Religious groups and nonreligion

The first Buddhist immigrants, who came to Canada in the late 19th century, were from China and Japan. They worked on the mines and railroads of the Canadian Pacific Railway. During the late 1800s, Japanese Buddhists in British Columbia gathered at homes to hold assemblies. They belonged to the Jodo Shinshu tradition. The first documented assembly was in 1904. According to the records, 14 Buddhists met to request a minister from the mother temple of the Jodo Shinshu sect in Japan, the Honpa Honganji temple in Kyoto. In the following year, the first resident Buddhist minister arrived on Canadian soil. In December 1905, the first Buddhist temple was established in Vancouver. Many other temples were built in several Canadian provinces. During World War II, many Japanese Canadians were imprisoned and this almost meant the end to Japanese Buddhism in Canada. The abolishing of the War Measures Act in 1949 set Japanese Canadians free and re-established Japanese Buddhism in the country.

With the liberalization of Canada’s immigration policy in the 1960s, many Buddhists immigrated to Canada from different Asian countries, such as Sri Lanka, Japan, South-east Asia, and Tibet, representing various Buddhist traditions, such as Theravada Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhism, Tantric and Vajrayana Buddhism. There are also Canadian converts to Buddhism, as many Canadians have been attracted to Buddhism by its teachings and by the popularity of the Dalai Lama. According to the census of 2011, there are 366,830 Buddhists in Canada. We find the largest number of Buddhists in the province of Ontario (163,750), followed by British Columbia (90,620) and Quebec (52,390).

Generally, Buddhists in Canada follow Buddhist doctrine, as revealed in the teachings of the Buddha, but there are also differences pertaining to the different branches of Buddhism, Theravada, Mahayana or Tantric Buddhism as well as to different sects within these branches. At the time of the census of 2011, there were 489 Buddhist organizations, temples, centers, associations, retreats and charities in Canada. Many Buddhist temples function as community cultural centers. There are many uncounted groups, who do not want to be part of any institutionalized hierarchy. Decentralization and disliking for institutionalized structures are two characteristics of Canadian Buddhism. Another important feature is that like elsewhere in Asia, embracing Buddhism in Canada does not mean the exclusion of other belief systems. Many Buddhists in Canada adhere at the same time also to Christianity, or Hinduism or Shintoism, or Taoism, etc. as well.

Some important temples in British Columbia are the Jodo Shinshu Buddhist Temples of Canada in Vancouver, the Vancouver Buddhist Center, the Fu Hui Buddhist temple Society and the Thrangu Monastery in Richmond, in Ontario – the Wat Lao Veluwanaram of Ontario, the Khmer Buddhist Temple of Ontario, Buddhist Prajna Temple, Karna Sonam Dargye Ling Temple, the Cham Shan Temple and the Toronto Nichiren Buddhist Church and in Quebec – Yuen Kwok Buddhist Temple, Manjushri Buddhist Center, Paramita Centre of Buddhist Meditation, and the Montreal Buddhist Church.

Buddhist scholar-monks from Asia often visit Buddhist temples and societies in Canada. They offer meditation sessions and hold seminars on various topics of the Buddhist doctrine. Some of these seminars and workshops take place online, others are held in person at various temples, centers and retreats. Many Buddhist scholar-monks from Asia seek contacts with Canadian universities, as they like visiting classes and exchanging with students and professors of Buddhism at an academic level. These visiting scholars and monks, together with resident monks and priests of the temples, who usually also come from Asia, play an important role in maintaining the links with Buddhism in Asia. Buddhist traditions in Canada are rich and diverse and they attract many new followers from all over Canada.

