Quebec Protestants Take Stock of Recent Progress

The fastest church growth in North America has reportedly been taking place among the French-speaking people in Quebec, according to William Phillips, secretary of the Fellowship Baptist French Canada Mission Board. “Because it’s a first-generation movement, there is a zeal for evangelism.”

Although some say the church in Quebec is experiencing “phenomenal growth—just like the Book of Acts all over again,” other church leaders caution that it would be an overstatement to describe the current situation as large-scale revival.

Pierre Bergeron of the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada states that his organization, the fastest-growing Protestant denomination in Quebec, “sees an opportunity to preach the gospel like never before.” Of the estimated 30,000 evangelicals in Quebec, about one-third are Pentecostal. An equivalent number are members of the Fellowship of Evangelical Baptists, while the remainder represent the Union of French Baptist Churches in Canada, Plymouth Brethren, Christian and Missionary Alliance, and other smaller denominations.

Although 88 percent of Quebec’s 6.7 million population claim Roman Catholic religious affiliation, many are nonpracticing. French-speaking evangelical congregations are primarily composed of former nominal Catholics, with the average age being 30.

Until recently, Pentecostals and Fellowship Baptists were each establishing one new church every month. According to Fellowship Baptist spokesman Phillips, “The major factor in church growth has been the one-on-one witness of new believers to friends and family. Most of our French-speaking churches have developed two or three branch works by the time they’re five years old, and most of our pastors are recruited from within the churches.”

“Graveyard Of Evangelicals”

Even the provincial capital, Quebec City, nicknamed “the graveyard of evangelicals” due to past failures to penetrate this Catholic stronghold, now has thriving churches with aggressive outreach programs.

“Quebec is a lot like California, filled with people selling new religions,” observes John Gilmour, general secretary of the Union of French Baptist Churches in Canada. “We have many home-grown sects and cults, such as ‘The Knights of the Emerald’ and ‘The Gospel of the Year 2000.’ ”

Although the number of evangelicals in Quebec has tripled since 1970, some feel the pace is still too slow. “The church is just not keeping up with urban growth or cultural and demographic changes,” says Timothy Ernst of Christian Direction, an interdenominational mission that assists local churches in developing lay ministry skills. “For example, Montreal has a large contingent of ethnic peoples, including 20,000 Vietnamese, who are not being effectively reached.”

The New Evangelicals

The fact that evangelical churches in Quebec must cope with growing pains is remarkable, given the history of Protestantism there. In the 1940s and early 1950s, the situation in Quebec was unlike any other in North America.

Missionaries were arrested and jailed for activities such as door-to-door visitation, distributing Bibles, and holding open-air meetings. “At that time, to be French was to be Catholic, and anything to upset that balance was considered subversive to the state,” Phillips recalls. Eventually, adverse publicity across Canada pressured the provincial government to stop interfering in Protestant evangelistic efforts.

The “quiet revolution” of the sixties and seventies is another key factor in current spiritual renewal. In one generation, the Roman Catholic Church’s power declined dramatically as Quebec society became secularized. The radical transformation from an intensely religious world view to a humanistic one left a spiritual void. While interest in the occult, Eastern religions, and New Age mysticism escalated, so did personal Bible reading. Evangelical campus ministries recruited many converts among young Quebecers looking for a cause to join, including ex-radical separatists (proponents of political autonomy for Quebec).

“You must remember that evangelicalism and crusade evangelism are both relatively new phenomena in Quebec culture,” explains Walter De Sousa, a Quebec-born associate evangelist with Barry Moore Ministries. “It is still revolutionary to see 1,500 Francophones crowded into the arena, hearing the gospel in their own language.”

By Wendy Elaine Nelles.

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