As one of the editors of the journal Post-Christendom Studies (PCS), I recently had the opportunity to host a forum on the state of religion in Canada.
In short, I invited contributors from Canada and beyond to comment on the recently released Canadian census data, which show that many forms of Christian affiliation are—to put it bluntly—in freefall. Among the contributors were Sam Reimer, Anna Robbins, Stuart Macdonald, James Tyler Robertson, Jay Mowchenko, Mark Noll, Lynne Taylor, David Tarus, Joshua Robert Barron, and Mark Cartledge.
Here is how I opened this edition of PCS:
Anyone with even a passing awareness of the church is likely familiar with the trope of the pastor who points toward the day’s newspaper headlines to find proof of the approaching apocalypse. In that recognizable imagery, he (because it is often a male pastor) searches for evidence of when the world will end, how it will end, and who will remain, among other questions. When Statistics Canada published its latest (2021) census data on religious affiliation, some Christians may have felt a similar sensation. Across the theological spectrum, the data showed evidence of a significant decline in Christian affiliation. As with the pastor with newspaper in hand, one might ask: could the end be nigh?
In academic circles, few (if any) were shocked by the trend in the census results. In fact, nothing in the data came as a surprise for those who have been paying attention; the numbers have been trending in this direction since at least the middle of the twentieth century. […] The speed and severity of that decline were both yet to be seen, but with the latest round of data, perhaps we have a clearer picture of the future of Christianity in Canada.1
My introductory article concluded with the following:
What does this mean for the future of Christianity in Canada? Drawing from the census data, the takeaway here may seem reasonably clear: while not yet dead, some forms of institutional Christianity in Canada are in hospice. But, contrary to the opinion of the newspaper-holding pastor noted above, the future is not all doom and gloom. Do these results mean that Christianity is facing an extinction-level threat in Canada? It is probably not likely. What it does mean, however, is that Christianity may soon take a different form as Canada moves further into post-Christendom.
The following nine essays in this edition of Post-Christendom Studies address this relatively uncertain future. When we invited the contributors, we gave them a prompt: what does this mean for the church moving forward? Each author has addressed this question differently and added their own thoughts. In each essay, however, it seems reasonably clear that the newspaper headlines do not always signal that “the end is nigh.”2
If you are interested in learning more about this edition of PCS or reading the various articles on this theme, the digital edition of the journal is available here.
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