In 2002, Reginald Bibby surprisingly asserted that a renaissance of religion is, or soon will be taking place in Canada. However, the assertion clashes with the dominant belief based largely on Bibby’s accumulated data about Canadians’ religious beliefs and practices, that Canada is becoming an increasingly secularized society. Based on forty-two in-depth interviews, this dissertation tests the “renaissance thesis” and improves our grasp of how Canadians subjectively understand their religious involvements by comparing the views of active religious affiliates (those who identify with a religious group and attend religious services nearly every week) and marginal religious affiliates (those who identify with a religious group and attend religious services primarily on Christmas or Easter, or for rites of passage such as weddings and funerals). What explains their higher and lower levels of religious involvement, what is the likelihood that marginal affiliates could eventually become active affiliates, and how does this understanding help us to assess the degree of religiosity or secularity in Canada? I argue that active and marginal affiliates are distinct mainly because of their different experiences with the supernatural or their local congregation, and the social influences that either encourage or discourage involvement in a religious group. These conclusions emerge from a close examination and testing of fundamental principles in Rational Choice Theory, a theory currently popular in the sociology of religion and in Bibby’s ongoing analysis of religion in Canada. Contrary to Bibby’s prediction, there is little reason to believe that marginal affiliates will eventually become active affiliates, regardless of changes to the supply of religion in Canada. In general, marginal affiliates appear content with their current levels of religiosity. As a result, I think it is likely that we will witness continued secularization at the individual level in Canada, which if proven correct, could strain Canada’s civic fabric in the future.

According to Census Canada, after eight decades of consistent growth Canadian Pentecostal affiliation reached an all-time high of 436,435 individuals in 1991. A decade later, the results of the 2001 Canadian census revealed that Pentecostalism underwent a precipitous 15.3 percent, or 66,969 affiliate, decline—the first in Canadian Pentecostal history. Scholars of religion assumed that this decline in affiliation represented an actual decrease in the number of Canadian Pentecostal adherents. Drawing on 42 personal interviews, 158 survey responses, content analysis of material culture, and one year of participant observation within three Canadian Pentecostal congregations located in the Regional Municipality of Waterloo, I provide an alternative interpretation of the decrease in Canadian Pentecostal affiliation that pays closer attention to both the data contained in the census as well as important changes in religious culture that have occurred at the congregational level. I demonstrate how the decrease in Canadian Pentecostal affiliation recorded by Census Canada does not alone provide adequate evidence to claim that Pentecostal adherents abandoned their congregations at a rate of more than 15 percent in the decade between 1991 and 2001. Instead, I argue that this decrease in affiliation can be explained by the fact that Canadian Pentecostals have experienced a transformation of religious identity, belief, and practice from traditionally Pentecostal to generically evangelical categories significant enough to be detected by the census. When asked, for instance, to describe their religious affiliation, 86 percent of interview participants in this study chose a generically evangelical or Christian moniker rather than the term “Pentecostal.” This means that just 14 percent of interview participants would have been recorded as Pentecostal if they answered in a similar way on the census instrument. The significant proportion of the participants in this study that did not identify, believe, or behave the way that Canadian Pentecostals did just a few decades earlier, I believe, helps explain the dramatic, if misleading, 2001 census results.

This thesis examines how Muslims in Canada negotiate perceptions in their interactions with non-Muslims and other Muslims. What strategies do Muslims in Canada use to combat these perceptions? How do perceptions of Islam and Muslims impact Muslims’ constructions of identities? In order to answer these questions a case study was conducted in St. John’s, Newfoundland. Interviews with Muslims living in St. John’s explored how they respond to perceptions of Islam and how they negotiate their identities in everyday life. This study found that perceptions of Islam and Muslims played an important role in the construction of Muslims’ identities despite the low incidence of Islamophobia. Perceptions of Islam and Muslims often led to an increase in knowledge of Islam, an increase in affiliation with their Muslim identities and increase in religiosity. However, an alternative impact was a distancing from Islam. Participants used numerous strategies to combat negative perceptions of Islam and Muslims including taking up an educator role and becoming representative. Further, many participants separated culture and religion, creating a ‘true’ Islam and contributing to islamophilia. However, other participants challenged philic and phobic accounts of Islam by voicing their lived practices and presenting multiple and dynamic Islams.

