Joseph Brean Has a Good Point
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2023/12/24
Joseph Brean wrote a great article in the National Post on the baffling decline in formal religiosity – “church attendance and other formal religious observances” – and the persistence of spiritual or religious belief. He wrote this way back in April.
So, why?
Why are Canadians intent on the continuation of spirituality in spite of the massive decline in religious belief in this nation? Brean points to Jack Jedwab’s research outlining a detachment from the god concept and a religious affiliation.
No text, no religious building, no religious service, no title, a simple belief in a deity or a theity. No pretext of behavioural or ideational follow-up. It’s the complete opposite of atheism. A simple theism decoupled from religion.
That’s fascinating.
Brean said, “A new poll by Leger for the Association for Canadian Studies shows about half of Canadians believe in God, a measure that has been roughly stable for the last few years.”
Canadians believe in God. They do not believe in religion so much, especially compared to before. Skepticism about God is less certain. Skepticism about organized religion is more clear.
“It seems contradictory. Jedwab says it raises deep questions about the nature of religion and whether it is best understood personally or communally,” Brean stated, “This ‘decoupling’ shows up everywhere from the strictest Abrahamic monotheisms to more mystical and polytheistic faiths. Respondents to the poll, conducted in February and March, included Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jews, Muslims and Christians both Catholic and Protestant.”
This differentiation between religion and god adherence is more common among native Canadians (not indigenous per se, but multi-generation citizens). New immigrants to Canada are more probable to accept the idea of a God. Immigrants strongly agree at 49.3% and non-immigrants sit at 27.7% strongly agree.
So, the only new blood into the religious demographics, truly, come from the immigrant populations. That’s the reality here. Brean showcases one of the more intrigues from the demographic data on god belief and religion.
“Nearly two-thirds of Catholic immigrants strongly agree there is a God compared to barely one third of non-immigrant Catholics. The Protestant numbers show a similar gap. That is in contrast to Muslims, for whom there is no such gap, and near universal strong agreement that there is a God,” Brean said.
The god concept is important to Muslims in Canada. The distinction between religious group and the god concept is an instructive parsing. Something shows up. Sikhs in Canada have a strong attachment to the religious group. Canadian Christians are dominant, but luke warm on the god concept and on religious group attachment.
It’s fascinating.
British Columbia and Quebec are two secular titans in Canada. Where, religious belief and the god concept are signifiers of something out of place. By age cohort, the data becomes interesting once again.
“Looking at the age progression, the ‘strongly agree that God exists’ numbers start out strong among the 18-24 age cohort with 36.3 per cent, but they dip to 22.4 per cent among people in the 25-34 age group, then climb back into the 30s,” Brean said, “At age 75 plus, the ‘strongly agrees’ are at their highest proportion at 39.1 per cent, more than 20 points higher than ‘somewhat agree.’”
Thanks, Joe, good article.
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