THE STATE OF COLLECTIVE RELIGIOSITY IN CANADA: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS

THE STATE OF COLLECTIVE RELIGIOSITY IN CANADA: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS

REGINALD w. BIBBY I University of Lethbridge

On affirme que la specialisation institutionnelle qui caracterise I’industrialisation est concomitante du declin de la presence repandue de la religion. Soutenant de plus que les collectivites sont essentielles a la sustentation ideationnelle, I’auteur explore I’etat du judeo-cristianisme dans un Canada s’industrialisant par un examen de la participation a la religion formelle. En se servant d’un cadre demographique de base, et de donnees de recensement et d’enquktes, I’auteur com- mence par un a p e r y general de la participation actuelle et ensuite examine les tendances a I’engagement. On constate que la religion formelle eprouve une baisse de participation que I’on trouve peu probable de s’inverser a I’avenir previsible. L’auteur termine avec une discussion de la portee des constatations de ce genre pour la religion traditionnelle dans la societk canadienne.

It is asserted that the institutional specialization which characterizes industrialization knows the concomitant of a decline in the pervasiveness of religion. Maintaining further that collectivities are essential to ideational sustenance, the author explores the state of Judaic-Christianity in an industrializing Canada through an examination of participation in organized religion. Using a basic demographic framework and census and survey data, he begins with an overview of current participation and then examines involvement trends. It is found that organized religion is experiencing a participation decline which is unlikely to reverse itself in the forseeable future. The author concludes with a discussion of the implications of such findings for traditional religion in Canadian society.

INDUSTRIALIZATION AND RELIGION

Aslongagoasat least Smith(1791), Marx(1848) and Durkheim (1893), observers of social life have noted that an important correlate of modern industrialization is differentiation. Accord- ing to Durkheim, the uniformity which characterizes less developed societies gives way to the division of labour, with integration realized not through homogeneity but through interdepen- dence in the face of heterogeneity. Industriali- zation stimulates not only occupational but institutional specialization, with no cultural sphere left untouched.

One such institution affected by industrialization is religion. Specific religious traditions which in the past may have laid claim to authority in the superempirical and indeed empirical

realms have such “territorial authority” challenged. As Luckmann (1967: 39) puts it:

In short, the decrease in traditional religion may be seen as a consequence of the shrinking relevance of the values, in- stitutionalized in church religion, for the integration and legitimation of everyday life in modern society.

Even when retreating to the sphere of “ultimate meaning” religion does not lack for com- petitors. Individuals find it possible to select from a variety of themes of ultimate significance; a rich variety of options are accessi- ble to consumers (Luckmann, 1967: 98ff).

Perhaps the most formidable of these rivals is what we might call “the industrial world view” itself. Here the perceivable world becomes the object of one’s attention (empiricism) and

Rev. canad. SOC. & Anth./Canad. Rev. SOC. & Anth. 16(1) 1979

106 / Reginald W. Bibby

commitment (materialism). Such a world view defines ultimate questions as interesting but beyond resolution, and summons one’s attention to more practical and pressing matters. Succinctly put, the industrial correlates of higher education, scientific advance, and technological innovation turn people earthward. The explosion of things is accompanied by the desire for consumption, stimulated by mass advertising which functions both to meet needs and to create them. Urbanization and media reduce physical, cultural, and even psychological isolation - and also the sheer time for personal reflection. The emergence of big government, the corporation, the public university, and media provide individuals with norms necessary for living, relegating religion’s influence primarily to the forementioned sphere of meaning.

It is therefore not surprising that in areas where Christianity has historically been highly pervasive, such as Europe, the United States, and Canada, industrialization has been accompanied by a considerable dissipation of the Christian faith. Whether once the very srimulus for rational capitalism (Weber, 1958) or more possibly its functional product (Tawney, 1962), Calvinistically-flavoured Protestantism has been seriously challenged and usurped by the very outlook for which it initially provided “a foundation of granite” (Tawney, p. 253). Even Roman Catholicism, which has consistently known greater success than Protestantism in withstanding the compartmentalizing effects of industrialization, has similarly experienced significant numerical and authoritative decline in the latter half of this century, notably since Vatican I1 (McCready and Greeley, 1972).

