We are inundated daily with information from our own personalized social media bubble. Opinion pieces are shared ad nauseam to people who are predisposed to agree with the conclusions. It’s refreshing to step outside of the bubble and read good academic sociology—descriptive conclusions drawn from authenticated data. This is precisely what you’ll get with A Culture of Faith.

Sam Reimer and Michael Wilkinson set out to understand what was going on with evangelical congregations in Canada. These two limits are important. Religious expression in Canada is both similar to and very different from our neighbours to the south. Sociological work on religion from an American perspective is important, but doesn’t tell the whole story of faith in Canada.

That Reimer and Wilkinson limit their analysis to evangelical churches is also important. Like the American/Canadian divide, we evangelicals share similarities and differences with our mainline friends. Defining evangelical is a difficult task. Reimer and Wilkinson include the following five denominations:

1. Baptist
2. Christian and Missionary Alliance
3. Christian Reformed Church
4. Mennonite Brethren
5. Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada

As a PAOC pastor, this data and analysis was fascinating. Every chapter helped to contextualize my own congregation. At times I found that my own people were ahead of or behind the mean in various metrics. More often, I saw how my own congregation reflects the broader trends evident in Canadian evangelicalism.

Reimer and Wilkinson don’t pull any punches. They demonstrate how “Canadian culture is not supportive of its churches, as weekly attendance continues to decline” (203).

Is there reason to think that North American institutional evangelicalism has reached its peak and is headed for a slow decline? Yes. (206)

That said, sociologists are not prophets (see “Practitioner Postscript,” 208–210). They clarify what is happening—they are descriptive rather than prescriptive. If the history of the prophetic voice in the Jewish tradition teaches us anything, it’s that God is masterful at bringing life out of death. I don’t know what the future holds for the evangelical movement, but I am confident in the Spirit will continue to bring God’s eschatological future into the present as his people gather to worship and witness.

Reimer, Sam and Michael Wilkinson. A Culture of Faith: Evangelical Congregations in Canada. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2015.