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Episode 12 - Part 3 of 3 - An Interview with Daniel Dacombe & Dr. Sarah Wilkins-LaFlamme
90 Plays5 months ago
"Christian. Muslim. Jewish. Buddhist. Religious. Or not? With a greater number of Canadians than ever before identifying as nonreligious or 'none of the above,' the landscape of belief in Canada is changing rapidly. Understanding these changes can be a challenge, and can leave us with more questions than answers. What do religion and secularity look like in Canada today? How did we get here? And more importantly, where are we going? Join Humanist Canada's host Daniel Dacombe in a 3-part conversation with sociologist and professor Dr. Sarah Wilkins-Laflamme to discuss her book "Religion, Spirituality and Secularity among Millennials: The Generation Shaping American and Canadian Trends," and learn what the science says about our growing nonreligious Canadian identity."
In the final episode of this 3 part series, host Daniel Dacombe and sociologist Dr. Sarah Wilkins-Laflamme talk about what comes next for religion and nonreligion in Canada: Gen Z, challenges in predicting future trends, and the critical events that might drastically change the course of the future. Join us for an insightful conversation about the future of secular humanism in our country.
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Transcript
00:00:01
Speaker
yeah Once Prometheus lets the cat out of the bag or the fire out of you know Olympus, then there's no going back. No going back.
Introduction and Series Overview
00:00:08
Speaker
yeah
00:00:19
Speaker
Welcome to the Voice of Canadian Humanism, the official podcast of Humanist Canada. Join us as we delve into thought-provoking discussions, explore critical issues, and celebrate the values of reason, compassion, and secularism through the humanist lens. Welcome to the conversation.
Future of Religion and Secularism
00:00:38
Speaker
In the final episode of this three-part series, host Daniel Dacombe and sociologist Dr. Sarah Wilkins LaFlamme talk about what comes next for religion and non-religion in Canada. Gen Z, challenges in predicting future trends and the critical events that might drastically change the course of the future. Join us for an insightful conversation about the future of secular humanism in our country. Let's begin.
00:01:09
Speaker
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Humanist Canada podcast. My name is Daniel Dacombe, and I'm a humanist. I'm also a husband, a father, a former Christian, a PhD student, and a member of Humanist Canada.
00:01:22
Speaker
I'll be your host for a very special series of episodes here on the podcast looking at the past, present, and future of non-belief and secularism here in Canada. I'm very pleased to be joined today again by Dr. Sarah Wilkins-LaFlamme for the second part of our series.
Gen Z's Religious Trends
00:01:36
Speaker
ah Dr. Sarah Wilkins-LaFlamme is the Associate Professor of Sociology and Legal Studies at the University of Waterloo. She is also the author of books including religion, spirituality, and secularity among millennials.
00:01:48
Speaker
and none of the above, non-religious identity in the US and Canada with Joel Thiessen. Dr. Well, thank you for joining us again. Hi, hi everyone. Thanks for having me.
00:02:00
Speaker
So ah in the previous episodes, we have been discussing ah the increasing rates of secularity and non-religious belief in Canada. ah In the most recent episode, we discussed the current state, ah what millennials are up to in terms of their religious or non-religious beliefs.
00:02:21
Speaker
And, uh, what we're doing today with this episode, uh, the last episode in our series is talking about the future. Where are we going from here? Which, uh, maybe a little difficult to predict, but if anybody can do it, I'm, I'm sure it's, uh, I'm sure it's you. ah Blind confidence, Daniel. I love it. Blind confidence. We both got our magic eight balls. We're ready to go. We're ready to go.
00:02:44
Speaker
All right, well, we are gonna dive right into this and ah hopefully you all listen to the end because we'll be mentioning a few places where you can follow some more interesting research as it comes out. So we've talked about millennials, we've talked about ah the boomers, we've talked about the greatest generation, ah obviously named themselves. ah We've talked about what got us to where we are and and what it looks like where we are.
00:03:12
Speaker
So where does the next generation look like it's going in terms of its religiosity?
Independence and Religious Disaffiliation
00:03:16
Speaker
And this would be the so-called Gen Z. Gen Z. Are we going Canadian? Are we calling Gen Z? I don't know. Sounds weird. That is a good one. Gen Z. Gen Z. Gosh, I think. I'm going Gen Z. I've actually started saying Z more thanks to my kids. By the Americans. Yeah. I know. We've all been just, American social media and TikTok is just overwhelmed by our native pronunciation. Soon we're losing all the U's from our words. It's going to be good care. Oh no. Dogs and cats marrying each other. What will they make fun of? Yeah.
00:03:47
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. No, it's good. Okay, so for for listeners who don't really know who Gen Z is, Gen Z refers mainly to those born roughly from the 2000s onwards.
00:03:59
Speaker
right and And most of them are still kids and teenagers today, right? So most are still under the age of 18. And because of that, ah we don't have great trend data yet ah for them when it comes to their levels of religiosity. um So most good quality, large scale surveys in Canada usually only include adult respondents, 18 years or older. um So we will have to wait a few years ah yet to get a better view of where this younger generation stands in relation to religiosity.
00:04:27
Speaker
um But we do we're starting to see a little little bit of data, getting a little bit of a sense of Gen Z. So what little data we do have so far um doesn't really show a huge shift amongst Gen Z from the trends of religious decline that we've seen across previous generations in Canada since the boomers that we've been talking about in the last two episodes. So there's no seismic shift yet. I'm not really expecting one amongst Gen Z's so far, but you know caveat that with we'll we'll wait to see when we have better data, when they get a bit older.
Predictions for Future Religious Trends
00:04:56
Speaker
But for example, I ran a survey last year in November of 2023 for the International Social Survey Program. And in that Canada-wide general adult population sample in the survey, we had ah roughly 77 respondents between the ages of 18 and 24 years old.
00:05:13
Speaker
So depending on your definition of where millennials end and where Gen Z begins, these respondents could be considered like the very youngest and the very last of the millennials, or they could also be considered the very first or the very oldest of Gen Z. And so amongst those 18 to 24 year olds, 52% said they had no religion. So that's over half.
00:05:35
Speaker
have no religious affiliation, and 69% said they never, almost never attend religious services. So that's over two thirds, never really have much contact with a religious group.
00:05:48
Speaker
So that's that's pretty high rates of non-religion. That's some of the highest that we see across all age groups. It's not quite as high in terms of rates of non-religion that we find amongst the next age group up, the 25 to 34 year olds, you see a bit more. So like 59% amongst the 25 to 34 year olds say they have no religion. 70% say they never, almost never attend religious services, but it's pretty close. Um,
00:06:15
Speaker
it it's It's actually kind of to be expected, and it's similar to what we've seen with this age group, the 18 to 24 year olds amongst past generations, individuals who haven't yet left their original parental households or are still living with their parents for the most part, as many of these 18 to 24 year olds still are, ah they tend to initially look more like their parents when it comes to their levels of religiosity and non-religiosity, because many are still doing the same activities with their parents, including being religious or attending religious services with their parents, if that's the case.
00:06:46
Speaker
And so um the rates amongst this early Gen Z age group really currently resemble the rates amongst their parents age group. So that 35 to 54 year old group, which has very similar rates of 51% of that kind of middle age group now says they have no religion and 62% never almost never attend religious services, very similar to Gen Z as well.
00:07:06
Speaker
And so um you know what I'm expecting with this group is that when they're young adults, most leave their original parental household either to move into their own place or go to college or university. um That's when I would expect, and that we typically see with younger age cohorts, um more of them disaffiliate from their original parental religion and slower stop their previous religious activities.
Impact of Environmental Changes
00:07:30
Speaker
Right.