In Canada, industrialization was enshrined in “The National Policy” of 1878, touching first the central region before spreading gradually westward and eastward during this century. Following the European pattern described by Tawney, the early expansion of “rational capitalism” in Canada was greeted with opposi- tion by the Roman Catholic Church while generally embraced by Protestant groups (Crys- dale, 1961 ; Westhues, 1976). Consequently, industrialization at first did not contribute to participational decline in the case of either Protes- tants or Roman Catholics. In the case of the former, capitalism was endorsed by theology; in the case of the latter, church authority and a highly agrarian setting respectively confronted and minimized secularism.

However, as in Europe, “the spirit of

capitalism” has by now largely severed any ties with Protestantism-requiring neither its sanc- tion nor its impetus; indeed, industrialization posits its own world view. Further, Catholics- notably those in Quebec - are increasingly experiencing the effects of industrialization at a time when the Roman Catholic Church is experiencing an “authority crisis” in many parts of the world, including Canada. The result is that religion in this country “has been con- verted from the keystone which holds together the social edifice into one department within it” (Tawney, 1962: 279). It is therefore not surprising that Canadian participation in organized religion has known a marked decline in recent decades.

The decline of organized religion in this country, as in other industrializing countries, is thus a reality which is related to important structural changes. Accordingly, one would hypothesize that such a demise, barring significant changes in the industrialization-differentiation pattern, is not likely to reverse itself in the forseeable future. This is not to predict that a religion such as Christianity will disappear, but rather that its pervasiveness is unlikely to be restored. Indeed the industrialization thesis anticipates the persistence of religion stressed by the likes of Berger (1969) and Greeley (1972a, 1972b), along with its specialized importance for individuals who adopt it (see Parsons, 1964). However, such a thesis discounts its prevalence.

These brief observations, while consistent with industrialization theory, have to date been the object of minimal empirical research in Canada. Crysdale (1965) explored the relationship between urbanism and religiosity among the members and adherents of a single Protes- tant denomination, while Whyte (1966) drew upon opinion poll data in documenting the secularization which characterizes rural-urban migration. Yet no comprehensive, systematic empirical analysis has been made of the general status of organized religion in an industrializing Canada. This paper will attempt to make a contribution to the overcoming of such a void.

METHODOLOGY

Personal and collective religiosiry While individual or personal religiosity is analytically distinctive from collective religiosity, the former is highly dependent upon the latter for its existence. Rather than being novel to religion, such a situation stems from the fact that ideas exist in social contexts, being socially

Collective religiosity in Canada / 107

created, socially sustained, and socially changed (Berger and Luckmann, 1%6). As Durkheim (1965: 61-63) writes with respect to religion:

. . . it is the Church of which he is a member which teaches the individual what these personal gods are, what their function is, and how he should enter into relations with t h e m . . . the idea of religion is inseparable from that of the Church, [it is] an eminently collective thing.

The maintenance of religious ideas in an industrializing society thus requires the existence of viable social groupings which, in Berger’s (1969: 7ff) words, can sustain the proreligious “plausibility structures” of “cognitive minorities.” While such social sustenance may well be increasingly provided by groupings other than specific religious institutions (Luckmann, 1967: 103-6), in the case of Chris- tianity specifically, such cognitive minorities are usually sustained by the churches-even in the case of groups such as the Children of God (Mauss and Petersen, 1974) and Catholic Pen- tecostals (Harrison, 1974).

Given this strong relationship between collective and personal religiosity, an understand- ing of the state of Canadian participation in organized religion can lend considerable light to the present and future status of the historically predominant, Judaic-Christian “meaning option” in this country.

The Data In examining the state of collective religiosity in Canada, the present paper will draw upon avail- able census and poll data. Moreover, it will make use of extensive data on religion resulting from a national mail survey conducted by the author between May and November of 1975. The survey, carried out from York University in Toronto, involves a sample of almost 2,000 randomly selected adult Canadians in thirty size-stratified communities (return rate = 52 per cent). The sample has been weighted to com- pensate for provincial, community size, and sex differences between the sample and the population, and compressed into a sample of approximately 1,200 cases in order to minimize the use of large weight factors. The result is a sample highly representative of the Canadian population, with the percentages on almost all items accurate within about 5 per cent of the population figures 95 per cent of the time. Obviously percentages computed for categories within the population are subject to a higher level of error.

Given that the respondents range in age from 18 to the mid-90s, they offer data on the relationship between religion and industrialization for virtually the entirety of this century. As such they clearly are potentially the source of considerable insight beyond a poll-like reading of religion at present.