In 2002, Reginald Bibby surprisingly asserted that a renaissance of religion is, or soon will be taking place in Canada. However, the assertion clashes with the dominant belief based largely on Bibby’s accumulated data about Canadians’ religious beliefs and practices, that Canada is becoming an increasingly secularized society. Based on forty-two in-depth interviews, this dissertation tests the “renaissance thesis” and improves our grasp of how Canadians subjectively understand their religious involvements by comparing the views of active religious affiliates (those who identify with a religious group and attend religious services nearly every week) and marginal religious affiliates (those who identify with a religious group and attend religious services primarily on Christmas or Easter, or for rites of passage such as weddings and funerals). What explains their higher and lower levels of religious involvement, what is the likelihood that marginal affiliates could eventually become active affiliates, and how does this understanding help us to assess the degree of religiosity or secularity in Canada? I argue that active and marginal affiliates are distinct mainly because of their different experiences with the supernatural or their local congregation, and the social influences that either encourage or discourage involvement in a religious group. These conclusions emerge from a close examination and testing of fundamental principles in Rational Choice Theory, a theory currently popular in the sociology of religion and in Bibby’s ongoing analysis of religion in Canada. Contrary to Bibby’s prediction, there is little reason to believe that marginal affiliates will eventually become active affiliates, regardless of changes to the supply of religion in Canada. In general, marginal affiliates appear content with their current levels of religiosity. As a result, I think it is likely that we will witness continued secularization at the individual level in Canada, which if proven correct, could strain Canada’s civic fabric in the future.

According to Census Canada, after eight decades of consistent growth Canadian Pentecostal affiliation reached an all-time high of 436,435 individuals in 1991. A decade later, the results of the 2001 Canadian census revealed that Pentecostalism underwent a precipitous 15.3 percent, or 66,969 affiliate, decline—the first in Canadian Pentecostal history. Scholars of religion assumed that this decline in affiliation represented an actual decrease in the number of Canadian Pentecostal adherents. Drawing on 42 personal interviews, 158 survey responses, content analysis of material culture, and one year of participant observation within three Canadian Pentecostal congregations located in the Regional Municipality of Waterloo, I provide an alternative interpretation of the decrease in Canadian Pentecostal affiliation that pays closer attention to both the data contained in the census as well as important changes in religious culture that have occurred at the congregational level. I demonstrate how the decrease in Canadian Pentecostal affiliation recorded by Census Canada does not alone provide adequate evidence to claim that Pentecostal adherents abandoned their congregations at a rate of more than 15 percent in the decade between 1991 and 2001. Instead, I argue that this decrease in affiliation can be explained by the fact that Canadian Pentecostals have experienced a transformation of religious identity, belief, and practice from traditionally Pentecostal to generically evangelical categories significant enough to be detected by the census. When asked, for instance, to describe their religious affiliation, 86 percent of interview participants in this study chose a generically evangelical or Christian moniker rather than the term “Pentecostal.” This means that just 14 percent of interview participants would have been recorded as Pentecostal if they answered in a similar way on the census instrument. The significant proportion of the participants in this study that did not identify, believe, or behave the way that Canadian Pentecostals did just a few decades earlier, I believe, helps explain the dramatic, if misleading, 2001 census results.

This thesis examines how Muslims in Canada negotiate perceptions in their interactions with non-Muslims and other Muslims. What strategies do Muslims in Canada use to combat these perceptions? How do perceptions of Islam and Muslims impact Muslims’ constructions of identities? In order to answer these questions a case study was conducted in St. John’s, Newfoundland. Interviews with Muslims living in St. John’s explored how they respond to perceptions of Islam and how they negotiate their identities in everyday life. This study found that perceptions of Islam and Muslims played an important role in the construction of Muslims’ identities despite the low incidence of Islamophobia. Perceptions of Islam and Muslims often led to an increase in knowledge of Islam, an increase in affiliation with their Muslim identities and increase in religiosity. However, an alternative impact was a distancing from Islam. Participants used numerous strategies to combat negative perceptions of Islam and Muslims including taking up an educator role and becoming representative. Further, many participants separated culture and religion, creating a ‘true’ Islam and contributing to islamophilia. However, other participants challenged philic and phobic accounts of Islam by voicing their lived practices and presenting multiple and dynamic Islams.

