A New Day: The Resilience and Restructuring of Religion in Canada

REGINALD W. BIBBY is one of Canada’s leading experts on religious and social trends. In A New Day, he rescinds earlier predictions by sociologists about the demise of religion in Canada – and helpfully points out how the religious landscape in Canada is changing – and promising for the future. Along the way he offers research indicating that people who do not attend services are not necessarily unfaithful – and points out what those on the periphery of the church are seeking. Drawing heavily from his most recent book in his “gods” series, Beyond the Gods & Back (2011), A New Day is his attempt to make the heart of those findings and implications widely available.

Bibby holds the Board of Governors Research Chair in Sociology at the University of Lethbridge, and was recently reappointed for a further five-year term extending through 2016. For more than three decades, he has been monitoring Canadian social trends via his well-known “Project Canada” national surveys of adults and teenagers. Reg has presented his findings in academic settings across Canada and around the world. But he also has taken his work well beyond the academic community through innumerable public appearances, extensive media exposure, and thirteen best-selling books. In recognition of his contributions to a clearer under-standing of our evolving nation, the Governor General appointed him an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2006. In 2012, he also was awarded the Diamond Jubilee Medal.