Procedures The size of any population is logically dependent upon two factors: addition and attrition. On a national level, religious group populations are determined by additions through birth, immigration, and proselytism along with attrition in the form of disaffiliation and death. Accord- ingly, following a brief description of current levels of religious involvement, the extent of attrition will be examined, utilizing religious preference, membership, and church attendance as indicators of group involvement. Such attrition will further be probed in relationship to industrialization. Second, the immediate prospects for the numerical increase in collective religiosity will be examined through a consider- ation of the possible addition paths of immigration, birth, and proselytism, drawing upon both census and survey data.

Canadian research to this point using such a demographic approach has shed little light on national religious group population patterns. Bibby and Brinkerhoff (1973) examined factors related to conservative church growth, but their focus was both group and religion-specific. Kalbach and McVey (1971) described the im- pact of immigration and birth on Canadian religious groups but, being limited to census, “religious preference” data, could say virtually nothing about actual religious involvement, drop-outs, and proselytism. The following is thus intended to go beyond the scope of these earlier demographic analyses.

FINDINGS

The national survey has found that one in three (31 per cent) Canadians attend religious services on a weekly basis, with more people belonging to churches than to any other single type of voluntary organization (58 per cent). Moreover, some one in three (37 per cent) adults with school-age children are exposing them to formal religious instruction (e.g., Sun- day School). However, the locating of such findings in the context of a changing Canadian society requires the probing of past and future levels of religious participation.


Attrition As Table I shows, since at least 1960 the mainline Protestant denominations have experienced a decline in affiliates’ relative to the population as a whole. This proportional decline is the result of increases in the number of Roman Catholics and, significantly, people in the “No Religion” category - now the fourth largest single group in the nation. Some conservative Protestant groups and some sects have also known slight increases.

To be sure, affiliate figures are crude indicators of religious participation (Hiller, 3976: 358-59). The present survey, for example, has found that while over 90 per cent of Canadians may claim religious affiliation, only 35 per cent of these people attend religious services on a weekly basis; some 64 per cent of affiliates say they are actual church members, yet only one in two (47 percent) of these members are weekly attenders (Table 11). Variations within Protestantism and between Protestants and Catholics are considerable. However, these census data at minimum do indicate that the “affiliate pools” from which religious groups might draw active participants in many in- stances are proportionately shrinking.

Moreover, Gallup polls have documented what church leaders know well: there has been

a dramatic drop in church attendance for Pro- testants since the first poll on the subject in 1946 and for Roman Catholics since approximately 1960. (Table 111). Such an attendance drop-off is reflected in the survey finding that while two in three (68 per cent) of the respondents claim to have attended religious services weekly while growing up, less than one in three (31 per cent) say that they are presently doing so (Table IV). While important attendance differences are found for the various groupings, what is perhaps more significant is the extent of drop- off for all major religious groupings. Some 33 per cent of Roman Catholics and 41 per cent of Protestants are no longer weekly attenders, with the range among Protestants being from 53 per cent for Presbyterians to 15 per cent for Evangelicals.

