We need young people, because without them the Catholic Church will have no future. Increases in disaffiliation are seen in different races, genders, generations and countries. Using the Pew Research Center and Forum data, and Richard Osmer’s four tasks of practical theology, this paper will study first who are the disaffiliates, nones, and deconverts and then why they left the church. The Christian Church is based on a community of faith and worship, with evangelization at its heart. Christians need to participate, and evangelize to fully live as Christians. We will review several solutions on how to attract people back into church life. In becoming ‘cultural missionaries’ we can connect with modern culture, and use contemporary approaches to make the voice of the Lord accessible and comprehensible to all people. Unless we truly welcome modern culture, the young, divorced and transgendered into all parts of the Church, we are doomed to become just an anachronistic cultural curiosity.

One-fifth the U.S. public, and over a third of young Americans under twenty-five years of age, report they are religiously unaffiliated (termed the “Nones”). Campus ministry programs, typically arranged by denomination or tradition, often neglect this group and need to be recalibrated in order to serve Nones better. Chapter Two synthesizes key findings from three prominent commercial surveys about the current religious landscape in the country, among young adults, and on campuses in general. Chapter Three reviews recent works about the larger role of religion on campus and introduces a topology of the Nones. Chapter Four outlines a series of concrete initiatives taken at one site, Simmons College, and draws some conclusions.

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Extensive literature in the social and medical sciences link religiosity to positive health outcomes. Conversely it is often assumed that secularity carries negative consequences for health; however, recent research outlining different types of secular individuals complicates this assumption. Using a national sample of American adults, we compare physical and mental health outcomes for atheists, agnostics, religiously nonaffiliated theists, and theistic members of organized religious traditions. Results indicate better physical health outcomes for atheists compared to other secular individuals and members of some religious traditions. Atheists also reported significantly lower levels of psychiatric symptoms (anxiety, paranoia, obsession, and compulsion) compared to both other seculars and members of most religious traditions. In contrast, physical and mental health were significantly worse for nonaffiliated theists compared to other seculars and religious affiliates on most outcomes. These findings highlight the necessity of distinguishing among different types of secular individuals in future research on health.

In 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in the Carter decision that the prohibitions against physician-assisted dying, as outlined in section 241(b) of the Criminal Code of Canada, were unconstitutional as they violated an individual’s s.7 rights as outlined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Though the jurisprudence of this landmark decision and subsequent amendments to Canadian law are interesting in and of themselves, what is particularly interesting about Carter is the framework within which physician-assisted dying is conceptualized. The Court shifts from a religiously informed framework for conceptualizing assisted suicide to a non-religious conceptualization of physician-assisted dying. Given that there remains much to be explored about nonreligion, this thesis asks: how is ‘nonreligion’ constructed by law in relation to physician-assisted dying in Canada? Since the Carter decision is not explicitly about religion or nonreligion the analysis in this thesis maps how the concepts life, death, and morality are reconceptualized. The analysis reveals that nonreligion is a phenomenon that is absent of the transcendent and is instead given positive content through a focus on autonomy. The conceptualization of nonreligion as presented in this thesis contributes to the literature that emphasizes that nonreligion is both positive and meaningful and not simply deficit terminology.

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This paper explores the crucial role of language in understanding the spiritual lives of young people today, commonly known as “Gen Z.” Though significant disaffiliation rates among young people often cause alarm within faith communities, this paper argues that listening carefully to the language of young people provides a more nuanced, in-depth picture that statistics on religious affiliation do not capture, which is critical in developing effective pastoral care for young adults. This paper opens with a sociocultural approach to Gen Z, drawing upon generational analysis and sociological data to demonstrate how different types of research yield varied results in their findings on young people’s spiritual lives. The exploration section is followed by a Christian perspective on finding faith in unexpected voices through exegesis of Matthew 15:21-28. This portion of the paper argues that, when we encounter people whose worldview differs from our own, language is integral to challenging and transforming our viewpoint. As a response to this matter of taking young people’s spiritual language seriously, the final part of this paper proposes a listening session for teens and their families in the context of a high school Confirmation program. Ultimately, the goal of this paper is to emphasize the rich interior lives that are already active in young people, even if on paper they may describe themselves as unaffiliated, and that the best way to become part of those ongoing spiritual journeys is through a pastoral ministry that is grounded in accompaniment and listening.

Research on the topics of atheism, agnosticism, and irreligion has been limited during much of the last century. We explain the reasons for a lack of research in this field and discuss the recent interest in this topic. The most recent wave of research has been concentrated during the past decade and tends to look at the dual issues of who composes the religiously unaffiliated and why they choose this self-identification. Recent research has begun to take a much wider and deeper view on the subject. This includes research on particular segments of the population such as atheists, as well as understanding how the religiously unaffiliated are viewed by the broader culture. We conclude by describing important directions for future research. In particular, there is a need to break out the separate forms of irreligion and use creative new methodologies to find and study this significant portion of the population.

Public apprehension about religious diversity has pervaded Canadian headlines at an increasing pace, particularly during the past fifteen years. Urban centres and suburban and rural communities alike have seen clashes over the manifestation of diverse belief systems in daily life. From immigrant ‘codes of conduct,’ a ‘charter of values,’ controversy over the wearing of the Sikh kirpan in school, to bans on religious vestments and symbols worn by public servants including teachers, conflict and socially divisive misunderstandings are often the unfortunate fruits of ignorance about the ‘other.’ Many religious actors at the center of these stories have seen their cases ultimately adjudicated in Canada’s highest court, reinforcing the perception that religious difference is a source of conflict and division in Canadian society. In this era of global conversations about how liberal democracies approach diversity, this dissertation expands the conversation on education about religion, beliefs and worldviews in Canadian classrooms. With public education situated as a primary site for constructing democratic citizenship, the question of how this evolving dynamic of diversity is taught in schools is symbolically and practically linked to broader debates about government and societal responses to pluralism. This thesis makes an original contribution to knowledge by interweaving thinking from the literature on pluralism, xenosophia and deep equality as a conceptual framework, with empirical work investigating what parents and educators thought Canadian public-school (primary and secondary) students should learn in order to best prepare them for living and thriving in a diverse society. Triangulated data gathered from semi-structured interviews with parents and educators (n=22), responses from a national online survey (n=190), and a textual analysis of secondary student manuals from Quebec’s Ethics and Religious Culture Program (n=5), provided a holistic vantage point from which to consider the central research questions. Analysis and interpretation of findings revealed that learning about diversity and difference were of central importance, however, there were fundamental concerns regarding indoctrination, rejection of majority religious privilege and even-handedness in the presentation of religious and nonreligious belief systems. Existing discourse on religious and worldview literacy education in Canada tends to focus on teaching and learning in the context of a discrete curriculum such as the Ethics and Religious Culture program. However, findings from this research suggest that increased public awareness about the religious entanglements of colonization, combined with the significant rise in the number of Canadians who hold non-religious worldviews, contribute to a rethinking of how such literacy endeavours may be better integrated into other subject areas such as civics, citizenship, history or social studies.