Dr. Sam Reimer: Why Canadians aren’t Going to Church and What that Means for Evangelical Churches in Canada

Speaker: Sam Reimer is Professor of Sociology at Crandall University, Moncton, NB. He has published extensively on evangelicalism in Canada including the books Evangelicals and the Continental Divide: The Conservative Protestant Subculture in Canada and the United States (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2003) and with Michael Wilkinson, Professor of Sociology at Trinity Western University, A Culture of Faith: Evangelical Congregations in Canada (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2015). 

 

Location: Northwest Building,TWU

“Why Canadians aren’t Going to Church and What that Means for Evangelical Churches in Canada.”

Weekly church attendance in Canada has dropped from roughly 50% in 1960 to about 10% now. What social changes help explain this drastic decline in institutional religiosity? Has this decline affected evangelical churches too? We know that evangelical churches have shown greater vitality than mainline Protestant and Catholic churches, but there are many reasons to be concerned about the future of evangelicalism, and a few reasons for hope. I will also explain what I consider the most important religious change in the last fifty years, which partially accounts for declining institutional religiosity.

 

Location: ACTS Seminaries/Fosmark Centre, Room 130, TWU (Please bring your lunch).

“Is Canada Becoming More Religiously Polarized?”

Leading sociologist of religion Reginald Bibby has argued in his most recent book that Canada is becoming increasingly polarized religiously. There is a growing number of Canadians who reject religion, even while there is a fairly stable number of religiously committed Canadians. The gap between them seems to be growing. However, I will argue that the available evidence is more consistent with continued religious decline than with polarization.

 

All Welcome