Ottawa, Canada - Four in 10 Canadians believe they have been in the presence of God and nearly a third say they have had a religious or mystical experience, a new poll reveals.
The survey, conducted for the National Post in the days leading up to the Easter weekend, shows religious beliefs among Canadians remain as strong as they were a decade ago, even though church attendance has slipped.
"There's a huge gap between those who believe and those who belong," said Andrew Grenville, senior vice-president of Ipsos Reid, which conducted the poll.
"There are three times as many believers as there are regular attenders."
The poll also shows significant differences between Canada and the United States, with more Americans expressing stronger beliefs in almost every category.
Sixty-two per cent of those polled agreed with the statement that "through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, God provided the way for the forgiveness of sins."
Asked the same question, 76% of Americans agreed.
Only 17% of Canadians reported regular church attendance of at least once a week, compared with 36% of Americans.
"There is a thriving privatized faith," said Mr. Grenville, adding that Canadians, unlike Americans, have a tendency to avoid public displays of religion.
"In America, every athlete thanks God after a game, and in Canada, if somebody did that after a hockey game, they'd be a freak," he said.
Canadians also showed they are less religious than Americans in their answers to questions about specific beliefs.
In Canada, 20% agreed with the statement that "the world will end in the Battle of Armageddon between Jesus and the Antichrist." In the United States, 46% answered in the affirmative.
Only 25% of Canadians said it is important to encourage non-Christians to become Christians, compared with 46% in the United States.
Ipsos Reid conducted telephone interviews with 814 Canadians and 768 Americans on April 11-12. The survey has a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points, 19 times in 20.
The number of Canadian believers is virtually unchanged from 1996, but regular church attendance dipped four percentage points. Moreover, just over half of Canadians now say they go only once a year or never at all, a drop from 43% a decade ago.
There was no clear division between younger and older adults, which Mr. Grenville said is surprising considering today's young adults, compared with their Baby Boomer parents, were not raised as Sunday schoolers.
The survey shows a widening gulf between Canadians and Americans. In the United States, regular church attendance is more the norm and has remained virtually unchanged since the Second World War.
The difference can be attributed to Canadians' mistrust of institutions and the fact that there are fewer smaller evangelical churches in this country than there are in the United States, said Richard Ascough, a religious studies professor at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont.
"The church in a way is perceived as just another institution, and people are shying away more and more from things institutional," he said. "Often I'll hear things like, 'I'm religious but I don't go to church. I'm spiritual but I don't go to church.' There's a clear difference to them between believing in God and the institution of the church."
Believers also may have been scared away by scandals that have rocked churches in recent years, including revelations of sexual abuse and the treatment of native students at church-run residential schools, he said.
The survey also revealed a dramatic gap between Canadians and Americans when asked about personal religious experiences.
Forty-two per cent of Canadians said they felt they have been in the presence of God, while 29% said they have had "a religious or mystical experience that is a moment of sudden religious insight or awakening."
In comparison, 58% of Americans said they had felt they were in the presence of God, and 47% had experienced a religious awakening.
Atlantic Canadians, who live in what Mr. Grenville described as "Canada's Bible belt," were most likely to say they had been in the presence of God. Westerners, on the other hand, were far more likely to say they had sudden epiphany-like experiences.
"You get less of that in Atlantic Canada, which has people with a more traditional Christian perspective," he said. Being in the presence of God, he said, could be interpreted as simply going to church, while having a religious or mystical experience is much more concrete.