Bibliography
– Barber, A.w. and Celine Cooper. “Buddhism in Canada.” In The Canadian encyclopedia. 2011. Retrieved on November 20th, 2021.
– Beyer, Peter and Rubina Ramji, eds. Growing Up Canadian: Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists. Montreal and London: McGill Queen’s University Press, 2013.
– Coward, Harold, John Rinneles and Raymond Williams, eds. The South Asian Religious Diaspora in Britain, Canada and the United States. Albany, N.Y: State University of New York Press, 2000.
– Dimitrova, Diana, ed. The Other in South Asian Religion, Literature and Film: Perspectives on Otherism and Otherness. London and New York: Routledge, 2014, paperback edition 2017.
– Government of Canada, Statistics Canada, “Canadian Demographics at a Glance.Second Edition.” Retrieved on November 1st, 2021.
– Matthews, Bruce. Buddhism in Canada. 2006
– Peressini, Mauro, eds. Choosing Buddhism: The Life Stories of Eight Canadians. Ottawa:Ottawa University Press, 2016.

D 2 December 2021    ADiana Dimitrova

Somewhere between six and ten percent of Canadians are Evangelical. Evangelicals, often called conservative Protestants, include at least 100 denominations in Canada, including Pentecostals, Baptists, Holiness (e.g. Nazarenes and Wesleyans), Mennonites and a growing number of independent churches and networks. In addition, significant numbers of mainline Protestant affiliates (Anglicans, Presbyterians, Lutherans, United Church) are conservative as well, and could fit into the evangelical camp based on their beliefs (and some scholars would include ‘Catho-evangelicals’ as well). Besides denominations, another way Evangelicals are counted is based on British historian David Bebbington’s famous quadrilateral (Evangelicalism in Modern Britain. New York, NY: Routledge, 1989). This quadrilateral includes conversionism, the belief that people need to be ‘saved’ or converted; activism, the importance of living your faith by evangelising, reading the Bible, prayer and church attendance; biblicism, viewing the Bible as authoritative and inspired; and crucicentrism, the centrality of Christ’s death on the cross as the only means of salvation.

Besides doctrinal distinctives, evangelicals are also known for their resistance to liberalising trends in Canadian society, due to their commitment to the authority of the Bible. Behaviourally, survey research shows that they are more likely than most Canadians to regularly attend church, read the Bible and pray, evangelise, volunteer and give to charitable causes. This activism means that they are able to sustain a disproportionately high number of congregations in Canada, over 11,000, accounting for about one third of all the congregations in Canada. Morally, evangelicals tend to hold to traditional views of the family and the view that life is sacred, thereby rejecting sex outside of heterosexual marriage, abortion, MAID (medical assistance in dying), and pornography. Along with conservative Catholics, they are typically against same sex marriage, which was legalised in Canada in 2005 (although views are changing, particularly among younger evangelicals). Politically, evangelicals tend to vote conservative. However, their voting patterns are diverse, as their concern for issues like poverty and the environment can push them toward voting for left-leaning parties like the Liberals or New Democratic Party.

It is easy to lump Canadian Evangelicals in with Evangelicals in the U.S., who garner much more media attention. In many ways, this is fair, as they are very similar in their activism and moral/ethical views. Protection of life and the traditional family, and concern for the poor energise evangelicals on both sides of the border. They share nearly identical levels of commitment to biblical authority and their churches, which belong to many of the same denominations. However, evangelicals in Canada are probably more like British evangelicals than their American neighbours. Evangelicals on both sides of the Atlantic cringe when they are characterised as xenophobic, nationalistic, or aggressive like their (Trump-supporting) co-religionists to the U.S. They work hard to present a more tolerant, irenic version of evangelicalism, without compromising their convictions.

Evangelicalism, like all religious groups in Canada, is changing. The decline of institutional forms of religion (e.g. declining church attendance) and immigration are particularly important. Regarding the former, evangelical churches continued to grow even while mainline Protestant churches declined after the 1960s. However, recent research shows that they are losing about one third of those raised evangelical by young adulthood, nearly all of whom become religious ‘nones’. Many other evangelicals are attending less often than they used to. Most evidence indicates that Canadian evangelicalism is no longer growing. However, it would be clearly declining if it were not for gains due to immigration. As for immigration, new Canadians from Asia, Africa, and South America (particularly Pentecostal/charismatic evangelicals) are changing the face of Canadian evangelicalism, starting new churches (and denominations) and energising old ones. Since immigrants often come to Canada with higher levels of religious commitment, the future of evangelicalism will likely reflect immigration trends.