This thesis compares and contrasts the historiography of Quebec and Flanders during the first half of the twentieth century. The main argument is that the philosophy of neo-Thomism was influential to the conceptualization and writing of history by prominent nationalist historians in both Quebec and Flanders during the period leading up to the Second World War. By extensively comparing the life and works of prominent nationalist historians that played an active role in the nationalist movements of Quebec and Flanders, it has been found that the Catholic University of Leuven was influential in the development of nationalist historiography in Quebec and Flanders during the first decades of the twentieth century. In this sense, this thesis argues that the nationalist historians of Quebec and Flanders be considered as part of a shared historiographical tradition that was influenced by the neo- Thomist philosophy which played an essential role at the Catholic University of Leuven during this period, and which can be traced back in the writings and practices of nationalist historians in both Quebec and Flanders. Out of this shared influence of the neo-Thomist philosophy then, this thesis argues for a reevaluation of the traditional portrayal of nationalist historiography in the first half of the twentieth century, and a reconsideration of the influence neo-Thomism has had on the conceptualization of nationalist history in Quebec and Flanders. It is argued that the nationalist historians of both Quebec and Flanders have traditionally been characterized as unscientific due to their convergence of science and politics, and portrayed the nation as deterministic, meaning that the nation's essence and development was unaffected by the historical circumstances. By analysing the historical works of nationalist historians that either attended the Catholic University of Leuven, or were part of a network that was influenced by the writings of the neo-Thomists that taught at Leuven, this thesis will make three general arguments that will nuance this traditional portrayal of nationalist historiography during the first half of the twentieth century. First, it will be argued that the neo-Thomist emphasis on the interdependence of essential and existential characteristics nuances the essentialist portrayal of the nation. Using the case of neo- Thomist chemistry as a counterexample, it will be shown how nationalist historians in Quebec and Flanders ascribed an important role to the existentiality and historicity of the nation, and as such, compels us to reconsider the essentialist paradigm of nationalist historiography. Secondly, the neo- Thomist notion of science which legitimated the convergence of subjectivity and objectivity sheds new light on the practice and theory of what constituted scientific history in the first half of the twentieth century. Moreover, it will be argued that Quebec and Flanders shared a similar theoretical concept of what constituted scientific history, but represented their historical works differently due to the differentiating political and academic context. Finally, the thesis will highlight how the notions of ambiguity and human freedom, which figured prominently in neo-Thomism, influenced the notion of teleology in Quebec and Flemish nationalist historiography, as is illustrated by the notion of coincidence in Flemish, and providence in Quebec historiography. In addition, using the cases of nationalist historians Lionel Groulx and Hendrik Elias, it will be argued that the different political contexts influenced the political actions of the two nationalist historians, which helps to shed new light on the motives of Flemish nationalist historians to collaborate during the Second World War. By comparing and contrasting the two cases then, this thesis is able to show how the neo- Thomist framework and crucial concepts were not only instrumental to the nationalist historiographies in Quebec and Flanders, but were also malleable to differing historical contexts, and, as such, provides new insight in the intricate relationship between religion, nationalism and historiography that underpinned nationalist historiography in Quebec and Flanders during the first half of the twentieth century.

