Jane Armstrong is a public opinion researcher and a layperson active in The United Church of Canada at the local and national levels.
So Armstrong, a principal at Jane Armstrong Research Associates, views the results of her research into religion from a particular perspective.
On the one hand, as a longtime researcher, she’s not surprised by findings that many people don’t really care about the church, she said, since that makes sense given what she knows about the evolution of public opinion.
On the other hand, as a person of faith, she sometimes feels wistful about what she believes is misperception about and indifference toward the church, she said.
One example of a misperception is the fact that almost 9 in 10 Canadians think most churches in Canada view the Bible as a factual account of history -- even though that literal interpretation is likely to be held by slightly more than 1 in 10 Canadian Christians.
Another example, from Armstrong’s earlier research, is that people with no current church connection say they would be interested in going to a church that is welcoming, where faith is translated into action and where belief is not acceptance of dogma but rather a journey of ongoing discovery -- but they are not convinced that such a church exists.
“I do think people want community and connection, and opportunities to step outside of themselves and care for others. But the idea of finding these things through church involvement -- it’s a notion that isn’t really on many people's radar screen,” she said.
Armstrong’s personal experience leads her to believe that it’s possible for religion to bring meaning to modern-day people and for membership in a faith community to be life-giving, she said.
At the same time, she knows that this is simply inconceivable to many people.
Armstrong recently spoke with Faith & Leadership about her research and its implications. The following is an edited transcript.
Q: Do you think the findings of your research would be significantly different if conducted in the United States versus Canada?
In other research that I have been involved in, I have found that Canadian values and attitudes are sometimes, if not always, on the leading edge of social change. This suggests that while a Canadian perspective on faith and religion might currently be somewhat different from an American one, it could possibly herald a not-too-far-off shift in American public opinion.
So I think our Canadian research could well be of interest to students of both Canadian and American culture.
Q: What kind of research do you do into faith issues?
Over the years, I have studied social values as they relate to faith and spirituality, and I have conducted a wide range of custom studies for denominations such as the Anglican Church of Canada and The United Church of Canada.
My work in the field has included everything from broad public-opinion surveys to in-depth examinations of what makes church people tick. We have also developed a tool that congregations can use to survey their own members about needs and priorities.
For the last several years, my firm has conducted research for The United Church Observer magazine -- which, by the way, operates independently of The United Church of Canada.
The Observer does research that they think their readers and others will be interested in. And certainly, I think The Observer hit a chord with the work we did for them in 2014.
We examined public opinion as it relates to organized religion, and as it turned out, people were very interested to learn that the conventional wisdom does not always hold.
Q: What was the overall picture of people’s attitude toward the church?
In contrast to the conventional wisdom that says that people are rejecting the institution of organized religion and replacing traditional loyalties with a “spiritual but not religious” point of view, our research for The Observer shows that there is a lot less passion on the topic than you might expect.
The fact is that many, many people are simply indifferent to religion and to the church. They see membership in a faith community as a personal choice that some people make, and that’s about it. Certainly, nothing to get riled up or excited about one way or another.
As I said, many are quite indifferent. Their knowledge of faith and religion is a mile wide and an inch deep. And they are in no hurry to learn more. They harbor a number of misperceptions, too -- misperceptions that may actually be at the root of some of their indifference.
Q: What are the misperceptions?
Well, there are a number of them. For one, people don’t realize that there are significant differences among the denominations. I think this is a problem, because it means that most people think that all Christians hold similar beliefs, even when the reality is quite different.
Here’s an example: 9 out of 10 Canadians think that most Canadian churches view the Bible as a factual account of what happened thousands of years ago.
This finding is almost amusing, given that, in Canada anyway, a small number of Christians -- just over 1 in 10 -- belong to churches that actually interpret the Bible literally.
And when we asked Canadians, “Do most churches require their followers to obey a set of rules and regulations?” we found that 8 in 10 thought this was the case.
I suppose one could argue that people were thinking of the “golden rule” and nothing else when they answered this question. But I doubt it.
I think that respondents to this question were reacting to the idea of church as a paternalistic kind of agent, hemming people in with its need to be obeyed, with its requirements of membership, with its rules and regulations. Perhaps some denominations are still like this, but most of them? I just don’t see it.
Q: So people are rejecting or ignoring church, but they don’t really know what they’re rejecting or ignoring?
Yes, I think that is a good way to put it. I believe many members of the public may have an outdated view of what religion can be.
Sociologists use the term “religiosity,” by which they mean an obligation to adhere to customs and traditions, a requirement to follow specific rules and regulations, a respect for authority figures who have not necessarily done anything to earn that authority and so on.
I suspect much of the public thinks that the church aligns with this idea. They think that “religiosity” is what religion is about: out-of-date, irrelevant and anachronistic.
Not surprisingly, then, many people are rejecting religion -- or, more accurately, ignoring it, giving it a pass without any further thought.
Q: Were there other points where you felt like there was a disconnect between what people thought they knew about the church and what the reality is?
Yes, there were other disconnects between perception and reality. And there were other kinds of disconnects, too. For example, we found a gap between what people think the church’s role should be and what they think its role actually is.
Respondents to our Observer survey said that of all the things the church might do, addressing the needs of the community should be the top priority.
And yet, what do people think the church really does? I think that the general public believes that the church mainly caters to its own.
This is because when we ask the public to name the reasons people go to church, they think that the decision has little to do with a desire to serve the community -- let alone work for social justice or heal the world.
It is seen as a purely personal matter -- to feel in touch with God, seek personal comfort and possibly ensure that if there is a heaven, they will go there when they die.
Q: They think the church ought to be out doing work in society, but they don’t think the church is actually doing that?
That’s right. On behalf of The United Church of Canada, I did some research some time ago in which we asked younger Canadians whether they would be interested in a church that had a number of different attributes, including being a place where faith could be translated into action -- in other words, service to others.
The survey results suggested that people were indeed interested in the idea of a church that was focused on social action, as well as one that was truly welcoming to all and where belief was not a matter of dogma but rather a journey of questioning, debate and ongoing discovery.
But the irony was that when we asked our survey respondents whether such a church existed in their neighborhood, the answer was, “Definitely not.”
I do think people want community and connection, and opportunities to step outside of themselves and care for others. But the idea of finding these things through church involvement -- it’s a notion that isn’t really on many people’s radar screen.
Q: What do you think church leaders can do about that? How could they use that information to improve the situation?
Well, I am a big believer in proactive communications programs. A few years ago, The United Church of Canada decided to invest in an initiative that they called Emerging Spirit.
The campaign built on the research findings I mentioned earlier, about people’s perception that there couldn’t possibly be a church in their neighborhood that had the attributes they might be interested in.
It included, among other things, a national advertising campaign and the development of an innovative website and social media program that at the time became an open forum for discussion and debate about life’s big questions.
They used bold imagery and plain language to counter the public’s misperceptions of what church can be.
For example, one of the ads featured a picture of a bobblehead Jesus. Another one showed a Bible with differently colored sticky notes indicating agreement or disagreement with Scripture passages. Another one showed two male figures on top of a wedding cake and the tag line “Does anyone object?”
There were many different images, and some were cheekier than others, but all were very much aimed at getting people to rethink their image of church. I thought it was a brilliant campaign.