D 4 May 2021    ASam Reimer

The first Hindu immigrants, who came to Canada in 1903-1904, were from Punjab. As the religious boundaries between Sikhs and Hindus were more fluid at the time, the two groups were often listed together in the earlier editions of the census. With the liberalisation of Canada’s immigration policy in the 1960s, many Hindus immigrated to Canada at that time. The large majority of these new Hindu immigrants came from Hindi-speaking Uttar Pradesh in North India. Others were Tamil-and Bengali-speaking Hindus. In the following decade, many Hindus arrived from the former British colonies in East Africa, South Africa, Shri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Mauritius, Guyana, Fiji and Trinidad. There are also Canadian converts to different Hindu sects, who have been attracted to Hinduism by various charismatic gurus visiting Canada. According to the census of 2011, there are 497,000 Hindus in Canada. The largest number of Hindus can be found in the province of Ontario (366,720), followed by British Columbia (45,795) and Quebec (33,540).

Generally, Hindus in Canada share the same beliefs and follow the same rites and practices as Hindus in India. Marriage is usually done along caste lines. However, some young Hindus and their families choose not to adhere to caste rules. Religion is practised at home and in the temple. Hindus have created sacred spaces in Canada by building Hindu temples and inviting Hindu priests from India to perform rites and religious services in the temples.

There are over a thousand temple societies in Canada, which play the role of community organisations. Many temples offer Sunday schools, where children can learn Indian languages, classical Indian dance and music. These temples function as community cultural centres. The largest Hindu temple in Canada is BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir Toronto, which opened in 2007, followed by the Hindu Sabha Temple in Brampton. Some important temples in British Columbia are the Hindu Temple Burnaby and the Mahalakshmi Temple in Vancouver, and in Quebec – The Hindu Temple of Quebec, Shree Ramji Temple and the Hindu Mission Temple in Montreal. Unlike in India, a temple is in Canada often dedicated to multiple deities and is the religious home for very diverse Hindu communities. The deities worshipped in Hindu temples are Durga, Ram, Ganesh, Krishna, Shiva, Murugan.

Religious festivals are celebrated at the temples and this a joyful occasion for all Hindus, who gather at the temples in great numbers. An interesting phenomenon is the communal meal after the religious service at some Hindu temples in Canada, during which Hindus, and often non-Hindu visitors, share food and fellowship. Sunday is not a special day in Hinduism, but religious services usually take place on Sundays, in imitation of church worship in Canada, as this is usually the most convenient day since everyone is available. Services are usually in Sanskrit, and in local languages, Hindi, Punjabi, Gujarati and Tamil.

Hindu temples in Canada are often visited by travelling gurus and swamis. They offer meditation sessions and hold seminars on various topics of Hinduism. These visiting gurus, together with the Hindu priests of the temples, who usually come from India, play an important role in maintaining the links with the spiritual home in India. Most Hindus would travel to India once a year to visit relatives, worship or go on pilgrimage. In the diaspora, Hindu communities, organised around Hindu temples, make it possible for Hindus in Canada to live in a multicultural way, and to preserve their traditions, religious beliefs, practices and culture, while maintaining the links with India.

See also the article by Diana Dimitrova, "General Overview of Hinduism" (in PDF) and the List of Hindu Temples in Canada.

Bibliography
– Beyer, Peter and Rubina Ramji, eds. Growing Up Canadian: Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists. Montreal and London: McGill Queen’s University Press, 2013.
– Coward, Harold, John Rinneles and Raymond Williams, eds. The South Asian - Religious Diaspora in Britain, Canada and the United States. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 2000.
– Goa, David. J. and Harold Coward. “Hinduism.” In The Canadian encyclopedia. 2013.
– Klostermaier, Klaus. A Survey of Hinduism. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2010.
– Government of Canada, Statistics Canada, “Canadian Demographics at a Glance.Second Edition.”
– Rukmani, T.S., ed. Hindu Diaspora: Global Perspectives. Montreal: Department of Religion, Concordia University, 1999.