00:07:31
Speaker
So I'm expecting the Gen Z birth courts to go through a similar transition in the upcoming years. So I think we can expect their religiosity rates to drop even a bit further once they move out of their parents' homes. Maybe not a huge amount, but a little bit further. So I kind of see them continuing that trend of religious decline that we've been seeing over the last few generations. But of course, we'll have to wait and see ah to be sure when we have better data with this group. yeah Right. And of course, just because people may be leaving their parents' religion doesn't necessarily mean they will have no spiritual beliefs whatsoever. You mentioned in your book that one of the categories that is ah people were going into for the Millennials was the spiritual but not religious. So I expect that will continue to be a group that people
00:08:13
Speaker
Can you loosely affiliate with spiritual but not religious? I'm not sure, there's no prohibition of list for that. I mean, it's more of a concept that we assign to people. Very few people actually call themselves that. But yeah, that's kind of people who don't really have strong ties with a religious group, but are still into kind of spirituality, either through activities, through beliefs, things like doing yoga and identifying it as a spiritual activity.
00:08:35
Speaker
I mean, it's definitely an important proportion of millennials. It's about a fifth of them that do that, um but it's also not the whole generation that goes into that category either. Yeah. Right. So looking past Gen Z, ah where do you think we might find ourselves in 20 years or 50 years? ah Is there a an easy or ah ah even more informative way that we can make those kinds of predictions or forecast what the trends might look like.
00:09:07
Speaker
right? but Can we see the future? Can we see the future? Yeah, that's the real question. Yeah, I mean, we can definitely ponder it, and I think it's an important exercise to ponder it. I mean, this is probably a good time for me to mention an important caveat about predicting the future based on present social scientific research. ah Basically, in short, you know, sociologists are not great at making such predictions. I'm glad you, Daniel, were have confidence. um You know, our our field is definitely mixed in that background.
00:09:32
Speaker
I guess I did grow up reading Isaac Asimov's foundation. Oh, there you go. He thinks somebody that the social sciences could predict everything for many thousands of years. Has yet to happen at some point, maybe. I mean, we're not the only ones who are bad at predicting. Pretty much everyone else is also terrible at predicting, no matter the scientific discipline, either STEM or social sciences. Track records on making accurate predictions about the future in any area of science are definitely mixed, to say the least. Well, that's comforting.
00:10:01
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, our main job and expertise in sociology is is rather to explain things as they are right now and why they are and at the time that we observe them. you know But this said, like I mentioned, it's it's always important to have a longer view and to look into the future of how things could potentially play out. um you know A lot of us are also just wonder about that, but yeah you know it's just worth mentioning what I'm about to say. Just take my forecast here with a grain of salt. but Absolutely.
00:10:28
Speaker
This is a discussion of what we might expect based on what we know today right now, not what we'll we'll know for sure because obviously we we don't we' know for sure what will happen. But um as I see it, the most likely scenario that will play out in the next 20 to 50 years is that it's a bit of a boring answer, but it's probably the one that's most likely to play out is that we're going to continue to see the trends that we've been seeing over the past 50 years for the next half century.
00:10:53
Speaker
right? um it's it's It's a bit boring, but it's what I put my money on today. You know, tomorrow always has a greater chance of looking like today than looking different, right? So that means that we would see a continued growth in non-Christian religions taking up a larger and larger share of the general population, especially Hinduism, Islam, and Sikhism, right? These three religious traditions together currently make up about 9% of the Canadian population, the largest being Islam at 5%.
00:11:20
Speaker
um And so expect that share to continue to grow as as long as Canada's strong immigration trends continue. like They don't even have to continue at their current rates. like Their current rates of immigration, like since the Liberals up the quotas, are massive. Even if they they have that, they'll still continue to grow. So I mean, unless there's a seismic shift in immigration trends, um you know and there's a few things that could play come into play here depend that will kind of impact how large these religious traditions will get in Canada. so Yeah, these immigration quotas, will governments change those in the future? What world regions will Canada's immigration mainly come from? like At the moment, we're getting a lot from South Asia, so a lot of Hinduism coming in. um and so But it just if if things relatively stay kind of where they've been and where they keep going, I'm expecting those groups to to continue to grow.
00:12:12
Speaker
And um Christianity, on the other hand, including all its various denominations and traditions, um I will seek as as see as I think they'll so continue seeing some declines. Christians altogether were just barely a majority of the general population in the 2021 census.
00:12:30
Speaker
Um, like at something like 50 barely, like it was 53. It was very small majority. And I'm pretty sure that by now they've lost that majority. So, um, for example,
Changes in Christian Institutions
00:12:40
Speaker
I mentioned earlier that, um, international social survey program, I ran in 2023, only 44% of my Canadian adult respondents in that, um, identified with a Christian tradition.
00:12:52
Speaker
Right. So I know it's a shift that's been coming for a while, but that's still a seismic shift in the Canadian religious landscape. um You know, it's pretty massive and it's pretty important to take in. We're no longer a major majority majoritarian Christian nation. Right. we We had been for many centuries prior, but we are no longer that. Right. And so and like I said, I expect to see crochet to see kind of further declines amongst the general population in the years to come.
00:13:19
Speaker
Um, the big Christian denominations in Canada, they're already closing churches. I expect that to continue. They were so massive before. I think we talked about this in the first episode in the past. They were huge institutions. And I mean, so they're definitely hardcore downsizing at the moment and will probably continue to do so. And and that'll be an impact that even if you don't.
00:13:40
Speaker
ah attend church or you're not part of a religious group, you'll see see that even in the physical landscapes right of rural and urban Canada, there's going to be a lot of churches that are sold, that are converted. There already are into housing, into restaurants, into event spaces. Some are burnt are being burnt down either accidental or intentional at the moment, which is another interesting trend. um and so yeah I think that those that will that decline of crochet will continue.
00:14:07
Speaker
and And tied to that, having no religion, I think will become the new majoritarian characteristic amongst the general population. So we're already seeing rates of no religion at over 50% amongst younger birth cohorts under the age of 50. So that's over half are saying they have no religion when they're asked.
00:14:23
Speaker
And so expect that trend to become the norm amongst the general Canadian population ah with demographic replacement as members of older generations who wo who were typically more religious pass away and kind of those younger cohorts take up a bigger chunk of the population in the years and decades to come.
00:14:39
Speaker
So, that said, it it it doesn't mean religion and spirituality will completely disappear from Canadian society in the years to come. and I know some predict that it's like, oh, it's going to completely go. It's not going to completely disappear, but it's definitely changing, right? And it's becoming a minority phenomenon, right? So it's going to be present, but it's going to be more of a kind of smaller group that takes part in various religious traditions, ah already sort of the case, but and even more so in the future, in the next few years.
00:15:06
Speaker
um you know so but it's important to keep in mind religious and spiritual individuals will still form an important minority in the years to come even though they're not a majority anymore they're still there and they'll still be very present in our society right so in 2023 from that same survey i've been mentioning an estimated 18 of adults in canada attend religious services at least once a month right So it's a minority, but that's a big minority and it's still almost a fifth of the population. right And approximately another fifth, like I mentioned earlier, is into that kind of more personalized, less conventional forms of spirituality in their lives. right right So we might see some decline a bit in these numbers. We might see a little bit more of decline, but I don't expect them to fall to zero either.
00:15:47
Speaker
especially because many non-Christian non-christian religious traditions alike are still gaining some, at least a bit from immigration numbers in the country. And so that's kind of still going to keep them afloat and drive them in the decades to come. but So religion and spiritualities, minority ah phenomenon won't disappear and will become more diverse than ever, basically.
00:16:08
Speaker
I know here in Manitoba, many of the immigration populations we've been receiving have been from Nigeria or the Philippines, which ah you know many Christian backgrounds in those countries that has been creating a bit of an uptick locally, at least, but that's not something that I think is likely being reproduced everywhere.
