VANCOUVER, British Columbia—By the time Mareva Dupre was 16, she had circumnavigated the globe three times on her father's homemade boat.

It might have been the education of a lifetime, but it left her without the one thing she would soon find herself craving: spiritual security.

Never baptized, her family's nomadic lifestyle meant “we didn't really live in a place where I could go to church,” she said.

Thanks in part to grandparents who taught her to pray at an early age, Dupre, now 20, is today a baptized Catholic—one of a new spiritual generation once dismissed as a religious wasteland.

Unexpectedly to those who have predicted the demise of religious faith, the secularism textbook is being rewritten to reflect a significant movement that some religious observers are calling a “spiritual renaissance.”

Just in time for World Youth Day in Toronto July 18 to 28, increasing numbers of people interested in religion—especially youth—have sociologists around the world questioning their assumptions about the declining relevance and popularity of mainstream religion.

The trend is evident in many places and crosses denominational and faith lines, with religions such as Islam and Sikhism showing growth. But it's particularly apparent in the so-called mainline Christian churches, including the Catholic Church.

By the middle of this century, for example, the U.S. population will be one-quarter Latino and 8% Asian, said Philip Jenkins, distinguished professor of history and religious studies at Pennsylvania State University. Many in those communities are Christian. “It's bound to have a major impact,” he said.

In Canada, the unexpected growth of spirituality has been one of the top religion stories of the year. Reginald Bibby, the country's leading religious pollster, noted in his just-released book, Restless Gods: The Renaissance of Religion in Canada, a significant rejuvenation of religion in the country inside and outside of churches.

Bibby, dubbed “Bad News Bibby” for his reputation for noting declining religious trends, is shedding his image as naysayer and receiving abundant exposure as newspapers and networks clamor for him to explain why religion, essentially written off as a factor in public life, is making a comeback.

The trend has surprised Bibby as much as anyone. Contrary to decades of polls—many of them by Bibby himself—showing people leaving the pews, the mainstream churches are holding their own. What's more, few people are abandoning established faiths for New Age movements or a complete rejection of religion.

In short, secularization is a myth, he said, and revitalization is taking place in many mainstream churches. In the Catholic Church particularly he said he sees “considerable vitality.”

Surprising Numbers

Considering Bibby's research concluded before Sept. 11, religion's rejuvenation is even more surprising, with the newfound interest consistent at all age groups. Even teens showed increased involvement in religion. In 1984, for example, 22% of those between age 15 and 19 went to church weekly. Those numbers dropped to just 17% in 1992, but by 2000 they were back to 22%.

Fully 90% of Canadian teens—three times that of adults and even Catholics in general—expect to turn to a “minister, priest, rabbi or some other religious figure” for so-called rite-of-passage events such as baptisms, weddings or funerals. Catholic teens show even greater interest, with more than 92% anticipating religious ceremonies, which is consistent with numbers from the 1980s.

In the United States, which is typically more religious than Canada, there are independent signs that rumors of religion's death have been greatly exaggerated. A study by a Protestant research group has found church attendance by U.S. Catholics is up 7% from last year. Among parents with children under 18 it's up 10%, according to the Barna Research Group.

The flipside of the coin, however, is a reduction in faithfulness to the Church, with levels of “absolute commitment” to Christianity and personal commitment to Christ declining among those same parents. With those describing their religious faith as “very important” dropping to 64% from 70%, Barna president George Barna calls it as an “internal conflict of values.”

Despite the seeming paradox between higher church attendance and more questioning attitudes, many experts are now retracting their previous forecasts of the death of religion. Sociologists such as Harvey Cox and Peter Berger once predicted a future secular society. Berger admits that was “a mistake,” although a cultural elite is still trying to bring it about.

Meanwhile Cox, who in 1961's The Secular City prophesied the eventual demise of religion, acknowledged “a religious renaissance of sorts is under way all over the globe,” particularly among conservative and orthodox denominations. Canada's National Post newspaper recently noted the trend in a sympathetic editorial TITLEd “Religious Revival” that said “rejecting Christian teaching no longer requires daring; it is the path of dull conformity.”

First Things magazine editor Father Richard John Neuhaus has said “de-secularization” is now the “most interesting thing on planet Earth.”

The New Christians

What's more, the growth of an increasingly global society means the impact of the spiritual renaissance has cross-border implications. In Jenkins' new book, The Next Christendom, The Coming of Global Christianity, the author notes an explosive southward expansion of Christianity in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Such Christianity is also reshaping the culture of the north through immigration. “One of the most important religious facts for the northern hemisphere is what's happening in the south by means of immigration,” Jenkins said.

Jenkins cites Vancouver as an example of how North America is benefiting from a wave of Asian immigration over the past two decades, much of it Christian. “Everyone's heard of the Pacific Rim; I believe in many ways that's turning into a Christian arc,” he said.

Although immigration is playing a part in the growth of religion, other factors are also at play. Bibby's numbers show that large numbers of people who don't attend church regularly still identify with the faith they were exposed to when young.

That was the case for Mareva Dupre, whose grandparents provided her prayer books as a child.

Baptized this Easter, she said she sees a searching and “growing awareness” for religion among her friends. “I think sometimes when people get older they get that little weird spurt between 19 and 25,” she said. They either “get married or they do something really drastic with their lives; for some it's finding religion.”

RCIA instructors report seeing young people who were baptized in infancy and spent their lives unchurched now showing up on parish doorsteps.

“We have a fair number of people that come through on a fairly regular basis that have Catholic backgrounds, probably baptized, not confirmed,” said Don Adams, who coordinates an RCIA program in the Vancouver, B.C., suburb of Langley.

Reaching Youth

The enormous numbers of youth standing just outside the Church's doorstep are one of the signs of hope that some experts see for the Church. At last month's Continental Congress on Vocations in Montreal, sociologist Sister Mary Johnson of Boston's Emmanuel College said the roughly 20 million young U.S. Catholics represent an impressive number of people that “a lot of faith traditions would give anything to have.”

Her research on young Catholics shows that young adults, while at odds with some Church teachings, remain strong in their faith and spirit of service.

Sister Johnson has published her findings in Young Adult Catholics: Religion in the Culture of Choice, from the University of Notre Dame Press. She told the congress that the Church needs to find new ways to bring young people across the threshold, such as peer witnessing.

Indeed, those involved with RCIA credit Christian witness—from grandparents to friends—for drawing young people into a Church they've never frequented.

“It's interesting how frequently we ask them why they're there, and they say, ‘Well, my parents didn't go to church, but my grandmother used to take me to church when I was a child,’” Adams said.

Textbook Case

Scott Roy is a textbook example. The 24-year-old construction worker from Maple Ridge, B.C., was baptized Catholic as a baby, but his parents left the Church when he was 3. It was in high school that he “realized there was something missing” in his life.

Like many who represent the stories behind the statistics, Roy felt an “emptiness” and a lack of direction in his life. Today he is RCIA coordinator at his parish and hopes to return to school to finish a theology degree.

He agreed that there is a resurgence in spirituality among young people at Protestant and Catholic churches alike, and said the spark is coming from exposure to other Christians.

Said Roy, “Living the life and radiating the light is definitely the most effective form of evangelizing.”

Paul Schratz writes from Vancouver, British Columbia.