D 16 November 2021    ADiana Dimitrova

D 6 April 2021   

An article by Jennifer A. Selby traces the history of Muslim life in Canada by presenting the work published to date, highlighting the growing academic interest in Muslims in Canada since the 1990s.

D 6 April 2021    AJennifer A. Selby

Jews have a long history as a minority group in Canada, with the first synagogue in Canada being established in Montreal in 1786. In the 2011 National Household Survey 329,500 individuals self-identified as Jewish, representing 1% of the total population of the country. Toronto is home to about half of the total Jewish population of Canada at 167,765. Other notable cities are Montreal (83,200) and Vancouver (18,730). Canadian Jews identify with Conservative (26%), Orthodox (17%) and Reform (16%) traditions, there are also those who don’t identify with one specific tradition (28%) and several smaller movements (2018 survey of Jews in Canada).
One of the most important Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms cases on the meaning of religion and religious freedom is the Syndicat Northcrest v. Amselem in 2004 in which the right to build a sukkah (temporary walled structure used during a religious feast) on the balcony of a high-end condominium building in Montreal was upheld as an important expression of religious freedom. In that case the Supreme Court affirmed the “threshold of sincerity of belief” in cases involving claims of religious freedom. The Court emphasized that the individual interpretation of the religious observance should be the focus of the determination of constitutionality, not expert opinion about whether a practice is or is not part of the tradition.
Anti-Semitism has a long history in Canada, for example turning away a ship of Jewish refugees in 1939 (it had also sought entry in Cuba and the United States). The ship returned to Europe where passengers disembarked in the UK and Belgium. Almost all the 937 passengers were Jewish and most German. Two hundred and fifty four of them were murdered during the Holocaust. Canada has ongoing issues with anti-Semitic vandalism and hate speech. Hate crimes in Canada motivated by religion and race or ethnicity have been generally on the rise since 2014, with B’nai Brith similarly indicating an upward trend of incidents targeting the Jewish community specifically over the five-year span of 2015-2019. Canadian law has ruled on antisemitic hate speech in several important cases. The 1990 case R. v. Keegstra concerned a public school teacher who was charged with promoting hate in his classroom through his anti-Semitic statements. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that while the Criminal Code provisions limit freedom of expression, this kind of limitation is justified. The 1996 case Ross v. New Brunswick School District No. 15 also dealt with a teacher, who in that case did not express his anti-Semitic views in the classroom but in the wider public and in print. Ross was removed from the classroom, a move that the Supreme Court of Canada ultimately upheld.
In Quebec in particular the popular support for Bill 21 which limits visible religious expression of public servants suggests a growing sentiment that a strong religious identity cannot co-exist with representing the state, with a 2019 Angus Reid poll showing 64% support inside Quebec. There are ongoing issues in various metropolitan areas about rights to establish and maintain eruvs (material or symbolic enclosure destined to allow certain activities during shabbat). The challenges in Montreal in particular have illustrated how Jewish communities can be marginalized as ‘other’ by communities who treat orthodox community practices as incompatible with integration in Canadian society, despite their very long history in, and contribution to Canadian society.

Further information: Stoker, Valerie. Drawing the Line: Hasidic Jews. Eruvim, and the Public Space of Outremont, Quebec. History of Religions Vol 43, no. 1.

See also: "Minority religious practice".