00:16:28
Speaker
Well, it's it's not offsetting the declines they're seeing amongst the kind of white born in Canada Euro settler populations, but it is definitely, in some cases, keeping some parishes afloat and keeping them going is this kind of a bit of vitality that they're getting from a few few key world regions. yeah They're slowing the conversion of old church buildings into bakeries and pubs and things like that, I guess. You could do both. There's nothing wrong with that. You could do both. So it makes complete sense what you're saying, accounting for the fact that nobody's very good at predicting the future and that the past is a really good way to look at what's going to happen tomorrow is more likely to be like today, as you mentioned.
00:17:09
Speaker
um So I know that one of the reasons that it's also kind of hard to predict the future is because there's often major events or major historical ah situations that occur that will send the world on a different path. And anybody who needs an example of that, just look at COVID, ah which was supposed to be a two-week lockdown. Anybody can remember that. I would maybe use World War II as a bigger one. I wasn't there, personally. No, I wasn't either. Old millennial or something. My granddad was. so ah Mine as well.
00:17:44
Speaker
both of mine, actually. Now, ah thinking of historical events and and knowing that there's many examples of dystopian futures in fiction and and books and movies and things like that, ah yeah we've we're all we're always ah looking ahead for our entertainment and for other reasons. ah If we were to see a big shift, ah yeah and you know unlike
Climate Crises and Societal Shifts
00:18:10
Speaker
the kind of gradual change that you've been discussing, what do you think would cause that? What are the kinds of major events that would precipitate a more dramatic shift in in either direction?
00:18:20
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great question, Danielle. I mean, social change does happen, right? It it doesn't usually happen overnight, but it it does happen. um And so, yeah, as a sociologist, I definitely think about these things, right? What could trigger a bigger shift, right? And I do think it needs to trigger a bigger shift. Let's put it that way. right So it needs a more fundamental structural change to society for these trends of growing non-religion paired with growing religious and spiritual pluralism ah to change, to to shift. But yeah, though it's good to look and and what could actually drive that. um Again, it's
00:18:54
Speaker
it's really kind of It would have to really affect how society society fundamentally functions in Canada, I think. right um Our current values of autonomy and seeking out personal authenticity and happiness focused on the imminent world, right focused on the material and the everyday, ah coined as expressive individualism values by many sociologists. right So those kind of focus on more on the individual, on their authenticity and happiness.
00:19:20
Speaker
um as well as there being now a wide availability of secular alternatives in ways of thinking and doing, alternatives to religion that is. um you know So to affect those kind of the key trends, those fundamental aspects of a society, the kind of fundamental values of expresses of individualism that we really support in our current society,
00:19:41
Speaker
um these you know the wide availability of secular alternatives, um that they would have to somehow shift for us to also see a change in religiosity and non-religious trends. right right So like our fundamental values and our kind of what we are structure of our society, or at least parts of it, would probably have to ah change.
00:20:02
Speaker
And so I don't think this is the the likely scenario for the next 50 years. right um It's probably less likely, but if there is one area that is most likely to drive such a fundamental structural social change in our societies over the next few decades, I personally see it coming from the environmental crisis. Right? So things are starting to get noticeably bad. I laughed hysterically or cry. yeah Not just to scientists, but now also to many everyday people, maybe to many of our listeners too. We've just lived through some record breaking heat, hurricanes, drought, floods, forest fires over the past few years. And we're looking set to continue to live through them in the years to come.
00:20:42
Speaker
Many climate scientists argue we're on track for some of their worst case scenario models of at least a three degree Celsius increase in world average temperatures by the end of the 21st century from pre-industrial levels. And so of all the possible elements that I can think of,
00:20:59
Speaker
percy you know Obviously, if there's an alien invasion, all bets are off, right? But but if if not, but or not yeah um you know I think these major changes in the natural environment and key and climate have the greatest potential to drive major social change, right? Because society often functions in conjunction with the natural environment, right?
00:21:17
Speaker
So as environmental degradation and the effects of climate change get worse, it may not spell the end of humanity and the human species as such, right? I'm not really talking here about full apocalypse, um but it very well ah might spell the end of how we currently function in our societies, right? So it may be more difficult, for example, to live outside of urban centers in the future, given climate effects such as droughts and forest fires often hitting rural areas hardest.
00:21:45
Speaker
And with fewer societal resources to dedicate to the countryside, to stab off the worst of the effects, we might have to kind of you know converge more in urban areas. That's one possibility. But more fundamental still, some of the key ways of doing in our societies notably are rampant consumerism that I'm i'm also guilty of and fossil fuel burning that I'm also guilty of. ah Those are probably going to have to end at some point, right? And along with them,
00:22:09
Speaker
some of the core values attached to this current way of life that we have, such an emphasis on personal happiness, right, often tied to buying things, um personal choice, values of expressive individualism that I mentioned earlier. Those may also have to shift in favor of a kind of different, more environmentally friendly social order and cultural framework, right? So hopefully not going in the direction of Margaret Atwood's A Handmaid's Tale or George Miller's Mad Max. So hopefully not that direction.
00:22:37
Speaker
but could shift how we do society um in in the decades or centuries to come. and This could happen abruptly if things get really bad, really fast, um or more gradually as the environmental crisis evolves over the next few decades and centuries. right It might not be a quick change. It might be a kind of gradual change. Who knows?
00:22:56
Speaker
And so you know these are what we call in sociology potential future period effects that may impact the current generational trends of growing non-religion paired with growing religious and spiritual pluralism that we're currently seeing. right and And so some of our listeners, right they might have the reflex of thinking that that these future changes could lead to a return of religion amongst large segments of the populations.
00:23:18
Speaker
including among millennials and Gen Zs, maybe later in life, right? As material conditions worsen and existence becomes less certain for us with environmental degradation, maybe people turn more to religion. Maybe, um but not necessarily, right? So future change to social structures could just as well drive a greater decline of worldviews and practices related to the supernatural and super empirical than we are currently seeing now across generationally in Canada.
00:23:45
Speaker
Right? Because as I mentioned, religion, spirituality are still a thing in our current society, right? There's still space for them. Maybe in a future society, there's not, right? ah Maybe such worldviews and practices along with religious discourses of done dominion or stewardship over nature, for example, could receive more of the blame than they currently do for environmental degradation. And so it could be discarded to a greater extent amongst populations, depending on the circumstances, right? I don't know. It could go either way. This is kind of what I'm saying. Who knows, right? right And only time will really tell And only time will really tell what replaces our current combination of worldviews and practices amongst our population, what new values and rituals emerge out of a more major social change, right? Because I mentioned earlier, fundamental structural social change doesn't happen every day, but it does eventually happen.
00:24:31
Speaker
And so it's kind of interesting to think what could drive that and what the future could look like after that. And it's really hard because we take some of our values for, so take it for granted, right? I'm sure when I mentioned like, oh yeah, we value personal happiness and choice, everyone's like, yeah, of course, yeah, yeah. um But that that, those values, you know, I mean, they've always been around, but they've never really been, not always been the core values of a society that we really hold up in our whole economic system, drives and is based around basically currently with consumerism.
00:25:00
Speaker
And so you have to think that those, that with future societies might not have those same values, right? Right. And it's interesting too, though, you point out it's difficult to predict which way that might swing. You can kind of ah see it both ways. And as you were talking about the climate crisis and ah you know record droughts and so on, I was reminded of ah Dr. Aronorenzian's book, Big Gods. He's a psychologist said at the University of British Columbia. and um discusses a lot of ah information about pro-social religions and how they developed in history and ah drove cooperation and and conflict. and I recall at one point he mentioned in his book that
00:25:41
Speaker
um Often one of the things that drove the development of a religion becoming more pro-social as opposed to just staying local and and not driving ah mass cooperation was actually water shortage. and so and and And it's not lost on anybody reading the book, I think, that the Abrahamic religions started in the desert.
