In Search of the Spiritual

According to a new poll, Canadians are not losing their faith but are becoming believers who are more likely to follow their own script than Scripture.

by Susan Catto

On a cool autumn night in the basement of a Toronto pub, 40 young people sit eating lasagna and sipping pints of beer. Hunger sated, they look to the front of the room, where Andrew Williams, 39, a marketing director at KPMG, is about to appeal to their less earthly appetites. Williams runs Spirituality on Tap, an 11-week introduction to Christianity with a decidedly informal, non-judgmental stance.

… a vast majority of Canadians place a high priority on spirituality, even as significant numbers express little commitment to organized religion.

He and several friends started the program two years ago, when they recognized an eagerness for spiritual discussion among their peers. But why the pub setting? "It's uncomfortable for a lot of people to walk into a church," explains Williams. "They've grown up within certain religious traditions and been hurt by those experiences, so they don't want to go back." He warms up the crowd with a few jokes, then gives a meandering, light-hearted presentation—not a sermon—with a few low-key references to God and Scripture. Finally the group breaks into sections to discuss questions: What are our basic spiritual needs? How can we pursue truth? Adam Scott, a second-year English student at the University of Toronto, explains that his own beliefs hover between his mother's Christianity and his father's atheism. "This is the first time I'm really exploring my spirituality," says Scott. "I'm interested in discussing the issues." Then he grins. "I came for the free food, actually."

Welcome to the new church. Religion in Canada is finding a home in unlikely places, whether it's a pub, a New Age retreat on British Columbia's Bowen Island, the room set aside for Muslim prayers at the University of Manitoba or a rocky stretch of Newfoundland coastline where a lone walker admires the crashing waves.

One thing is for certain: religion and spirituality have set up camp in the most prosaic and unexpected places. Canada is no longer a nation of churchgoers. Attendance at religious institutions—the old-fashioned kind, with altars and steeples—is in decline, even as many organizations launch outreach efforts to win back former members. Yet, as a major new VisionTV/Time poll suggests, we are still a nation of believers, but believers who are more likely to follow our own script than to follow Scripture.

The VisionTV Annual Survey on Faith and Spirituality, a national poll commissioned in conjunction with Time Canada and conducted last summer and fall by Environics Research Group, suggests that a vast majority of Canadians place a high priority on spirituality, even as significant numbers express little commitment to organized religion.

Six in ten believe in heaven and hell …

Faith is strong in Canada: 81 percent of Canadians strongly (66 percent) or somewhat (15 percent) agree that they believe in God, a figure that peaks at 92 percent in Saskatchewan but drops to 75 percent in B.C. Seven out of ten consider prayer to be very (44 percent) or somewhat (25 percent) important. Six in ten believe in heaven and hell, and a similar number think that children in the public school system don't get enough religious or spiritual teachings. It's evidence, if evidence was needed, that Canadians are not a godless people. Yet when asked about the importance of belonging to a religious group, only five in ten said it was very (29 percent) or somewhat (19 percent) important. (In Quebec, just four out of ten agreed.) Young Canadians were even less likely to ascribe value to religious membership: 65 percent of 18-to-24-year-olds and 62 percent of 25-to-34-year-olds said it was not very important or not important at all.
The findings won't surprise traditional religious institutions. The issue is not a lack of religious affiliation. In the 2001 census, 43.2 percent of Canadians identified themselves as Roman Catholic, 9.6 percent identified with the United Church, 6.9 percent with the Anglicans, and so on, right down to the 0.1 percent who claimed aboriginal spirituality, Hutterite or pagan identification. Some faiths showed powerful gains. The number of people claiming affiliation with the Muslim faith increased nearly 130 percent from 1991 to 2001; the number of Hindu and Sikh adherents increased nearly 90 percent each. The census, however, measured not religious observance but religious affiliation, which explains the gap between the census figures and the actual number of people showing up for services. "We have about 5,200 members that we know of, but in the last census 18,000 people identified themselves as Unitarian," says Elizabeth Bowen, president of the Canadian Unitarian Council, a Toronto-based group representing 44 congregations across Canada. While pleased, Bowen says, "we were a bit surprised."
Church attendance has been in decline for decades. In 1955, 58 percent of the population attended religious services each week. In 2001, according to Statistics Canada's General Social Survey, only 20 percent of Canadians age 15 and older did so. Not every religious institution is suffering. Islamic mosques and Buddhist temples have seen an increase in membership, and church attendance is still relatively high among older Canadians and in many prairie and maritime communities. But in small towns and large cities across the nation, once strong congregations are flagging.

