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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.

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.

Thesis (Th. M.)--Regent College, 1987. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 142-157).

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on Feb 26, 2010). The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Dissertation advisor: Professor Mary Jo Neitz. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Th. M.)--Regent College, 1987. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 142-157).

Thesis (Th. M.)--Regent College, 1987. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 142-157).

This dissertation analyzes the role of quantification in the history of Christian mission by placing David B. Barrett’s World Christian Encyclopedia (1982) in its historical context. It argues that Barrett’s unique mixture of education, professional background, and geographical location in Africa helped him develop an understanding of world Christianity based on its newly-discovered diversity and fragmentation at the end of the British Empire. The Encyclopedia presented a comprehensive quantitative assessment of membership in all branches of the Church and helped shape contemporary understandings of world Christianity. In making explicit connections among world Christianity, mission history, and the social scientific study of religion, this dissertation sheds lights on the history of religious data in relationship to world Christianity. This study shows that Barrett was part of a long history of missionaries who produced church-based, scientific scholarship. It illustrates the ubiquity of such scholarship throughout the history of mission, demonstrated through an analysis of missionary quantification from the Jesuits to Barrett, including the Christian roots of American sociology. This analysis contends that American sociology in the 1960s—when Barrett received his Ph.D. in religion from Columbia University—was fundamentally shaped by the history of missionaries who produced social scientific research. The Encyclopedia was conceived, developed, and produced in Africa. Barrett’s location in Nairobi, Kenya, with the Church Missionary Society during the rise of African nationalism and decolonization informed his perspective on world Christianity. Much like the African Independent Churches he studied, Barrett broke off from the missionary establishment and threw his support behind “heretical” African groups. This analysis of Barrett’s experience in Kenya suggests that the growth of African Christianity was fundamental to reshaping definitions of world Christianity. This dissertation contributes to existing scholarship by historically placing the World Christian Encyclopedia in its theological, geographic, political, and social contexts. This study shows that Barrett was the first person to quantify religious adherence of all kinds and to equally represent all of world Christianity in one book. Further, the Encyclopedia indicated that a new era of world Christianity had come, and its center of gravity had moved from white Europe to black Africa.