. And even in Quebec, 94 per cent of Roman
Catholics say they attend church on occasion.
"Canadians want organized religion, but what is on offer is not connecting
with people," says Mr. Bibby.
He adds: "Canadian denominations have long histories and recuperative
powers. They are not going to roll over and die."
Mr. Bibby says that in time, even Quebec's Roman Catholic churches will
find ways to cope with the cultural changes in Canada, just as the
conservative and mainline Protestants, and Roman Catholic churches have
done.
Ottawa's Archbishop Marcel Gervais says that one of the most successful
changes the Roman Catholic church has made in the past decades is in
ministry to youth. When he arrived in Ottawa in 1989, the archdiocese had
no paid youth workers; today there upwards of a dozen. Each parish has
also appointed a World Youth Day co-ordinator in preparation for Pope
John Paul II's July meeting with up to a million young people in Toronto.
Rev. Jean Ward, who is in charge of urban ministries for the United Church
of Canada, says many church leaders lost their way during the 1980s when
the dream of perpetual progress died, and it became clear the world was
not necessarily going to get better.
Now many United Church congregations are learning to cope with spiritual
seekers who have never been to church before, and provide not only
knowledge about God, but also an experience of God. "One of the things
we discovered was that we had lost the ability to talk from the heart," says
Rev. Ward.
Most mainline Canadian churches have not yet learned that people want to
talk about spirituality, but don't want to be bullied or hit with a lot of rules,
says Rev. Harold Percy of Trinity Anglican Church in the Streetsville area
of Mississauga.
Attendance at his church has tripled from 200 to 600 in the past 10 years,
and he says it is because the church has simplified its worship and proved
that seekers can come and ask questions and learn without being pressured
to make a commitment.
"People are looking for some guidance on how to live a good life. What
they are not looking for is a bunch of rules," says Rev. Percy.
"Personally, I have never found it easier to talk about spirituality. People
are asking how to get grounded in spirituality. They are lying in bed and
saying: 'There's got to be more to life than this'."
© Copyright 2002 The Ottawa Citizen
For
Immediate Release
Contact: Ryan
St.Onge
Stoddart
Publishing
416-445-3333 ext. 354 Fax:
416-445-5967
rstonge@stoddartpub.com
RESTLESS GODS
THE RENAISSANCE OF RELIGION
IN CANADA
TORONTO,
Ontario - This Easter an important news story is breaking: religion is making a
big comeback in Canada.
In his
provocative new book, "Restless Gods: The Renaissance of Religion in
Canada," best-selling author and religious trends expert Reginald Bibby
writes that a significant rejuvenation of religion is taking place in Canada,
both inside and outside the churches. Secularization, he says, has been found
to be a myth. The gods seem to be everywhere.
Some of
the indicators? There are signs that groups like the United Church and
Anglicans may be joining the evangelicals in experiencing revitalization. There
also is considerable vitality among Catholics and a variety of other world
faiths; Quebec is currently an exception but new life may not be far behind. In
the past decade there has been an increase in the involvement of teenagers in
religion, and a surprising number of people of all ages are saying they are
receptive to greater involvement in the churches. And contrary to rumour, few
people are abandoning established groups in favour of options such as New Age
or no religion.
Drawing
on his national surveys of adults and teens spanning 1975 to 2000, Bibby
reports that the vast majority of Canadians are continuing to address "the
big questions" about purpose and suffering and life after death. What's
more, God is simply all over the place: Canadians not only are believing in God
but in startling high numbers are talking to God and are convinced that they
are experiencing God. Even "the least religious" are giving off clues
that they believe in Something beyond themselves. Such findings are clarified
by a new sample of 200 people who candidly offer their thoughts on purpose,
suffering, God, prayer, experiencing God, and what will happen to them when
they die.
Bibby
concludes by talking about what Canadians want from the churches, where the
doomsayers went wrong, groups that will survive and thrive, and the impact of
September 11th on religion and spirituality.
This
landmark new book is indispensable to an understanding of religion in Canada
today.
Reginald
W. Bibby, PhD, holds the Board of Governors Research Chair in Sociology at the
University of Lethbridge. He is the author of eight bestselling books,
including Fragmented Gods, Unknown Gods, The Emerging Generation, Teen Trends,
and Canada's Teens. Over the years he further has become familiar to Canadians
through his extensive media appearances and presentations from coast to coast.
Restless Gods
The Renaissance of Religion
in Canada
Reginald W. Bibby,
Ph.D.
6 x 9 304 pages
0-7737-33388 (hc) $32.95
OUTLINE
Preface
Introduction
1 THE
OLD STORY ABOUT WHAT'S HAPPENING IN THE CHURCHES
Secularization
Without Limits
Pre-1960s
Prosperity
Post-1960s
Decline
A Grim
Prognosis
The
Critical Asterisk
2 SOME VERY
GOOD NEWS VIA SOME VERY BAD MYTHS
A
Monopoly Versus A Mosaic
Myth
#1: People Are Switching
Myth
#2: People Are Dropping Out
Myth
#3: People Are Not Receptive
3 THE
NEW STORY ABOUT WHAT'S HAPPENING IN THE CHURCHES
Secularization
With Limits
Revitalization
Versus Replacement
Circulation-Plus
Among Conservatives
Remnant
Resilience in the Mainline
Solid
Stability and Latent Life Among Catholics
Vitality
Among Other Faith Groups
The
Emerging Generation
4
ONGOING QUESTIONS ONLY THE GODS CAN ANSWER
Origins
and Purpose
Happiness
and Suffering
Life
after Death
Earlier
But Emptier Answers?
5
RELENTLESS GODS
Belief
Experience
Prayer
6
RUMOURS AND REVELATION
Rumors
Berger Style
Rumours
Canadian Style
Rumours
Among Nevers, Nones, and Nots
7 WHAT PEOPLE
WANT FROM THE CHURCHES
The
Canadian Wish List
Spiritual
Issues
Personal
Issues
Relational
Issues
Getting
Down to Specifics
Possible
Convergence: A Match Made in Heaven?
CONCLUSION
Why the
Wise Men Were Wrong
Groups
That Will Survive and Thrive
The New
Groups About to Be Born
What
About the People?
September
11, 2001: Some Lessons Learned