The shift from a religious society to a secular one is particularly visible in Quebec. The province's religious institutions have never recovered from the Quiet Revolution, when the Catholic Church's stranglehold on Quebec politics and social affairs was broken. The archdiocese of Montreal has sold a dozen churches in Montreal it no longer needs, and two more are for sale. "I think the Catholic Church is still in purgatory in Quebec," says Gilles Routhier, vice dean of the faculty of theology at Université Laval in Quebec City. "After we turned on Catholicism, we didn't reinvest in other spiritual or religious roads." Glenn Smith, a Protestant chaplain and lecturer and executive director of the Montreal-based urban ministry Christian Direction, agrees. "There's a massive rejection of institutional faith," he says. "I don't think people will return." Materialism, secularism, even Quebec nationalism, according to Routhier, have emerged as attractions instead. "Everybody's out to convert my daughters to something, even if it's McDonald's," says Smith.

" At 47, I'm the happiest I've ever been in my life, and I think it's the result of religion and finding God's message … "
There are exceptions, of course. Monique Dion entered the world as the child of non-practicing Catholics and says she plans to leave it as a devout Pentecostal Protestant. "At 47, I'm the happiest I've ever been in my life, and I think it's the result of religion and finding God's message," says the resident of Longueuil, across the St. Lawrence River from Montreal. Following her sister's conversion, Dion became a Christian at age 30. What drew her to the church was its emphasis on charitable work. "Spirituality has to live, not just be an intellectual theory," she says.

Rabbi Leigh Lerner, who leads the Temple Emanu-El–Beth Sholom, a Reform congregation in Montreal, echoes that sentiment. Religiosity may not be increasing, he says, but spirituality is. "I think people are somewhat more experimental than they have been in the past," Lerner observes. He has noticed more interest in his synagogue's healing circle, a group that prays for members with medical problems. "I think ten years ago, people would have said, 'A healing what?'" says Lerner.
Why have so many of those born into a particular faith dropped out? There are a host of reasons—busier lives, a more materialistic society, media that make light of religious values. Some speak of institutions that, rightly or wrongly, they associate with hurt or hypocrisy. "I guess I've always thought of organized religion as What hat do I wear to church? Do I look good? How much money do I give? That kind of thing. I found it very artificial," says Sandra Zaharchuk, 43, a Toronto resident who turned away from her Greek Orthodox faith in her early 20s when her mother died. Others—especially divorced Catholics, people with interfaith marriages and gay Canadians—say it's the church that rejected them, not the other way around. Stuart Swing, 31, grew up attending a Brethren in Christ church near his family's farm in Hagersville, Ont. The Mennonite-influenced church was "very legalistic about not playing cards, not smoking, not chewing tobacco, not going with girls or boys who do," says Swing. When he realized he was gay, a teenage Swing tried to suppress his sexuality. "At 26, I finally realized [becoming heterosexual] wasn't going to happen and I was maybe praying the wrong prayer,' Swing says. He left the church. Today his faith includes elements of yoga, Hinduism, Buddhism and the spiritual teachings of guides as diverse as motivational coach Anthony Robbins and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Swing is not alone in his search for meaning outside the church. For many Canadians, spirituality—often defined as one's personal relationship with a higher being—has become separate from and frequently preferable to religion. In the VisionTV/Time poll, nearly eight out of ten Canadians said that having an inner spiritual life was very (51 percent) or somewhat (26 percent) important. Seven in ten Canadians strongly (26 percent) or somewhat (44 percent) thought that new forms of spirituality are replacing traditional organized religions.

