A church with the soul of a nation: making and remaking the United Church of Canada 9780773542488, 9780773542495, 9780773589308

Table of contents :
Frontmatter
Figures and Tables (page xiii)
Abbreviations (page xv)
Prologue (page xvii)
1. "Friendly Service" to the Nation (page 3)
2. Controversy and the Construction of Identity (page 30)
3. The Mission and the "Machinery" (page 73)
4. The Search for a Faith for Sociable Souls (page 102)
5. Christian Canada in a "New World Order" (page 126)
6. Calling Postwar Canada to Christ (page 154)
7. Uncoupling Christianity and Culture in Canada (page 196)
8. Listening to the World (page 225)
9. Reconceiving the United Church (page 255)
Epilogue (page 292)
Acknowledgments (page 301)
Notes (page 305)
Index (page 419)

Citation preview

A- CHURCH WITH THE SOUL: OF A NATION

MCGILL-QUEEN’S STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF RELIGION Volumes in this series have been supported by the Jackman Foundation of Toronto. SERIES ONE: G.A. KRAWLYK, EDITOR

1 Small Differences 10 God’s Peoples

Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants, Covenant and Land in South

1815-1922 Africa, Israel, and Ulster

An International Perspective Donald Harman Akenson Donald Harman Akenson

11 Creed and Culture

2 Two Worlds The Place of English-Speaking The Protestant Culture of Catholics in Canadian Society,

Nineteenth-Century Ontario 1750-1930

William Westfall Edited by Terrence Murphy

3 An Evangelical Mind

and Gerald Stortz

Nathanael Burwash and the 12 Piety and Nationalism Methodist Tradition in Canada, Lay Voluntary Associations and

1839-1918 the Creation of an Irish-Catholic

; Brian P. Clarke

Marguerite Van Die Community in Toronto, 1850-1895 4 The Dévotes

Women and Church in 13 Amazing Grace

Seventeenth-Century France Studies in Evangelicalism

Elizabeth Rapley in Australia, Britain, Canada, and the United States

5 The Evangelical Century aes Edited by George Rawlyk

College and Creed in English Canada ene ae

from the Great Revival to the Great

Depression 14 Children of Peace

Michael Gauvreau W. John McIntyre 6 The German Peasants’ War and 15 A Solitary Pillar Anabaptist Community of Goods Montreal’s Anglican Church

James M. Stayer and the Quiet Revolution

as is Joan Marshall

7 A World Mission Canadian Protestantism and the Quest 16 Padres in No Man’s Land

for a New International Order, Canadian Chaplains and

1918-1939 the Great War

Robert Wright Duff Crerar

8 Serving the Present Age 17 Christian Ethics and Political Revivalism, Progressivism, and the Economy in North America

Methodist Tradition in Canada A Critical Analysis

Phyllis D. Airbart P. Travis Kroeker

9 A Sensitive Independence 18 Pilgrims in Lotus Land Canadian Methodist Women Conservative Protestantism in Missionaries in Canada and the Orient, British Columbia, 1917-1981

1881-1925 Robert K. Burkinshaw

Rosemary R. Gagan

19 Through Sunshine and Shadow 23 Evangelism and Apostasy

The Woman’s Christian The Evolution and Impact Temperance Union, of Evangelicals in Modern Mexico Evangelicalism, and Reform Kurt Bowen

in Ontario, Ch; C EerS ; 2Cook re 1874-1930 Chignecto Covenanter Sharon As PRESThe OO SOR A Regional History of 20 Church, College, and Clergy Reformed Presbyterianism

A History of Theological in New Brunswick and

Brian |. Fraser

Education at Knox College, Nova Scotia, 1827- 1905

Toronto, 1844-1994 Eldon Hay

25 Methodists and Women’s

21 The Lord’s Dominion Education in Ontario, The History of Canadian 1836-1925

Methodism Johanne Selles Neil Semple . =

26 Puritanism and Historical

22 A Full-Orbed Christianity Controversy

The Protestant Churches and William Lamont Social Welfare in Canada, 1900-1940 Nancy Christie and Michael Gauvreau

SERIES TWO IN MEMORY OF GEORGE RAWLYK DONALD HARMAN AKENSON, EDITOR

1 Marguerite Bourgeoys and Montreal, 6 The Waning of the Green

1640-1665 Catholics, the Irish, and Identity Patricia Simpson in Toronto, 1887-1922

; Mark G. McGowan

Y, < ¢ . ;

2 Aspects of the Canadian

Evangelical Experience 7 Religion and Nationality

Fdited by G.A. Rawlyk in Western Ukraine

Faitt 'T; The Greek CatholicNational Church QeInfinity. sey ey a rere cree and the Ruthenian Christian Humanism and a

Rena; 7 Movement in Galicia, 1867-1900 Cnaissance fLCTA HUE Jobn-Paul Himba

fo 8 Good Citizens 4 peek The Contribution of CeeandeeImperial cee i ceri British Missionaries resbyterianism 71 John Spencer Hill

ge: States, 1870-1918

Maritime Provinces of Canada a and gis James G.H.H. Greenlee Edited by Charles Scobie ; Charlespoe. M. Johnston

and G.A. Rawlyk

9 The Theology of the Oral Torah 5 Labour, Love, and Prayer . ne es ae ey. * Revealing the Justice of God

; Jacob Neusner

Female Piety in Ulster Religious eet Literature, 1850-1914 Andrea Ebel Brozyna

10 Gentle Eminence 21 The View from Rome A Life of Cardinal Flahiff Archbishop Stagni’s 1915

P. Wallace Platt Reports on the Ontario Bilingual

es Schools Question

II Culture, Religion, and Demographic Edited and translated by

Behaviour Catholics job Zucchi and Lutherans in Alsace, 1750-1870

Kevin McQuillan 22 The Founding Moment Church, Society, and the be eWeD pamnedon Construction of Trinity College

aneoreranon William Westfall Priests and Merchants

in Newfoundland Politics, 23 The Holocaust, Israel, and

1745-1855 Canadian Protestant Churches

John P. Greene Haim Genizi

13, Martin Luther, German Saviour 24 Governing Charities German Evangelical Theological Church and State in Toronto’s Factions and the Interpretation Catholic Archdiocese, 1850-1950

James M. Stayer ; ;

of Luther, 1917-1933 Paula Maurutto

25 Anglicans and the Atlantic World

14 Modernity and the Dilemma High Churchmen, Evangelicals, of North American Anglican and the Quebec Connection

Identities, 1880-1950 Richard W. Vaudry

WilliamisH. 26 Katerberg Evangelicals and the

15 The Methodist Church on Continental Divide the Prairies, 1896-1914 The Conservative Protestant

George Emery Subculture in Canada and

16 Christian Attitudes towards ee the State of Israel

Paul Charles Merkley 27 Christians in a Secular World

; er The Canadian Experience

7A Social | listory of the Cloister anes ee Daily Life in the Teaching

Monasteries of the Old Regime 28 Anatomy of a Seance

Elizabeth Rapley A History of Spirit Communication

etee in Central Canada

18Family, Households of Faith | Ree eV nee Gender, and Community

in Canada, 1760-1969 29 With Skilful Hand Edited by Nancy Christie The Story of King David

19 Blood Ground

David T: Barnard

Colonialism, Missions, and the 30 Faithful Intellect

Contest for Christianity in the Samuel S. Nelles and Cape Colony and Britain, 1799-18 53 Victoria University

Elizabeth Elbourne Neil Semple

20 A History of Canadian Catholics 31 W. Stanford Reid

Gallicanism, Romanism, and An Evangelical Calvinist

Canadianism in the Academy

Terence J]. Fay Donald MacLeod

32 A Long Eclipse 43 To Heal a Fractured World

The Liberal Protestant The Ethics of Responsibility Establishment and the Canadian Jonathan Sacks

University, 1920-1970 Revival; Catherine Gidney sa Denia idah a ads ; Marketing the Gospel in 33 Forkhill Protestants and Forkhill English Canada, 1884-1957

Kyla Madden i $

Catholics, 1787-1858 Kevin Kee

45 The Churches and Social Order

34 For Canada’s Sake in Nineteenth- and TwentiethPublic Religion, Centennial Century Canada

Celebrations, and the Re-making Edited by Michael Gauvreau and

of Canada in the 1960s Ollivier Hubert

Gary R. Miedema ie

46 Political Ecumenism

35 Revival in the City Catholics, Jews, and Protestants in De

Eric R. Crouse

The Impact of American Gaulle’s Free France, 1940-1945 Evangelists in Canada, 1884-1914 Geoffrey Adams

47 From Quaker to Upper Canadian

36 The Lord for the Body Faith and Community among Yonge Religion, Medicine, and Street Friends, 1801-1850 Protestant Faith Healing in Robynne Rogers Healey

Canada, 1880-1930 : eee lames Opp 48 The Congrégation de Notre-Dame,

Superiors, and the Paradox of Power,

1190-1789 : ; < AE bd J ‘ : . ° . .

37 Six Hundred Years of Reform 1693-1796

Bishops and the French Church, Colleen Gray

7. Michael mdewand 49 Canadian Pentecostalism

Miah (Ceeere Bair Transition and Transformation Edited by Michael Wilkinson

38Wictse The wha Missionary Oblate Sisters 7 . 2 Nlicdon 50 A War with a Silver Lining

Rass Baio fe Canadian Protestant Churches and the South African War,

39 Religion, Family, and Community 1899-1902

in Victorian Canada Gordon L. Heath

The Colbys of Carrollcroft ; Marguerite Van Die 51 In the Aftermath of Catastrophe Founding Judaism, 70 to 640

40 Michael Power Jacob Neusner

‘*‘a=cyy7

The Struggle to Build the Catholic 1 nine Hol;

Church on the Canadian Frontier ye ot a a ea ,

WC. Me Conan Classic Hasidic Tales in Modern Times

931-1:

Justin Jaron Lewts

41 The Catholic Origins of Quebec’s .

OiceRevohition..rose-2076 53 Shouting, Embracing, and

Michael Cannone Dancing The with Ecstasy Growth of Methodism in

42 Marguerite Bourgeoys and the Newfoundland, 1774-1874

Congregation of Notre Dame, Calvin Hollett 1665-1700 Patricia Simpson

54 Into Deep Waters 62 Contesting the Moral High Ground

Evangelical Spirituality and Popular Moralists in Mid-Twentieth-

Maritime Calvinist Baptist Century Britain

Ministers, 1790-1855 Paul T. Phillips

Daniel C. Goodwin a5 ;

63 The Catholicisms of Coutances

55 Vanguard of the New Age Varieties of Religion in Early The Toronto Theosophical Modern France, 13 50-1789

Gillian McCann ae

Society, 1891-1945 ]. Michael Hayden

64 After Evangelicalism

56 A Commerce of Taste The Sixties and the United

Church Architecture in Church of Canada

Canada, 1867-1914 Kevin N. Flatt

pO eee 65 The Return of Ancestral Gods

57 The Big Picture Modern Ukrainian Paganism The Antigonish Movement as an Alternative Vision of Eastern Nova Scotia for a Nation Santo Dodaro and Leonard Pluta Mariya Lesiv 58 My Heart’s Best Wishes for You 66 Transatlantic Methodists

A Biography of Archbishop British Wesleyanism and

John Walsh the Formation of an Evangelical John P. Comiskey Culture in Nineteenth-Century

jittes Ontario and Quebec

59 The Covenanters in Canada Todd Webb Reformed Presbyterianism from 1820 to 2012 67 A Church with the Soul of a Nation

Eldon Hay Making and Remaking the United hat Church of Canada 60 Uhe Guardianship of Best Interests Pils DiAabart Institutional Care for the Children i of the Poor in Halifax, 1850-1960 Renée N. Lafferty 61 In the Name of the Holy Office Joaquim Marques de Aratjo, a Brazilian Comissario in the Age of Inquisitional Decline James E. Wadsworth

A Church with the Soul of a Nation Making and Remaking the United Church of Canada

PHYLLIS D. AIRHART

McGill-Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston « London -« Ithaca

© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2014 ISBN 978-0-773 5-4248-8 (cloth) ISBN 978-0-7735-4249-5 (paper) ISBN 978-0-773 5-8929-2 (ePDF) ISBN 978-0-773 5-8930-8 (ePUB) Legal deposit first quarter 2014 Bibliothéque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free

This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. McGill-Queen’s University Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Airhart, Phyllis D. (Phyllis Diane), 1953-, author A church with the soul of a nation: making and remaking the United Church of Canada/Phyllis D. Airhart. (McGill-Queen’s studies in the history of religion. Series two; no. 67) Includes bibliographical references and index. Issued in print and electronic formats. ISBN 978-0-773 5-4248-8 (bound). — ISBN 978-0-773 5-4249-5 (pbk.). ISBN 978-0-773 5-8929-2 (ePDF).-ISBN 978-0-773 5-8930-8 (ePUB) 1. United Church of Canada — History — 20th century. 2. Canada — Church history — 20th century. I. Title. II. Series: McGill-Queen’s studies in the history of religion. Series two; no. 67

BX9881.A47 2014 287.9'20904 C2013-905843-5 C2013-905844-3

This book was typeset by Interscript in 10.5/13 Sabon.