D 5 May 2020    AMathilde Vanasse-Pelletier ATed Malcolmson

New religious movements – also commonly referred to as new religions, emerging religions, or alternative religions – are religions that originated or were imported to North America in the relatively recent past, and thus are not part of established major religious traditions (including, in the North American context, Christianity). In Canada and the United States alike, while several new movements have existed since at least the 19th century, their numbers increased after the Second World War in a context of social restructuring and loss of influence by traditional religious authorities. Examples include the Church of Scientology, Hare Krishna, the Unification Church, Eckankar and Christian Science. Certain groups, such as the Army of Mary, a group excommunicated by the Catholic Church in 2007, embody a break with secular institutions, varying in degree by movement. Generally speaking, it is difficult to estimate the number of new active religious movements, as well as to determine the number, even approximate, of members of each of these movements, in particular because the spokespersons in these groups tend to paint an exaggerated picture of their communities’ demography, but also because several groups have simply not been recorded. The most significant groups in demographic terms are the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also known as the Mormon Church), with more than 193,000 members in Canada, and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, which have more than 113,000 Canadian members.

Some of these new religious movements are known on Canadian soil as a result of various public controversies. For example, the Raelian movement was made famous by its leader’s claims that he had had contacts with aliens, and because of the importance that its belief system places on human cloning. The Order of the Solar Temple also attracted attention when several of its members participated in a collective suicide in the 1990s. Lastly, in the municipality of Bountiful, British Columbia, a group of fundamentalist Mormons has been making headlines since the 1980s for illegally engaging in polygamy.

Relationships with society and tensions

Thus, tensions often build up between new religious movements and society as a result of beliefs and practices perceived by some as incompatible with the values shared across the population. Beliefs and practices pertaining to gender relations, family structure, marriage, child education and sexuality are frequently implicated in the controversies surrounding these alternative religions. In order to combat what they saw as a threat, both to the common good and members of these groups, a number of so-called “anti-sect” movements have formed in Canada (one of the most prominent is Info-sectes/Info-cult, founded in 1980).

The processes for gaining State approval for newly-created religious groups in Canada are minimal: they can include, for example, an application for recognition as a non-profit legal entity with religious purposes, or for ownership and use of a place of worship, a status which notably carries certain tax benefits. These processes do not interfere with the groups’ internal doctrines and practices, unless these contravene common laws.

See also the 2017 Current debate: "Nouveaux mouvements religieux : cas légaux contemporains et historiques".

D 20 June 2017    AMathilde Vanasse-Pelletier

While Canada is still a nation whose social fabric and institutions are influenced by Christianity, the number of people who identify as ‘nonreligious’ has increased significantly during the past few decades. For the purposes of this discussion ‘nonreligion’ includes a number of terms, including agnostic, atheist, spiritual but not religious, humanist, and indifferent. The diverse and broad nature of this category obviously poses challenges, but if we begin with the census figures we can say that just under 1 in 4 Canadians identified as unaffiliated on the last national survey. However, this figure should be seen as a rough measure of religious attachment, particularly when it comes to Christianity.

For instance, a survey published in Faith Today shows weekly church or synagogue attendance at 11% of those surveyed. This compares with post-World War II levels of 67% of Canadians attending church or synagogue weekly. Further, half of those surveyed were agnostic, atheist or nonreligious meaning that combined this group is now larger than those who identify as Christian (Hiemstra 2020). Only 11% of those surveyed attend church on a regular basis. Similarly, in their book Leaving Christianity, Brian Clarke and Stuart Macdonald note that affiliation does not equal involvement and that nearly half of Canadians are thus effectively ‘nones’.

It is important to note that there are regional variations. For example, as of the last census data from 2011 44% of the population of the province of British Columbia has no religious affiliation, compared to 24% of the total Canadian population (Statistics Canada 2011). In Quebec, a province that has traditionally had high Roman Catholic affiliation, only 10.1% of Catholics attend church “at least once a week” and 42.7% of Catholics “never attend” church. Yet identification with Roman Catholicism is still high (almost 85% of the population), something Clarke and Macdonald (2017) predict will fall given the large number of children now being raised with no institutional religious affiliation or education.

This discussion has focused on the intersection of nonreligion and Christianity because Canada has been a majority Christian nation. However, issues around religious and nonreligious identity are important in other areas as well. For example, strategies around immigrant integration often make assumptions about the religious lives of immigrants and refugees which emphasize observance rather than nonreligion. Empirical research has yet to be done on the impact of the religious imaginary on migrants who are nonreligious.