“Out of Sight, Out of Mind: The Role of the Body in Canada’s Multicultural Religious Identity” examines the role of the body in contemporary conflicts of religious dress in public spaces in Canada. Utilizing policies, policy proposals, and legal precedents that regulate the religious body, I argue the physical religious body resides in a liminal space between the inclusive ideals of multicultural policy and the exclusionary policies of an overtly secular public sphere. Particular definitions of secularism and liberalism shape the construction of public life and civic spaces, and these specific understandings produce public space that is seemingly inhospitable to certain embodied religious expressions. The religious body complicates the assumed separation of religion and state, which understands religion to be an element of private, not public life. I argue that policies which seek to limit the religious body in public or civic spaces work to create an “ideal” secular citizen. / October 2015

This dissertation investigates the development of progressive Christianity. It explores the ways in which progressive Christian churches in Canada adopt biblical criticism and popular theology. Contributing to the anthropology of Christianity, this study is primarily an ethnographic and linguistic analysis that juxtaposes contemporary conflicts over notions of the Christian self into the intersecting contexts of public discourse, contending notions of the secular and congregational dynamics. Methodologically, it is based upon two-and-a-half years of in-depth participant observation research at five churches and distinguishes itself as the first scholarly study of progressive Christianity in North America. I begin this study by outlining the historical context of skepticism in Canadian Protestantism and arguing that skepticism and doubt serve as profoundly religious experiences, which provide a fuller framework than secularization in understanding the experiences of Canadian Protestants in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In doing so, I draw parallels between the ways that historical and contemporary North American Christians negotiate the tensions between their faith and biblical criticism, scientific empiricism and liberal morality. Chapter Two seeks to describe the religious, cultural and socio-economic worlds inhabited by the progressive Christians featured in this study. It focuses on the worldviews that emerge out of participation in what are primarily white, middle-class, liberal communities and considers how these identity-markers affect the development and lived experiences of progressive Christians. My next three chapters explore the ways that certain engagements with text and the performance or ritualization of language enable the development of a distinctly progressive Christian modality. Chapter Three investigates progressive Christian textual ideologies and argues that the form of biblical criticism that they employ, along with entrenched concerns about the origins of the Christian faith ultimately, leads to a rejection of the biblical narrative. Chapter Four examines the ways in which progressive Christians understand individual 'deconversion' narratives as contributing to a shared experience or way of being Christian that purposefully departs from evangelical Christianity. The final chapter analyses rhetoric of the future and argues that progressive Christians employ eschatological language that directs progressive Christians towards an ultimate dissolution.

This dissertation investigates the development of progressive Christianity. It explores the ways in which progressive Christian churches in Canada adopt biblical criticism and popular theology. Contributing to the anthropology of Christianity, this study is primarily an ethnographic and linguistic analysis that juxtaposes contemporary conflicts over notions of the Christian self into the intersecting contexts of public discourse, contending notions of the secular and congregational dynamics. Methodologically, it is based upon two-and-a-half years of in-depth participant observation research at five churches and distinguishes itself as the first scholarly study of progressive Christianity in North America. I begin this study by outlining the historical context of skepticism in Canadian Protestantism and arguing that skepticism and doubt serve as profoundly religious experiences, which provide a fuller framework than secularization in understanding the experiences of Canadian Protestants in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In doing so, I draw parallels between the ways that historical and contemporary North American Christians negotiate the tensions between their faith and biblical criticism, scientific empiricism and liberal morality. Chapter Two seeks to describe the religious, cultural and socio-economic worlds inhabited by the progressive Christians featured in this study. It focuses on the worldviews that emerge out of participation in what are primarily white, middle-class, liberal communities and considers how these identity-markers affect the development and lived experiences of progressive Christians. My next three chapters explore the ways that certain engagements with text and the performance or ritualization of language enable the development of a distinctly progressive Christian modality. Chapter Three investigates progressive Christian textual ideologies and argues that the form of biblical criticism that they employ, along with entrenched concerns about the origins of the Christian faith ultimately, leads to a rejection of the biblical narrative. Chapter Four examines the ways in which progressive Christians understand individual 'deconversion' narratives as contributing to a shared experience or way of being Christian that purposefully departs from evangelical Christianity. The final chapter analyses rhetoric of the future and argues that progressive Christians employ eschatological language that directs progressive Christians towards an ultimate dissolution.