But what are these new forms of spirituality? We're not just talking about crystals, mantras and New Age mumbo jumbo. True, there's plenty of demand in Canada for books and seminars on spiritual strategies, but the typical quest for spirituality seems to be more personal and varied. VisionTV/Time poll participants were asked whether they used certain activities—for example, volunteering, parenting or appreciating art—to explore their spiritual side. Ninety percent agreed that doing good deeds had a spiritual element; 85 percent explored their spirituality through relating with friends, 84 percent through experiencing nature and 77 percent each through listening to music and reading books. (More traditional religious activities scored high too: 68 percent cited taking part in traditions, rituals and celebrations; 66 percent used prayer to nourish their spiritual side; and 52 percent read religious texts.)
" It's a counterfeit spirituality … It's do-it-yourself, self-salvation, self-esteem, self-healing—quite frankly, it's self-deification."
In other words, many Canadians are finding their spiritual fulfillment in everyday secular pursuits. Halifax resident Darren Howse, 31, grew up in the United Church, but today he looks to art and beauty to fulfill his spiritual side. "I had Jesus posters on my wall when I was ten," Howse recalls. "I used to speak in church and everything." Now, he says, a painting, a cathedral—or even a gorgeous woman—puts him in touch with his spiritual side. "If I can be inspired by something and awed by something, that's going to make me more than happy," he says.

In the Methodist teachings of Timothy Finley's childhood, he says, "even God's love had to be earned. I've been doing my best to live that down." Today Finley, 50, leads spiritual workshops, writes books, makes jewellery and runs Flight of the Eagle Shamanic Resources in Fredericton, N.B. "We have the power at any given moment to choose new beliefs, new interpretations of the world around us," Finley says. "I've come to recognize myself as a spiritual being having a physical experience and not the other way around." His brand of spirituality can't be labelled, says Finley. But, he continues, "if there's a ritual that I experience in my life that really, truly works, it's singing the Smurf song," a reference to the theme of the popular 1980s television cartoon. "Is it possible to sing the Smurf song without a smile on your face?"

When singing the Smurf song is seriously advanced as a spiritual experience, it's worth wondering whether the whole practice of religion has become so debased that it's lost any core meaning. "It's a counterfeit spirituality," says Barry Whitney, professor of philosophy of religion and Christian apologetics at the University of Windsor. "It's too good to be true. It's do-it-yourself, self-salvation, self-esteem, self-healing—quite frankly, it's self-deification."
Whitney considers much New Age philosophy to be an offshoot of traditional Eastern mysticism. "What Christians who dabble in this don't seem to realize is that it contradicts every major Christian belief, from God to Christ, salvation, the meaning of humanity, prayer," says Whitney. "It's basically a religious warfare, although it may not look like that. Christianity is slowly being overtaken by this lack of awareness." At the same time, leaders of traditional faiths recognize that they've got to offer something new. "The churches have to recover their spiritual core or go out of business," says Donald Grayson, an Anglican priest and director of the Institute for the Humanities at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C. "Nowadays if people come to a church and don't find something they identify as spiritual, they'll go elsewhere, because there's very little institutional loyalty left."

So in a quest to retain their members, religious groups across Canada are looking for ways to incorporate more spirituality into their services. They're fighting what Rabbi Lerner calls the "privatization" of spiritual experience. "We need to help [people] realize that it's really in community that you find the face of God," says Lerner. Churches are also reaching out to people who have turned their back on organized religion, acknowledging the negative feelings many people harbour toward it. While Spirituality on Tap appears like a novelty, it is, in fact, becoming the norm. It's an offshoot of the Alpha Course, an international program offered at 2,500 churches of many denominations across Canada. More than 500,000 Canadians have taken part in the program, in which participants gather for a meal and a low-key discussion of faith. Skeptics and lapsed Christians are not only welcome but actively catered to: the first talk in the course is titled "Christianity: Boring, Untrue and Irrelevant?"