Dedicated to John Webster Grant (1919-2006) and N.K. Clifford (1930-1990)

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Contents

Figures and Tables xiii

Abbreviations xv

Prologue xvii Illustrations follow pages 64 and 186

1 “Friendly Service” to the Nation 3

2 Controversy and the Construction of Identity 30 3 The Mission and the “Machinery” 73 4 The Search for a Faith for Sociable Souls 102

5 Christian Canada in a “New World Order” 126 6 Calling Postwar Canada to Christ 154 7 Uncoupling Christianity and Culture in Canada 196

8 Listening to the World 225 9 Reconceiving the United Church 255

Epilogue 292 Acknowledgments 301

Notes 305 Index 419

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Figures and Tables

EIGURES

6.1 Funds raised by the Woman’s Association and the Woman’s

Missionary Society, 1926-61 168 8.1 Appointments and withdrawals of missionaries, 1928-65 242 9.1 United Church of Canada membership, 1926-75 257 9.2 Total funds raised for all purposes, 1926-75 257 9.3 Membership in Sunday schools and through-week organizations,

1926-75 264 TABLES

1.1 Denominational strength before and after church union (as a percentage of the total population of Canada) 10 2.1 Chronology of church union in Canada _ 33 2.2 Congregational, Methodist, and Presbyterian congregations before ro June 1925 and United and non-concurring congregations after ro June 1925 «062 3.1 Geographical distribution of United Church membership,

I93l 75 3.2 Disbursement of the Missionary and Maintenance Fund,

1928-38 98 6.1 Membership of Woman’s Missionary Society auxiliaries, bands,

and affiliated CGIT groups 167 9.1 Geographical distribution of United Church membership,

I97I 256

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Abbreviations

AOTS As One That Serves

CGIT Canadian Girls in Training CCIA Committee on the Church and International Affairs E&SS Evangelism and Social Service

FCSO. Fellowship for a Christian Social Order NCC National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA

NEM National Evangelistic Mission ROP Record of Proceedings of the United Church of Canada SCM _ Student Christian Movement

SOs Summer of Service uCA — United Church of Canada Archives

UCO United Church Observer UCRE United Church Renewal Fellowship

ucw United Church Women WA Woman’s Association wMs Woman’s Missionary Society

wcc World Council of Churches YMCA Young Men’s Christian Association

yPU Young People’s Union ywca Young Women’s Christian Association

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Prologue Where to start is the problem, because nothing begins when it begins and nothing’s over when it’s over, and everything needs a preface: a preface, a postscript, a chart of simultaneous events. History is a construct, she tells her students ... Still, there are definitive moments, moments we use as references, because they break our sense of continuity, they change the direction of time. We can look at these events and we can say that after them things were never the same again. They provide beginnings for us, and endings too. Margaret Atwood, The Robber Bride

“T look upon all the world as my parish,” Methodist John Wesley famously wrote in his journal as he braced himself for clashes with critics of his itinerant preaching that would flout the parish boundaries of his day. “In whatever part of it | am, I judge it meet, right, and my bounden duty, to declare unto all that are willing to hear the glad tidings of salvation.”* Two centuries later, those who joined with Wesley’s spiritual descendents to create the United Church of Canada had a more modest mission in mind. “Canada is our parish,” wrote Presbyterian E.H. Oliver in the first issue of the new denominational magazine. Excited by whatits “vision of Dominion-wide

service” would mean for the Prairies, the principal of St Andrew’s College in Saskatoon predicted that there would “be not a hamlet or a rural community in the whole land where the United Church will not serve.” It aimed to make a difference in those communities, for it had “a large faith that all of human kind are not only redeemable but, as well, usable for, and in, the Kingdom.” Mobilizing those redeemable and usable persons for the sake of God’s Kingdom in Canada was the mission that inspired the church union movement of the early 1900s. Its leaders believed that their

XVIII Prologue venture in ecumenism would not only improve the operational effciency of the uniting churches but also create better persons, better communities, and a better nation — a Christian social order, as they often put it. In making the United Church, they envisioned a national church that would relate in a special way to communities across Canada. Historian Sidney Mead once described America as “a nation with the soul of a church,” borrowing a remark that G.K. Chesterton made after visiting the United States in the early 1920s.3 Those advancing the cause of church union had something different in mind for Canada: they were hoping to build a church with the soul of a nation. The church founded in June 1925 was decades in the making. The idea of uniting Protestantism in Canada was conceived after Confederation by Victorian evangelicals who were eager to cooperate in meeting the spiritual needs of the young nation. What began as a quest for Protestant cohesion was complicated by competition from the Roman Catholic Church in and beyond Quebec, as well as theological and tactical divisions within its own ranks. Fissures in Anglo-American Protestantism were already appearing by the time formal church union negotiations commenced at the

turn of the century. In Canada some of the animosity between conservative and progressive evangelicals was transposed into the bitter debate over church union that ensued. Whether the United Church could still claim to be a legitimate heir to the evangelical tradition was a theological issue contested long after other matters were resolved. While the United Church prided itself on being ‘made in Canada, its supporters traded ideas freely with church leaders in other countries before and after church union. The views of theologians who promoted a united Protestantism in England and Scotland sounded just as relevant in Canada, where churches were facing the massive challenges of expanding to new communities. The case for church union on a grand scale featured the practical advantages of overcoming the unfortunate divisions that had befallen Christendom after the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century. The Canadian

version made much of the fact that dozens of Old World denom1nations had already united within their confessional families (as Presbyterians, Methodists, and Congregationalists) after their arrival. The next step was obvious: to set aside the doctrinal differences of the past by professing a “common faith” that emphasized

Prologue Ix their theological harmony. Opponents charged that unionists were creating a creedless church that was little more than a political club, and accused them of theological modernism. The United Church was determined to prove its critics wrong, insisting that there could be adaptation without apostasy. Church union was an ambitious undertaking that tested the limits of inclusion by bringing together networks of missionary enthusi-

asts, social reformers, and Christian educators. Rather than the theological modernists or social radicals their detractors made them out to be, the most prominent among them were pragmatic progressives whose liberal evangelical theology held that personal faith had social implications. Their commitment to extending the influence of Christian civilization was widely shared among Protestants in and beyond Canada — even by many who opposed union. The United Church in this sense proclaimed a social gospel — not an endorsement of a partisan political or economic agenda, but an orientation to life that connected faith and community. Critics rightly observed that there was a civic dimension to ‘being United’ that was particularly evident during times of national crisis. It rallied its members

to provide assistance to those hardest hit by the Depression, and supported the Second World War and postwar reconstruction as a defence of Christian civilization. For a time it looked as if the United Church was meeting, and even exceeding, expectations. During the 1950s, insiders and onlookers saw it as vibrant, growing, and confident. To be sure, its leaders fret-

ted about secularism and the decline of moral standards that they saw as evidence that western Christendom was becoming “pagan.” And yet its congregations were undoubtedly making a mark on communities across the nation. “In many respects it is as Canadian as the

maple leaf and the beaver,” wrote sociologist John Porter in The Vertical Mosaic as he surveyed Canadian society in 19654 — just as the United Church’s situation was about to change. By then the United Church was showing signs of a crisis of institutional identity, complicated by the circumstances of its founding. A century after Confederation, Canada’s political leaders were less convinced than their predecessors that Christianity was a source of

cultural cohesion. The notion of a national church, especially one that would represent a shrinking proportion of the population (if postwar demographic patterns were any indication), was problematic in a nation that was becoming noticeably less Protestant. Like

xx Prologue efforts to suppress cultural differences by assimilation, even the strategy of blending theological traditions began to sound less laudable; such conciliation smacked of compromise to a youth culture that celebrated diversity and authenticity. One historian has convincingly portrayed Canadian baby boomers as “born at the right time.” 5 The United Church, however, seemed

born at the wrong time to appeal to them. A pluralistic and segmented world foreshadowed trouble for the liberal evangelical assumptions of its founders. The ‘unmaking’ of their vision of becoming a church “which may fittingly be described national,” as the Basis of

Union had put it, occasioned a crisis of mission in the wake of a revolution that brought an end to Christendom in Canada. Its remaking was led by leaders who called for new ways to connect faith and community by “listening to the world.” Taking the secular world

as their “parish,” they were convinced that the founding mission needed to be reconceived to meet the spiritual challenges of a New Age in a new Canada. And so the church once born with the soul of a nation found itself waiting to be born again.

A- CHURCH WITH THE SOUL: OF A NATION

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I

“Friendly Service” to the Nation You can make the argument that there’s no such thing as the past. Nobody lived in the past ... They lived in the present. It is their present, not our present, and they don’t know how it’s going to come out ... You can’t understand them if you don’t understand how they perceived reality and you don’t understand that unless you understand the culture. David McCullough, “The Title Always Comes Last”

The day after the inauguration of the United Church of Canada, author Lucy Maud Montgomery mulled dejectedly over glowing newspaper accounts of its “birth.” In recent years she and her husband, Ewan Macdonald, a Presbyterian minister, had made no secret of their opposition to the proposed union. Nevertheless, one of his two pastoral charges had voted to unite with the insufferable Methodists

in Zephyr, Ontario. They now faced the unwelcome prospect of packing up the family belongings and moving from the Leaskdale manse. Cynical about the claims made for union and embittered by

the outcome of the vote, Montgomery wrote in her journal entry later that day: “in Nature the births of living things do not take place in this fashion ... No, ’tis no ‘birth’ It is rather the wedding of two old churches, both of whom are too old to have offspring.” !

The church that was ceremonially born in Canada on tro June 1925 is usually cast as a new and youthful player on the international religious stage. Critics often panned it as modernist and depicted its founders as innovators who had been captivated by the novelty of church union. There was within the uniting traditions a strong progressive element, to be sure. Canadian churches were not the first to propose “organic union” between rival confessional families, but such a proposition had never actually been consummated

4 A Church with the Soul of a Nation elsewhere on such a large scale.* Negotiations between the uniting traditions were underway and a Basis of Union outlining its theology and polity was essentially completed even before the international missionary conference in Edinburgh in 1910, widely regarded as marking the beginning of the modern ecumenical movement. Canada was several steps ahead of the rest of Christendom, or so it seemed. Montgomery detected another dynamic: to her the United Church was defective because its thinking was not modern enough. She was not alone in this observation. The conservative tone of the theological statement in the Basis of Union was startling to many at the time, an aberration attributed to the age and outlook of the members of the Joint Committee on Church Union assigned the task of formulating it.3 But another feature, that was in a sense backward-looking, was as crucial for the destiny of the United Church. Union was an effort to invigorate an old idea: the partnership between church and state in building a Christian society. The effort to unite Protestantism was, at least in part, an attempt to create a strong connection between Protestantism and patriotism among English-speaking Canadians

that paralleled the presumed political influence of the Catholic Church in Quebec.* An adapted form of Christendom thus lived on after the legal disestablishment of the churches in the midnineteenth century, preserving the traditional link between piety and

place and lending plausibility to the plan to unite evangelical Protestantism in Canada. C.W. Gordon, a Presbyterian minister from Winnipeg better known to most Canadians as novelist Ralph Connor, did not mince words when asked why he supported the creation of a united church: “?m a church unionist not because I like the union so well but because | am a Canadian and love my country and I see in this union what is best for Canada.”5 No less enthusiastic about the new church as a solution for the challenges facing the nation was Methodist general superintendent $.D. Chown. “If the major Churches of Protestantism cannot unite,” he warned, “the battle which is going on now so definitely for the religious control of our country, will be lost within the next few years.”° The case for union often detailed the advantages in pragmatic political and economic terms, casting the negotiations in a non-theological light.”7 Unionists were stung by the charge that their motives were not “spiritual,” but their enthusiasm for linking the new church’s destiny with Canada’s made them easy targets.

“Friendly Service” to the Nation 5 Without union, one pro-union pamphlet asserted, “the Church is not able adequately to accomplish her task, which is to make Canada a

really Christian nation.” Economics could not be separated from theology, its advocates insisted, and a united church would be “a more efficient instrument for the building up of God’s Kingdom in this land and beyond.”*®

The story of church union as told by its supporters highlighted this mission to create a Christian Canada, and a sense of responsibility

for the nation created a bond between them. The name they proposed for the church conveyed what they believed to be its promise: a commitment to the wider unity of Christianity and a unique role in Canada. Its founding mission was encapsulated in the words of the general preamble to the Basis of Union, added in 1914 at a meeting

to choose the name and make the final revisions: “It shall be the policy of The United Church to foster the spirit of unity in the hope

that this settlement of unity may in due time, so far as Canada is concerned, take shape in a Church which may fittingly be described as national.” In one sense, the term ‘national church’ spoke to an as-yet-unrealized institution of the future, one that, to borrow the language of the Basis of Union, “may in due time” take shape. But alongside that anticipation was the impulse to be, from the outset, an institution that would relate in a very particular way to the nation of Canada. It would, as one report confidently announced, be “a national Church, National, not in any sense State-controlled, or Statecontrolling, but for the friendly service of the whole nation.”'°

A century before church union, a quite different notion of national church had prevailed. As he prepared his sermon marking the death in 1825 of Jacob Mountain, the first Anglican bishop of Quebec, John Strachan (himself soon to become the first bishop of

Toronto) worked from a premise shared by most of the first Europeans to settle in Canada: religious authority would be mediated through a national church duly established and financially supported by the state. To speak of a Christian nation without a national church was a contradiction, Strachan insisted. A country that did

not provide public support for religion could hardly be called a Christian nation." Strachan had arrived in Upper Canada at a time when the Church of England was still regarded as the established church of British North America. Other religious groups were free to hold their services without interference, and a few enjoyed other privileges. In

6 A Church with the Soul of a Nation Quebec, for instance, the Catholic Church had permission to support itself by collecting tithes. Even after Presbyterians and others successfully argued that the state support they received in their old

homeland should be extended to their new setting as well, the Church of England still received the lion’s share of public funding. There were Christians who vehemently opposed this arrangement, since it meant that Methodists, Baptists, and others branded as dis-

senters received no public funding. Those excluded were not required to pay tithes or taxes to support the established churches, but they chafed under regulations that, for instance, excluded them from

some institutions of higher education and prevented their clergy from conducting marriage or funeral services.

