Attendance at religious services has been on a downward trend in Canada for decades.  This would seem to indicate weakening religiosity among Canadians, but the authors of a recent Statistics Canada study beg to differ.  They suggest that, because many Canadians who do not attend organized worship services engage in religious practices on their own, lower attendance may overstate the decline of religion in Canada.

Between 1985 and 2004, the proportion of Canadians (aged 15 and over) reporting no religious affiliation rose from 12% to 19%.   At the same time, the proportion who reported an affiliation but who had not attended services for at least a year went up from 19% to 25%, while those who reported attending at least once per month decreased from 41% to 32%. (The remainder attended infrequently.)

Statistics Canada’s 2002 Ethnic Diversity Survey (EDS) included questions about frequency of private religious practices—prayer, meditation, worship, reading of sacred texts.

While only about one-third (32%) of adult Canadians attend religious services at least monthly, over one-half (53%) engage in religious activities on their own at least monthly. Eleven percent engage in religious activities on their own a few times a year, while 18% never engage in such activities. Those who said they have no religious affiliation (17%) were not asked this question on the EDS.

Of those who said they attend organized religious services infrequently, 37% engaged in private religious practices at least weekly; of those who said they have not attended services in the previous year, 25% reported engaging in weekly religious practices on their own.

Overall, 21% said they engage in private practices at least monthly, yet attend public services infrequently or never.

As would be expected, among those who attend services at least monthly, 75% also engaged in private religious practices at least weekly.

The EDS also asked about the importance of religion in the lives of respondents.  44% of Canadians assigned religion a high importance.

Based on the four questions about religion—affiliation, attendance, private religious practices, and importance of religion—the researchers constructed a simple additive ‘religiosity index’.  Individuals with no affiliation were scored as zero, while others received a score from 1 to 13.  The scores were divided in three groups: low (0-5), medium (6-10), and high (11-13).

Based on these criteria, 40% of Canadians have a low degree of religiosity, 31% are moderately religious and 29% are highly religious. . . . [R]eligiosity is lowest among young people and higher among individuals in older age groups. Men are also much more likely to have low religiosity than women.

Although immigrants to Canada were more likely than native-born Canadians to have a high degree of religiosity (41% vs 26%), variation by area of origin was considerable.

High levels of religiosity are most prevalent among immigrants from South Asia (e.g. India and Pakistan), South East Asia (e.g. the Philippines) and the Caribbean and Central and South America. In contrast, high levels of religiosity are least prevalent among immigrants from East Asia (e.g. China and Japan) and Western/Northern Europe (e.g. France and the United Kingdom) and Eastern Europe (e.g. Hungary).

While the analysis of prevalence of private religious practices among those who infrequently or never attend services are interesting, I think that the authors may be too optimistic about what these findings indicate for the robustness of religion in Canada.

[D]eclining attendance may overstate the extent to which Canada is becoming secularized, since a considerable proportion of Canadians do not attend religious services but do engage in religious practices on their own. Similarly, some Canadians who do not attend services still attach a high degree of importance to religion in their life. This suggests that while attendance rates have declined, many Canadians continue to practice their religion in private.

Perhaps the authors are using the word “secularized” in a general sense, so I don’t want to accuse them of trying to make a point that they’re not.  But the term “secularisation” in sociology of religion refers to more than mere prevalence of religious observances or practices.  It refers in a broader sense to the extent to which a society makes use of religious categories and concepts in establishing social order, maintaining cultural norms, and formulating political policies.

From the perspective of that understanding of secularisation, it is difficult to see how private religious practices might impede the advance of public irreligion.  Unless those private practices are supported by organised groups of like-minded people meeting together for edification, mutual support, and community observances, private practitioners are isolated (if not atomistic) and socially powerless.

So, while interesting and with potential use in efforts to bring Canadians into religious services, these findings, as they stand, provide little comfort to those who hope that secularisation of Canadian sociey is not as advanced as it seems.

Source:
Clark, Warren, and Grant Schellenberg, 2006. "Who's religious?", Canadian Social Trends, No. 81.  Statistics Canada catalogue #11-0078, pp. 2-9.
http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/11-008-XIE/11-008-XIE2006001.pdf (accessed 3 July 2006).

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