Recently I was asked by someone to comment on his statement that “Roman Catholics are not Christians.” I find that this is a blanket statement with which I do NOT agree. I wish to show evidence for my disagreement both statistically and anecdotally. In this first part I will focus on a statistical analysis.
1. Statistically
There are obviously many ways to enumerate the numbers of Christians. The first would be that of self identification, that is people who self-identify with denominations that self-identify as Christian. Statistics Canada conducts a census every five years. A question on religion is only asked every ten years. The last time this question was asked was in 2001. Here are the numbers from Statistics Canada.
| Total population | 29,639,035 | |
| Catholic | 12,936,905 | 43.65% |
| Protestant | 8,654,850 | 29.20% |
| Christian Orthodox | 479,620 | 1.62% |
| Christian not included elsewhere | 780,450 | 2.63% |
| Muslim | 579,640 | 1.96% |
| Jewish | 329,995 | 1.11% |
| Buddhist | 300,345 | 1.01% |
| Hindu | 297,200 | 1.00% |
| Sikh | 278,410 | 0.94% |
| Eastern religions | 37,550 | 0.13% |
| Other religions | 63,975 | 0.22% |
| No religious affiliation | 4,900,090 | 16.53% |
According to the table above, the total number of people in Canada who would identify themselves as Christian is 77.1%, a little more that three quarters of the population.
However, we cannot stop there. In the words of Keith Green, “Going to church doesn’t make you into a Christian any more than going to McDonalds makes you into a hamburger.” And who is to say that those who self-identify even go to church?
It was for this reason that the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, along with the Ipsos-Reid polling firm, co-sponsored surveys in 1996, 2003 and 2007 to determine the percentage of Evangelical Christians in Canada. After consulting with a number of Evangelical leaders, they came up with the following criteria that they felt would determine if someone was an Evangelical Christian.
- Belief that in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God provides the way for the forgiveness of one’s sins
- Belief that the Bible is the Word of God, and is reliable and trustworthy
- Commitment of one’s life to Jesus Christ and self-identification as a “converted Christian”
- Disagreement with the statement that “the concept of God is an old superstition that is no longer needed to explain things in these modern times”
- Disagreement with the statement “Jesus Christ was not the divine son of God”
- Weekly church attendance.
Some might take issue with the questions that were presented, but in the minds of Canada’s Evangelical leaders they represented the bare minimum of what if would take to be classified as an Evangelical Christian.
So what did the surveys find? Nineteen percent of Canadians classified themselves as Evangelical Christians according to the answers to the survey. This shocked both the media and the Evangelical leaders as they were expecting the number to be around eight percent.
Here is why the number is as high as it is. Of the 19% who answered the survey as an Evangelical Christian would, 8% attended what would be classified as Evangelical churches, 4% attended what would be classified as Mainline churches, and 6.6% attended Roman Catholic churches.
If we combine the surveys with the percentages listed in the table above we would find that roughly 40% of Canadian Protestants would be considered Evangelical Christians, along with 15% of Canadian Catholics.
While some may not be happy with the questions, I am convinced that no matter what set of questions are asked, a significant percentage of Roman Catholics in Canada would be identified as Evangelical Christians.
For a further analysis of the surveys, you can read a recently released detailed breakdown of the questions and responses at the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada.
Michael Bell
Joshua Hearne
Tim Melton
Joel Black
[...] the first part I looked at the question statistically, primarily using data from Statistics Canada, and from the [...]
Note: I have removed many of the comments here, including my own. The policy of this site will be in future to be very restrictive when it comes to publishing comments that criticize other Christians.
I’m still a bit confused as to what Evangelical means as a designator for Christians.
In your comments on my site it sounds as if there are: 1. certain groups that have used the term Evangelical but now hold a range of beliefs; and 2. a set of beliefs that are Evangelical even if the particular Christians wouldn’t necessarily identify as Evangelical. I don’t think this survey helps because it doesn’t really isolate what is essential to the Evangelical movement. I could write a similar survey which could well indicate that many Protestants are really Catholic.
I should mention by the way that when I hear the word “evangelical,” I tend to think of the Gospel, which to me suggests first of all the 4 Gospels and then secondarily the rest of the New Testament. I have heard others, however, who use the word Gospel to refer to several letters of Paul…
Hi Fred,
You did summarize me quite well. I think this next link will help to clear up some of the remaining confusion.
It is a very recent statement by a number of prominent evangelical leaders defining what it means to be Evangelical.
An Evangelical Manifesto
By the way I would use an uppercase E to define the movement and a lowercase e to define the theology, in the same way that I might use Catholic versus catholic.
[...] forty years, and how Evangelicals will be treated, look at Canada today. Here are some numbers on Canadian Christians. If my statistical analysis up to this point has been correct, then Evangelical numbers in the USA [...]
[...] forty years, and how Evangelicals will be treated, look at Canada today. Here are some numbers on Canadian Christians. If my statistical analysis up to this point has been correct, then Evangelical numbers in the USA [...]