The finding that over 40 per cent of the survey respondents describe themselves as people who “are currently inactive in religious groups but at one time were active” gives support to the conclusion that this large attendance drop-off does not merely reflect “normal” drop-out in the course of child to adult maturation, but rather signals a significant change in the church-going practices of Canadians. Further supportive of such a conclusion is the finding that only one in three school-age children of

~~~ ~ ~

TABLE I

Affiliates of Select Canadian Religious Grouos. 1921-61*

1921 1941

Mainline Anglican Baptist Lutheran Presbyterian United Church Roman Catholic Jewish

Conservatives Alliance Pentecostal Salvation Army

Jehovah’s Witnesses Mormons

Sects

16.05 15.24 4.80 4.21 3.26 3.49

16.07t 7.22 13.66$ 19.19 38.69 41.77

1.42 1.46

0.00 0.04 0.80 0.50 0.28 0.29

0.08 0.06 0.22 0.22

1961 1971

13.21 11.80 3.25 3.09 3.63 3.32 4.49 4.04

20.09 17.47 45.74 46.25

1.39 1.28

0.09 0.11 0.79 1.02 0.50 0.55

0.37 0.81 0.27 0.31

No Religion 0.25 0.17 0.52 4.30 SOURCE: Statistics Canada, 1971 Census of Canada, vol. 1 . Part 3 (92-724) *Expressed as percentages of the entire Canadian population ?Reflects affiliates prior to the 1925 merger with Methodists and Congregationalists to form the United Church $Congregationalists and Methodists only

1 Census data probe “religious preference” and thus simply the religious groups with which Canadians identify. This paper sees such people as “affiliates” versus formal “members.”


Attendance and Membership for Select Religious Groups (in percentages)*

Prrshy- United Evangel- 411 Romun AnX1ii.m Biiplisl Lutheran trririn Church iui l t Prorrstani Cutho/i<. Jewrsli f RJtti1.s

(280) (90) (691 (621 (4431 (75) (5341 (4x6) (23 ) (1043)

Affiliates attending 24 41 20 20 25 62 26 45 10 35 weekly

Affiliates claiming 55 66 61 56 53 69 52 78 68 64 membership

Members attending 40 64 32 35 43 82 43 52 6 47 weekly

*In this table as well as Tables I V and IX, denorninarional percentages are based upon the original number of respondents (1917). weighted only for sex (by province and not by group, since group sex ratios vary), in order that the maximum number of denominational “representatives” could be used. ?While there clearly are people in all religious groupings who see themselves as “evangelicals,” this term is being used here to refer specifically to those who list the following as their denominational affiliations: Brethren, Christian, Christian and Missionary Alliance, Christian Reformed, Church of Christ, Church of God, Evangeli- cal, Full Gospel, Mennonite, Nazarene, Nondenominational, Pentecostal, Quaker, and Salvation Army. #This category has been included here and in Table IV for heuristic value, even though the size of the sample of Jews clearly results in unstable percentages.

TABLE I l l

Church Attendance for Roman Catholics and Protestants in Canada: Select Years (in Dercentages)*

I946 I956 1965 1975 I978

Roman Catholics 83 87 83 61 46 Protestants 60 43 32 25 27

Totals 67 61 55 41 35

SOURCE: Canadian Institute of Public Opinion. *With some minor variations, the basic question asked was, “Did you happen to attend church (or synagogue) in the last seven days?”

TABLE IV

Childhood and Present Religious Service Attendance Levels by Religious Affiliation (in percentages)

Percentage Religious group N Childhood Present point decline

Roman Catholic 486 78 45 33 Protestant 534 66 25 41

United Church 443 67 25 42 Anglican 280 66 24 42 Lutheran 69 43 20 23

-

Presbyterian 62 73 20 53 Baptist 90 76 41 35 Evangelical 75 77 62 15

Jewish 23 20 10 10 None 96 52 0 52 Other 24 59 24 35 Nationally I195 68 31 37


these adults are presently being exposed to formal religious instruction-in contrast to the childhood experiences of two in three Canadian adults.

Consistent with the industrialization-decline postulation, the inclination of Canadians to identify with Christianity both socially and ide- ationally tends to decrease slightly with community size, education, full-time paid employ- ment, and age (Table v). Conversely, the tendency to be interested in TM and yoga is slightly higher among the young and the better educated, with resignation to the unanswerability of ultimate questions increasing somewhat with community size. Far from being the prerogative of the highly educated, faith in the future of science and education appears to be very widespread, with the sources of such an outlook including media (Table v). While a majority of Canadians maintain that science (71 per cent) and education (5 1 per cent) will gain influence in the future, very few express the same feeling about organized religion (Protestantism 7 per cent, Catholicism 9 per cent, Judaism 6 per cent). Relatedly, those respondents (44 per cent) who describe themselves as “currently inactive” but “at one time active” in religious groups emphasize not only organizational but also ideational factors as reasons for their disaffiliation (Table VI). Accompanying skepticism about both the goals (53 per cent) and integrity (56 per cent) of religious groups is the assertion that “decreasing interest in [ultimate] questions’’ (41 per cent), “increasing disbelief’ (40 per cent), and “conflict between religion and science” (35 per cent) have been important reasons in withdrawal. The latter three factors seem to be particularly important for current “Nones” and Quebec Catholics; the latter also stress a negative reaction to having religion imposed on them in childhood.

