There are many excellent articles on covering religion as a journalist, and some of those articles are already on this website. But most of those articles have been written by Americans, and Canada has a very different religious profile than the U.S. That ought to be obvious to us, but it isn't, and those differences affect how we cover the beat.

Some of the differences between the two nations, from a religioius perspective, include:

• Canada is primarily a Catholic nation; the U.S. is primarily an evangelical nation.
• Canada's faith groups cooperate with each other; American faith groups compete with each other.
• The Catholic, liberal Protestant, Orthodox and evangelical churches and occasionally non-Christian faiths in Canada regularly combine forces to speak out on topics like poverty and the federal budget; that rarely happens in the U.S.

There are many excellent articles on covering religion as a journalist, and some of those articles are already on this website. But most of those articles have been written by Americans, and Canada has a very different religious profile than the U.S. That ought to be obvious to us, but it isn't, and those differences affect how we cover the beat.

Some of the differences between the two nations, from a religioius perspective, include:

• Canada is primarily a Catholic nation; the U.S. is primarily an evangelical nation.
• Canada's faith groups cooperate with each other; American faith groups compete with each other.
• The Catholic, liberal Protestant, Orthodox and evangelical churches and occasionally non-Christian faiths in Canada regularly combine forces to speak out on topics like poverty and the federal budget; that rarely happens in the U.S.
• Religion has little apparent influence on politics in Canada, partly because religious identity has little effect on how we vote. In the U.S., religion has obvious political influence because religious identity affects voting preferences; most black churchgoers vote for Democrats, and conservative white Christians generally vote Republican. As a result, presidential and other candidates woo faith groups, agonize over what to say about abortion and homosexuality and make a point of publicly attending church.
• Family values are also an important issue in the U.S., because almost half of the population believe it's important to hold orthodox Christian beliefs; in Canada, most of us think our private beliefs are more important than what is taught by any religious group.
• The religious right has a very strong presence on the American political scene; in Canada, you would be hard pressed to find anyone who even wants to start a Moral Majority or a Christian Coalition.
• The U.S. is the most church-attending of all the industrialized nations on earth, and has resisted the secularizing trend common to most of the other industrialized nations of the earth, including Canada. More than 40 per cent of Americans still attend a worship service weekly, and the U.S. South is one of the most pious regions in the world. Fifty years ago, Canadians actually attended church in even higher numbers than Americans, primarily because of the piety of Quebec Catholics. Today, only one in five Canadians regularly attend church services, and Quebec is the least pious region of North America.
• The American religious scene is also affected by the existence of five large African-American denominations, the growing number of Latin-American churches, and the fact that 40 per cent of American Muslims are U.S.-born Black Muslims.
• In Canada, the francophone-anglophone divide gives us a distinct flavor, particularly in the Catholic church, where francophone bishops tend to be more "progressive" than the anglophone bishops, and put more emphasis on social justice.

Main players

The only Christian groups big enough in Canada to have full-time public relations people are the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, and the Anglican and United churches. Some Catholic dioceses also have public relations spokesmen; so does the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, and the Canadian Jewish Congress. The Canadian Islamic Congress is also beginning to emerge as a visible player on the Canadian scene. The Canadian Council of Churches has a small staff, but occasionally comes out with a major pronouncement uniting all the churches.

Where to find stories

Religious leaders and religious readers alike seem to assume that inspirational stories, or local church stories, are what should make the news. But readership surveys in the U.S. suggest that most readers actually find national and international religion stories more interesting, particularly when it concerns social and ethical values, global issues or decision-making at the national or international level. My Canadian editors seem to know that instinctively, because my local stories tend to go in the back pages, while the national and international stories are more likely to hit the front page.

Few stories are to be found today in the annual meetings of the denominations or other faith groups. Denominations are more likely to make the news with occasional press conferences on subjects like gambling or native residential schools; pronouncements from the Vatican, or attacks by dissidents, whether they be conservative United Church members bemoaning change or liberal Catholics demanding change.