Eventually, such restrictions were removed; yet there was no agreement on the thorny issue of how to extend state support to all groups. The result was gradual erosion of the benefits that had been dispensed to some churches as a solution to the problem of Protestant pluralism. One by one, privileges were contested and lost

as churches in effect shifted from public to private sponsorship. With the sale of the clergy reserves in Canada West (Ontario) in 1854 and the founding of non-sectarian colleges there and in the Maritime provinces, the legal dismantling of established religion in British North America outside Quebec was largely complete.** Under these new terms, Canada’s churches appeared to flourish and functioned culturally, if not legally, as what historians have variously termed a plural, shadow, or voluntary establishment. In Ontario, for instance, the percentage of the population that indicated no religious preference fell dramatically from 16.7 per cent in 1842 to less than 1 per cent in 1871.'3 In 1906, an observer from France, André Siegfried, noted that, to all appearances, “the independence of these churches in regard to the state has been absolutely established in the New World.” But perhaps, he continued, “it would not be safe to say quite so positively that the state’s independence of the churches, even the Protestant ones, is established to the same degree.” While the Protestant clergy did not aim to control the government in the ultramontane Catholic fashion that Siegfried had observed in Quebec, their efforts were directed toward “informing it with their spirit.” ‘4 He judged Protestants incapable of thinking outside of religious categories, and although he was convinced that unbelief among them was common, it was not publicly expressed: to do so would be “almost an act of infidelity to the Anglo-Saxon race.”*5

“Friendly Service” to the Nation 7 As Siegfried had discovered, there was more at stake in the complex relationship between church and state than distribution of tangible benefits. Little wonder then that politicians and civic leaders customarily courted churches as partners in promoting social wellbeing. For their part, churches were eager to demonstrate their social usefulness even without the state support once enjoyed by some.'®

On the eve of church union negotiations, two entwined issues loomed large and made the United Church’s offer of “friendly service” appealing: uncertainty about Canada’s future as a nation and

the arrival of huge numbers of immigrants. The creation of the Dominion of Canada in 1867 was a practical political agreement that had evoked little, if any, “national feeling” at the time. Critics

dismissed talk of a Canadian identity as ridiculous since it was unimaginable to them that people would feel as attached to Ottawa as to London, Paris, Washington, Ireland, or even Quebec.'” Confed-

eration brought together four provinces to form a British colony peopled by British subjects, but strong regional loyalties and cultural differences persisted.'® Quebec presented an obvious challenge, but

anti-Confederation forces garnered support in the Maritimes as well. In Ontario Oliver Mowat promoted the cause of provincial rights, while the rebellions led by Louis Riel in 1869 and 1885 indicated resistance to the plan for a Dominion that reached from sea to sea. Political union was no guarantee of prosperity, and many people left to settle in the United States during the downturn of the 1880s. Even some who remained debated whether Canada should join the United States or, at the very least, negotiate a free trade agreement. As leader of the opposition, Wilfrid Laurier feared that “premature

dissolution seems to be at hand” as he watched the events of the early 1890s unfold.'9 Was it possible to ‘construct’ a nationality for Canada? Many who caught the nation-building fever that gripped the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century western world thought so, even while con-

ceding that the obstacles were formidable. Canadian nationalists wrestled to find an identity that embraced Britain’s imperial aspirations, while staking out a place of their own in North America.*°

Canada pretended to be “a particularly British place” after Confederation, observes John Ralston Saul.** New notions of racial purity and the European inheritance displaced what he calls the “Metis civilization” of British North America, and the image of

8 A Church with the Soul of a Nation the melting pot supplanted the idea of a widening circle, which had characterized indigenous models of an interdependent society.** Historians have suggested that even English-speaking Catholics became agents of Anglo-Saxon culture by siding with Protestants on language issues.*3

Those who believed that Canada’s future depended on crafting a new Canadian identity found themselves grappling with the practical implications of scientific theories about racial and ethnic differences. Misunderstandings arose, notes historian A.G. Bailey, as institutions and ideas “came to be looked upon as the mystical exfoliation of the genius of particular people.”*4+ One study of Victorian attitudes toward race concludes that by the mid-nineteenth century,

the natural inequality of races was a widely published scientific ‘fact’: “One did not have to read obscure books to know that the Caucasians were innately superior, and that they were responsible for civilization in the world, or to know that so-called inferior races were destined to be overwhelmed or even disappear.”*5 That the latter were doomed to extinction appeared to be borne out in North America by the rapidly diminishing numbers of indigenous peoples in the United States and Canada.*° Since scientific evidence also purported to show that mixing with

inferior races might compromise racial superiority, the image of North America as a cultural melting pot came under scrutiny.*”7 The

numerical growth of newly freed blacks and of immigrants raised difficult practical questions. How were those who were considered incapable of assimilation to be treated? Was it fair to admit ‘inferior’ races if doing so doomed them to extinction? Evolutionary theory further complicated questions about racial origins by popularizing the belief that certain characteristics were inherited. The eugenics movement, spouting its questionable scientific theories, warned that the present dominance of the Anglo-Saxon race was threatened, particularly when the higher fertility rates of the foreign-born were taken into account.”® Supporters of a more restrictive approach to immigration feared that Britain was dumping ‘unfit? immigrants in Canada, and urged that they be turned away.*? Biological theories became competing metaphors of cultural assimilation, and attempts to persuade immigrants (at least outside Quebec) to adopt “AngloSaxon culture” vied with anticipation that a “new type” of Canadian was being constructed.

“Friendly Service” to the Nation 9 Complicating matters was a mix of religion, language, and politics that boiled over from time to time. Protestants feared that migration from Quebec meant that the French language and the Catholic religion were seeping into northwestern Ontario and the Prairies. Catholics likewise worried about demographic trends. Manitoba had entered Confederation in 1870 with Catholics in the majority, but an influx of settlers from Ontario fortified Protestantism in western Canada, at least for a time.3° Public school systems became arenas for testing the strength of religious influence. In the 1890s, Manitoba’s decision to replace its dual system of Catholic and Protestant schools with nondenominational schools was controversial enough to become an issue in the federal election of 1896. The question of schools for religious minorities was still contentious when Saskatchewan and Alberta became provinces in 1905.37 As Protestant churches raced to provide pastoral care for new communities, the Catholic leaders complained about “proselytism.” Other disputes hit even closer to home. A papal declaration, Ne Tereme, that came into effect in 1908 stated that only marriages performed in the presence of a Catholic priest were valid,

raising questions about the legitimacy of “mixed marriages” performed by Protestant clergy.3*> Whether the Catholic or Protestant side would be able to claim the advantages that came from statistical dominance was far from clear at the turn of the century.

Sweeping demographic changes added to the uncertainty about Canada’s future. Between 1881 and 1901 the percentage of the population born outside of Canada held steady at 13 to 14 per cent, almost identical to the number of foreign-born in the United States. Perhaps the most troubling demographic trend for many years after Confed-

eration was the number of people leaving Canada for the United States, which had resulted in a net /oss in the migration process. The 1911 census figures indicated a welcome change: for the first time

since Confederation, Canada showed a net gain in migration. But some found cause for concern as they scrutinized the population profile. Continuing a trend in the census figures issued ten years earlier was a startling increase in the number of immigrants, many of them speaking neither French nor English. The percentage of foreign-born in Canada had jumped to 22 per cent, an even more shocking number when compared to U.S. statistics for the same period, which showed only a slight increase from previous levels of immigration.33

IO A Church with the Soul of a Nation Table 1.1

Denominational strength betore and after church union (as a percentage of the total population of Canada)

1901 LOTT 1921 1931

Congregational ee 4.73 3.50

Methodist iwelys 14.99 i Be a Be,

Presbyterian 15,69 15.49 16.04 8.39!

United Church of Canada 19.44 t The strength of the Presbyterian numbers came as a surprise, since the final vote on church union would have projected a lower number relative to the size of the United Church. C.E. Silcox suspected that many members of United Church congregations, especially in areas of western Canada where the controversy had not reinforced the distinctions, continued for a time to think of themselves as ‘Presbyterian.’ For a comparison of the census of 1931 with church statistics on membership, Sunday school enrolments, funerals, etc., and an analysis of what he called the “lost battalion,” see Silcox, Church Union in Canada, 438-43. Source: Census of Canada (1931), Table 36.

For Protestants there was even more cause for anxiety. Between t901 and rgit the Catholic Church had increased its membership by 603,441, to nearly 2.3 million. The Church of England, too, could feel pleased that its membership had grown by 361,523 to just

over a million. However, other Protestant groups had not fared as well: Congregationalists increased membership by 5,761 (to 34,054),

Presbyterians by 272,882 (to 1,115,324), and Methodists by only 163,006 (dropping them, at 1,079,882, to second place among Protestant churches).34 Evangelical Protestants who were leading moral

crusades to make Canada “God’s Dominion” were enjoying what John Webster Grant describes as the peak of their power and influence; but as he wryly puts it, just when they seemed to have succeeded in implanting the ideals of temperance and discipline, they saw Canada “inundated with people who had never heard of the virtues of total abstinence and threatened the rigid Canadian Sunday in the bargain.”35

These new immigrants landed at a time when a more militant Catholicism, linked to a nationalist movement in French Canada and energized by ultramontane values, had a different vision for the nation’s future.3° Assessing the situation in 1881, Thomas-Alfred

Bernier, the mayor of Sainte-Agathe, Manitoba, was optimistic: “Happily for all, for immigrants as well as for children of the soil, there is in the Dominion of Canada a fruitful and vigorous race, with

“Friendly Service” to the Nation II a common origin, identical interests, glorious traditions, a common language and a common faith, believing itself to have been called to a great mission and living under God’s protection.” His Protestant

co-religionists would have taken exception to his prediction that “this race, which is to be found in all the provinces of Confederation,

and which is its keystone, is the French-Canadian people. It is the one that will prove to be the dynamic element in this empire which will be neither English nor French, but solely and gloriously Canadian.” 37

Protestant church leaders imagined that the new type of Canadian

would bear far more resemblance to the values and virtues of the Anglo-Saxon race. However, even the progressives among them struggled to come to terms with the myriad issues raised by nonAnglo-Saxon immigration.3® Historian Jackson Lears finds that social Christianity in the United States was tinged with both idealism and imperialism: “Progress and Providence converged in the rhetoric of empire.”39 That was the presumption in Canada as well, with progressives hopeful that changing the social environment would ameliorate social problems; ethnic differences could and should be transcended, and moral and social uplift would result in racial uplift.4° As Methodist lawyer Newton Wesley Rowell told those who gathered in Toronto at Victoria University for a meeting of the Laymen’s Missionary Movement, settlement of new territories in the north and west provided “a home not in a southern clime which may breed a weak and effeminate race, but under skies and a climate which must develop a strong, a progressive and a conquering people.” 4! Like many of his day, Rowell believed that the greater part of the population of Canada might soon be found west of the Great Lakes,

and the ideals of that region would determine the future of the nation. At first glance, this was a disturbing prospect. Rowell noted that the social, political, and religious institutions of non-English-speaking immigrants differed from those who had come from the British Isles or the United States. Men with little previous experience of represen-

tative government would soon be able to vote and, he warned, “their votes will be just as potent as yours and mine in determining the character of the men who shall represent us in Parliament and the nature of the laws under which we must live.” However, as a progressive, Rowell believed in the power of the new environment: “Many of these people have now, for the first time, a real chance for social

12 A Church with the Soul of a Nation and moral improvement. They provide the raw material out of which we may make good citizens if we but do our duty.” The public schools,

the press, and government had a role to play, but only the church, with its Gospel of Christ, could make an appeal “to the deepest impulses or the most powerful motives.” 4*

For progressives like Rowell, confidence that old differences would be transcended in a new land was a widely shared egalitarian notion. By 1908, W.B. Creighton, the new editor of the Methodist

denominational paper, was using the columns of the Christian Guardian to send the same message. The church had a responsibility to work with the state to provide educational and religious services for the immigrant today; otherwise, they were likely to become a burden tomorrow. Creighton praised city missions like the ones run by C.T. Scott in Montreal and J.S. Woodsworth in Winnipeg for “conforming to our type multitudes of alien races, and making of

great motley groups a unified and coherent people worthy of the name ‘Canadian.’”43 Principal J.W. Sparling of Wesley College in Winnipeg wanted to

leave no doubt in young readers’ minds about the enormity of the task facing the churches. Penning a foreword to J.S. Woodsworth’s Strangers within Our Gates, a study text for the youth department of the Methodist Missionary Society, he wrote in 1909: “I can with confidence commend this pioneering Canadian work on the subject to the careful consideration of those who are desirous of understanding and grappling with this great national danger. For there is a danger and it is national! Either we must educate and elevate the incoming multitudes or they will drag us and our children down to a lower level. We must see to it that the civilization and ideals of Southeastern Europe are not transplanted to and perpetuated on our virgin soil.” 44

Sparling’s apprehension was broadly felt, even among Protestants who rejected church union as the most effective way of meeting the challenge of immigration. Speaking to the Presbyterian Pre-Assembly Congress in 1913, Rev. W.D. Reid of Montreal announced to those gathered that Canada was facing “the greatest immigration problem

that has ever confronted any nation.” The problem, he explained, was that over 20 per cent of the newcomers were non-Anglo-Saxons, “who can not speak our language, have no sympathy with our ideals, and are foreigners in every sense of the term.” His address painted a bleak picture of the foreigner: illiterate, intemperate, ignorant,

“Friendly Service” to the Nation ie; diseased, oppressed, draining charitable resources when unemployed and undercutting wages when employed, carrying unhelpful political baggage such as atheistic socialist ideas, and disproportionately tending toward crime, insanity, and pauperism. While he conceded that they were “often deeply religious,” he described their practices as “a mere caricature of religion.” Reid gave his audience something to ponder: “The question we have to ask ourselves seriously at this moment, is will the foreigner paganize us or shall we Christianize him?” 45

Many worried that the churches were doing far too little to Christianize such foreigners. Presbyterian J.R. Mutchmor lambasted members of downtown churches for dealing with the ‘problem’ by moving away from it and faulted theological schools for failing to equip ministers to assimilate people from other cultures. In his mas-

ter’s thesis, written while preparing for the ministry in New York City, the young Canadian wrestled with the “question of the nonassimilating Canadian,” specifically those from continental Europe and Asia. He wondered, “How can these people be Canadianized when the Canadian workingman hates a dago or a bohunk? How can the church help when so many so-called Christians thank God

that they are not as other men are nor yet as this dago?” Still Mutchmor’s opinion was not atypical of early twentieth-century progressive opinion when he insisted, “Our King, our flag and our throne must remain uppermost in the hearts of the people of Canada at any cost, and the wages and standards of Canadians must increase and develop and the British ideals must be our ideals forever.” 4°

