Quebec Christians: the urban legend

Marg Buchanan
Quebec Correspondent
quebec@christianweek.org

I heard it again just yesterday. The wife of a French Canadian church planter was bemoaning the sorry state of Quebec society. The church is struggling; the people are indifferent; the soil is hard.

So hard, in fact, it shows up in statistics cited in every plea, report and challenge that is given across the country for the great mission field in our own land. Pray for Quebec. Give to Quebec. Plant churches in Quebec.

The figures we cite are startling: Less than one half of one per cent of Quebecers are Christians. More than 99 per cent of the population is lost.

Problem is, our favourite fact is not true.

When Glenn Smith of Christian Direction and newspaper editor Ed Hoyer did their research in 1984, the goal was to plot churches according to federal electoral districts. The important finding was that French-speaking Protestants were planting churches outside large cities. (They later discovered that this trend was not unique to Quebec.) Because there was no common definition of church membership, they compared regions by tallying the number of French Canadians who were in French Protestant churches on any given Sunday morning.

The provincial average was .5 per cent. According to Smith, "over-zealous evangelicals replaced the ‘Protestants in church' study group with ‘Evangelicals in church,' which then took the leap to the broader ‘Christians in Quebec.'" A legend was born.

Recent research has shed more light on the spiritual condition and practices of Quebecers. Today we know that 1 per cent of Quebecers attend Protestant churches on Sunday morning. This is, of course, still staggeringly low compared to the rest of the country.

But it's also very low for Quebec. You see, in 2001, Statistics Canada revealed that at least 4.5 per cent of Quebecers self-identify as Protestant Christians. More than half of those claim to be evangelicals. But apparently more than 75 per cent do not attend church on a regular basis.

To clarify the profile of true believers, another survey used a very clear and strict definition of "evangelical."

The criteria used to describe somebody as evangelical were the following:

• claims an experience of conversion, new birth;

• Christo-centric: believes the death and resurrection of Jesus to be the heart of the gospel;

• biblio-centric: believes the Bible is the inspired Word of God;

• activist: the person is missional both in evangelistic and compassionate ministry.

The surprise is this: 30 per cent of practicing Catholics in Quebec self-identify as evangelicals, based on these four key points. "This means that there are more evangelicals going to Catholic parishes than to Protestant evangelical churches," says Smith.

With these new figures, the total of evangelical Christians in Quebec moves up to 12 per cent. It's still lower than the rest of the country. It still represents a challenge. It's still sad. But it's a far cry from .5 per cent.

Even at 12 per cent, the faithful are few. And yet Quebec is known as a culture of spiritual seekers. Perhaps it is up to the church to rethink its strategies—not only the way we approach new people with the claims of Christ, but what we offer them once they respond and believe.

As we bemoan the fact that Quebecers mistrust organized religion, are wary of institutions and resist structures, we pour our energy, prayers and money into the establishment of traditional churches, although 75 per cent of the people who become followers of Jesus do not attend.

I understand my ministry friend's discouragement. We are doing church the best we know how, with little success.

But here is good news, an encouraging statistic: 100 per cent of Quebecers were created by God in His image, made to seek Him. If many of our plans and projects are not working in Quebec, the Holy Spirit is.

Our challenge, then, is to break down barriers, to find new ways of influencing lives and culture, to be transformed and to transform.

And to double-check our information.