Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to show how religious commitment is related to 48 indicators of community involvement, and 49 for the religiously affiliated, after controlling for several factors that are also related to community involvement. The main finding is that Christian faith communities are more civically involved than the religiously unaffiliated, who are in turn more civically involved than non-Christians. Also, among the religiously affiliated, the regular worshippers (at least monthly worship) are more civically involved than the less frequent and non-worshippers. High educational attainment is the most important of the non-religious associations with community involvement.

Our estimates apply to the population aged 20 and over living in Canada's ten provinces. Religious commitment is measured by faith community affiliation for the study of the whole population, and regular worship and faith community affiliation for the religiously affiliated population. After considering other factors, the liberal Protestants are found to be more civically involved than the religiously unaffiliated in 36 of 48 involvements, and civically less involved in no ways. The conservative Christians are found to be more civically involved than the religiously unaffiliated in 32 of 48 involvements, and civically less involved in no ways. Catholics are found to be more civically involved than the religiously unaffiliated in 20 of 48 involvements, and civically less involved in one way. And the non-Christians are found to be more civically involved than the religiously unaffiliated in nine of 48 involvements, and civically less involved in 19 ways.

Comparing Christians with religiously affiliated non-Christians, we find that the Catholics are more civically involved in 29 ways of the 49 possible ways, and less involved in two ways; liberal Protestants are more involved in 32 ways and less involved in two ways, and conservative Christians are also more involved in 32 ways and less involved in no ways. Also, the regular attendees are more civically involved than the less frequent attendees in 32 of 48 ways (excluding worship frequency), and less involved in one way.

A secondary goal is to show how the non-religious factors -- age, sex, marriage, education, length of time resident in the community, and region of residence -- are related to each of the civic involvements. In both the general and the religiously affiliated populations, education is found to be of greatest importance, after controlling for all of the other factors: community involvements are positively associated with education. While there are many exceptions, civic involvements also tend to be stronger for seniors than young adults, middle aged adults than seniors, women than men, married persons than unmarried, those with longer residency in the community, residents of the Prairie region rather than British Columbia, and British Columbians rather than residents of Quebec