Few presented the new Canadian more sympathetically than Congregationalist William Gunn. He identified the obstacles that immigrants routinely faced: transition to a new way of life, low wages and slum conditions, exploitation, corrupting influences, alienation from their children who adapt more easily to their new home,

competition with other immigrants for jobs, ridicule, and loss of faith. The question for Gunn was not whether the immigrant would be assimilated — that was assumed — but what values would be trans-

mitted in that process. He recognized the power of materialism to bind together those who otherwise seemed to have little in common. To his list of what he called the five great assimilating forces (the church, the railway, the school, politics, and daily life), he added “one little one” that showed him to be a perceptive observer of new cultural trends: “the mail order catalogue which, from Vancouver to

14 A Church with the Soul of a Nation Cape Breton, with its illustrations and prices, speaks all languages and tends to reduce us all to one dead level of outward uniformity.” Against the negative assimilating power of consumerism stood the church, which had the potential within itself to become “the greatest assimilating agency of all” with its belief in the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.47 The differences between evangelism, social service, and assimilation were sometimes small. Writing as Ralph Connor, C.W. Gordon often used his stories to convey the message that immigrants (even Scottish Highlanders) should abandon their old ways and be assimilated to a more ‘universal’ identity.4° The fictional Prairie missionary in Gordon’s The Foreigner expressed these values well. He couldn’t preach much, he admitted, but his “main line” was “the kiddies.” “I can teach them English, and then I am going to doctor them, and, if they’ll let me, teach them some of the elements of domestic science;

in short, do anything to make them good Christians and good Canadians, which is the same thing.”4? Supporters of church union hoped that many would draw a further conclusion: constructing a

new type of church was the best way to make them both good Christians and good Canadians.5°

The formula for building a united church mirrored the blueprint for building a united country. Unionists considered religious identity, like national identity, malleable; assimilation was a tactic for managing differences, whether cultural or theological. Widely shared as-

sumptions about cultural homogeneity made the idea of a united church plausible in the context of early twentieth-century Canada and shaped its founding narrative. Those who made the case for union were convinced that they would build a strong church by overcoming the limitations of difference; they sought unity in what they could believe and accomplish together. In this sense there was nothing mysterious or new about making a united church: it would be built from the stuff at hand. And at hand were networks of sup-

port for the mission of building a Christian nation — indeed, a Christian world. Robert Falconer, president of the University of Toronto, credited the surprisingly swift formulation of the Basis of Union (once nego-

tiations got underway in 1904) to a movement that was already “subconscious in the minds of many.” Writing in 1913, he described the overextended churches as caught in a crunch that manifested a

“Friendly Service” to the Nation 15 broader national problem. “Canada is calling herself a nation and is boldly claiming to be judged by the national standards of the most highly developed Western civilization,” he observed, yet needed to “provide at extremely short notice for all the organization of nationhood.” Church union was not unlike Confederation in its pragmatic nature, he argued: just as federal union was the result of provincial necessities, so church union would be “the result not of theory but of practical urgency.” 5"

But the ‘theory’ of union was not new either; it had been the topic of theological discussion for decades. Underpinning Christian nation-building (and often overlooked as a cradle for social Christianity) was an influential Victorian movement that saw Christian unity as pivotal to its vision of a better world.5* A plan for a national church in England that would include all but the Catholics and Unitarians was described in Principles of Church Reform (1833)53 and vigorously promoted in Anglican circles by Thomas Arnold, a prominent leader in the Broad Church movement. 5+ Later William H. Fremantle, another leading proponent of a national church, blended Arnold’s principles for Christian unity with theologian ED. Maurice’s Christian socialist concerns.55 In Fremantle’s view, having “one great Church” in Western Europe was a step toward a universal church that would assimilate “by degrees the more backward nations.”5° His call for a national church caught the attention of American Episcopal priest

William Reed Huntington, who put it in terms better suited to the disestablished North American context in A National Church, published in 1898.57

In Canada, the notion of a national church was, in John Webster Grant’s assessment, a “spectacular success” by the end of the nineteenth century.>* Topping any list of those deserving credit for its currency was George Monro Grant. For over a quarter of a century, first as minister of St Matthew’s Presbyterian Church in Halifax and later as principal of Queen’s University in Kingston, he sowed the idea of a united Protestant church.5? Whether he had read the writings of Arnold or Fremantle directly, or was introduced to the argument for a national church by his mentor Norman Macleod,°° the ideas of the British movement for Christian unity were familiar to Grant. His enthusiasm was evident in his widely reported and oftenquoted keynote address at the first meeting of the Canadian branch of the Evangelical Alliance in Montreal in 1874. Speaking on the theme “The Church of Canada — Can Such a Thing Be?,” he pictured

16 A Church with the Soul of a Nation a new church that would capture the best qualities of the major Protestant denominations: order and conservatism from the Anglicans; enthusiasm, zeal for missions, and adaptability from the Methodists; insistence on the rights of the individual from the Baptists; the love of liberty from the Congregationalists; and the well-knit strength and high regard for the Word of God from the Presbyterians. He went so far as to hope that even Catholics might someday be drawn to such a church by their love of unity.*' After playing a leading role in uniting his own denomination in 1875, Grant saw union with the Methodists as an obvious next step. Writing in the Canadian Methodist Magazine after Methodism consolidated in 1884, he observed that in matters of Christian unity, the Canadian churches were, thanks to their environment, already in advance of their counterparts in “the mother land” and even “the go-ahead United States.”°* Prospects for such a union were promising since Methodist polity was, in his view, essentially Presbyterian, and “verbal differences” were insignificant when gauged against problems facing both. Union would, furthermore, be “a step towards the formation of that regenerated society for which we pray.” °? In Grant’s approach, creating a regenerated society through coOperation in missions and social reform was pivotal to overcoming debilitating theological and organizational differences. Preaching before his synod in 1866, he called for a “large liberty” and “coop-

eration in labour, and labouring together with God, rather than enforced agreement of opinion on subjects that may be relegated to the domain of philosophy, politics or science” as the “true and scriptural basis” for unity.°+ Such co-operation, suggests historian Carl Berger, is the key to understanding both Grant’s imperialism and his ecumenism. The formation of a national church in Canada that would become a model for the reunification of churches worldwide was his most profound conviction, adds Berger: “Just as the union of the churches was the precondition for the Christianization of the social order, so too the unity of the Empire was necessary to maintain a political power making for righteousness on earth.”® Grant’s imperialist ideals were couched in religious terms; his evo-

lutionary view of history saw the imperialist advance as part of God’s design for bringing those it protected under its Christianizing and civilizing influence.°°

An eager, energetic, and optimistic man, described by his first biographer as being gifted with “consummate cleverness,” Grant

“Friendly Service” to the Nation 1 exerted, by all accounts, remarkable influence over others: “His fiery purpose inspired their ardour, his strong wisdom compelled their respect, his personal charm engaged their liking.”°? Remembered as one of the most influential Presbyterians of his day and one of the most significant leaders in the country,°® Grant inspired both his own generation and the next through a network that was inter-

denominational and intergenerational in character. His writings and the Queen’s Theological Alumni Conferences that he organized once he moved to Kingston influenced ministers from his own denomination and appealed to others, like Methodist Salem Bland.°? When he died in May 1902, it was reported that an even

larger and more diverse group of persons came to Kingston to mourn his passing than had gathered there years earlier for Sir John A. Macdonald’s funeral.7°

Whether through coincidence or contrivance, many of Grant’s friends and associates found themselves in positions of public influence as the new nation of Canada and its Protestant churches were weighing their options for the future. A generation of leaders receptive to his influence became what John S. Moir dubbed “one of the

most important exports of the Maritime provinces to the rest of Canada.”7! In the fall of 1894, a group of mostly young Presbyterian ministers resolved to meet several times as “The Round Table” to enjoy each other’s intellectual and social companionship.7* At the head of the table, in the place of “King Arthur,” was Daniel Miner

Gordon, Grant’s friend and junior, who earlier that year had been appointed principal of Presbyterian College in Halifax. The other dozen or so theological “knights” were, as one of them later put it, men of “obscure beginnings” who went on to “positions of great prominence and responsibility in the wide Dominion.”73 Among

those seated around the table were Alfred Gandier, Clarence Mackinnon, Robert Falconer, Walter Murray, and A.S. Morton, who

first used their publications and later their positions to air their views on Christian unity, and promoted ideas that would become the core of the rationale for church union.74

Unlike most of the other knights, Alfred Gandier had not been raised in the Maritimes. His link to the ideals and traditions of the region was his relationship with Grant. His biographer speculated that Gandier, a graduate of Queen’s University, might well have heard one of principal Grant’s frequent challenges to those who

18 A Church with the Soul of a Nation studied theology there: “You and I are not responsible for the existing divisions of Christendom, but I beg you not to accept ordination until you are convinced that should you by word or deed perpetuate these divisions by one unnecessary day you will have been unworthy of your ordination.”75 Grant’s influence was decisive in landing Gandier the position as pastor of Fort Massey Presbyterian Church in Halifax in 1893. There had been a difficult two-year search to fill the position. Grant’s recommendation of Gandier as one of Queen’s most brilliant graduates was behind the congregation’s decision to issue the pastoral call to him.7° Gandier’s approach to resolving theological differences later became the basis for finding agreement among the uniting traditions: focus on a common faith. “The time has actually come,” he wrote in the Presbyterian magazine Theologue in 1899, “when Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists and Methodists can sit around a table and deliberately agree to a common statement of faith in relation to every doctrine of fundamental importance.”’7 His mentor Grant had made a similar point in an article published shortly before his death, predicting that “as preliminary to organic union,” churches would “rewrite their confessions, adapt them to our own time, and find out the extent of the common ground on which Christians now stand.”7° Clarence Mackinnon, who would one day become principal of Presbyterian College, presented Theologue readers with the skeleton of a proposal for how to find that common ground. He conceded that union between confessional families was more complex than the Presbyterian or Methodist unions had been. Churches were happy to unite, “provided the other denominations would only be so obliging as to lay aside their peculiar beliefs and practices, and to

stoop to its yoke, if not actually to make a humble confession of their errors and do a flattering penance for the schisms of the past.” He enunciated an organizational principle that was assumed in later negotiations: “If there is to be union, it must take place along the only possible lines on which great bodies can unite, a readiness to abandon individual peculiarities and a willingness to appropriate whatever has proved itself effective in the work of other churches.” Mackinnon believed that without a willingness to sacrifice old identities, talk of union, however eloquent, would be futile. Presbyterians would have to modify their approach to church administration, he

predicted, and even their confession of faith would have to be “thrown into the crucible and melted down.”7?

“Friendly Service” to the Nation 19 Grant’s death in 1902 set in motion a chain of events that scattered members of the Round Table across Canada as they moved into new positions of responsibility. The first to go was King Arthur: Daniel Gordon left Presbyterian College to succeed his mentor as

principal of Queen’s University. Robert Falconer turned down an Opportunity to teach New Testament at Knox College in Toronto, instead replacing Gordon as principal of Presbyterian College; when he moved in 1907, it was to become president of the University of Toronto. According to his biographer, Falconer was nominated for

the university post by J.A. Macdonald, an acquaintance who was editor of the Toronto Globe. The summer before, the two had joined

efforts to promote the cause of church union at the Presbyterian General Assembly.°°

Connections with other influential networks were forged in Toronto. Living next door to Falconer was Joseph Flavelle, an enthusiastic Methodist supporter of church union. Falconer was also reunited with his old friend Alfred Gandier (whose sister he had married), who had accepted a call to St James Square Presbyterian Church in t900. Members of Gandier’s new congregation included J.A. Macdonald and William Caven, then principal of Knox College (and a strong supporter of church union as well).°* Eight years later Gandier would succeed Caven as principal of Knox College and hold the position until church union saw the creation of a new faculty of theology; he was the first principal of what became Emmanuel College in 1928.

Some members of the Round Table moved even further west. Walter Murray, a member of St Matthew’s Presbyterian Church in Halifax, left his teaching position in philosophy at Dalhousie Uni-

versity in 1908 to become the first president of the University of Saskatchewan.** A.S. Morton accepted Murray’s invitation to join his faculty. Morton would decisively influence how the church union movement was remembered and interpreted with publication of The Way to Union in 1912.°3 Clarence Mackinnon accepted a call to Westminster Presbyterian Church in Winnipeg in 1905, but returned to Halifax in 1909 to become principal of Presbyterian College.*4 The power of the Round Table network in Presbyterian circles is suggested by N.K. Clifford’s observation that the Presbyterian minister who supported union was typically a graduate of Presbyterian College in Montreal, Queen’s, Presbyterian College in Halifax, or

one of the colleges in the West. If a graduate of Knox supported

20 A Church with the Soul of a Nation union, he likely attended the school after 1908.°5 (It is perhaps more than a coincidence that Gandier had arrived as principal that same year.) Similar networks of support for Christian unity were forming within Methodism and Congregationalism, often criss-crossing denomina-

tional lines. When Nathanael Burwash addressed Methodists from around the world who gathered in Toronto for the 1911 Ecumenical Conference, he suggested that God had used “union revivals” to prepare the churches in Canada for unity. Fifty years earlier, he recalled, “Methodists thought Presbyterians without much religion and Presbyterians thought Methodists ignorant and fanatical.” Uniting for revival meetings brought their religious world views together for at least a few weeks each year. “The old dividing dogmas were forgotten by us all as our hearts were quickened and filled with the central vital truths of the common gospel.”°° Burwash also witnessed the impact of collaborative theological education on inter-denominational ventures. With the organization of federated theological colleges in Toronto, Montreal, and later Winnipeg, the classroom experience was a concrete reminder of common ties that mitigated denominational particu-

larities. Writing in 1894, a few years after Victoria College moved from Cobourg to federate with the University of Toronto, he described co-operation between denominational schools as the “divine leaven of unity” that was challenging “polemical theology.” *7

Thousands of men and women who joined voluntary associations to promote missions and social reform formed similar bonds across denominational lines. Their hope of infusing public life with Christian ideals found concrete expression in evangelistic missions and reform movements at home and abroad. The Evangelical Alliance; Bible and tract societies; Sunday schools; home and foreign missionary societies for laymen and laywomen; temperance societies; the Lord’s Day Alliance; and youth organizations such as the Young Men’s Christian Association (yMCA), the Young Women’s Christian Association (ywca), Christian Endeavor, and the Student Volunteer Movement were among the organizations that offered opportunities to work together for a common cause.*® These coteries of future unionists, many of them lay leaders in local congregations, were linked to burgeoning denominational bureaucracies comprised of church executives who were charged with the responsibility of making Canada “His Dominion.”*?

