Reginald W. Bibby

Canada's Mythical Religious Mosaic: Some CensusFindings

Extensive world-wide emigration to Canada has resulted in the widely-held perception that this self-declared, “multicultural”country is characterized by considerable religious diversity. National census data, however, suggest that such a religious mosaic is largely a myth. The proportion of Canadians who identify with Christianity remains high, while those who adhere to Other Faiths has risen only slightly over time. To the extent that religious intermarriage takes place—primarily with Catholics and Protestants—the tendency is for Other Faith women and men to raise their children in their partner tradition. As a result of such assimilation patterns, Christianity continues to enjoy a significant numerical monopoly in Canada.The census further reveals that smaller new religions are also having difficulty making inroads. In short, Canada is characterized by an extremely tight “religious market” that continues to be dominated by Catholic and Protestant “companies.”

The perils of pioneering and prophecy: A response to Thiessen and Dawson

Reginald W Bibby is a Professor in the Departement of Sociology at the University of Lethbridge, B854 University Hall, 4401 University Drive, Lethbridge, Alberta TIK 3M4; e-mail: bibby@uleth.ca. I am very pleased that Joel Thiessen and Lorne Dawson have taken the time to carefully examine what has amounted to my lifelong work on religion in Canada. There is much truth to the old adage that the worst thing that can happen to a researcher is to have his or her work ignored. Their effort has been thorough, generous, gracious and helpful. One cannot expect much more of one’s critics.

Religion and Identity: The Canadian, American, and Brazilian Cases

Changing cultural conditions in three quite different settings—a highly industrialized Canada, an increasingly post-industrial United States, and an industrializing Brazil—have led many observes to assert that the religious markets in the three countries are fairly open. However, an examination of affiliation patterns reveals that the traditionally strong religious groups in the three societies are succeeding in maintaining monopolies. Identification with the long-established mainline churches remains both very stable and high, despite the activities and claims of religious competitors. Religious affiliation continues to be largely inherited, complete with important social, psychological, and emotional associations. Nevertheless, general cultural specialization has contributed to an accelerated inclination on the part of Canadians, Americans, and Brazilians to look to religious groups for highly specific services. These include programs with spiritual and social justice emphases, and rites of passage pertaining to birth, marriage, and death. Religious groups have responded to such market demands by expanding their religious menus and, in the process, largely neutralizing the offerings of religious competitors. The result is very tight specialized religious markets in all three countries. Identification prevails, but the related impact of religion at the level of the individual is extremely specific and limited. Since at least Comte, advocates of what has come to be known as ’the secularization thesis’ have maintained that science, and the specialization associated with advanced societies weaken the role of religion. The likes of Comte and Freud felt that religion would imminently disappear, while Durkheim was among those who saw its retreat as unmistakable but somewhat more gradual. In Durkheim’s (1965) words, the old gods are dying or are already dead. But this is not to say that society is incapable of creating new ones. Rodney Stark and William Bainbridge (1985), of course, have radically challenged the secularization thesis. They maintain that, over time, established religions may falter. However, rather than religion as a whole losing significance, say Stark and Bainbridge, secularization actually stimulates religions innovation. New sects

Religionless Christianity: A profile of religion in the Canadian 80s

The state of religion in Canada is examined, based upon the preliminary findings of two recent national surveys which have produced both cross-sectional and longitudinal data. Areas probed include: involvement in organized religion, the viewing of religious TV programs, commitment to traditional Christianity, and interest in the new religions and the paranormal. It is maintained that some three in four Canadians are neither committed nor opposed to old and new religions, but rather are ‘a-religious’, adhering to fragments of the Judaic-Christian tradition yet lacking a religious orientation which can be used to address life and death. This ‘unfocused majority’ is described as Canadas ‘religionless Christians’. The author concludes with an examination of the receptivity of Canadians to religion, and the prospects for variations in the predominant secularization pattern.