It remains to be seen what the social consequences of the turn to nonreligion are, both negative and positive. One immediate and obvious consequence is the transformation of churches into condominiums, community centres, housing for seniors, performances spaces and so on, or their outright demolition. Less clear are the effects, if any, on charitable giving and volunteering—some researchers and social activists have expressed concern that without churches there is diminished capacity to socialize people into giving. Moreover, some churches have had an active role in the provision of social services, including support for immigrants and refugees; food banks; and the running of homeless shelters. These services often rely on extensive volunteer networks whose numbers are declining along with church membership. In some cases these services have transformed to be less explicitly religiously based. Positive impacts of increased nonreligion may include increased social inclusion for previously marginalized groups, most especially sexual minorities, increased access to reproductive technologies and services such as birth control and abortion and more diverse public spaces.

Sources:
– 2011 National Household Survey;
– Leaving Christianity: Changing Allegiances in Canada. Clarke, Brian and Macdonald, Stuart. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press. 2017.

D 10 March 2021    ALori G. Beaman

Out of the 22 million or so Canadians who reported themselves as Christian (67.3% of the population) in two government studies conducted in 2011 (the Population Census and the Household Survey), 5 million self-identified as belonging to a branch of Protestantism (17% of the population). Protestantism is the second-most represented religious movement in Canada, after the Roman Catholic Church, which has more than 12 million followers (40% of the population). Orthodox Christians meanwhile represent 1.6% of the population.

This division between Catholics and Protestants has been part of the country’s history since its founding, and has long manifested in conflicts, varying in passion depending on the period. Such religious tensions have also arisen from the opposition between Francophones (Catholics who arrived from France) and Anglophones (Protestants of British origin) in the colony’s early days. For more details, see the Canadian Encyclopedia.

The Protestant currents with which the most worshippers identify in Canada are the Unitarian Church (2,007,610), the Anglican Church (1,631,845), the Baptist tradition (635,840), Pentecostalism (478,705), the Lutheran Church (478,184) and the Presbyterian Church (472,385). Furthermore, there is reason to believe that some of the 3,036,780 Canadians who do not identify with the denominations listed, and who have thus chose the label “Other Christian”, are associated with a tradition of Protestant inspiration.

Source: Gouvernement du Canada, Regard sur la démographie canadienne, 2e édition, Division de la démographie, 2016, p. 39.

D 19 March 2018    AMathilde Vanasse-Pelletier

Understanding Indigenous religions and spiritualities is complex due to a history of sociopolitical misrecognition and dispossession of Indigenous peoples in settler societies. Indigenous peoples have and continue to make kinship relations in multiple traditional territories and homelands in what we now call Canada. Indigenous religions and spiritualities are a central part of that sociopolitical, nationhood/peoplehood engagement informed by situated knowledge, relational governance and legal structures, and co-constitutive diplomatic engagement between collective peoples, human and more-than-human.

The central problem in this discussion is the imposition of settler colonial definitions of religion and spirituality that actively or inadvertently seeks to obstruct Indigenous self-determination in order to enforce colonial mandates and worldview. In the hands of settler governments, Christian denominations, and companies/corporations, religion as a moralising and civilisational concept and force has justified settler claims over Indigenous territories and resources, place names and languages, communities and bodies, and governance structures, economies, and cultures. Religion as seen through a Eurocentric, evolutionary, and institutional lens objectifies Indigenous peoples as discerned, consumed, possessed, and controlled by non-Indigenous audiences. This type of objectification of Indigenous cultures and identity represents a racialised logic that actively marginalises Indigenous peoples in Canada as a form of settler colonial possessiveness (Moreton-Robinson, 2015). This logic shapes a structural racism embedded in education, justice (law, police services, and corrections), social services, and health services in Canada. But it is particularly evident in Canadian courts where Indigenous title, rights, and land usage (i.e. harvesting) are sublimated into definitions of traditional religions and spiritual practices as “discernable” types of culture and identity within Canadian society.

