Watching Canada
I’m beginning to think that when it comes to the border between religion and religion’t, Canada, of all places, is the one to watch:
• Yesterday I wrote the section on Humanistic Judaism, which started in 1963 when Rabbi Sherwin Wine announced to his congregation that he didn’t believe in God and hadn’t for some time. “It is beneath my dignity to say things that I do not believe,” he said, and invited those who wished to do so to follow him in creating a nontheistic Jewish congregation. This was in Windsor, Ontario.
• Five years ago I blogged about Québec, which has historically been the most religious province — over 83 percent Catholic. But now Québec is considered the least religious province by a big margin — and without losing a single Catholic. It’s cultural Catholicism in situ.
• In an Ipsos Reid survey last year, 33 percent of Canadian Catholics and 28 percent of Canadian Protestants said they don’t believe in God.
And ding.