In sum, these data support the assertion that industrialization is being accompanied by a severe decline in Canadians’ involvement in organized religion and an increasing tendency to “look earthward” -without requiring the en- dorsement of religion to do so. Clearly the Judaic-Christian option remains an important meaning option at this point in history. How- ever, it appears that industrialization is reduc- ing both its cultural pervasiveness and its monopoly of the meaning realm.

Additions As a result of the large losses of the people they once had, the churches clearly need to add significant numbers in order to offset such attrition. On a national level, religious groups can logically add new members in three ways: immigration, birth, and proselytism.

Immigration Historically, immigration has been a major source of religious group recruitment in Cana- da. Anglicans, Presbyterians, and Methodists appeared in the form of British immigrants, while Lutherans grew in proportion to German immigration. The ranks of Roman Catholics expanded in accordance with European immigration, notably the French and the British in the past and the Italians in recent years. Immi- gration further stimulated the growth of Prairie evangelical groups in the early part of the present century (Mann, 1962).

However, while immigration has been an important source of new member recruitment in the past, its contributory role at present is minor. As Table VII shows, between 1961 and 1971 the net gain of foreign-born affiliates was significant only for Roman Catholics, and even here there was a sharp numerical decline from the previous ten-year period.

TABLE V

Religion and Outlook by Select Variables*

size Education full-rime Age warchinf ReadinR

___ Communiq Employed TV

“None” affiliation 0.111 0. I95 0. I04 -0.197 NS 0.098 Church attendance -0.154 NS -0.107 0.247 -0.143 NS Orthodoxy -0.216 -0. I07 -0.117 0.110 NS NS Interest TM-Yoga NS 0. I94 NS -0.245 NS 0.175 Unanswerability of ultimate questions 0.146 NS NS NS NS NS Future of science NS -0.131 NS NS 0.132 N S Future of education NS NS NS NS 0.108 NS

*Zero order correlation coefficients, significant at the 0.001 level

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112 I Reginald W. Bibby

TABLE VII

Net Foreign-Born Affiliate Additions for Select Canadian Religious Groups - Percentage Percentage of total of total

1951 - I961 arowth * 1962-1971 arowth * Anglican 23,580 7 -41,905 Nil Baptist 6,902 9 6,166 8 Lutheran 108,152 50 -27,198 Nil Presbyterian 9,046 25 8,983 17 United Church 48,474 6 -75,616 Nil Roman Catholic 45 1,822 20 292,429 18 Jewish 13,540 27 - 406 Nil

Totals 784,352 19 45 1,272 14

Computed from: Statistics Canada, 1971 Census of Canada. Bulletin 1.4-12 *Percentage of total net affiliation additions

Moreover, as already emphasized, mere affiliation cannot be equated with participation. In the face of worldwide industrialization and secularization, it should hardly be surprising that many immigrants are neither especially religious nor flocking to churches for the much-publicized “psychic and social support” (Herberg, 1955; Mol, 1961). Indeed, only 12 per cent of the foreign-born Canadians sampled maintain that they are “Very Religious,” with only 45 per cent claiming to be church members and 31 per cent saying they attend religious services on a weekly basis (N =150); the corres- ponding figures for Canadian-born respondents are 17 per cent, 60 per cent, and 30 per cent (N = 1,010).

Thus while immigration will continue to contribute to the recruitment pools of religious groups, the numbers involved are not likely to have a significant effect upon the offsetting of present attrition.

Birth With respect to affiliates broadly, increase is clearly related to birth rates. The offspring of affiliates expand the “affiliate pool” from which active group members can be recruited, repre- senting probably the most salient source of new members (Bibby and Brinkerhoff, 1974; Hobart, 1974; Currie, 1976). As Table VIII indi- cates, in a time of an overall decline in Canada’s birth rate, birth contributions to the affiliate pool are proportionately highest for conservative groups such as Pentecostals, Mennonites, and the Salvation Army, moderate for Roman Catholics, low for the mainline Protestant groups, and lowest for Jews.

However, the demographic fact of birth only becomes a meaningful determinant of religious group size to the extent that offspring partici- pate in group life. We have already observed that considerable differences exist between the religious groups with respect to the participa-

TABLE Vl l l Number of Children under 5 Years of Age per 1,000 Women 15-44 Years of Age, by Select Canadian Religious Groups __

1951 1961 1971

Anglican 525 533 358 Baptist 5 10 565 372 Lutheran 440 533 343 Presbyterian 44 1 487 322 United Church 529 574 358 Conservatives

