Changing Patterns of Attendance at Religious Services in Canada, 1986-2008

Abstract

According to the General Social Survey, the combined rate of weekly and monthly attendance at religious services in Canada has declined by about 20 points from 1986 to 2008. Approximately half of this decline stems from the increase in the proportion of people reporting no religion, who, for the most part, do not attend religious services. The other portion of this decline is attributable to eroding attendance rates among Catholics, particularly older Catholics, and Protestants in Québec. Attendance rates for Protestants outside of Québec show signs of increase. The reported increase in weekly attendance in Canada by the Project Canada surveys and cited by Bibby as a possible indicator of a religious renaissance is revealed as an artifact in the data due to an oversample of Protestants. I find another weighting problem in the Canadian Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating that leads to underestimates of aggregate religious attendance rates.

Continuing the Conversation on Canada: Changing Patterns of Religious Service Attendance

“…Eagle (2011:192) maintains that the Project Canada samples have included “an inordinate number of Protestants”—a strong statement given how closely the PCS figures match the census figures. He could be right.…”

“…In his Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion article earlier this year, David Eagle (2011) provided an important contribution to an understanding of religion in Canada by examining attendance patterns since the mid‐1980s. Such clarification is valuable not only to those who are studying religion in Canada, but to those who see Canada as something of a case study that potentially offers insights into religious developments in other settings, including the United States and Europe.…”

Cross-National Trends in Religious Service Attendance: Table 1.

“…Using 1985 to 2004 Canadian General Social Survey (CGSS) data, Clark and Schellenberg (2006) found that the percentage of weekly attenders declined from 41 to 31 percent and non-attenders increased from 31 to 43 percent. Eagle (2011) While each of these studies focuses primarily on Canada, others put Canadian attendance in a cross-cultural context. Reimer (1995) compared Canadian and American attendance using the 1983 WVS, 1988 AGSS, and 1990 PCS data sets.…”

Emerging Churches in Post-Christian Canada

“…They leave traditional forms of the church, but have not left behind their faith and the church as such. 9 The ambivalent middle refers to people who are neither religiously active nor opposed to religious involvement. They are people interested in spirituality, but not necessarily church.…”

“…They all agree that religious participation among Canadians is in decline and the only categories that show any meaningful growth are non-attendance and no religious affiliation. See [7][8][9][10][11]. 7 Eagle believes this transition reflects the process of secularization.…”