00:26:01
Speaker
So it it could, yeah, it could go either way. And that's, a you know, if you need one more reason to not to to not drive your car as often as possible. take Take your bike to work. Yeah, take your bike to work. um Yeah, I mean, it's it's also important that that's really fascinating. I mean, it's also important to remember that just because things have always been doesn't mean they will be in the future, right? Right. And so my brother, who loves to philosophize and think about these things, always says like once once this fire was discovered, we were never going back. right We were never going back to society like prior to fire, right the basically. And so there's certain things to know what that is that drives that
00:26:42
Speaker
like forever change. It's hard to say, is it technology? is it Is it a way of thinking? What is it exactly? But I mean, yeah, like a lot, like obviously our way of predicting future is kind of to look to the past and kind of, you know, make ideas. And that's really important, but it's also why we often fail in our predictions because in the end things change so fundamentally that we didn't even see it coming and that it's they've moved on from where we are, right? right And so like, I have a lot of, um I speak when I speak to church leaders, they often think that it'll be a return to religion that we see. um And I also, but I also say, you know, but like, no one returned to the pagan ah ah faith of the Romans, right? And in even when times got bad, like we had moved on like to another faith, right? Yeah. And so I mean, it's really fascinating to think about. But yeah, no, no solid answers there. But cool, cool to ponder. Yeah.
00:27:30
Speaker
Once Prometheus lets the cat out of the bag or the fire out of you know Olympus, then there's no going back. yeah No going
Demographic Predictions and Secularization
00:27:37
Speaker
back. On that note, um it's, a I think, a good transition to the next thing I was going to ask you, which is about how we've we talked a lot about how the the world and and Canada in specific are growing more secular and the trend appears to be ah continuing apace. But there have been other predictions made about the future of religion. And I'm thinking about ah sociologist Eric Kaufman who published a book called Shell the Religious Inherit the Earth in 2011. And in this book, he predicted ah that, he presented research and predicted that due to simple demographics, namely the fact that religious families and especially fundamentalist families tend to have far more children than secular families.
00:28:20
Speaker
the world will not only stop growing more secular, but but and will in fact always be more religious than not, and that trend is gonna come back around. um So I just wanted to ask you what your opinion on this perspective was, and if you think the research over the last decade and a bit has ah has lended any more credence to that view, or if it's really been showing it to to not have had the predictive power that it was presented with.
00:28:50
Speaker
Yeah, so I'm familiar with the Kaufman argument. I'm not convinced by it. um And recent data trends have have supported my criticism. I've kind of borne it out. I mean, the thing with the Kaufman and with a lot of demographic predictions is they're really only considering current fertility rates.
00:29:07
Speaker
um and and not rates of people disaffiliating and leaving their religion, so making a choice after they're born, um and also changes in fertility rates. The fact that China has now lifted their one child policy, which is going to have a huge effect on that because there are a lot of secular people, at least in the way we measure it in China,
00:29:25
Speaker
And at the time that Kauffman was writing, they had the one child policy, now they no longer have the one child policy. We don't know if that's going to drive higher fertility rates in China at the moment, it's not. But if if their fertility rates were to change, it would like have a huge impact on on on on secularity fertility rates. Because Kauffman is talking on a global scale, right? He's not not just looking at North America.
00:29:45
Speaker
But i for the moment, it's it's the rates of people leaving religion that are kind of um going against his predictions, right? um Because that's leaving religion is quite a popular trend in many countries at the moment um here in Canada, but also in kind of non-Western parts of the world as well.
00:30:01
Speaker
um And that's a phenomenon, disaffilling from religion. I kind of alluded to to it earlier. It often takes place in your late teen or early adult years, if it's going to happen amongst many individuals, not for everyone. But as a trend, when you kind of leave your parents, you go to a new place, you form new social ties with other people. um that's If you're going to leave your religion, that's often when it happens.
00:30:24
Speaker
And so, yes, non-religious people and Westerners more generally have fewer kids on average, um but many kids coming from more religious parents are leaving their parental religion and not necessarily joining another ones or just disaffiliating. right And so in the big international surveys that span many parts of the globe, like the World Value Survey and the International Social Survey Program that I mentioned earlier, um we're seeing rates of non-religion rise not only in most Western countries,
00:30:51
Speaker
in Europe and North America, but also in many other parts of the world. So that includes many Latin American countries. I have colleagues in Argentina and Chile who are exploring the rise of non-religion there, ah even parts of the Middle East where we can get good data. For example, from the Emirates, we're starting to see a softening of religiosity trends, ah many parts of Central and East Asia. East Asia is really secular by our measures. There's obviously the debate of are we measuring religion Should we be measuring religion the same way in East Asia, like in Japan, China, South Korea? um But if you're thinking about kind of a Western form of organized religion, there's very low levels of that in East Asia. And so, um so far, ah trends are not going the way that Kaufman had predicted.
00:31:35
Speaker
um you know But that being said, religion still remains an extremely important part of ah of many places in the world. i don't I don't want to make it sound like you know the whole world's going secular. It's not. It's also, religious now so is also not disappearing from the West anytime soon. I mentioned this earlier, there'll be lower levels of it, but it'll still be there. um and so But i it is worse I do think we can say it now that secularity is gaining ground in some key areas of the globe. And so that kind of doesn't really follow what Kaufman was predicting.
00:32:06
Speaker
and And I think you make a really good point as well. First of all, thanks for that response. And you also make a really good point about what we're measuring might not be ah the same everywhere. We look at East Asia and um we're approaching, we're still approaching religion with a very Eurocentric worldview. And that's, that's on us. That's, that's our fault. Now answer criticism you can make of all these podcasts, the the whole three podcasts we've done, right? Is that yeah we've been talkly made in the can Canadian context, but you know, you know, colleagues of mine are are trying to kind of, what's the best way? Can we measure how often people go to temple in China? And then what do you do?
00:32:41
Speaker
about the state being kind of anti-religious in China, the the communist state, and and how do you factor that into things, right? So these are all open questions that we don't have good answers for yet. So continuing the discussion then about here in North America, and we'll expand a little bit outside of Canada because we we both know that we live above the United States. And ah recently in the United States, and this is being recorded in the late summer, early fall of 2024.
00:33:12
Speaker
ah the infamous Project 2025 has been in the news. and For those who don't know anything about Project 2025, I would like to know how you're living your life, that you don't have that stuff invading your your visual range at all times like we do. But um Project 2025 is a public policy
Religious Nationalism in Canada
00:33:33
Speaker
document. It's written as a part of a plan to turn America into a nation run by white Christian nationalists.
00:33:40
Speaker
And some suggest it was written in response to the growing secular population in the world or in the the United States. ah So continuing our our predictions here, my question for you is, do you think Canada is at risk of a similar movement, gaining traction, trying to reverse the trend, or do you think we've passed a point of no return in this growing secular identity?
00:34:05
Speaker
Project 2025, duh, duh, duh. Yeah. we'll get the We'll get the edit to put in like a a dramatic noise. that Dramatic noise insert here.
00:34:18
Speaker
Yeah, listen, well, we'll see. Hopefully, ah when people are listening, they might have a better idea of this. Hopefully, accounts of how widespread plans are for Project 2025 within the Republican Party are overblown, I'm hoping, and that either way, hopefully, Republicans won't win the election this November and won't take control of the government. We'll find out next year to enact their plan. Yeah, just my political bias coming through. Fingers crossed. And goes grass. But either way, I'm not too worried about it happening here in Canada, to be honest. like i'm I'm worried about it in the US because the US has a big effect on the world. but But in Canada, I'm not convinced it's going to happen, or it's it's definitely not in the plans by all accounts.
00:34:58
Speaker
ah The US has a history since the 1960s of these kind of sociopolitical shocks and counter shocks, if you want to call them that, on the but ah both on the left and on the right of the political spectrum. And so we don't really have that to the same extent here in Canada. We haven't really seen it to the same extent since the 60s.
