Rethinking Church, State, and Modernity : Canada Between Europe and the USA

The contributors consider how Canada?s religious experience is distinctive in the modern world, somewhere between the largely secularized Europe and the relatively religious United States. Contents 7 Acknowledgments 11 Contributors 13 Introduction 15 Part One: Patterns and Flows 37 1 Canada in Comparative Perspective 37 2 Canadian Religion: Heritage and Project 48 3 Individualism Religious and Modern: Continuities and Discontinuities 66 Part Two: Alignments and Alliances 83 4 Church and State in Institutional Flux: Canada and the United States 83 5 Trudeau, God, and the Canadian Constitution: Religion, Human Rights, and Government Authority in the Making of the 1982 Constitution 104 6 Bearing Witness: Christian Groups Engage Canadian Politics since the 1960s 127 Part Three: Civic and Civil Religion 145 7 Resisting the ‘No Man’s Land’ of Private Religion: The Catholic Church and Public Politics in Quebec 145 8 Catholicism and Secularization in Quebec 163 9 Civil Religion and the Problem of National Unity: The 1995 Quebec Referendum Crisis 180 Part Four: Believing and Belonging 203 10 Modern Forms of the Religious Life: Denomination, Church, and Invisible Religion in Canada, the United States, and Europe 203 11 ‘For by Him All Things Were Created ... Visible and Invisible’: Sketching the Contours of Public and Private Religion in North America 225 12 A Generic Evangelicalism? Comparing Evangelical Subcultures in Canada and the United States 242 Part Five: Identity, Gender, Body 263 13 The Steeple or the Shelter? Family Violence and Church-and-State Relations in Contemporary Canada 263 14 The Politics of the Body in Canada and the United States 277 15 Consumers and Citizens: Religion, Identity, and Politics in Canada and the United States 297 References 317 Index 353

Ambitious in scope, Rethinking Church, State, and Modernity considers some central concepts in the sociology and history of religion and, simultaneously, how Canada's religious experience is distinctive in the modern world. The contributors to this volume challenge the institutional approach that stresses a strict division between "church" and "state", which seems inappropriate in late-modern and post-modern scenarios. Rather, the authors favour an interpretation that is marked more by fluidity than fixity.

Canada, which stands somewher between the largely secularised Europe and the relatively religious United States, is well situated as a testing ground for the leading conceptions of the fate of religion in modern and postmodern societies. The book focuses mainly on Christianity, looking at what is distinctive about Canadian situations, and discusses the concomitant decline of some religious groups and the ongoing vitality of others in an increasingly multi-faith and globalized society. The emergence of constitutional rights and identity politics have both contributed to the transforming relationship between church and state and the contributors to this volume pay special attention to the political and social attitudes of religious groups and to the consequences of these attitudes. Subjects covered include: the role of God in the Canadian Constitution; anglophone religious responses to the referendum crisis of 1995; evangelical subcultures in Canada and the United States; and specifically postmodern topics such as the body and consumerism.

Ambitious in scope, Rethinking Church, State, and Modernity considers some central concepts in the sociology and history of religion and, simultaneously, how Canada's religious experience is distinctive in the modern world. The contributors to this volume challenge the institutional approach that stresses a strict division between "church" and "state", which seems inappropriate in late-modern and post-modern scenarios. Rather, the authors favour an interpretation that is marked more by fluidity than fixity. Canada, which stands somewher between the largely secularised Europe and the relatively religious United States, is well situated as a testing ground for the leading conceptions of the fate of religion in modern and postmodern societies. The book focuses mainly on Christianity, looking at what is distinctive about Canadian situations, and discusses the concomitant decline of some religious groups and the ongoing vitality of others in an increasingly multi-faith and globalized society. The emergence of constitutional rights and identity politics have both contributed to the transforming relationship between church and state and the contributors to this volume pay special attention to the political and social attitudes of religious groups and to the consequences of these attitudes. Subjects covered include: the role of God in the Canadian Constitution; anglophone religious responses to the referendum crisis of 1995; evangelical subcultures in Canada and the United States; and specifically postmodern topics such as the body and consumerism "Rethinking Church, State, and Modernity considers some central concepts in the sociology and history of religion and explores how Canada's religious experience is distinctive in the modern world. The contributors to this volume challenge the institutional approach that stresses a strict division between 'church' and 'state, ' which seems increasingly inappropriate in late-modern and post-modern society and instead, favour a more fluid interpretation."--Jacket.