What the Polls Do Show: Toward Enhanced Survey Readings of Religion in Canada

Over the past two decades or so, survey research findings on religious activities and beliefs have been confusing, with the results of researchers and private pollsters frequently differing from those of Statistics Canada. In this research note, the authors use four national omnibus surveys conducted in 2012 to explore the extent to which such differences are due to measurement variations. Finding few noteworthy differences, they proceed to focus on the samples being used, and draw on illustrative data from 2012 and 2015 to argue that the differences in findings may in large part be due to differences in samples. The resolution of sampling problems, they acknowledge, is extremely difficult, but nonetheless is a goal that has to be pursued.

Crime and punishment: A national reading

The results of a recent national survey pertaining to the perception of the seriousness of crime, the response to crime, and views regarding the three controversial areas of pornography, marijuana, and abortion are reported. Canadians are found to be deeply concerned with the level of crime and critical of the police and the courts, favouring more severe handling of offenders including the use of capital punishment. While the majority are opposed to the legalization of marijuana, they endorse the criminalization of neither pornographic distribution to adults nor abortion in select situations. The author concludes with a discussion of some of the implications of these findings.

The moral mosaic: Sexuality in the Canadian 80s

Two recent national mail surveys in Canada have yielded important cross-sectional and longitudinal data on sexuality. More than one in four Canadians say that their sex lives are a cause for concern, and the majority do not approve of extramarital sex, homosexuality, the unregulated distribution of pornographic materials, and the availability of legal abortion in unlimited circumstances. Concern over sexual assault is widespread. Apart from their personal preferences, however, Canadians generally are reluctant to condemn various sexual practices without qualification, deny basic rights to homosexuals, or declare a total ban on the distribution of pornographic materials. They further are not inclined to refuse birth control information to teenagers who want it, or to make legal abortion an impossibility for women who believe it is necessity. The author asserts that the Canadian ideal of pluralism appears to extend beyond race and ethnicity to the moral sphere, resulting in a ‘moral mosaic’ which, despite the efforts of moral interest groups, will probably remain fairly intact in the forseeable future.

Life after Death: Data and Reflections on the Last Information Gap A Research Note

This paper examines beliefs and experiential claims concerning life after death provided by some 5,000 people in Canada, the United States, and Britain in the spring of 2014. The surveys show that large numbers of people continue to believe life continues after death. Beyond belief, many maintain that individuals who have died are following what is taking place in their lives and continuing to be in contact. Such claims raise important questions as to why these beliefs and claims are so pervasive, and the appropriate responses of academics.

The precarious mosaic: Divergence and convergence in the Canadian 80s

Two recent national surveys producing cross-sectional and longitudinal data reveal that almost one in two Canadians continue to oppose the governments bilingualism policy, while the same proportion claim that racial and cultural groups in their communities are being discriminated against. Anglophones and Francophones continue to have divergent views of their levels of influence in Canadian life, while East Indians and Pakistanis, Jews and Canadian Indians remain targets of discrimination. Yet the two surveys also point to increasing convergence. There has been a modest rise in the endorsement of bilingualism, and an increase in the inclination of Francophones to view their influence and future positively. There also has been a softening of negative attitudes towards Jews, Orientals, and Blacks, and a tendency to be more receptive to racial and religious intermarriage. Ongoing divergence is thus being accompanied by increasing convergence.

2. Consensus in Diversity: An Examination of Canadian Problem Perception

It is a strange situation indeed when social scientists attempt to study social problems without an empirical awareness of what the populace views as problematic-regardless of the theoretical persuasion involved. Yet the views of &dquo;the-man-on-the-street&dquo; have seemingly been progressively embraced, tolerated, and abandoned by the student of social problems during the latter’s effort to devise a satisfactory way of understanding his subject matter. Writers such as Horton and Leslie (1970: 4) asserted that public perception determines social problems, revealing conditions &dquo;affecting a significant number of people in ways considered undesirable.&dquo; Richard Laskin (1964: 19) similarly tied social problems to public perception and maintained that, in Canada for example, such perception could be gauged by a content analysis of the literature