Mennonite 58 1 712 467 Pentecostal 583 652 469 Salvation Army 696 696 493

Roman Catholic 616 666 403 Jewish 444 42 1 292

Totals 555 606 390

SOURCE: Dominion Bureau of Statistics, 1961 Census of’Cnnadu; Statistics Canada, 1971 Census of Canada


TABLE IX

Participation of School-Age Children in Religious Organizations by Religious Affiliation (in percentages)

Lutheran and United Baptist and Anglican Presbyterian Church Evangelical Protestant Catholic Nationally

(88) ( 4 2 ) (150) (54) (165) (184) (389)

Regularly 25 32 27 68 33 43 37 Often 13 21 13 2 1 1 8 9 Sometimes 36 17 33 18 25 33 29 Never 26 30 27 12 31 16 25

tion level of affiliates. We consequently would expect the children of Canadians to know differential exposure to group activities along with differential religious socialization more broadly.

Of the people with school-age children, 35 per cent say that they themselves attend services weekly. Relatedly, according to the findings reported in Table I X , some 37 per cent of Cana- dian school-age children are receiving religious instruction regularly (i.e., attending “Sunday School or religious classes of instruction which are not part of the regular school day”). Sig- nificantly, considerable variation exists between groups, with instruction more prevalent among Catholics than Protestants and, within Protestant ranks, far more characteristic of Baptists and other Evangelicals than other groups. Proportionately, people in conservative evangelical groups are having more children than others and are more commonly exposing them to religious instruction.

In general, then, of the present under-18 cohort, approximately one-third appear to be experiencing pro-institutional socialization through the home and/or the church, in contrast

to what perhaps two-thirds of their parents experienced when they were children. If other meaning options are similarly adopted by this present generation of Canadian children, it seems plausible to estimate that just as their parents’ involvement dropped from roughly two-thirds to one-third, their children’s involvement could drop from about one-third to one-sixth. Supportive of such an assertion is the finding that there is a progressive drop-off in the percentage of weekly attenders by age as cohorts get younger, from 47 per cent for Cana- dians over 60 to 14 per cent for those between the ages of 18 and 29.

Proselytism The third way in which religious groups in Canada might add members is through proselytism, whereby “outsiders” are brought into the religious communities. Such a means of addition first of all requires that a pool of poten- tial “converts” exists.

According to the survey, only 2 per cent of Canadians say that as children, they “never” attended religious services (Table x). Some 3 per cent claim they attended on a yearly basis,

TABLE X Present Religious Service Attendance by Past Religious Service Attendance (in percentages)

Past

Several times No

Present N Never Yearly yearly Monthly Weekly response Totals

Weekly 362 1 2 7 6 78 6 100 Monthly 118 0 1 8 21 67 3 100 Several times yearly 251 2 2 9 13 66 8 100 Yearly 243 1 5 7 12 68 7 100 Never 205 5 9 9 9 55 13 100 No response 16 0 0 12 12 64 12 100

Totals 1195 2 3 8 1 1 68 8 100

2 Birth and religious socialization would seem to be key factors in the present North American trend of superior church growth among Protestant conservative groups, relative to mainline bodies. For a detailed analysis of this issue in Canada, see Bibby (1978).


TABLE XI

Past Religious Service Attendance bv Present Religious Service Attendance (in percentages) Present

Severul times N o

Pust N Never .. Yeurly yearly Monthly Weekly response Totals -

Weekly 813 14 20 20 10 35 1 100 Monthly 13 I 14 22 25 19 18 2 100 Several times yearly 93 20 17 25 10 26 2 100 Yearly or less 67 45 24 15 1 I5 0 100 No response 91 30 19 20 4 25 2 100

Totals I195 17 20 21 10 31 1 100

roughly 19 per cent monthly, and 68 per cent weekly. Assuming that such religious involvement further mirrored the attendance level of parents, it seems clear that over the past two or three generations “unchurched” Canadians were not able to make a significant proportional contribution to religious groups - even if the groups had been successful in recruiting them. As for such “success,” the survey found that some 15 per cent of these childhood “yearlys or less” are now weekly attenders (see (Table XI) , but they constitute only about 3 per cent of today’s “weeklys”; 78 per cent of the current weekly attenders went weekly while growing up (Table x).

At the present time, the pool of semi-active and inactive affiliates is clearly growing. Some 17 per cent of Canadians now claim they “never” attend religious services, while another 20 per cent attend only yearly (Table XI) . The survey also found one in ten (8 percent) respondents claiming no religious preference.

