Episode 1

How is the shift in religious belonging shaping everyday life? In this episode of the Lifestances Podcast, we focus on two events that have traditionally been shaped by religion: marriage and death.

Brian Clarke, a historian at the University of Toronto, takes us through the dramatic changes in religious affiliation over the past few decades. Mark Allan Groleau, a marriage officiant, talks about the new rituals people are including in their weddings. And MaryPat Weber, who works in the funeral service industry, tells us about changing funeral practices that include celebrations of life that resemble cocktail parties.

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For more on nonreligious change in Canada:

• Brian Clarke and Stuart Macdonald, Leaving Christianity: Changing Allegiances in Canada since 1945 (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2017).
• “The Canadian census: A rich portrait of the country’s religious and ethnocultural diversity,” Statistics Canada, October 26, 2022.
• Joel Thiessen and Sarah Wilkins-Laflamme, None of the Above: Nonreligious Identity in the US and Canada (NYU Press, 2020).
• Sarah Wilkins-Laflamme, Religion, Spirituality and Secularity among Millennials The Generation Shaping American and Canadian Trends (Routledge, 2023).

And around the world:

• Isabella Kasselstrand, Phil Zuckerman, and Ryan T. Cragun, Beyond Doubt: The Secularization of Society (NYU Press, 2023).