“Friendly Service” to the Nation oT Among their ranks was $.D. Chown, a Methodist minister later dubbed the architect of church union. By the time he was appointed first secretary of Methodism’s Department of Temperance and Moral Reform in 1902, he had already served as president of the Canadian Society of Christian Unity.2° Chown’s new position put him at the forefront of efforts to regenerate society, and he easily grafted church union to social concerns. What set the Canadian social gospel apart from British and American varieties, argues William Magney, was its

passionate nationalism and eagerness to rise to the new social and economic challenges facing Canada. In fact, he suggests, Methodism’s

approach to moral and social reform “might better be termed a ‘National’ than a ‘Social’ Gospel.”9? Either way, Chown’s variety of evangelicalism fit easily with the enhanced role in the life of the na-

tion that unionists saw for a national church. Methodists, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists across the country found themselves working together and thinking about their mis-

sion in similar terms. Before and during the time that the Basis of Union was being formulated, a web of inter-denominational connections linked leaders of evangelistic, missionary, and social reform movements; theological educators; and church executives.9* The extent of their rootedness in the religious world of late- Victorian Canada is important in the story of church union; however, it’s a point often

left out in favour of an emphasis on the novelty of their position. Equally significant in launching church union (and thus provoking the controversy that ensued) was that these homegrown proponents effectively tied the mission of ‘Christianizing’ the West to an old and widely shared evangelical assumption: religion was essential to national and global well-being. Novelty was not the only charge brought against the church union movement; it was also dogged by criticism that efficiency was upper-

most in the minds of its supporters and theology of comparatively little consequence. Detractors missed an important theological conviction that unionists shared: that the great truths of Christianity could be framed in terms of a common faith. Burwash’s advice to his colleagues on the Doctrine committee echoed Gandier’s earlier sug-

gestion in the Theologue: that the statement be short, summarizing essential beliefs rather than formulating them dogmatically in either Arminian or Calvinist terms.?3 Burwash and those who worked with him to craft the doctrinal section of the Basis of Union were not

7 ips A Church with the Soul of a Nation offended to hear their work described as a reflection of the theological idiom of their day; after all, they were not attempting to write a creed for all time but for their own time. Burwash would have had

little quarrel with Presbyterian T.B. Kilpatrick’s interpretation of their task: “Creed revision is the inherent right, and the continual duty, of a living Church.” He described the standing of the newly minted articles in modest terms: “We have sought, humbly and earnestly, to serve our own generation; and now we hand on the result of our toil, with prayer and hope, to the generation following.” 4

The importance of building on common principles, rather than preserving of peculiarities, was at the forefront of discussions from the outset. Gandier later recalled the Joint Committee’s attempts to find common ground. “Have we a common faith?” was always the key question. Early on, the founders had realized that “to be real and effective it [church union] must be based on common convictions

and deep spiritual affinities.”°5 This was a theme sounded three times in the short theological preamble to the Basis of Union: the articles were “the substance of the Christian faith as commonly held among us”; they affirmed the evangelical doctrines held in common by the uniting traditions; and the statement itself was “a brief sum-

mary of our common faith.” Reiteration of the virtues and values associated with this common faith punctuated the long process of negotiation, voting, and legislation.?° The uniting churches had come to Canada as different religious traditions, much like different nationalities. Together they would create something distinctively Canadian out of the beliefs that were shared in common. This became the storyline of The Way to Union, with its interminable subtitle “Being a Study of the Principles of the Foundation and of the Historic Development of the Christian Church as Bearing on the Proposed Union of the Presbyterian, Methodist and Congregational Churches in Canada.” As Morton developed the plot, church union was the obvious next chapter to the story of Christianity in Canada. The customary account of the origins of a religious tradition usually emphasized what set it apart from others. Morton added a twist to his tale by highlighting what Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Methodists had in common. As he followed their converging paths

to Canada, his aim was to persuade readers that apparent differences “tend to disappear with the circumstances that created them, and their great fundamental unities will be brought into the clear

“Friendly Service” to the Nation aE! light of day.”9? Overcoming such differences was central to the story of the United Church’s forbears as the first generation of church union supporters related it. Unionists followed Morton’s lead and airbrushed their confessional family pictures to enhance the resemblance.

The Presbyterians, the oldest of the uniting parties, were a case in point. John Calvin had not only advanced a particular theological

position but also devised a polity that expressly sought to put in place a representative approach to church government that included lay power and participation (well suited to Geneva’s republican spir-

it). Calvin’s representative style of church government had been modified as it moved from Geneva around the world. In North America, for instance, it had typically evolved into local congrega-

tional sessions, regional presbyteries and synods, and national assemblies.2®° Before uniting with others, Presbyterians in Canada had already consolidated over a dozen Presbyterian-type churches

brought to Canada, mostly from the United States or the British Isles.29 Once nagging differences over the relationship of church and state (the initial cause of friction in many cases) were recognized as inconsequential in the Canadian setting, Presbyterians found much upon which they could agree: the Westminster Confession of Faith, its Catechisms, and Directory of Public Worship, as well as a com-

mon form of church government.’°° Most would have agreed with R.C. Chalmers’s identification of Presbyterian principles: an emphasis on the sovereignty of God, salvation by grace through faith, the priesthood of all believers that found expression in a church ruled by presbyters, an approach to the sacrament of the Eucharist that avoided both Catholic and Lutheran “magic” and Zwingli’s memorialism, and a recognition of the state as called to fulfill a divine

purpose (and to be resisted only when it acted in violation of Christian conscience).'°!

The stereotypically dour Presbyterians had little reason to be gloomy about their future in Canada as they considered union. Buoyed by an influx of Scottish immigrants, they edged past the Methodist Church in the 1911 census and became the largest Protestant denomination in the country. Assessing the situation in Canada a few years after church union, former Congregationalist C.E. Silcox considered them to have been “perhaps the most influential Protestant denomination in the Dominion — influential in scholarship, in general culture, in numbers, in the wealth and economic

24 A Church with the Soul of a Nation success of its members.”'°* They were particularly proud of the influence of their theological and liberal arts colleges, described by one historian as “nurseries both of religion and learning.”'°3 This was symbolically acknowledged at the inauguration service when the

Presbyterians identified their inheritance and gift to the United Church as “the manifestation of the Spirit in vigilance for Christ’s Kirk and Covenant, in care for the spread of education and devotion to sacred learning.” '%4

Next, Morton introduced the Congregationalists, who traced their

origins to the Puritan movement within the Church of England. Their theology, too, owed much to the influence of Calvin and the Reformed tradition, but as the name ‘Congregationalist’ implied,

their polity gave each local congregation autonomy. Unlike the Presbyterians in Scotland who had created a national church governed by presbytery representatives, the Congregationalists formed local fellowships whose covenant with God and each other bound them together. They sought the right to be free of outside interference, in defiance of the direction of England’s established church.'°5 Their spiritual forebears, the Puritans (viewed by some as notable for their intolerance), held the right of conscience on religious matters as a cherished principle. At the time of the Puritan Revolution, Oliver Cromwell (an Independent whom Morton considered part of the Congregationalist family) had proposed that in order to protect freedom of consciences, it might be necessary to have liberty for all religions. Morton noted that this concept, so shocking to Presbyterians

when first proposed, was now largely accepted in Canada. The major Protestant denominations had since grown closer and now stood where the Congregationalists had first begun: with the understanding that the church was a voluntary association.'°° Congregationalists arrived in Canada in the early days of mid-

eighteenth-century colonial settlement, but struggled to survive. Many of the Congregationalist churches organized by settlers from New England collapsed when their members returned to the United States after the American Revolution. Some congregations then exercised their autonomy and joined other denominations. In the aftermath of the New Light revivals in Nova Scotia, many became Baptist churches, while theological affinities with Presbyterianism

made closer association with that denomination an attractive option for others.'°? The invitation to consider union with the

“Friendly Service” to the Nation a5 Presbyterians and Methodists came as a welcome development for the remaining Congregationalists. Despite their small size (about 1 per cent of the population), the Congregationalists shaped key positions taken by the new church. They are remembered for their insistence that candidates for the ministry not be required to subscribe to the doctrinal statement of the Basis of Union as a test of the correctness of their theology; it was enough to be “in essential agreement.” They proposed that ordinands instead undergo a rigorous examination of their religious experience and theological beliefs, for which a mere creed could not substitute. While critics saw this as proof of the United Church’s theology laxity, it was actually a way to honour an old and fundamental principle of Congregationalism: that a person must be free to express the truths of the Christian faith in his or her own words,

not in the words of a fixed creed.'°® At the inaugural service, the Congregationalists identified the gift of their inheritance to the

United Church as “the manifestation of the Spirit in the liberty of prophesying, the love of spiritual freedom and the enforcement of civic justice.” 7°?

The Methodists, too, owed their distinctive features to a different

time and place. Their rise was the most significant institutional expression of the evangelical revivals that swept across the British Isles and North America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Industrial Revolution, with its large-scale social and economic changes, was accompanied by dramatic increases in population not only in London but also in Bristol, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, and other new centres of industry. Since existing parish boundaries could be changed only by legislation, new church development failed to keep pace with the mushrooming population. Convinced that the

Church of England was not meeting the spiritual needs of the people, John Wesley was eager to explore alternatives to the parish system, and sent out preachers who organized bands of like-minded folk sharing a “desire to flee from the wrath to come.” Organized at first under the umbrella of the Church of England, these societies were the scene of a flurry of evangelistic efforts. Wesley’s lay preachers first used Anglican churches as their base, but found themselves unwelcome there. Following George Whitefield’s example of preaching in the open field to the miners at Kingswood, Wesley took to the fields in 1739.

26 A Church with the Soul of a Nation The early Methodists, including Wesley’s own family, thought of themselves as loyal members of the Church of England. Finding little in the Thirty-Nine Articles to quarrel with, Wesley abridged them to twenty-five in 1784 for the use of Methodist societies in America, and they came to be regarded as Methodism’s doctrinal statement.*'® Its piety, nurtured in class meetings as well as in Sunday worship, found theological expression in hymns and sermons, with Wesley’s fifty-two “Standard Sermons” being regarded as an authoritative explication of Methodist theology.'t! A distinctive piety grew principally out of Methodism’s emphasis on conversion coupled with efforts to discern Wesley’s understanding of holiness or Christian perfection (an attainment which he himself was reluctant to claim). Methodism presented a theological alternative to Calvinism, and its doctrine that God would forgive all who earnestly sought redemption softened the inscrutability and finality of predestination.''* In recognition of its distinctive approach to the religious life and practice, the inauguration service received as Methodism’s contribution “the manifestation of the Spirit in evangelical zeal and human redemption, and the ministry of sacred song.”''3 Wesley had hoped to renew the Church of England with his efforts. Instead he provoked a crisis. Anglican clergy were reluctant to administer the sacraments in Methodist chapels, a disturbing turn of events for those who believed, as did Wesley, in the importance of Communion. Even more pressing were the needs of Methodist societies in North America after the American Revolution disrupted the work of churches with British ties. Faced with these practical diffculties, Wesley decided to ordain some lay preachers for the chapels and to consecrate Thomas Coke as superintendent for the mission in North America. Coke assumed the role of a bishop, a step that irrevocably set the movement on a course toward separation from the Church of England after Wesley’s death in 1791. Methodism splin-

tered as its leaders quarrelled over differing interpretations of Wesley’s message and methods.''4 Talk of merging these streams of Protestantism had long been in the air. Morton claimed that John Wesley himself had predicted that

as soon as he was dead the Methodists would become “a regular Presbyterian Church.” Instead, his movement had survived and suc-

cessfully competed with Presbyterians and Congregationalists in Canada. Still, the differences that remained were small when placed alongside the enormous challenge of shrinking resources and keen

“Friendly Service” to the Nation Ny, competition. Each of the three streams could trace a series of mergers that had brought dozens of denominations together along confessional lines.*'5 After nine unions and a less formal incorporation of a number of other Reformed groups, the Presbyterian Church in

Canada was formed in 1875. The Methodist Church (Canada, Newfoundland, and Bermuda), a culmination of eight unions, was

completed in 1884. In 1906 Congregationalists in Ontario and Quebec joined those from the Maritimes to form the Congregational Union of Canada. Meanwhile, the hopes of the unionists found concrete expression in a series of agreements that resulted in unions at the local congregational level. The challenge of meeting the religious needs of the Prairies was crucial to the case for church union. In his new position at the University of Saskatchewan, Walter Murray observed firsthand the variety of European religious traditions — Scandinavian Lutherans, Ruthenians, Uniate Catholics, Polish Catholics, Doukhobors — whose members rarely saw a minister from their own tradition. Most had come from countries where membership in a state church was assumed; arriving in Canada, argued Murray, they would be predisposed to being served by a church perceived as national. He noted that racial differences, far from being a barrier to co-operation, actually acted as a catalyst in promoting union: “Racial differences, the co-operative spirit, the community interest are driving together all who prize religion and patriotism.” Acknowledging the significance of the many union churches already being formed, he predicted that “unless Union comes soon they will develop into a new church and will sweep Western Canada.”!'° At first, local union congregations tended to affiliate with one (or sometimes two) of the uniting traditions, but as church union drew closer, many remained independent. The result was what C.E. Silcox described as “an ecclesiastical omelette that could only be ‘unscrambled’ by organic union.” He cited a 1923 study that put the number of pastoral charges where some form of union was already in effect at 1,244; Over 3,000 preaching points, most of them in western Canada, already thought of themselves as part of a united church.''7 At the inauguration ceremony, the collection of these young local union congregations was recognized alongside the three well-established traditions for “furtherance of community-life within the Kingdom of God, and of the principle, in things essential unity, and in things secondary liberty.”17°

28 A Church with the Soul of a Nation Rather than the modern pacesetters they are often made out to be, those who first set out to unite Protestantism by creating a national church should perhaps more aptly be thought of as accidental innovators. Their talent was less for originality than for adapting ideas already at hand; they traded on familiar ideas that seemed new when fashioned to meet the challenges and opportunities of the twentieth

century. The impulse of the previous century to unite a divided Christendom became a bridge to the ideals of a new generation of leaders who made the case for church union in Canada. Their strategic adaptation to modernity was selective: more apparent at the operational (administrative) than the ideational (theological) level. As they told the story of church union, it was simply the next stage of the worldwide expansion of Christendom, not a radical break from the past. There was, thus, a remarkable (and often overlooked) ‘conserving’ impulse in the efforts of the founding generation to restore the link between faith and community. The case for church union assumed that churches had an important role to play in shaping the nation of Canada and its people. “The new church will certainly be a unifying influence throughout the country,” claimed a confident spokesperson for the Joint Committee, offering as proof “the gathering of ministers and leading laymen from remote parts of the Dominion at Church and inter-Church assemblies and conferences” that had “resulted in a better understanding and the realization of a common interest between the people of the different Provinces.” ''? Its proponents tended to see the state as neutral, still malleable, and welcoming of guidance in setting Canada’s moral direction. The United Church would become the nation’s conscience, distinct but not separate from the body politic. For its part, the state had found a group of Protestant churches willing to be enlisted in its nation-building project — and, to the taxpayers’ delight, at no cost. Thinking that there was a nation waiting to be built upon Christian principles, and convinced that history was on their side, the leaders of the church union movement were confident of success. Their mission was surely a friendly service to the young nation of Canada. If

organizations have callings that shape their destinies, as some systems analysts suggest,'*° the new church’s mission was auspicious, for it continued to shape the United Church’s agenda after its found-

ing. It also drew immediate criticism. The determined idealism of those who supported church union and the equally determined

“Friendly Service” to the Nation 29 recalcitrance of those who opposed it was a combustible mix that exploded with most force in the Presbyterian Church in Canada. Proponents of church union saw themselves as players in the story of a twentieth-century renewal movement. They would reverse the divisive tendencies of the past by blending inherited insights. They would be united by a common cause and a common faith. With “assimilation” used so positively to describe nation-building, they had little difficulty thinking in similar terms about what they expected to set in motion with church union. Little did they know that their no-

tions of mutual assimilation would someday look as quixotic in hindsight as the seemingly arcane theological quarrels that had once

divided them. But non-concurring Presbyterians vehemently dismissed the call for a united church. They argued that the idea of a national church was flawed and that church union would divide both the nation of Canada and its churches. And thus was the stage set for controversy.

Z

Controversy and the Construction of Identity The Vision of Christ that thou dost see Is my vision’s greatest enemy.

Thine has a great hook nose like thine, Mine has a snub nose like to mine. William Blake, “The Everlasting Gospel”

When William M. Birks looked for a turning point to explain his

support for the church union movement, it was an unexpected Saturday night stopover on a business trip to Schreiber that came to mind. On what he described as a typical November Sunday, he worshipped at the Presbyterian church in that northern Ontario town with two men, a few women, and some children. He later learned that attendance at the other places of worship in Schreiber was no

better: two men at the nearby Anglican church, three men at the Methodist church across the road, and only one man at the Baptist church close by. Birks was shocked to hear that not one of the ministers was paid as much as his chauffeur. For twenty years he, his brother, and their father, jeweller Henry M. Birks, had each given an annual gift of $500 for home missions, a sum of $30,000 “gone to spread the shame, or if you prefer it, the curse of Schreiber.” Upon his return to Montreal, he related his experience to Ephraim Scott, a staunch opponent of the proposed union, along with a blunt message: he would give not a penny more to support home missions. Apparently Scott’s response was equally curt. He would never again speak to Birks or acknowledge him when they met on the street."

The case for church union that was so persuasive in Schreiber and many communities across Canada was hotly contested in

Controversy and the Construction of Identity 31 others. Fergus, Ontario, was the scene of a bitter fight over whether St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church would become part of the United Church of Canada on 10 June 1925. Those described by the local newspaper as the most active lay leaders had been staunch supporters of the union movement, but when the votes were counted, more

members sided with their anti-unionist minister. And so a small group of pro-union Presbyterians gathered for worship without pulpit or organ in a Sunday school room provided by the neighbouring Methodists. Feeling that they had been driven from the church, they reportedly sought consolation by turning to their Presbyterian past with its stories of their forebears in Scotland who had

resisted political and religious tyranny. The recent church union bills passed by the federal and provincial legislatures confirmed their conviction that they were the real Presbyterians and not dissenters, as the majority in their congregation claimed. Meanwhile, up the hill, the Presbyterians who disagreed with their General Assembly’s decision to join with Methodists and Congregationalists to form the United Church met as usual at St Andrew’s. They reportedly rejoiced that “they not only held the property, but had $40,000 in the Bank while their former co-workers had nothing.” Describing those who voted against church union as “filled with enthusiasm because they believe that they are the ‘real Presbyterians,” the editor echoed Shakespeare in asking, “What’s in a name?”?

The Fergus Record’s portrayal of the two groups of Presbyterians who worshipped that Sunday morning was all too typical of divided congregations across Canada, although more often than not the fortunes of the two sides were reversed. Who had legitimate claim to represent the Presbyterian Church in Canada? Was it the unionists who, buttressed by a winning majority in every one of the several votes taken by its general assemblies, presbyteries, and congregations between 1910 and 1924, claimed to be carrying its name with them into union? Or was it those who refused to give up the right to be called the Presbyterian Church in Canada? There was a good deal at stake (not least, the question of who had the right to the property and funds held under the legal title of The Presbyterian Church in Canada). Church union was a long time in coming, and the battle over the name went on even after the inauguration ceremony in 1925.4 The skirmishes continued until the Act of Incorporation that had been passed by Parliament in 1925 was amended in 1939 to

ao A Church with the Soul of a Nation reflect a compromise reached a year earlier: the United Church con-

tinued to say that it had incorporated what had once been the Presbyterian Church in Canada (along with the other uniting traditions), but the continuing Presbyterians were given the legal use of the old name.°5

The proposal to create a united church sparked a heated debate that divided families and turned old friends into antagonists. Alongside the legal wrangling over the use of the Presbyterian name was a

battle waged in local communities as both sides struggled to gain public support. There, the “antis” were joined by other opponents of a national church. Out of the bitter exchanges, two myths about the

making of the United Church materialized, disclosing theological differences over the essence of Christian unity and tactical differences over the role of the church in public life. Those who charged that union had been achieved by playing fast and loose with theological differences called it a “creedless” church. Its offer of friendly service to the nation was characterized as more befitting a political organization or a service club than a church. Those who joined the

non-concurring Presbyterians in opposing church union chiselled into the public mind a negative picture of the United Church that proved difficult to erase. And as other denominations and the secular press joined the debate, relationships were forged and broken in ways that had repercussions lasting long after the procedural wrangling was over.

Both sides saw 1902 as a turning point. However, the advocates of church union and those who resisted it were to remember what happened at their national gatherings that year differently, and each blamed the other for what went wrong thereafter. Discussions about church union had already been happening off and on for a quarter century. But in 1902 church leaders across the land were still absorb-

ing the shock of the immigration challenge signalled in the census figures released a year earlier as they prepared for their judicatory meetings.

Almost forgotten by both sides was the role of William Caven, principal of Knox College from 1875 until his death in 1904 just a few weeks before the first meeting of the Joint Committee (which he was to have convened). Caven’s support for Christian unity was well known in his day.° He had been a leader in bringing the various branches of the Presbyterian family together in 1875, served from

Table 2.1

Chronology of church union in Canada

1875 Presbyterian Church in Canada is formed from four branches of Presbyterianism.

1884 Methodist Church (Canada, Newfoundland, and Bermuda) is formed from four branches of Methodism.

1885 Synod of the Anglican Province of Canada invites Methodists and Presbyterians to discuss union.

1889 Conference on Church Unity meets in Toronto. 1899 Presbyterian General Assembly appoints a committee to confer with other evangelical churches to avoid overlapping of congregations; the Methodist General Council sets up a similar committee.

1902 Conegregationalists, Methodists, and Presbyterians appoint representatives to Meet as a joint committee in response to an invitation from the Methodist Church. 1904 British House of Lords awards the assets of the Free Church of Scotland to the Wee Frees, who had opposed creation of the United Free Church of Scotland in 1900 (Overtoun appeal).

1904 Joint Committee on Church Union meets for the first time. 1906 Congregational Union of Canada is formed from various Congregational churches.

1906 Anglicans and Baptists decline to join negotiations; Joint Committee on Church Union agrees on Basis of Union. 1908 Congregations in the west use the Basis of Union to organize local unions. 1910-12 National courts of the three uniting churches approve the Basis of Union and refer it to the lower courts and the membership.

1910 Presbyterian Association for the Federation of the Churches of the Protestant Denominations is organized to consider alternatives to “organic union.”

1912 Majority of Presbyterian presbyteries and congregations vote in favour of union, but the General Assembly agrees to allow time to build greater support.

1912 Several local union congregations form the General Council of Local Union Churches.

1914 “The United Church of Canada” is approved as the name during the process of minor revisions to the Basis of Union.

£915 Presbyterian General Assembly votes in favour of the revised Basis of Union and submits it for a second vote in the lower courts and membership, where the majority again supports it.

1916 Presbyterian General Assembly passes a resolution to unite, and sets up a committee to prepare for consummation after the end of the war.

1916 Presbyterian Church Association and Presbyterian Women’s League step up resistance to church union.

1917 Supporters and dissenters agree to a moratorium on debate and propaganda until after the war.

1921 Presbyterian General Assembly decision to proceed to a union in effect ends the “truce.”

34 A Church with the Soul of a Nation Table 2.1 (Continued)

1921 Representatives of the General Council of Local Union Churches meet with the Joint Committee on Church Union.

1925 Presbyterian General Assembly takes last vote on church union. 1924 The United Church of Canada Act is passed by the Dominion Parliament; congregations are given the right to decide by majority vote not to enter the union. 1924-26 Enabling legislation for church union is passed in all nine provinces.

1925 Inaugural service on 10 June creates a church of approximately 8,000 congregations and 600,000 members. 1925 Non-concurring Presbyterians continue as the Presbyterian Church in Canada with approximately 1,000 congregations and 150,000 members. 1930 Wesleyan Methodist Church of Bermuda affiliates with the United Church. 1938 Dispute over the name “The Presbyterian Church in Canada” is resolved, allowing both churches to claim continuity. 1939 The United Church of Canada Act is amended to allow the continuing Presbyterians legal use of the name “The Presbyterian Church in Canada.”

1888 until his death as chair of the Presbyterian General Assembly’s

committee on church union, and was the third president of the Canadian Society of Christian Unity (succeeding George Monro Grant).” At the General Assembly that met in Toronto in June 1902,

Caven made a presentation on behalf of the Canadian Society of Christian Unity urging the Presbyterian Church to actively pursue church union. The General Assembly responded by passing a resolu-

tion to support “the action of the Home Mission Committee in conferring with any committee of the Church of England, of the Methodist Church or of either of them, as opportunity may offer.”® That opportunity came a few months later. In September, Winni-

peg was the scene of the quadrennial General Conference of the Methodist Church. Before the meeting adjourned, the Methodist Church issued a general invitation directed to denominations “already marked by a great degree of spiritual unity” and “closely assimilated in standards and ideals of church life, forms of worship and ecclesiastical polity” to consider union negotiations.? The Meth-

odist, Presbyterian, and Congregational churches soon took steps

to set up a Joint Committee on Church Union, and in 1904 its subcommittees began working on the areas that would eventually comprise the five major sections of a Basis of Union: Doctrine,

Controversy and the Construction of Identity 35 Polity, Ministry, Administration, and Law. By 1908 the document was ready for the churches to consider. Just as memorable for the story of church union as the invitation to set up a church union committee were the fraternal greetings from the Presbyterian delegation to the Methodist gathering in 1902 that led to it. It was there that William Patrick delivered the fateful words that, according to some accounts, launched the negotiations and the controversy that ensued. Patrick was new to Canadian church gatherings, having arrived from Scotland only two years earlier to become principal of Manitoba College. Admitting that he might be “found guilty of sublime audacity,” he asked the Methodist delegates whether the time had come for the two churches to come closer together.’° His passionate appeal for Canada “to be the first to show the Christian nations of the world the way to reunion” proved irresistibly bewitching to his Methodist audience, suggests N.K. Clifford.

The Methodists unwittingly accepted an invitation that Patrick should never have extended, he maintains, for it had not been properly authorized by the Presbyterian Church. Those who understood

the folly of Patrick’s haste objected at the Presbyterian General Assembly in 1904, the date that marks, for Clifford, the beginning of the resistance to church union."!

