Meaning-Making and Religion at Critical Life Junctures

Abstract

Over the past few decades, Canada has witnessed a profound shift in how individuals relate to religion—not simply in terms of declining affiliation, but in how meaning, identity, and belonging are negotiated beyond traditional religious institutions. While previous research has identified key factors that support intergenerational religious transmission, less attention has been paid to how individuals negotiate challenges to their religious identities at critical moments across the life course. Drawing on select qualitative interviews from the Transmission of Religion Across Generations project in Canada, this article examines how individuals make meaning with and from religion when their beliefs are stressed or challenged. Focusing on autobiographical narratives of participants socialized into Christian and Muslim traditions, it explores how religious identities are maintained, transformed, or abandoned at critical touchpoints and turning points. The findings suggest that participants’ trajectories varied according to social supports and interpretive resources available to them, as well as the degree of institutional flexibility within their religious traditions. By examining the processes and conditions of meaning-making, this article offers a framework for understanding how religious identities are negotiated and supported at key moments across the life course, shaping patterns of religious continuity, transformation, and decline.