00:35:16
Speaker
So, for example, in the US, ah the Christian right reacted in the 70s and 80s against the moral, sexual, and civil rights revolutions of the 1960s. It was kind of seen as a counter reaction to that um and gained a lot of political traction in doing so. ah But that didn't really happen to the same extent here in Canada. I mean, we have a bit of a Christian voting base amongst the conservative party, but nothing like you see in the US. And then as a further counter shock in the US in the 1990s and 2000s, younger generations reacted somewhat against the Christian right by leaving religion in larger numbers, right? That's a lot of authors thinks that's what really drove the very quick influx of non-religious young people during that period.
00:35:58
Speaker
Whereas in Canada, the decline of religiosity and the rise of socially more progressive values has been kind of more steady since the 1960s than it was in the u US. In the US, it kind of didn't really rise, and then in the 90s it really shot up, um amongst at least amongst most demographic and social groups.
00:36:14
Speaker
and so you know Even most evangelicals in Canada have moved left of the political spectrum on issues such as same-sex marriage and gender rights over the past few decades. right They do remain more conservative on average than the general population, but they are kind of more left of the spectrum than they are than evangelicals in the US, for example.
00:36:31
Speaker
um And it's also worth knowing that Canada's evangelical population is much smaller than what we see in the US, right? About eight to 10% of the general population in Canada can be considered evangelical compared to about 25% in the US, right? So, I mean, I see Project 2025 if it actually exists. And if they're actually planning it, I mean, I do believe it exists. I'm not sure how widespread it is. It's always hard to tell with the media sometimes.
00:36:55
Speaker
um But Project 2025 seems to continue this history of counter shocks in the US, right? Reacting this time against the social and economic progressivism, as well as non-religion seen in more and more areas of the US and amongst younger generations. um But in Canada, you know public opinion is much more socially progressive than it is in the US. I'm always struck by listening to the Democrats and Kamala Harris, who you know I do hope is going to win.
00:37:20
Speaker
but how conservative they are by our standards. like Kamala Harris is talking about like law enforcement, building new prisons. right It's like, oh wow, okay, like in Canada, she would be a conservative candidate. and so like Most of our society, I don't want to say all of Canada, but a big chunk of it is kind of much is more left of the spectrum than what you see in the US.
00:37:37
Speaker
on issues like same-sex marriage, reproductive freedom, gender rights, euthanasia. All of these have generally much more public support in Canada than they do in the US, right? Obviously, there's some still attitudes that vary on these topics, but not as much as you see in the US. And to the extent that it's usually difficult for political leader and party to openly take more socially conservative stances on these issues in Canada,
00:38:00
Speaker
Sometimes they do, ah but usually they don't. but ah You may notice, watch Pierre Poliev the next time a media but a journalist asks him a question about one of these issues and he'll desperately try and avoid it. And it's like sometimes, like when he hears the word abortion, I've seen him become like red in the face and start to sweat because he knows it's ah it's a hot topic for him and his party because the conservatives do have a religious, socially conservative voter base. I mentioned it earlier in their party.
00:38:26
Speaker
But it's not nearly enough to win them any kind of majority government in Canada, right? um Right. And its average attitudes are quite different from those of many other parts of the population that Polyev needs to win over to win an election. And so the conservative leaders always kind of have to do this weird dance where they kind of hint that they're more socially conservative, but like they also don't want openly say it to piss everyone else off. Right.
00:38:49
Speaker
i mean So thinking of our kind of more conservatives here, are the Conservative Party in Canada, right I think Canadian conservatives are going to stay much more focused on economic issues in our upcoming federal election next year and in 2025, because we are pretty much have to be in a federal election by next fall. um I don't think they're going to focus on the culture war issues like Project 2025 does. um Maybe the the conservatives might take on immigration a bit as well, where they think the Liberals are maybe a bit more vulnerable in public opinion, but I don't see them
00:39:21
Speaker
doing anything near like what Project 2025 is.
Institute for Religion, Culture, and Societal Futures
00:39:24
Speaker
I mean, if they do take over government next year, the conservatives, um they still might enact certain policies that are more socially conservative, right? Harper did when he had his majority. um For example, he bogged down the Health Canada approval process for the abortion pill for many years, which meant that we didn't have access to it ah when a lot of other Western countries did.
00:39:44
Speaker
um It seems by put in public discourse that trans rights and safe injection sites might be the most at risk here, right judging but what we're already seeing here in Ontario, for example, and by what Poliev has been targeting over the last the past year in his speeches. um and and That's probably where he thinks that public opinion is not as unified and where he think he can please his voter base while not displeasing ah many Canadians. um and I don't want to downplay the importance of these issues, but You know, they are very important issues, but I don't think we're going to reach the heights of Project 2025 here in Canada anytime soon. Right.
00:40:21
Speaker
It's an interesting point you make that you know the conservatives can't they probably can't win without their religious base, but they also can't win with just their religious base. So they can't alienate the rest of the people who would be voting conservative. I mean, I think this has been the big issue that this party has faced for quite a few years now, right? Ever since they kind of merged with the Reform Party.
00:40:44
Speaker
of kind of like, what do you do to kind of win that majority? I mean, Harper succeeded. ah We'll see if Poliev does next year. I mean, the polls are currently really in his favor, so we'll see ah we'll see what happens.
00:40:56
Speaker
So looking ahead at ah and some of the things that are happening here in Canada and your your books, which he mentioned earlier, and I'll say their titles again before the end, ah talk a bit about how we got to where we are and and where we might be going. And it's hard to discuss ah your books and your research and some of these ah might happens and and maybes for the future without also talking about one of the other things you've been involved with recently, which is the new Institute for Religion, Culture, and Societal Futures, ah the IRCSF.
00:41:30
Speaker
ah and people who have perhaps followed Humanist Canada on social media may have seen us ah share some of the IRC SFs material. ah You will hopefully see in the ah in the notes for this podcast the website address and ah it's it's hard to talk about what you're doing without talking about that. So would you tell us a bit about what it is and how it came about?
00:41:58
Speaker
Yeah, I'm really excited about it. Yeah, so the Institute for Religion, Culture, and Societal Futures, it's an innovative initiative that myself, as well as Galen Watts, who's also from ah the Department of Sociology and Legal Studies at the University of Waterloo, and Caroline McGregor ah from neighboring St. Jerome's University that's right next to us at Waterloo. um The three of us have put this together this year.
00:42:20
Speaker
And we're three researchers who kind of found ourselves in the same place in Waterloo, Ontario and who specialize in the empirical and social scientific study of religion and non-religion. And so we thought we'd do something together that and kind of build the platform ah for high quality information and results about the religious, spiritual and non-religious landscapes of Canada ah based on our own research and from research that others are working on on the social scientific study of religion. And so um What kind of drove this was that the three of us have found over the years that most Canadians don't know a whole lot about their own religious, spiritual, non-religious landscapes. um What little info is out there, um and that people usually get, usually comes from the US, right? And as I alluded to earlier is sometimes quite sensationalized in the media and online.
00:43:11
Speaker
and um And it doesn't usually or always reflect the reality of what's going on north of the border. And so it's it's really fascinating as as bigger chunks of the population have moved away from religion, people's knowledge about religion has kind of really taken a nosedive, especially about the kind of everyday realities of religion and as well as secularity in the country.
00:43:32
Speaker
And so we've got four main thematic areas that we focus on in this institute with our results and with our information. And so the first is kind of religion data trends in Canada and internationally, including on religious and non-religious diversity. And I've been kind of talking a lot about those trends throughout this podcast series, um as well as the new social and political boundaries of religion, spirituality and culture, kind of what role they're playing in society and in politics now ah compared to the past and what they could play in the future.
00:44:02
Speaker
Carol Ann specializes in religion, and spirituality in schools and in education, so that's another one of our areas of expertise. And also in partnership with St. Jerome's University, which is a Catholic university, we also focus on the realities and futures of Catholic life in Canada and the transitions that the Catholic Church is undergoing in the country.
00:44:23
Speaker
And so the plan and and what we're building towards is organizing activities like public webinars, student training, public releases of reports and infographics, um and maybe hopefully some thematic YouTube videos and podcasts eventually. It's still early days yet. We've just launched the Institute. um But what we do currently have up and running now, if anyone's interested, is we have the IRCSF social media platforms.
00:44:48
Speaker
Right, so there we post, and you alluded to it Daniel there, ah we post about kind of fun facts and info on the themes of the Institute. So anyone who wants to can follow us on X, formerly Twitter, on Facebook, on Instagram, and on LinkedIn. And so I'll just kind of quickly reel off our our handles and our names here. So ah you can find our us on LinkedIn under our full name, right, the Institute ah for Religion, Culture, and Societal Futures.
00:45:12
Speaker
You can find us on X, also known formerly known as Twitter, on the handle of at iReligionCSF. You can also find us on Facebook at Institute for ReligionCSF and on Instagram at iReligionCSF.
00:45:27
Speaker
And so we post mostly the same stuff to all of the platforms. So you can just decide which one you like, which one's your favorite that you're currently using and follow us there. And um we're planning this fall, again, fall 2024 to have our first series of public webinars free for all to attend. And so we'll send out information on that on our social media platforms. And like you mentioned, we also have our our website that you can click on and there's a newsletter there if you want to sign up and it'd be wonderful to to hear from many of you.
00:45:56
Speaker
No TikTok yet. I'm noticing, uh, probably when you're not ready to start joining. I'm not ready for TikTok guys. I, I, at some point I will probably have to, I'm in that generation. We'll have to probably transition to TikTok to be able to talk to the public and to speak with people. Um, I don't know how I'm going to do that. I have to like work on my three second dances or something. That's, that's a TikTok thing. I don't know. Um,
00:46:18
Speaker
ah But not yet, but maybe one day. I mean, at some point, someone, a younger student might take over the social media from me and do this, and when they do, they might launch TikTok. I see that how it might happen.
00:46:30
Speaker
Well, something to look forward to, maybe. Maybe. The jury's still out. I also have not ah not joined TikTok. I'm happily on Facebook, where everything is still where I left it. It is so difficult to convey decent quality information in a few seconds. I have full respect to the people who managed to do it. It is something that I'm still working on. It's not a three-minute elevator pitch. It's like a 30-second elevator pitch. Absolutely. So yeah, still working on that one, yeah.
00:46:58
Speaker
It's hard enough to learn how to cook a vodka chicken parmesan. on right I can't imagine how you're going to present this research. How am I going to present research while cooking, while doing some epic recipe? While doing some epic recipe, yeah.
00:47:12
Speaker
um i think it's ah It's something that ah sticks out to me ah continually, that at the the academic level, the level where ah research is occurring, where collaboration is occurring between academics, where ah people are talking about data and evidence and actually examining the world we live in ah and trying to do so free of judgment that um Really, there's an awful lot of collaboration between people of different worldviews. You mentioned yourself and you mentioned that you are working with a researcher at a Catholic university. Now, that's something that-
00:47:48
Speaker
um maybe doesn't always happen as much in the in the social media world where there's collaboration and ah and genuine, you know respectful dialogue and and supportive ah working
Secular Sacred Canopy
00:48:01
Speaker
relationships. i just kind of it It sticks out to me every time, and I i think it's a ah ah wonderful thing. I'd love to see more of it. Yeah, I'm i'm really grateful that you mentioned that, Daniel. I mean, it's it's important to me to kind of keep the airwaves open, to keep that interchange, right? Because it's so easy to come become enclosed in your little echo chambers, even in academia, especially on social media. And so, yeah, I make a real effort. So if one of the books you mentioned, ah None of the Above, my co-author, Joel Fiesen,
00:48:28
Speaker
is at Ambrose University in Calgary. And so that is a Christian faith-based university that funded mainly by the Church of the Nazarene and a few other groups. And and Joel is very involved with his church and the Church of the Nazarene. and And I do think it's important to kind of bring both perspectives and we really do bring both things, right? Like Joel, who's kind of an insider to religion in Canada and who practices it and who's very involved with many congregations.
00:48:52
Speaker
Um, and, and me, the kind of outsider, the non-religious person, but that can have a view sometimes of things that are missed by insiders and vice versa. Right. And so I think that for me is kind of always something that I strive for and that's, is not always easy. but some Sometimes it's difficult conversations, um, but is usually very fruitful and worthwhile. Yeah.
00:49:13
Speaker
Well, it it makes sense and it's it's very appreciated that you're bringing that perspective to it. ah To highlight some of the current work of the IRCSF, eventually I will be able to say that acronym much faster. Yeah, I can't yet either, it's okay. all the All the other acronyms were taken, all the other good acronyms were taken. We'll we'll we'llll we'll workshop it a little bit. The IRCSF. IRCSF, I like it. You recently presented a paper on behalf of the IRCSF. Oh gosh, there it is again, IRCSF.
00:49:42
Speaker
about the secular sacred canopy, which I thought sounded very fascinating. And so just as ah as a tasting of some of your research and the work that you're doing, could you tell us a bit about what the secular sacred canopy is and what your research about it might lead to?
00:49:58
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great question. Thanks for bringing it up. I mean, I could talk about this all day, but I won't, but I'll i'll try and give the ah the the shorter version. So this is a paper that myself and Galen Watts, who I mentioned earlier from the Institute, ah we're currently working on it. So it's kind of early days yet. um And we're interested in what kind of substantive characteristics, values, morals, behaviors are present amongst the secular populations in the West, right? So many people often simply see growing secular populations in societies.
00:50:27
Speaker
as the same as before, but minus religion, right? It's like, oh, okay, that is just religion. It's not there anymore. You know, religion isn't there anymore for many of these populations. But in fact, what we find in our statistics when I run the quant numbers with with Galen's interview data that he does with younger birth cohorts um is that um there is in many ways a new and different way of thinking and doing that is becoming the new normal among large portions of Western populations.
00:50:54
Speaker
Right and so we're calling this the new secular sacred canopy could also call it the new secular normal if you want or another sociological term would be the new secular social imaginary but we're going with secular sacred canopy for the moment.
00:51:08
Speaker
and so And we do that because we borrow and revisit the concept of sacred canopy from a very famous and now deceased sociologist named Peter Berger. And so he defined a sacred canopy as a set of legitimations. So that's ah stories, narratives, myths, which explain and justify our whole society around us, our whole social order, why we exist as a society. So in other words, background assumptions that give sense and meaning to all that is explicitly articulated in our society.
00:51:37
Speaker
And so these legitimations are both cognitive, right? So how we think about the world, but also normative in nature, right? So they they kind of shape what we take for granted in our reality. They dictate members of ah to members of a society both what ought to be and what currently is, right?
00:51:56
Speaker
and and And these legitimations, these kind of stories and myths and way we kind of take the world for granted, they can't endure unless they find social support. They require a complementary social base is what Peter Berger uses, i.e. institutions, practices, rituals, and the like, um which Berger also calls these kind of plausibility structures. So these ways of thinking You have to be supported somehow. They don't just like happen. they They are supported by a social order, right by institutions in society, by by people in power, by our education system, by our health system, and so on. And so, Berger used the concept of sacred canopy in relation to the Christian sacred canopy that once covered medieval Europe in religious legimations and plausibility structures. Right? so During the Middle Ages in Europe, Catholic legendmations and Catholic plausibility structures worked in tandem to produce for Europeans a tightly bound kind of meaningful order where a Catholic worldview found social affirmation in everything from material infrastructure to daily routines and social interactions to ordinary modes of speech. All of them were impacted by this Christian sacred canopy.
00:53:02
Speaker
And so in other words, Europe in the Middle Ages was the site of ah of this sacred canopy which enveloped the entire social order and justified itself with reference it to the supernatural and cosmic forces and thus made doubting or disbelieving in God socially problematic, right? Not impossible, non-belief did exist in the past, but it was considered more problematic and and people were often killed for it.
00:53:24
Speaker
Right? And so Berger contends that this life in pre-modernity was experienced by the vast majority of people as defined by fate, right? To live under a religious sacred canopy is to inhabit a world of profound epistemic security and take it for granted certainty, right? Right. And and for the more but the more cohesive and overarching the sacred canopy, the less doubt individuals will experience regarding the meaningful order that structures their everyday reality, right? How they see the world.
00:53:51
Speaker
and so In his 1967 book, The Sacred Canopy, Berger details how this Christian sacred canopy has mostly crumbled with the rise of modernity. right It's no longer really here in the West. And so Galen and I want to examine, well, what has replaced it basically? What key cultural legitimations, moral imperatives, and plausibility structures are taking over um now that the non-religious is the new normal amongst many younger generations and in and in many parts of the world? So in other words, what are the facets of this new sacred, or but also secular, canopy that we're seeing?
00:54:25
Speaker
And so, you know, it's early days yet with our thinking and with this paper, but we're kind of currently thinking through kind of key elements of the secular sacred canopy. So a first key, what we usually call an epistemological dimension of the secular sacred canopy is this importance accorded to perceived evidence-based scientific arguments as the main way of knowing and of deciding what is true in Western societies, right? So this dimension doesn't imply that everyone under the secular sacred canopy follows the scientific method perfectly in their everyday lives, or that only facts confirmed by the scientific community are believed to be true. It's not really the case. um But ah there is a certain authority to truth assigned to things and to arguments that are perceived, that either are or are at least perceived to be based in science, right? So truth statements, things that we take for true,
00:55:14
Speaker
often have to be shown as evidence-based, have to reckon with science by either inserting themselves into an existing scientific narrative of kind of white the science current fields of science, for example, or by directly challenging the limitations of current science. right Maybe, for example, saying, oh, well, this is true, but science just hasn't caught up yet. So it has to kind of always reckon with science now, where that wasn't a thing and in medieval Europe, for example.
00:55:38
Speaker
And so this epistemological importance assigned to science is supported across social institutions. right For example, ah with ah it's it's supported by a main focus on teaching the natural sciences in public schools and curriculums. right That's the main topics that kids cover these days in school. um It's supported by the prominent and often sole place of medical sciences in the health sector.
00:55:59
Speaker
right? And it's also supported when social actors as wide ranging as politicians, health professionals, academics, and nature documentarians, if you want, ah tap into this authority of science in their statements and discourses, right? It's like, oh, well, you know, based on science, we can see this or, you know, based on evidence, this is what we're going to do.
00:56:17
Speaker
Yeah. And so that's one dimension of it. I mean, a second key dimension of the secular sacred canopy is the ontological importance of imminence and materiality and how existence and reality are understood. I know that sounds vague and philosophical, but I'll try and explain it it a bit. I mean, the material world is understood as working according to mcke mechanistic laws, right? And is the main basis for existence and our reality under the secular sacred canopy, right?
00:56:42
Speaker
So many might believe that there might be more to existence and to the universe than what we currently see and know. But the main focus of our everyday lives in reality is remains on what we can see and know on the material, right? It's not necessarily focused on a spiritual world or the kind of spirit of animals or plants, for example, as it might have been in the past.
00:57:01
Speaker
And then finally, a third key aspect of this, and final, I'll move on at some point, but I'm really fascinated by this, a third key aspect of the secular sacred canopy, as Galen and I see it, is its additional focus on the morality of this expressive individualism that I've been referred to earlier when we're talking about potential future and what we currently have now. um And so here we return to classic sociologist Emile Durkheim, who worked in 1912 on a key book.
00:57:30
Speaker
and whose key insight was that modernity gives rise to this kind of new, he called it sacred form, which he variously refers to as moral individualism, the cult of the individual or the religion of humanity. And so this is in response to critics who charge that modernity will unleash kind of egoism and a complete lack of morals and values or enemy. Durkheim called attention to the individualism that's being institutionalized in the Declaration of the Rights of Man during at his time at the early 20th century, which have kind of led to charters of human rights, for example, more recently.
00:58:04
Speaker
and which he believed was taught in French schools at the time as well, and had become the basis of what he called the moral catechism. He was French, so catechism was a big deal in Catholic society, but it was kind of like a new moral teaching. and you know in in this In his view, this form of individualism sacralizes the individual person, right transforming the abstract human into something worthy of both religious reverence and societal protection, and serving as the basis for a secular kind of faith. right Um, and you know, he's using language like faith and secular to kind of mirror it towards what was at the time present kind of a more Catholic society. But the idea is there is that the individual kind of becomes the focus, right?
00:58:43
Speaker
um And many many noted that what Durkheim refers to as moral individualism is in effect the enlightenment tradition of liberalism, right? Which sacize sacralizes not merely the individual person, but with it the value of autonomy, right? And it's kind of our democracies came out of that basically. And then more recently with the 1960s countercultural movement, um another classic sociologist, Thalcott Parsons in 1984 referred to this movement as the expressive revolution, right, brought um brought individual expressivism that animated the counterculture um from the cultural margins before the 1960s into the mainstream. And this has led to what Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor in 1991 referred to as the massive subjective turn of modern culture. So increasingly, Western culture presupposes a human subject with inner depths, right, who harbors deep within them a true self unique to them
00:59:35
Speaker
And as a result, the core sacred value in our societies today is authenticity, right? And with this increased weight to the epistemic and moral significance of subjective experience and feeling, right? We give a lot of weight to like how individuals, quote unquote, authentically experience and who they authentically are, right? And so it follows from an individual expressivist conception of human life that the purpose of life is to pursue self-realization, that is to become the self one truly is, right? And I mean,
01:00:06
Speaker
Again, we take some of this for granted now, but our societies weren't always like this. This was not always the values we we ah kind of put forth as a society. And so under the so current secular sacred canopy then, the individual person has been sacralized and have the values, as have the values of autonomy and authenticity.
Adaptation to Secular Values
01:00:24
Speaker
And these expressive individual values and morals find widespread support across social institutions, right? They're taught by parents to their children, right? Oh, be who you really want to be, right? Like, you know, make your own choices. ah They're taught in schools. They're reinforced in the workplace where employees are encouraged not only to be passionate about their careers, but to view their careers as essential means of self-realization, not just like, you know, the way to make money and so forth, right? They're kind of strewn throughout our society.
01:00:50
Speaker
and And like I mentioned, we take a lot of these ways of thinking and of doing now for granted. which is the exact nature of a secular sacred canopy, right? Is that, yeah, we take those things for granted now. And religions and spiritualities can still exist under this secular sacred canopy, but they're no longer the main ways of knowing and of doing in society. And they're increasingly having to reckon with these cultural legitimations, more imperatives and plausibility structures of this secular sacred canopy, either by accommodating their thought and practices,
01:01:20
Speaker
with kind of science, materialism, expressive individualism, um or by directly resisting them, but there're still reckoning with them. So this is kind of the ideas. I mean, again, early days yet, I know some of this sounds like philosophy and vague and it is a more theory-based piece, but we're kind of, again, trying to think through like, what do we have today that could be similar and kind of how does that play out and what's kind of being built amongst these younger generations and in certain regions of the world where non-religion is very present and very common and is now the kind of new normal and new way of doing it. Well, i I think I know ah what our next series of podcasts will be about. ah Yeah, I think Galen and I have to think through some things first before that one, but yeah, we'd love love to do something like that in the future. but
01:02:06
Speaker
Well, I think, um first of all, I think it sounds like a really fascinating area of inquiry. And of course, it makes sense that if our previous worldview as a society is no longer present and functioning, then what's replacing it? I don't remember who said it, but we are meaning making machines. Yeah, no, I mean. That's true on a micro level and a macro level. Very true. And I mean, these this replacement doesn't happen overnight, right? Some people will be like, oh yeah, we've been in that for a while. like we ah But I mean, these transitions take time. They're kind of very porous. They're not always linear. they So like we we have been kind of seeing a slow decline of the Christian savior canopy. And you know we saw high levels of Christianity in our populations until recent decades, basically, and this kind of a slow transition or shift to something else that we're trying to basically theorize what what is it and and kind of base that in empirical findings that we're finding
Humanist Canada's Role in Secularization
01:03:00
Speaker
amongst younger people. Yeah.
01:03:01
Speaker
been Well, Sarah, I feel like you've probably answered every question anybody could have on these subjects and just these three. Probably just raised a few more good questions. That's the goal. And raised a few more good questions. If people are looking for more information, I do hope they're going to be checking out your books. Again, the first is None of the Above with Joel Tiesen, and the next is Religion, Spirituality, and Secularity Among Millennials.
01:03:28
Speaker
Shameless plug. Thank you. Shameless plug. Well, I think because I'm the one plugging them, it's not so shiny. Okay. Okay. I think so too. Speaking of questions, just wanted to give you the opportunity as we're about to close to turn things around and give you the chance. Do you have any questions for our listeners or for Humanist Canada, which I am not representing completely here, but I'm just- It's all on you, Daniel.
01:03:54
Speaker
I mean, there's so many questions. I always have lots of questions, which is, which is a sign of a healthy mind, I hope. I mean, I'm, I'm curious to hear your thoughts, Daniel, about now that you've kind of heard this kind of past, present, future that we've been talking about in Canada in the last, over the last three episodes, where do you think kind of humanist Canada fits within that? Where do you think you see it heading in Canada? I mean, I hear a lot of, I always like great Britain seems to have a big role to play in humanism. You hear a lot from them, but I'm curious about in the Canadian context, kind of what are your ah your hopes and dreams or or reality checks of of of where you think the kind of movement and the organization is headed? Hopes, dreams, and reality checks. that's that that's the I think that's good to keep in mind for a number of different subjects, the future included. um so yeah Thank you. That's a very interesting question to consider. I know over the past three conversations ah we've had, we've mostly been discussing like
01:04:50
Speaker
trends and data. and and ah And we haven't talked as much about the current state of discourse between secular and religious groups at different levels of society. We touched on it at a few points. um and so and And then we just mentioned a minute ago how you're working in tandem closely with ah a researcher at a Catholic university. So clearly there's a level of discourse happening that's very healthy, very collaborative.
01:05:19
Speaker
um at the at the academic level, but maybe there's more behind the scenes conflict than you're letting on. You don't need to air all that. go a not It's not that exciting, Daniel. Well, that's good. We're mostly just very collegial. And I think that for like a lot of the general public and even like among ah families, for people both religious and secular in Canada, there isn't a feeling of much need for ah discourse or activism in either direction. I think we're a pretty ah we're pretty chill nation, if I can say that, with any degree of confidence. I i think I can. but um And I'm looking at you know even a family like mine, where there's people from across the spectrum. There's secular humanists like me, and there's people who go to church a few times a week.
01:06:02
Speaker
and no real breakdown in relationship or anything like that. ah But if you wait into some of the social media world, the online world, a lot of where the popular discourse is happening, the intersections between ah secular and religious communities, that it feels like there's a a different level of discourse happening. um There's debates, there's reaction videos, there's apologetics and counter apologetics and popular authors writing popular books. And then you trickle down to the lowest common denominator on either side and you just have people harassing each other ah online or even in public. And um I feel like that's, you know, in Canada, much less so. ah You pointed out that only what eight to 10% of the country is
01:06:52
Speaker
evangelical. I'm not sure how many would be the ah secular equivalent to care to engage in on that level in Canada. I don't have any data. I'm not sure. Probably a similar rate, to be honest. Yeah, I'd i'd say maybe bit less, maybe five to 10% who I'd consider. like I call them like active atheists like who are quite engaged. I don't know if they're engaged in the ways you talk about, but who are quite engaged in organizations and on social media, but they're non-belief. Yeah.
01:07:16
Speaker
Right. And I think that you know there may be a maybe a place for ah for that on some level, especially if people who are leaving a religious background or looking for some kind of support or community or an off ramp for their new worldview. I think that there's certainly more than enough work to go around. But I do i do worry when we talk about ah Humanist activism, if I can use the the phrase people are going to at first think about oh like you mean arguing about religion or you mean trying to convince people ah not to be religious or even trying to get rid of ah religion through legislation or otherwise and I don't think that getting rid of religion is
01:07:54
Speaker
a realistic or a particularly useful goal, and I don't think there's any reason to pursue it. I do see good reason to to work towards protecting ourselves and protecting our society ah and the rights and freedoms we've all gained ah from ah from any group that would care to curtail them, but I don't think throwing more gasoline on the trash fire that is a Facebook comment section is a good strategy.
01:08:20
Speaker
um and And also I think that the worst thing is that type of organization doesn't even seem to be that effective. ah arguing to change people's minds doesn't seem to be not useful or beneficial or like I said, even terribly effective. If some of the research is coming out of ah you know your work and then also the non-religion in a complex future project ah or or the Center for Culture and Evolution at Brunel University is to be believed like debating and arguing is not only ineffective at changing minds or making people become more secular, it's unnecessary.
01:08:55
Speaker
ah because ah many of the things that you pointed out about how our society has been changing is ah how ah robust and effective secular institutions began taking the place of religious institutions and began creating more opportunities for ah expanded and increased human rights. And I think that when I think about humanist Canada's place in those things, when I think about um the future of secular humanism or or secular activism in a place like Canada, i i don't think ah I don't think making enemies is at any point something we should ah try to be doing. I think that that activism will be much more effective if it focuses on elevating and protecting those institutions, protecting the hard-won rights of of all Canadians, regardless of
01:09:43
Speaker
religious affiliation, and promoting strong dialogue and connections between religious and secular Canadians at many levels of discourse to avoid animosity and antagonism, ah because we have far more in common than we do differently. and we are you know We're all in this together. I don't see any reason to ah to look for more reasons to fight with each other. I i think that humanism in Canada especially can be one more ah voice of reason in trying to build bridges and and and help all Canadians to find a home here. Sounds like a good way forward. yeah I would like to think so, but I'm i'm just i'm just one guy on a podcast. so
01:10:31
Speaker
as As one guy on a podcast, ah Dr. Wilkins, thefllum I want to thank you for spending your time with us, especially my gratitude and admiration for the work that you're doing. um Again, plugging your books, those who are looking to dip their toes into the study of religion and non-religion in Canada could find no better place to start. And I sincerely hope that you'll be back to share more of your research, philosophy,
01:11:00
Speaker
ah wild guesses at the future and whatever else you care to bring. Thank you so much for joining us. Well, thank you as as one woman on a podcast. It's been a pleasure. I hope you all enjoyed parts or her the whole, of thank you for listening to the series. And yeah, I hope look forward to to doing more of this in the future. Excellent. ah Thanks everyone. and We'll see you next time. Bye.
01:11:27
Speaker
Thank you for listening to The Voice of Canadian Humanism. We would like to especially thank our members and donors who make our work possible. If you feel that this is the type of programming that belongs in the public conversation, please visit us at HumanistCanada.ca and become a member and or donate. You can also like and subscribe to us on social media at Humanist Canada. We'll see you next time.