The making of the United Church as told by its supporters has Patrick as a more minor player in a drama foreshadowed by Confederation and their own denominational trajectories.‘ They were mindful that their churches had already considered models of union in the 1880s and 1890s that ranged from loose federation to organic union, and at a conference in Toronto in 1889 organized by the Anglicans, had even tackled the thorny issue of what to do with the historic episcopate if the Church of England were included."3 Patrick was only one of three Presbyterian fraternal delegates bringing the customary plea for greater co-operation. Preceding him was George Bryce, the moderator of the Presbyterian Church. He per-

haps had in mind the passing of Caven’s resolution at his own church’s assembly a few months earlier when he reminded Methodists how close the two churches had grown in their forms of government and the causes they supported — even going so far as to endorse the

temperance movement. Speaking after Patrick was C.W. Gordon, a local Presbyterian minister likely better known to Methodists for his novels, who spoke of materialism as their common foe." Fraternal

36 A Church with the Soul of a Nation delegates from the Congregational Church, when bringing their greetings the following week, also signalled support for union: if all

the “near relatives” were to be included in the “wedding” of the churches, they too expected an invitation.) Although Patrick died in 1911, before there was much evidence of effective resistance, many blamed him for triggering the animosity

that attended the negotiations. It was he, they charged, who had “introduced the issue improperly, handled it illegally and justified his action in terms which verged on blasphemy” by claiming the church union movement was divinely inspired. His personality only made matters worse: once Patrick determined a course of action, he apparently brooked no interference, making it easy for his opponents to imagine that he had acted alone, rather than through proper channels. Described by his friends as a sad and lonely man, he apparently had few personal ties to Presbyterians in Canada, even in Winnipeg.'® His was a presence, says Clifford, that “continued to haunt the church until it accomplished the purpose he had set for it,” steering the course of events even after his death despite his being (and in part because he was) an outsider.'” But how much of an outlier was Patrick on the issue of church union? Clifford is likely right in reasoning that Patrick had brought the idea of union with him to Canada, rather than discovering it af-

ter his arrival. However, his claim that Patrick was unaware that others were advocating union is less convincing.'® It is difficult to imagine that Patrick had paid no attention to the press coverage of the death of George Monro Grant a few months earlier. After all, Grant’s dream of a united Protestantism was among the most publicized of his religious causes. It is impossible to know whether Patrick

was at the session that voted on Caven’s resolution on Christian unity, but he is recorded as being present as a delegate to the General

Assembly. Could Patrick really have believed he was the first to

broach the idea of closer relations between Presbyterians and Methodists? Perhaps Patrick’s “audacity” was a bit tongue-in-cheek,

feigning innocence in response to the opening provided when Methodist general superintendent Albert Carman introduced him as a “tenderfoot” in comparison with the “old-timer” Bryce.'? Still, supposing Patrick was unfamiliar with Canadian efforts to promote church union, those listening to his address that day would have heard nothing substantially new. Creation of “one great national Protestant Church” was not a fresh idea. It was a restatement

Controversy and the Construction of Identity ag (however eloquent) of a case that others had been making for years. Knowingly or not, Patrick was joining a conversation that was already abuzz among personal networks of family, friends, and religious leaders who had seized the cause of church union as a way of dealing with the challenges their churches faced. Why then — even allowing for misguided enthusiasm on the part of the Methodists — did Presbyterians and Congregationalists respond so swiftly to the invitation? Likely as decisive for all parties as the words of one person was the effect of the place where they were spoken: Winnipeg, a city where the impact of Canada’s new immigration policy was so evident. Whether or not they ought to race with each other to set up

home missions for these new Canadians was a question weighing heavily on their minds. The two sides quickly found themselves mired in procedural debates that were not of one person’s making, though Patrick proved to be an easy scapegoat for the opposition. His defence of the Basis of Union and the plan to implement it was often brilliant, but even his allies cringed at his tendency to verbally batter his opponents. Particularly upsetting was his rough handling of John Mackay, a young Montreal minister who vigorously opposed the first draft of the Basis of Union when it was put before the Presbyterian General Assembly in 1906.*°

The governance model that Mackay championed was federation: union by co-operation that would leave the three denominations essentially intact. Mackay also dismissed the theological articles in the Basis of Union as showing “nothing more, nothing less than that a large number of the ablest men of the three churches can produce a document sufficiently ambiguous to be accepted as a Methodist document by some Methodists, a Presbyterian by some Presbyterians, and a Congregationalist by some Congregationalists.”*? One of Patrick’s withering attacks on Mackay took place when he raised the 1904 ruling of the British House of Lords in the Overtoun

appeal.** Studying in Scotland at the time, Mackay was familiar with the case that saw the court award the assets of the Free Church of Scotland to the Wee Frees, a small number of Presbyterians who had opposed Scottish church union. Although Patrick publicly dismissed Mackay’s concerns, others were uneasy about how common law might be interpreted if those resisting church union were to take their case to London on appeal. The legal situation in Canada was, if anything, more precarious than in Scotland, since the British North

38 A Church with the Soul of a Nation America Act assigned matters of property and civil rights (which included religion) to provincial rather than federal jurisdiction. Anticipating litigation, the uniting churches eventually sought enabling legislation for incorporation as The United Church of Canada not only from the Dominion Parliament but also the legislatures of Canada’s nine provinces (although it did not pass in Quebec until 1926).73 It was Mackay, by then the principal of Westminster Hall in

Vancouver, whose hour-long plea for the federation model at the General Assembly in 1910 almost carried the day. Patrick delivered another stinging rebuttal, belittling Mackay in the process. While Patrick was credited with saving the vote for the unionists, his tactics dismayed even those who sided with him. George Pidgeon’s biographer suggests that a distaste for Patrick’s methods accounts for Pidgeon’s early reluctance to actively support church union — a cause to which he was predisposed both by temperament and positive experiences in co-operative ventures.*4 E.D. McLaren, superintendent of

Home Missions, watched what was happening with alarm. He later wrote that he had warned Patrick after the debate that “the danger to the union cause would come thenceforward from its friends.”*5 Those

who led the church union movement after Patrick’s death in 1911 were, unlike him, Canadian-born with a mesh of close relationships within the Presbyterian Church. With Patrick, they shared the credit for creating momentum for the vision of a united church; they were also among its “friends” whose own strategy drew criticism.

The unionists had their own explanation for what went wrong: the fault was in deviating from Presbyterian polity by giving too much, rather than too little, say to the people after 1910. Clarence Mackinnon thought that the General Assembly had departed from Presbyterian principles by “sending the dispute down among the people” for a congregational vote. While many supporters of church union were progressive in their theology, they appealed to an older

model of governance that relied on an educated ordained and lay clerisy to make major decisions. Presbyterianism was, Mackinnon insisted, “government by Presbyteries, by ministers and elders, by informed and ordained men.” He had come to appreciate the wisdom of past leaders who “would never have risked a vital matter to the judgment of the masses” — a fatal mistake, as he saw it, although one that was “probably unavoidable under the circumstances.”*° On

the other hand, those who resisted church union took advantage of a trend toward more democratic practices that was in tension with

Controversy and the Construction of Identity 39 the hierarchy of church courts. To historian John Moir, it appears that an “incipient congregationalism, which was infiltrating the Presbyterian Church in Canada before church union was even proposed, was now brought into the open in a basic internal division of opinion over Presbyterian polity.”*7

Meanwhile Methodists and Congregationalists, whose national bodies had already voted in favour of church union in 1910 and were preparing to proceed with it by 1912, were left hanging. An apologetic Walter Murray tried to explain the dilemma in a letter to Nathanael Burwash after another Presbyterian vote in 1912. He optimistically (but wrongly) predicted that with time and patience the minority could be brought into union. “I hope your church will not become impatient with us,” he pleaded. “We can quite well understand how irritating our actions must be to you, but we are placed in a very awkward position.”** That position became even more awkward with increased opposition to church union in eastern Canada

and increased support for it in western Canada, as reflected in the growing number of new local union congregations. The second vote on church union at the Presbyterian General Assembly held in Winnipeg in 1916 proved to be another pivotal

moment for both sides. While it was clear that a minority of Presbyterians still opposed organic union, Murray’s powerful plea that there be no further delay persuaded most of those present to vote for it.*? A newly appointed Joint Committee on Church Union, this time chaired by Robert Falconer, considered itself legally and morally charged with the responsibility of taking concrete steps to

consummate the relationship; to keep faith with Methodists and Congregationalists, there could be no turning back. The impact in some places was immediate. The minister of the Presbyterian church in Kelowna, BC, was so “imbued with the union spirit” that he resigned as soon as he returned home from the General Assembly, and a union church was formed with the Methodist minister in charge. In Rosedale, east of Chilliwack, Bc, three congregations whose re-

sources had been depleted by the war, formed a union church in 1917 and affiliated with the Presbyterian Church, which was the strongest in their community. Not all differences disappeared instantly. Methodists in Prince George, BC, were disappointed to learn that the union church would be “in the hands of the Presbyterians” and their building would not be used. Some of them remained aloof from the venture until after the 1925 union.3°

40 A Church with the Soul of a Nation The 1916 General Assembly was likewise a crossroads for the minority of Presbyterians who were against forming the United Church.3? They left Winnipeg bitter, energized, and determined to

organize a movement to preserve the Presbyterian Church in Canada. They formally registered a protest, charging that those who had voted in favour of supporting the Basis of Union had “ceased to

be the Presbyterian Church in Canada.”3* A few weeks later, the Presbyterian Church Association was launched at a rally held at St Andrew’s Church (King Street) in Toronto, reviving the Church Federation Association that Mackay and his supporters had attempted to form in TgIT. Opposition to church union sometimes made for strange bedfellows. Some of the most barbed anti-union commentary over the years was to come from what seems, at first glance, a surprising source: the editorials and articles in a secular magazine. Saturday Night’s sympathies were apparent in its story on the aftermath of the St Andrew’s rally. “It won’t go through now, of course,” predicted

the writer, for while the unionists still talked about pressing their cause after the war, the chance of church union happening was becoming less likely. The reporter wagered that neither the Dominion Parliament nor any of the provincial legislatures before which bills would have to be presented “would have the nerve now to grant such charters in face of the opposition that has developed.” The

movement was nothing more than a Methodist takeover bid, a scheme devised by the “business man” to dupe unsuspecting pastors into a cost-saving merger. The business man also had his hooks in the university, the writer divulged, and his ignorance had been re-

warded by honorary degrees. Particular scorn was heaped on the University of Toronto’s president for borrowing the idea of union

given him by the business man: what Falconer had cooked up “wasn’t just efficiency and business methods and crude raw materials like that. Not at all. It was the National Church — the National Church as against the Baptist Church and the Anglican Church and the Roman Catholic Church and all the other Churches that couldn’t

be as national because they wouldn’t have as many members.” However, the “cool Scotch mind” had discovered a flaw in the plan before it was too late: its “disregard of the spiritual equation.” 33 The Saturday Night article detected misgivings about union that simmered near the surface of the debate: the suspicion that business efficiency had trumped spiritual considerations, and the threat that a

Controversy and the Construction of Identity 4I national church posed to other denominations. It also noted the swift response to the 1916 decision. Even before the General Assembly voted, the dissidents had used a donation from textile manufacturer John Penman to hire someone to rebut press releases

favourable to church union. Despite its complaint that the union movement was driven by “the businessman,” the Presbyterian Church Association was at first largely funded by the wealthy Penman and

a few other well-to-do Presbyterians.34 Having already lost two votes at the General Assembly, the Presbyterian Church Association launched a print campaign that cast doubt on the decision to move forward. It also attempted to shift the debate from the church courts by organizing the opposition in local congregations. Its efforts were bolstered by two invaluable allies: Ephraim Scott and the Presbyterian Women’s League. Like a number of his unionist rivals, Ephraim Scott was a Maritime ‘export.’ He made Montreal his new home, and from there, for the next thirty-five years, he edited the Presbyterian Record. Once union was a fait accompli and it came time to select a moderator to lead the continuing Presbyterian Church, Scott’s was the only name put forward — and for good reason. His strident voice set the tone for

much of the propaganda produced by both sides. An early volley

that circulated widely as a pamphlet before the 1917 General Assembly used the literary device of a wise old pastor writing to a young inquirer. The letters presented a negative image of the proposed church as united only in name and preoccupied with government, control, and the outward and formal dimensions of religion; its members left the thinking to others and did what they were told. The Presbyterian Church, by contrast, was united in spirit and emphasized the inward and spiritual dimensions of religion; it celebrat-

ed diversity and allowed its members the freedom to think for themselves.35 Although Scott dubbed the two types as “German” and “British,” his characterization of the former as working like a “oreat ecclesiastical machine, with its centralized control” left little doubt that he was taking aim at Methodism. Scott scorned the prized unity of the common faith expressed in the proposed theological statement, warning of the dangers of “A Church without a Creed.” He was no kinder in his assessment of the United Church’s expectation of a greater role in national affairs. Such power should only be exercised by Christians acting as citizens, he argued, not by a spiritually decayed church usurping the authority

42 A Church with the Soul of a Nation of the state.3° His acerbic attacks continued even after the 1925 inau-

guration of the United Church. The religious life of the proposed church, said Scott, centred around “the absolute power of the clergy and officials in the church courts” who had the authority to completely change the church if they wanted; the system was “despotism

complete.” Those accustomed to hearing the United Church critcized for its modernism might have been startled to read that Scott identified it with the spirit of the seventeenth century (autocracy), whereas the Presbyterian Church displayed the spirit of the twentieth century in its democracy.3” Scott’s effective anti-union polemic was complemented by shrewd

organization of the opposition at the local level, aided by the Presbyterian Women’s League. The League’s fundraising activities brought in nearly $5,000 in the first six months, enough to defray its own expenses and make a generous donation of $3,000 to the Presbyterian Church Association.3* More difficult to assess, but perhaps even more significant, was its influence on family, friends, and members of the congregation, particularly in congregations where the pastor had sided with the unionist cause. A gathering in Montreal

heard that one minister had forbidden members of the Women’s League to oppose church union without the permission of the congregation’s Session. Even meetings in the home were prohibited. The

Montreal Gazette reported that while the woman told her story calmly, “something of a concerted gasp followed her statements, accompanied by ejaculations of ‘Dear, dear, and such remarks as ‘Go right ahead, ‘We are dissenters, are we?’ and others equally emphatic.” One woman predicted that such tactics “will make us more wild than ever.” The League ought to feel flattered observed another: “We are only mere women ... We should not be in this thing at all, and it is very gratifying to us that we have been able to create such a stir.” The Gazette also detected the developing tensions between clergy and laity, noting that “ministers came in for frank criticism by the

feminine members of their flocks,’ who found them to be rather autocratic In some cases.?? Women who supported church union did not form a separate organization to counter the Presbyterian Women’s League. They were pictured as sharing the vision of a united church, particularly the promise it held for missions. A press report of prayer services for the union cause held at St James Square Presbyterian Church in Toronto noted that most of the women who gathered were leaders of the missionary

Controversy and the Construction of Identity 43 society in their congregations.*° Asked by a reporter whether women

in his church planned to oppose the antis, one pro-union minister replied that his congregation’s “leading women” had decided such activities would distract them from more important work. They were, he added, as well informed about union as the men in his congregation and, as loyal Presbyterians, would be “guided by denomi-

national procedure.”4' Even in a congregation where the minister was a well-known supporter of union, being guided by procedure sometimes involved demanding more information. At Bloor Street Presbyterian Church in Toronto, Mrs J.W. Daniel called for a meeting to hear both sides of the issue, arguing that it did not “seem natural to me that Presbyterian women [would] allow themselves to be

bundled out of one organization into another without a with your leave or by your leave until they have had an opportunity of thinking the matter well over.” 4?

