Faith interest high among Canadians: poll
Christian identity remains steady, church attendance continues decline
KEVIN
HEINRICHS
CW Managing Editor
– Toronto –
A recent poll indicates that while the majority of Canadians see themselves on a spiritual journey, few see church attendance as an important step on that journey.
While 84 percent say they believe in God, only 20 percent attend religious services at least once a week, according to the Angus Reid poll commissioned by The Globe and Mail and CTV. Sixty-seven percent agree with the statement, “my religious faith is very important to my day to day life,” and slightly more (69%) agree that “through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, God provided a way for the forgiveness of my sins.”
The results are fairly consistent with similar polls done in recent years, continuing trends of high spiritual interest but a low commitment to spiritual disciplines, says Andrew Grenville, senior vice president of Angus Reid Group.
And while the poll seems to indicate a nation made up largely of Christians, it’s not clear how that faith is integrated into their everyday lives.
The problem in gauging the depth of the apparently vast Christian commitment, says Grenville, is that a poll compiles data and as such can’t be a true measure of a person’s spiritual state.
Institutional disloyalty
Nonetheless, indication of spiritual interest was up across the board, except church attendance, which took a statistically significant tumble, especially compared to data from the 1960s. Only 20 percent of Canadians indicated that they attend weekly religious services. Forty percent indicated they attended no religious services at all. That may be due to a cultural shift away from institutional loyalties, says Grenville
“It’s an important reflection of our culture,” he says . “Faith hasn’t disappeared, but there has been a movement away from church attendance. It’s an unfortunate coupling of those two things, in my view,” he says.
The numbers reflect a trend borne out in congregations across denominations, particularly in mainline denominations such as Anglican and United churches. Surprisingly, though, more than three quarters (77%) of Canadians still identify themselves with a Christian church.
With all the talk of a cynical Generation X and a postmodern era, young people expressed surprisingly conservative beliefs. Sixty-two percent of Canadians aged 18-34 believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God. Sixty-six percent of 18-34 year olds believe in salvation from sin through faith in the resurrection of Jesus, just three percent less than the general population.
Only 15% of young Canadians regularly attend weekly religious services. Grenville says that low number isn’t surprising. “One of the disturbing things we’ve seen previously is that we’ve not seen the level of prayer in young people,” he says.
Other findings of the poll included:
• Belief in God is most prevalent among those 55 and over and slightly lower among those 35 to 54 (85%) and 18 to 34 (79%).
• The Atlantic provinces show the highest level of belief in God (93%) while residents of British Columbia (75%) show the lowest level of belief in God.
• Men (82%) were slightly less likely than women (86%) to believe in God.
• Canadians with less than a high school education (91%) are most likely to believe in God while Canadians with a university education (80%) are least likely to believe.
• Two thirds (66%) believe that “the Bible is the inspired word of God”, up slightly from 1993 and 1996.
• Almost half (48%) believe that “Satan, the devil, is active in the world today,” a belief that has increased seven points since 1993.