Religious Pluralism and Affiliation among Canadian Counties and Cities

A central debate in the sociology of religion concerns whether religious pluralism enhances or diminishes religious involvement. Contrary to Finke and Stark, much previous research using U.S. counties, both contemporary and historical, finds a negative relationship. However Finke, Guest, and Stark (1996) argue that counties are too large to measure the effects of religious pluralism most relevant to their theories and suggest that if smaller areas such as cities are used, the relationship is positive. Using data from the 1991 Canadian Census we show that the relationship between pluralism and religious affiliation is strongly and consistently negative both for census divisions (counties) and census subdivisions (cities, towns, and townships). We argue that religious pluralism may reduce social reinforcement for religious involvement by reducing the number of close social ties individuals have with others who share a common religious identity.