The recruitment pool has thus been enlarged considerably, theoretically making proselytism of “the unchurched” along with quasiproselyt- ism in the form of intergroup “switching” increasingly important means of adding people. Yet how viable such recruitment paths actually are remains t o be seen. To be sure, proselytism has to be the most difficult of the three recruitment means, especially in view of the competi- tion presented by “the industrial world view” and an increasing number of other meaning system rivals. Further, Canadian religious groups find the task paradoxically problematic: their very opportunity to proselytize has in effect been made possible by their collective failure to retain. Their dilemma lies in how they can transform a retention liability into a recruitment asset. A conservative conclusion is

that the immediate prospects for widespread proselytism and switching are not good.

DISCUSSION

Against the backdrop of accelerated industrialization, then, organized religion in Canada is experiencing a dramatic numerical drop-off. Churches are losing many of their once-active members and adherents, while failing t o re- plenish such losses through immigration, birth, and proselytism. As for the immediate future, these demographic patterns and their structurally-posited cause offer little reason to anticipate a change in such a numerical decline trend.

Crysdale and Wheatcroft (1976:7) have noted that in the United States, church attendance began to slide around 1955 (around 50 per cent) but came to a halt about 1970 and now has seemingly stabilized (around 40 per cent). This writer would argue that the present data d o not support a parallel “halt” in Canada, in part reflecting the different place of religion in the culture and social structure of the two societies. Religion is strongly imbedded in American ideology and plays a significant role in “Ameri- can Civil Religion,” quite unlike the situation in Canada and elsewhere. Thus organized religion in Canada, as in many European countries, contrasts the United States in experiencing a severe participational decline. Sigelman (1977), in a very significant summary of comparative Gallup poll data, reports that religiosity - measured by belief in God and immortality along with self-reported salience-is highest in the developing, third world countries and in the United States, while lowest in the highly indus- trialized western European countries (e.g., West Germany, Britain, France). Consistent

Collective religiosity in Canada I 115

with our industrialization-differentiation hy- pothesis, the religiosity level of Canadians lies in between these two extremes. Following Luckmann (1967), however, this is not to say that the US is exempt from industrialization’s effects. While outwardly still relatively viable, American religion is experiencing the effects of industrialization not only from “without” but also from “within,” whereby religious organizations are increasingly being co-opted by American culture. Church attendance persists at a relatively high level, but the empiricism and materialism of “the industrial world view” does not stop at the church steps.

At this point in time, a significant number of Canadians appear to continue to draw upon the country’s Judaic-Christian legacy in dealing with the so-called “ultimate questions,” nu- merically still rivalling those who consciously and unconsciously, rationally and nonrational- ly, have come to share “the industrial world view.” Further, despite the publicity given to alternative meaning systems such as T M , yoga, Zen, Hare Krishna, and astrology, for example, their significance as unique meaning systems is currently minor for Canadians generally. No more than 5 per cent of the survey respondents have indicated a strong interest in any of them (for details, see Bibby, 1977).

Yet, as discussed earlier, given the necessity of the religious group for ideational sustenance, such manifestations of Judaic-Christianity seem destined to dissipate with the increasing organizational disaffiliation of Canadians. To assert with Hertel and Nelsen (l974:4l I ) that declining church attendance should not be seen as leading to decreasing belief levels since “belief and attendance are not particularly well correlated” is to confuse time-order. Indeed, what we appear to be witnessing is something of a “lag effect”: many people have been rejecting the churches, yet retaining ideas which date back to childhood participation. Without simi- lar exposure, it is doubtful that their children, for example, will manifest such beliefs. Reli- gious “privatization” may give hope to theolo- gians, but if group-less, it is untenable to sociologists.

This is not to say that a Christian cognitive minority will not survive Canadian industrialization. Surely the Judaic-Christian “option” will continue to be adopted by some Canadians, as one of a number of meaning systems compet- ing for authority in the specialized sphere of “ultimate meaning.” Further, it is plausible that

its numerical following will fluctuate somewhat in accordance with changing social conditions and organizational efforts aimed at recruitment. However, the data presented here indicate that the pervasiveness of Judaic-Christianity in Canada may well belong to history-ironically supplanted by an outlook which it helped to create.

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Documents

THE STATE OF COLLECTIVE RELIGIOSITY IN CANADA: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS