Events Blog
Five questions with Joel Thiessen, keynote speaker
By David Turner
What's the 140-character version of your Going Barefoot talk?
Canadian religiosity is on the decline. What does this mean for church-based non-profit groups and denominations, and for Canada’s social and civic fabric?
What got you hooked on sociology of religion?
I originally wanted to be a youth pastor, mainly because of my desire to better understand why young people adopted or rejected various religious beliefs and practices. Soon into my undergraduate degree I discovered that I would be a terrible youth pastor. I started to take some sociology courses, and they made a lot of sense to me – particularly those that dealt with the sociological study of religion. As I started to explore various theories and data on religion in Canada, I developed a keen interest to research and eventually challenge some of the central theoretical and empirical conclusions about religion in Canada. This initial entrance into the sociology of religion launched me into my MA and PhD, and two recent book publications to do with religion and culture in Canada from a sociological perspective – The Sociology of Religion: A Canadian Perspective (with Lorne L. Dawson) and The Meaning of Sunday: The Practice of Belief in a Secular Age.
Why should sociology matter to communicators?
Communicators constantly send and receive verbal and nonverbal messages with a desired audience. One of the reasons that comedians, for example, get others to laugh at their jokes is because they understand their audience’s social context, norms, and values – how another’s gender, race and ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic status, family status, or age shape their lived experiences, attitudes, and behaviours. A communicator’s ability to “read” the “other” enables them to more effectively craft their message in ways that compel the audience to believe and behave in the desired ways, as defined by the communicator.
What's the biggest thing you think most people are missing about what's changing in Canada?
Two things. First, people fail to see that the “demand” for things that religious groups offer is not as strong as most assume. Regardless of what religious groups do to their “supply” of religion (e.g. more relevant preaching, more and different programs, or contemporary music), few Canadians are likely to respond with greater levels of church attendance, for instance; attention to such things generally helps to retain those already attending or to facilitate transfer growth. Second, religious nones – those who say they have no religion – is the fastest growing “religious” group in Canada. They represent 24% of Canadian adults and 32% of Canadian teens – and they continue to grow.
What's a trend you see happening that gets you excited for the future?
Immigration. Christianity continues to be the largest religious group represented among immigrants to Canada (40-50%). Christianity would decline even faster in Canada if it were not for immigration, and signs of life within the Christian community are often correlated to passion, zeal, and urgency among recent immigrants. How the Christian community responds to and engages this demographic will largely dictate the future of Christianity in Canada.
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