Past research has found conservative Protestants to be less willing than most Americans to grant civil liberties to unpopular groups. In light of evidence of high and growing civility by Smith (2000) and Hunter (1984), there is good reason to believe that conservative Protestants are becoming less distinctive with regard to granting civil freedoms. We update and expand previous research on conservative Protestants and civil liberties by examining the civil liberties measures in the General Social Survey over a 26‐year period, with special attention to explaining conservative Protestantism’s rejection of civil liberties. In comparison to mainline Protestants and Catholics, we find that conservative Protestants are still less willing to grant civil liberties to unpopular groups, though important qualifications apply. Various explanations are examined.

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Reginald Bibby has recently argued that polarization is the best way to describe the religious reality in Canada. There is, in his view, a stable religiously active pole, a shrinking nominally religious middle, and a growing non-religious pole. Others have documented a similar trend in other Western countries. This paper examines evidence for religious polarization in Canada using data from Bibby’s Project Canada Surveys and other sources, with special attention paid to a prominent subset of the religiously committed: conservative Protestants. Evidence of polarization is weak for Canada as a whole. Instead, the data trends are consistent with religious decline. Even the conservative Protestants are not growing, nor showing evidence of increased conservativism.

Since Niebuhr's seminal work on the social sources of denominationalism, nearly all research on the relationship between social class and religious affiliation has focused on the denominational (or individual) level of analysis. This research examines the effects of social class at the congregational level-effects that were previously glossed over by a unit of analysis that was too large. After demonstrating the relative strength of social class at the denominational and congregational level, I argue that our theoretical attempts to link class and religious affiliation must include congregational-level explanations.To date, nearly all research regarding the effects of social class on religious affiliation has focused on the denominational (and individual) level. Following Niebuhr (1929), decades of research have reconfirmed the "social sources of denominationalism" (Demerath ). Past research, however, ignores the possibility that class boundaries could be operative primarily at the congregational level. Partly because of a lack of congregational-level data, and partly because of a myopic focus on denominational differences, we have missed the considerable intradenominational class diversity that exists underneath the relatively stable surface of the denominational class hierarchy.First, I give evidence for intradenominational (and intracongregational) class diversity. Second, the data show that the effects of class are stronger at the congregational than the denominational level of analysis. Third, even though the effects of class are stronger at the congregational level, congregations are not very class-exclusive. Both congregations and denominations are relatively class-diverse, even if denominations are more so. The effects of class, then, are modest at any level.This evidence calls into question abiding explanations for the class-denomination link. Sociologists have long assumed that some combination of other-worldly/this-worldly beliefs, compensation, tension, strictness, deprivation, or separation adequately explain this link (cf. Stark and Bainbridge 1985). Intradenominational and (as noted below) intracongregational class diversity point to explanations other than those positing direct links between class and denomination. Evidently, other factors often trump or mediate the tendency of high-and low-class affiliates to prefer different denominational products. More attention will be given to these theoretical issues below. WHENCE INTRADENOMINATIONAL CLASS VARIATION?Why might class effects be stronger at the congregational than the denominational level? First, there is growing evidence that the class-denomination link may not be very strong, although it is still operative. Stark and Finke emphatically state that "[i]t is past time that we accepted the unanimous results of more than fifty years of quantitative research that show that although class does somewhat influence religious behavior, the effects are very modest, and most religious Sam Reimer is Associate Professor of Sociology at

Canada receives roughly 250,000 immigrants each year, and the government spends considerable resources on assisting them to settle and integrate into Canadian society through the agencies they support. Most of these new immigrants settle in Canada's largest cities, where churches meet specific needs that extend beyond the capacities of government agencies. In smaller centers, churches cover a wide range of services because few government supports are available. Little is known about the work of churches in Canada in spite of their importance to immigrant settlement and integration. In this study, we examine the services offered to immigrants by Canadian Christian churches. We show how the service provision of Christian churches is constrained by other organizations and groups in their environment, in ways consonant with the organizational ecology framework. Specifically, churches service the needs of immigrants by adapting to specific niche needs and by filling in gaps left by other service providers.

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The organizational niche, a fruitful concept from the organizational ecology literature, frames this study on the diverse orthodoxy of congregations within the same denomination. Congregations diversify along a conservativeto-liberal continuum, which lessens niche overlap with nearby congregations in their denomination. Pastors and priests in United Methodist and Episcopal congregations in three U.S. regions were able to locate their congregations (and other congregations in their denomination in close proximity) along this conservative-to-liberal continuum, an indication that orthodoxy distinctions were important to congregational identity. In comparison, Assemblies of God congregations showed little intradenominational diversity in orthodoxy, since sectarian boundaries narrow their niche. Theoretical and methodological implications of this intradenominational diversity are explored.

With a decisive Liberal party electoral victory in 2015, observers are now wondering if religious conservatism's role in the Canadian political landscape is waning. Using data from the Canadian Election Study (CES) from the years 2004 to 2015, we find that respondents’ attitudes toward same-sex marriage and women working outside the home have moved left on the spectrum among both the general population and more religious voters. However, this does not go hand in hand with a decline in the effect strength of religiosity on the Conservative vote, which remains significant across the five federal elections examined in this study. Conservative religious voters now make up a smaller share of the adult population, but their issue positions on sexual morals and gender roles, along with the wider conservative value orientation these issues represent, remain important in their vote choice.