Sources

Most of my stories come from cultivating contacts and working the beat, by having lunch or coffee with local clergy or public relations people, keeping track of out-of-town speakers, or anniversaries like Holocaust memorials among the Jews, or attending formal Muslim dinners, or reading denominational magazines, or the Vatican Information Service to pick up alerts on upcoming developments. With the aid of a tailor-made religion query on my computer, I also keep a close eye on the wire services for ideas and trends developing elsewhere and stories about subjects like euthanasia or Third World debt, which often have neglected religious or ethical angles to them. A number of the denominational websites are also particularly helpful; the Vatican, for example, now posts papal encyclicals within hours of releasing them in Rome.

Religion is a wonderful beat, because there are virtually no limits on what you can cover. There is spirituality in the workplace, religion in sports, faith in politics, faith in science, faith in ethics, faith in movies, and theatres, and rock n'roll. Some of the most colorful stories can come from reflecting the religious community to your readers. Most readers still know little of our new Muslim, Buddhist, Sikh or Hindu neighbors; most will not go near a church or synagogue more than once or twice a year, or attend a New Age group. As journalists, we can take them into mosques, Hindu temples, meetings of Christian homosexuals, or charismatic prayer meetings.

Special challenges

Religious celebrations like Christmas, Ramadan, and Passover are a challenge. They're big events for the local religious communities, but it's hard to find new angles year after year. One of my most prized Passover stories was a first-person piece. I stood in for a synagogue as the local Gentile who traditionally takes temporary ownership of all things to do with leavened bread, whether that be dishes or bakeries. My favorite among several Christmas stories last year was a front-page Christmas Eve piece on the Faces of Jesus: art from many different cultures, showing Jesus as black, Chinese, Japanese, etc.

One area I think religion writers are all struggling with is the spirituality of those Canadians who rarely have anything to do with organized religion. The sales of books like The Celestine Prophecy, the number of films about the afterlife and the spirituality behind many popular songs all show that something spiritual is going on outside our temples, churches and synagogues. And, on the whole, we journalists do a poor job of covering this trend. Doug Todd of the Vancouver Sun has made one of the better attempts by mining the spiritual preferences of writers, entertainers and other celebrities in the arts world. Few of them have strong ties with organized religion, but all have something to say about spirituality and how it has affected their work.

Trying to Know It All

The religion beat is so vast and complex that none of us can understand all of it, but it's important to know such basics as the difference between a priest and a minister, or Reform and Orthodox Jews, or Sunni and Shiite Muslims. The simplest and best thing to do is what journalists do on all beats: take nothing for granted, do your research in advance and keep asking questions until you're sure you understand those you interview. Don't be afraid to ask "What do you mean that you know God?", "What is predestination?", "What does papal infallibility mean?", or "What does Islam say about women wearing a veil?"

But I think the religion beat requires some extra measures, because every faith has its own vocabulary, its own complex theology, and its own sensitivities. The Canadian Islamic Congress, for example, has published its own study of what it terms anti-Islam in the media, and some simple ways of avoiding problems, like referring to "extreme forms of Islam" rather than stereotyping all Muslims with phrases like "Muslim terrorists."

Believers care deeply about how they're portrayed in the media. Religion stories often provoke the most heated of all debates in our letters to the editor pages; they also prompt some of the most vicious hate mail, and probably some of the most ecstatic letters of praise as well. And most of the problems can be avoided simply something about your subject.

I have tried to fill in some of the gaps in my own knowledge by taking courses on Islam, the Middle East, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism. I have also collected a library of reference books. Some of the most useful are Huston Smith's wonderful book on comparative religion, The Religions of the World; Irving Hexham's Encyclopedia of Terms; the Catechism of the Catholic Church; and copies of the Koran, the Bible, and other sacred scriptures.

All this emphasis on knowledge and pitfalls may make the religion beat sound intimidating, but take heart. Keep working at the beat, and you will soon have a broader knowledge of religion than many members of the clergy. Often, none of them have time to research anything more than next week's sermon!