It is with this legacy of settler colonialism in mind that many people prefer to talk about Indigenous spirituality in order to better represent the non-institutional, localised nature of Indigenous ways of being and knowing. But, akin to religion, spirituality also carries with it colonial baggage that misrepresents Indigenous experiences, epistemologies and ontologies, and kinship structures. David Delgado Shorter (2016) problematises the concept of spirituality pointing to its binary and evolutionary logic regarding ideas of sacred/profane, objectivity/subjectivity, ethical religion/natural religion, and modern/premodern. Again, the problem is that even using language and concepts that seem more inclusive and individually representative, we are still deploying and reifying Western and settler colonial values and worldview that dispossess and marginalise Indigenous peoples.

In order to rectify our misconceptions, we must frame the collective, co-constitutive nature of Indigenous sovereignty in our understanding of Indigenous experiences and conceptualisations of religion and spirituality. We first centre relationality defined as “grounded in a holistic conception of the interconnectedness and intersubstantiation between and among all living things and the earth, which is inhabited by a world of ancestors and creator beings” (Moreton-Robinson 2016, 71). Relationality is a principal concept and ethos that informs Indigenous epistemologies and ontologies as well as mobilises governance and kinship structures. Secondly, we assert the concept of nationhood/peoplehood as representing a kin-based, co-constitutive orientation of Indigenous sociopolitical relations. Peoplehood describes Indigenous collectivity shaped by “language, sacred history, place/territory, and ceremonial cycles” (Holmes et al. 2003, 13); and adding to this the importance of nationhood in defining the contours of specific communities (Andersen 2021). Together, nationhood represents internal and peoplehood external dynamics that are driven by relationality, self-determination, diplomacy, and kinship. This sociopolitical and religiospiritual framework speaks to how Indigenous peoples understand themselves in terms of common values and ideas, relational languages and relations, storied places and collective homelands, and kinship-based governance structures and law. It also accounts for how nations relate to other nations, humans and more-than-humans, through consensual diplomacy and making kin (TallBear 2019).

It is from this sociopolitical, relational place that we can unpack and better understand the religious and spiritual language that is embedded in and operationalised by Indigenous communities and ways of being and knowing. Religion and spirituality as relations serve as an analytical lens that centres Indigenous sovereignty. This, for example, allows us to see the dynamics of relationality in themes like revitalising traditionalism, religious diversity in Canada, Indigenous Christianity(ies), and Indigenous protest as protectors. Instead of understanding religion and spirituality as assimilative and dispossessive, we can see it as expressions of Indigenous self-determination through an ethos of relationality situated in nationhood/peoplehood engagement.

References:
– Andersen, Chris. 2021. “Peoplehood and the Nation Form: Core Concepts for a Critical Métis Studies.” In A People and a Nation: New Directions in Contemporary Métis Studies, edited by Jennifer Adese and Chris Andersen, 18–39. Vancouver: UBC Press.
– Holm, Tom, J. Diane Pearson, and Ben Chavis. 2003. “Peoplehood: A Model for the Extension of Sovereignty in American Indian Studies.” Wicazo Sa Review 18 (1): 7–24.
– Moreton-Robinson, Aileen. 2015. The White Possessive: Property, Power, and Indigenous Sovereignty. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
– Moreton-Robinson, Aileen. 2016. “Relationality: A Key Presupposition of an Indigenous Social Research Paradigm.” In Sources and Methods in Indigenous Studies, edited by Chris Andersen and Jean M. O’Brien, 69–77. New York: Routledge.
– Shorter, David Delgado. 2016. “Spirituality.” In The Oxford Handbook of American Indian History, edited by Frederick E. Hoxie, 433–52. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.
– TallBear, Kim. 2019. “Caretaking Relations, Not American Dreaming.” Kalfou 6 (1): 24–41.

D 9 September 2021    APaul L. Gareau