Canadians are losing faith

Ted Byfield, editor-in-chief of the feisty an ultra-conservative Alberta Report newsmagazine, wrote an interesting article where he shows through a recent Canadian poll, Canadians are loosing their faith.

Ted’s summarizes that from other possibilities Canadians are loosing their faith because they’ve always been protected by some empire; in the 1600-1700s by the French, 1700-1900s by the British and now by their neighbors, the American Empire. This constant protection makes them “Spoiled brats” according to Ted.

I don’t think Ted’s hypothesis is very far from the truth. I would never call them spoiled brats. However I think this supports the even greater concept that faith is fueled by fear. The US’s recent political direction of fear and rhetoric has fueled an incredible faith based interest.

It is a vicious cycle faith. It grows with fear and ignorance, teaches intolerance while suppresses rational thinking; all that in turn causes conflict, death and suffering which makes people scared. This is obvious by anyone with a simple understanding of history.

Source: http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/Columnists/Byfield_Ted/2006/04/22/1546173.html

Canadians are losing faith

Ted Byfield | editor-in-chief of the feisty an ultra-conservative Alberta Report newsmagazine | 04.23.2006

Immediately before Easter, Ipsos Reid pollsters queried 814 adult Canadians and 768 adult Americans on their religious beliefs.

The results, published last week, confirm something that is becoming increasingly evident, both culturally and politically. The U.S. is a far more Christian country than Canada.

To the assertion, "I have committed my life to Christ and consider myself to be a converted Christian," 41% of Canadians answered yes, against 60% of Americans.

To the assertion, "I feel it very important to encourage non-Christians to become Christian," 25% of Canadians answered yes against 46% of Americans.

To the assertion, "The world will end in the Battle of Armageddon between Jesus and the antichrist," 20% of Canadians answered yes against 46% of Americans.

Answering the question, "Would you say that you have ever had 'a religious mystical experience,' that is, a moment of sudden religious insight and awakening?" 29% of Canadians answered yes against 47% of Americans.

On this point, incidentally, regional differences were greater in Canada than in the U.S.

The American response varied from 53% yes in the Midwest and 51% yes in the South down to 34% in the Northeast.

Canadian response ran from 45% yes in the prairies to 19% in Quebec.

The seeming abandonment of Christianity in Quebec over the last 50 years has somewhat distorted the Canadian decline percentages, according to Reginald Bibby, University of Lethbridge sociologist and foremost authority on Canadian religious trends.

Quebec church attendance in the '50s ran as high as 80% and now stands at less than 15% in some surveys.

The Canadian average, meanwhile fell from 45% to about 20%, rising to 25% since 2000.

But Gallup polls, he notes, show little change in U.S. church attendance percentages over that half-century, which remain in the range of 45%.

Bibby has published little by way of explanation for the difference between these two countries, whose cultures in other respects are much the same.

Having lived throughout this 50-year period, however, I have developed two explanations of my own.

First, there's the "Spoiled Brat Syndrome." Throughout its entire history, Canada has belonged to some kind of empire.

For its first 150 years or so (1608-1763), it was part of the French Empire. For the next 180 years or thereabouts (1763-c.1945), it was part of the British Empire.

For the last 60 years it has been part of the American empire.

Always we have been protected. The French protected us from the British. The British protected us first from the Americans, later from German and Japanese aggression, and later still against the Soviet slave state.

In our first two imperial roles, we were naturally asked to help our mother country on occasion, and in the 20th century we responded nobly in two world wars.

In support of American resistance to Soviet aggression, however, we gradually contributed less and less. Instead, we increasingly assumed the role of critic, offering gratuitous observations on what the Americans were doing wrong and how they might improve their performance, and even making occasional overtures towards dubious entities like Cuba.

So, Explanation No. 1 is people who must stand on their own feet soon learn to rely on God. Spoiled brats can be bravely agnostic.

Explanation No. 2 is based on the "Respect for Authority Syndrome"

We probably also derived this trait from our inherently colonial status.

Americans are instantly suspicious of authority in whatever form (government, academe, "expert opinion," the Supreme Court, the media), while Canada positively craves authority.

That's why Americans are often prepared to settle controversial issues by referendum, vesting the ultimate power to decide in the general populace.

In Canada we deeply distrust "the mob." We prefer to let "the people who really know" decide.

Therefore 50 years ago, when authority was at least nominally Christian and went to church, Canada did, too.

Now, when authority has embraced skepticism, so does much of Canada.

In the years to come, if voices filling the current role of the Globe and Mail and the CBC should return to the faith, Canadians generally can be expected to rediscover God.

Not a very attractive national portrait, is it? But it seems to me to accord with the facts.