The Meeting House, a "church for people who aren't into church" … holds its gatherings in movie theaters and shopping malls.

The Alpha Course is a national manifestation of a local trend: an attempt to make group worship less daunting and more relevant to people's lives. Partners in the Marketplace, a Montreal-based network of about 250 businesspeople and civil servants, engage in weekly small-group Bible study. On B.C.'s Quadra Island, the local Christian chapel incorporates native traditions into services. The Meeting House, a "church for people who aren't into church," based in Oakville, Ont., holds its gatherings in movie theatres and shopping malls. In Toronto, Sister Elaine MacInnes, a Catholic nun from Moncton, N.B., who trained in Japan to become a Zen Roshi (master), teaches Buddhist meditation and trains disciples of all faiths to bring meditation techniques into prisons around the world. At St. Paul's United Church in Orillia, Ont., the Rev. Paul Browning runs an alternative service every other Sunday afternoon, holding it in the banquet hall, not the sanctuary. There's no dress code and no indoctrination, says Browning, adding, "We often say, 'Bring your faith, but leave your religion at the door.'" The philosophy has spread to the more traditional Sunday-morning service. "We've doubled our upstairs congregation from 250 to 500 people, just by taking away from religion that awful 'my way or the highway' judgmental exclusivism," says Browning.

Evangelical churches are moving in the same direction. Aileen Van Ginkel, director of Ministry Partnerships at the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, says that services now have more of an emphasis on prayer and experiencing community. She considers the separation of spirituality and religion a false distinction. "Evangelicals are trying to find a way to bring the two together, to help people see that religion is not just a bad word for something that's associated with hypocrisy or empty ritual."

Do all these concessions—the alternative services, the pop music, the relentless emphasis on spirituality—represent another threat to faith in Canada? The majority of Canadians don't think so. The VisionTV/Time poll found that more than 84 percent of Canadians agree that all religions have elements in truth, and three-quarters believe that Canada's religious diversity is a source of strength for religious beliefs. If anything, the very diversity of religious experience in Canada may be increasing our tendency to explore faith. Six out of ten Canadians say they are interested in learning more about religion and spiritual matters.
That could yet mean a renewal rather than a decline for organized religion. "That there is as much searching going on as there is, is a very healthy thing," says Suzanne Scorzone, communications director of the Catholic archdiocese of Toronto. "Genuine spirituality will call you to love others and live for others and to live for God as you see Him, and will not stop with easy nostrums to do whatever feels good at the time." Though some will be content with "spirituality lite," suggests Scorzone, others will discover that they want a more substantial experience. "What they find will lead them on a further journey."
That rings true for Sandra Zaharchuk, the former Greek Orthodox member. "In a way, it made me go back to accepting God," says Zaharchuk of her explorations, which have encompassed yoga, travel and guidance from popular spiritual writers. "It made me go back to accepting and understanding that there was a purpose to everything in my life. "Will this journey eventually lead her back to the pew? Perhaps it will; maybe it won't. But for Zaharchuk and many Canadians like her, that's now hardly the point.

Doubts must be addressed, not silenced.

Back at the Toronto pub, Williams looks pleased with another session of Spirituality on Tap. It's the fourth week of the course, and the focus shifts from a general discussion of world religions to a more specific endorsement of Christianity. Williams knows he could lose some hearts and minds tonight. He encourages non-believers and Christians to raise their doubts about doctrine, church policy, even the existence of God. "We think this"—Christianity—"is the best place to start," he explains later. But like most ministers today, Williams isn't preaching to the converted anymore. Doubts must be addressed, not silenced. "If you're not going to talk about the questions," says Williams, "they're not interested in hearing your answer." In a skeptical age, religion can't be taken on faith.

Susan Catto is a Contributing Editor at TIME Canada .
Originally published in Time Magazine , November 24, 2003, with reporting by Linda Gyulai/Montreal, Deborah Jones/Vancouver and Chris Lambie/Halifax
timecanada.com/
Used with permission of the author. Copyright © 2003 Christianity.ca.