Article Added On: January 17, 2005 - over 7 years ago
Title: Pluralistic Canadians' professed belief in God
Author: Alistair Hay
Publication: The Globe and Mail
Publication Date: January 01, 2005 - over 7 years ago
Faith Groups: Other
Themes: Survey

Abstract: What ideas do you connect with the word "religion"? Fundamentalism? Violence? Keeping women forcibly veiled or, perhaps, class-action lawsuits against church-run schools permitting child molestation? The word "religion" evokes so many negative emotions and so much defensive posturing that calling yourself "spiritual but not religious" almost gets you off the hook, writes Alistair Hay for the Globe and Mail.

Monday, Jan 17, 2005

What ideas do you connect with the word "religion"? Fundamentalism? Violence? Keeping women forcibly veiled or, perhaps, class-action lawsuits against church-run schools permitting child molestation?

The word "religion" evokes so many negative emotions and so much defensive posturing that calling yourself "spiritual but not religious" almost gets you off the hook, but still sounds, in liberal circles, like the social equivalent of carrying a few extra pounds without necessarily being seriously overweight.

While some take comfort in liberal visions of a non-religious Canadian society, former Reform Party leader Preston Manning and broadcaster Lorna Dueck both recently wrote in The Globe and Mail that we have it all wrong.

They argue that Canada is indeed a religious and a Christian nation, citing Statistics Canada reports in which 77 per cent of Canadians indicate they are Catholic, Protestant or Christian in some form. Hence, argue both Mr. Manning and Ms. Dueck, we should think twice about same-sex marriage in this "Christian" Canada.

This somewhat literalist interpretation of Canada's holy statistics attracted the attention of pollster Michael Adams, who said there was "more to the story of religion in Canada than the boxes we check on our census forms." Armed with his knowledge of social-value shifts in the past few decades, Mr. Adams made the point that professed belief in God is one thing, while religious practice is another.

As Gallup tells us, only 37 per cent of Canadians actually attend religious services monthly or more often. So, Mr. Adams concludes, our more or less secular picture of Canada should stand. The most accurate view of this situation is that we are neither religious nor secular, but pluralistic.

Like Mr. Adams, I, too, am in the business of social and consumer research. Convinced there was a lack of detailed information on what Canadians actually believe, my research company recently surveyed a sample of 3,000 Canadians. Using proven polling techniques, we captured Canadians' views on the most important areas in their lives, as well as how they felt about 100 statements describing a variety of religious and spiritual beliefs. To my knowledge, this is the most detailed study of specific beliefs conducted in Canada in recent years.

We discovered clear evidence of what German sociologist Thomas Luckmann once called "invisible religion." We found there are about six million Canadian adults who "believe in God," but who do not regularly attend services of worship. This, perhaps, is not surprising. What is surprising is that they appear to be true believers, yet are quite detached from their traditional faith communities.

So, while those theologians who proclaimed the death of God in the 1960s may be right about many of us, they are wrong about this group. We found that, for them, traditional belief has taken on a new pluralized, private and individualized form.

For example, 40 per cent of Canadian adults told us they believe that "all [the major] religions are true and describe the same God." Hence, for many, God belief hasn't disappeared, just disappeared from view. These new believers have ticked off the Christian box on their census forms, yet, for them, traditional faith has evolved and is now more direct, not mediated to the same degree by the institutional aspects of religion - scripture, creed and official theology.

Now we see that the numbers add up: This private, pluralized and invisible faith makes up most of the difference between those attending services each month (37 per cent in Gallup) and the total believing in God (about 60 per cent, depending on the study and definition). But is this just a kind of soft spirituality and nothing more? This question is difficult to definitively answer.

Yet, the evidence that this type of faith is more than spirituality comes from these "modern believers" themselves. They are more likely to describe themselves as "believing in God" than "spiritual." For them, God belief ranked quite high in their hierarchy of what was most important in their lives, while "being spiritual" and "participating actively in a place of worship" was well down the list.

The implications? Canada seems to be neither a secular nor a religious country, but a pluralistic one. In the same-sex-marriage debate, therefore, one "right" interpretation may be wrong when what we really have is a pluralism of views.

As a liberal, therefore, I recognize your right to your religious and heterosexual-exclusive view but may or may not agree. As a conservative, I recognize your right to your same-sex view but may or may not agree. There is a danger in painting all religious and theistic views with the one brush of "fundamentalism" or "literalism."

First, it does a significant injustice to the range and subtlety of beliefs that Canadians actually hold. Second, in seeking one "correct" view, it promotes a certain rigidity of opinion on both sides and, before you know it, we have our own escalating culture wars. In a pluralized society, an advocacy of individual rights and a belief in God can co-exist.

Alistair Hay is president of Toronto-based Hay Research International.

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