One of the more common mantras we hear from many church leaders in Canada is that Canadians today are very interested in "spirituality."

Even if Canadians seem to have little interest in organized religion-evidenced by the fact that while some 80 per cent claim to believe in God, only 20 per cent actually attend worship services regularly-the argument goes that people today have a deepening interest in things of a spiritual nature compared to the last 40 years or so.

And that should be a source of hope for the church in the 21st century, say Christian leaders.

The 2001 census data released May 13 on religion in Canada confirmed what most of us already knew: Christianity is still the leading faith in Canada, with seven out of 10 Canadians identifying themselves as Catholic or Protestant, while other faiths such as Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism have strongly increased their numbers, mostly due to changes in immigration patterns.

Also of note is that the number of Canadians who identified themselves simply as "Christian" increased an eye popping 121 per cent during the past decade to 780,400 people, an indication that even dedicated Christians may be turned off by "traditional" church groups.

The most interesting data, however, involves the dramatic increase in the number of Canadians who list themselves as having "no religion" (16 per cent or just under 4.8 million Canadians compared to 12 per cent in 1991).

It is this increase in the "no religion" category that got most of the headlines. If we’re to believe the atheists, agnostics and humanists among us, as well as media reports that followed the release of the religion data, Canada is becoming a godless land.

Could it be that the arguments against religion (which generally hold that whatever good religion has contributed to the arts, literature, music, scientific progress, etc., the wars, pogroms, inquisitions, jihads and other evils inflicted on humanity in the name of "God" far outweigh the good) are winning over Canadian hearts?

Overlooked in the rush to declare the victory of godlessness are two important facts.

First, the "no religion" crowd is disproportionately young, with three quarters under the age of 45. This is important because the majority of these younger Canadians come from backgrounds which include some exposure to or grounding in religion, most likely Catholicism or Protestantism. And researchers have found that, as they grow older, the non-religionists tend to-surprise-come back to some sort of faith, nominal or otherwise.

Second, it’s likely that those 16 per cent of Canadians who marked themselves down as having no religion are not necessarily saying they didn’t believe in God, but rather that they did not wish to ally themselves with organized religion. Some may, in fact, be very "spiritual" people.

Sadly, it may be that these people haven’t found God in our churches or among God’s people.

Canadian poet Pier Giorgio Di Cicco, who retreated from the world to a monastery some 16 years ago, emerged recently with a new volume of poems called The Honeymoon Wilderness. In it, he documents his struggle with himself and with God. During his journey, Di Cicco decried a god who, "blesses forks and spoons,/and bad sex and bad livers and Pontiac chrome/chickens and silence."

I wonder if this is the god that too many so-called "no religion" Canadians know? Certainly this is not the living God, the "God who is there" that Francis Schaffer wrote about.

Perhaps the lesson to be learned from the census data is that, unless the church gives them a reason, many Canadians (especially the young) will feel inclined to shrug and count themselves as one of the "nothings" when it comes to God. Our job, then, is to turn them into "somethings."

Joe Couto is a government and communications professional working on Bay Street in Toronto. Joe is a keen observer of the church in Canada who formerly served as communications manager for the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada and is a frequent contributor to ChristianWeek.