There turned out to be more time to think the matter over than e1ther side would have imagined in 1916. When the General Assembly met a year later, the delegates agreed to call for a truce in Presbyterian hostilities for as long as Canada was at war, and implementation of the decision to unite was suspended.#3 A vote in 1921 to resume action toward union roused the opposition, and the Presbyterian Church Association was reactivated the following summer. Concerned unionists from Toronto smelled trouble and gathered a few months later to devise a strategy to neutralize renewed resistance.

In the group was George Pidgeon, by then minister at Bloor Street Presbyterian Church. Writing to his brother Leslie in Winnipeg to fill him in on the details and enlist his help in garnering western support, he found some good news to report: an anti-union convention, which organizers had expected would fill St Andrew’s Church in Toronto to overflowing, had drawn a crowd of only 700. He assured his brother that there was nothing in the speeches to cause concern. More worrisome was a proposal to prepare what he called a monster petition of 100,000 names of those opposed to church union. The Presbyterian Church Association had hired Eugene Le Fleur, described by Pidgeon as one of the greatest lawyers in the country, as counsel; they were well organized, well financed, and committed to blocking the proposed church union legislation.*4 “There’s no fighting the Pidgeons,” it was often said in Presbyterian circles — “Leslie is too clever, and George is too good.”45 Those on

44 A Church with the Soul of a Nation the side of the Pidgeon brothers in the union controversy quickly realized to their dismay that, in this case, success in the courts of the church was no guarantee of victory in the public arena. Since politicians would be the ones to approve the legislation, both sides recog-

nized the importance of the voting public and scrambled to make their case. George Pidgeon feared that the church union supporters in the west might be indifferent: “The thing seems so self evident there that they cannot see the necessity for action.” He urged brother Leslie to begin organizing pro-union support immediately, for the

anti-unionists had “thrown down the gage of battle and unless we start to meet it now, the whole movement will be endangered.” He added that he did not want to give the impression that the east was panicking; but if the bill was to be passed in Parliament and provincial legislatures, “there must be such an expression of the country’s convictions on the subject that will be overwhelming and will show all in authority that the conscience of the country is behind it.”4° The pro-union strategy described by Pidgeon called for the organization of a press campaign backed by generous financial support from lay leaders. Although the plan presumed that volunteers would handle much of the work, a decision was made to hire someone to coordinate the publicity campaign. R.J. Wilson, minister of Chalmers Presbyterian Church, Kingston, was recruited to run the Joint Bureau

of Literature. It was an offer that would have been hard to refuse. Meeting in George Pidgeon’s study in 1922, Wilson was urged by a

group of notable Presbyterians that included William Birks and Robert Falconer to accept the challenge. Their assessment of the situation was grave: there would be no church union unless congre-

gations were made aware of what was at stake. His new responsibilities included preparing literature for distribution, organizing meetings to present the union position, arranging for speakers to visit congregations, supplying newspapers with information, and providing a key person in each presbytery with a supporting organization “to carry on the fight.”47 A fight it was indeed, and as it turned out, the unionists had picked someone who seemed to thrive on controversy as much as Ephraim Scott. In a letter to brother Leslie in Winnipeg, Pidgeon shared a bit of gossip he had picked up. “The other day someone in a committee mentioned ‘R.J.’s’ tendency to boast a bit and also his splendid quali-

ties as a fighter,” Pidgeon confided. “One of the men quoted Josh Billings to this effect - There are two things that I admire about the

Controversy and the Construction of Identity 45 rooster — his crow and the spurs to back it. I think you can see the point in this, only do not tell anyone else.”4® Wilson lived up to this billing. He quickly took stock of the situation, deemed it serious, and proposed a strategy in anticipation of an attack. Scouring the methods and literature of the anti-unionist camp, he found a “campaign of misrepresentations and deliberate falsehood” already underway. Of particular concern was its impact on union sympathizers who “still blind their eyes to the methods of Anti-Unionism, who are satisfied that the policy of benevolent neutrality will accomplish more than an aggressive campaign.” Contrary to rumours that Scott was withdrawing his opposition to union, Wilson believed that the Presbyterian Church Association

was instead preparing to step up its attacks. His summary of the anti-union tactics proved to be close to the mark; he predicted, for instance, that opponents would attempt to sway public opinion with this ploy: “The Presbyterian Church is announced as a non-political organization. By implication the United Church of Canada is to be political.” 5° Wilson believed it was time to take off the gloves in order to retain the support of a number of churches in danger of being swayed by the Association. “The Anti-Unionist is out to ‘save the Church’. Let us be out to save Canada for Christ. Our appeal is so much larger and so much worthier that if we get it squarely before the people we need not be afraid of their decision.”5? Outlines for sermons and addresses prepared by Wilson’s office for those invited to speak in favour of church union tapped into the movement’s ideals. Church union would unleash “new spiritual forces and treasures to place the crown upon the brow of the World’s Redeemer, who gave His life that we all might be one in life, love and service. It is the most significant movement since the Reformation.” 5” But there were hard-hitting addresses as well, bluntly stating that the only issue remaining to be settled was whether particular congregations would remain in the Presbyterian Church in Canada by

entering the United Church, or whether they would secede from their “Mother Church” by voting against church union. Dire consequences such as isolation in foreign mission work and strife at home were predicted for the secessionists. To choose to join the United Church was, on the other hand, to remain connected to Presbyterianism worldwide, retain the essential doctrines and polity of Presbyterianism, and demonstrate acceptance of “the challenge of Non Anglo-Saxon Canada.” 53

46 A Church with the Soul of a Nation After church union legislation again passed easily at the Port Arthur General Assembly in 1923, the dissidents turned their energies to pre-

paring for the final vote at the congregational level, hoping to persuade as many as possible to cast a ballot to opt out of joining the United Church of Canada on to June 1925. As Presbyterians prepared to make this crucial decision, Wilson hired a clipping service to keep a “watchful eye” on the newspapers, for he saw the press as key to shaping public opinion. He claimed to have countered “dangerous influences” by providing accurate information to newspapers, preparing reports of meetings and interviews for columns, making personal contact with editors, and even doing editorial work on request. The coverage in Toronto continued to be a matter of concern; except for

the Star, the secular press did not seem to favour union. But on the whole, Wilson concluded, “newspaper publicity has had an astounding effect on Union,” one that he assessed as generally favourable.54

The decisions made by Wilson and the Joint Committee drove the counter-resistance as inauguration day drew closer. They assumed that using prominent Presbyterians to present the union cause would most effectively blunt opposition. They relied on Methodists for

some of the funding, and counted on them to pull back while Presbyterians worked out their differences. Even Chown’s suggestion on behalf of the Joint Committee on Church Union that some literature be prepared from the Methodist point of view was politely dismissed as “inopportune.”55 The need to defend the United Church

as the continuing Presbyterian tradition meant that its Methodist features were muted before, and likely even after, union. Finding themselves on the receiving end of a barrage of negative publicity and innuendo portraying them as theologically and socially inferior, it was difficult for Methodists to hold their tongues and

let their Presbyterian friends defend their theological reputations. The unfairness of such criticism was acknowledged in a leaflet outlining a sermon on the biblical text “Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory.” The preacher was to urge his listeners to beware of empty boasting about past glory, reminding them that the Methodist Church had more members and even larger property holdings. As for Presbyterians who were glorying in their social status, the sermon outline suggested that the status be shared with Methodists to elevate them!5°

Controversy and the Construction of Identity 47 The opposition’s tactics further alienated Methodists when the Presbyterian Church Association added a new arrow to its quiver to shore up support for the final vote. At a time when the fundamentalist-modernist debate in the United States was dividing denominations, Methodist leaders in Canada were furious to hear their church described not only as creedless but also as modernist and even apos-

tate. Chafing from disparaging comments made about them, and weary of waiting for pro-union Presbyterians to defend them, some Methodists began to respond in kind. T. Albert Moore, secretary of both the Methodist General Conference and the Joint Committee (and later the first general secretary of the United Church), fired off a personal letter of protest to a Presbyterian minister who had suggested federation as a compromise. The Methodists “did not take any part in your debate, we were not involved and we acted with high restraint,” Moore complained. “Your people [the Presbyterian Church Association] deliberately dragged us in and argued that we are of such character that association with us in Church fellowship would be betrayal of Christian honor.” 57 While Moore fumed, Pidgeon protested the “absolute dishonesty” of those who claimed that “Church Union is the Canadian form of Modernism” while retaining principal Daniel J. Fraser of Presbyterian College in Montreal, well known for his liberal theology, as president of the Presbyterian Church Association.5® This ratcheting up

of the rhetoric as the controversy wore on made it difficult for Methodists to support a proposal to delay the consummation of union in the hope that, with time, more dissidents would be won over to the union cause. The energy of Wilson and the unionists in pamphleteering and feeding the press was more than matched by the efforts of Ephraim Scott, the Presbyterian Church Association, and the Women’s League. The strategy to stop church union was simple: raise doubts about the ground-

work that had been laid for the proposed national church, and challenge the legitimacy of the public role it hoped to play. The most fundamental criticism lodged was that there was no basis for unity because the parties proposing to unite did not have enough in common: in theology, polity, and even social class, they were simply too different. While some used the traditional language of Calvinism vs.

Arminianism to frame the differences in theological terms, others

48 A Church with the Soul of a Nation couched their opposition in scientific terms. Robert Campbell, the influential clerk of assembly during the early years of the controversy, insisted that the laws of nature barred “the mating of things that are unlike.” 5?

The blending of Presbyterianism’s stability with Methodism’s fervour, and Congregationalism’s love of liberty was thus doomed from

the start, union critics argued, for nature showed that crossbreeds were always weaker than the parent stocks, amalgams of metal lost the unique qualities of their original states. In their view, the oft-cited problem of inefficiency resulting from duplication was exaggerated; denominational competition was healthy since it was rivalry, not co-

operation, that sparked enthusiasm for the work of the church.°° Those who opposed church union thus repudiated the environmentalist assumptions that A.S. Morton had laid out in The Way to Union, rejecting his argument that church life in Canada was evolving irresistibly toward union. They also questioned the case for nation-building made by the unionists, dismissing their notion of mutual assimilation for either a new type of church or a new type of Canadian.°!

The debate also revealed different understandings of Christian unity. One critic of union lamented the loss of the image of being Christ’s branches, with him as the Vine: “Instead of Branches we have latterly come to use the word Denominations, a mechanical, unorganic word, void of the idea of vital relation to a living Stem. We speak of sects as if they were rival business concerns. And, not unnaturally, we now think of organic unity as an incorporating union on the lines of a commercial merger. External, mechanical union is not essential to organic, spiritual unity.” An Act of Parliament might have the power to incorporate a commercial enterprise, but it could not create spiritual unity.°* Presbyterians were not alone in their concerns about the incompatibility of the uniting traditions. Some Methodist ministers feared the loss of their distinctive polity — not only the itinerant system of assigning pastoral charges so maligned by Presbyterian critics but also their pension fund! Those who were convinced that a united church would look much more Presbyterian than Methodist perhaps heard reason for concern as they listened in on the Presbyterian debate. Explaining his rejection of the proposed union, one Methodist minister listed among his reasons: “Because Dr Patrick, Presbyterian, says, ‘We have not changed our doctrine or discipline or polity, we have assimilated the other bodies.’”®3

Controversy and the Construction of Identity 49 Just as damaging as the questions about the organizational culture of the uniting churches was the escalating attack on its theological foundation. Ephraim Scott had at first found little to criticize in the Basis of Union (as its defenders enjoyed reminding him): he reported that he could see no substantial difference between the new doctrinal statement and the Presbyterian Shorter Catechism. Praising it as “a model to other churches contemplating union,” Scott had initially

described it as a “standing testimony to the essential unity of the Protestant Evangelical Church, both in this and in other lands.” This first impression of the articles stood in marked contrast to his later characterization of the United Church as creedless and its Basis of Union as providing “an open door for every error, especially that er-

ror which takes from Christ His Crown of Deity and takes from sinners a Saviour, making Him only a man.”°4 Presbyterian critics of the Basis of Union warned of the dire consequences of requiring ministers to be in “essential agreement” with the theological articles of the Basis of Union, a concession that had been made to convince the Congregationalists to join. Addressing an audience of concerned Presbyterians gathered at St Andrew’s Church, Toronto, Thomas McMillan asked whether they realized that a min-

ister who claimed to accept the doctrinal statement at ordination could later become a Unitarian, a Universalist, a Christian Scientist, or even a Catholic without any disciplinary remedy available in the Basis of Union. Such a minister could “go on wrecking congregations without limit” by being transferred by the Settlement Committee from place to place.®5

While Methodists who were wary about the Basis of Union offered little organized resistance,°° they occasionally expressed personal reservations about its theological foundations. W.S. Griffin challenged readers of the Christian Guardian: “Place Dr Burwash’s defence of the doctrines in the Basis of Union side by side with John Wesley’s Christian perfection, and we almost feel that the respected and Distinguished Chancellor of our university [Victoria| has sadly fallen from grace.” Convinced that it was professors and church ex-

ecutives, not those engaged in pastoral or evangelistic work, who were behind the union movement, Griffin questioned the wisdom of its leaders. How could men who “spend their days in offices and college classrooms” be trusted with the responsibilities of reorganizing church life? Griffin joined Presbyterian critics in challenging the argument that a unified church would be more effective. Far from a

50 A Church with the Soul of a Nation large organization doing more to save the world, history taught him that “revivals always involved the breaking away from these mighty church organizations.” °7

Joining those within the uniting churches who questioned the formulation of common faith in the Basis of Union was an eclectic mix of allies, including conservative Protestants in Canada and the United States. Historians of religion in North America note with interest that the fundamentalist-modernist controversy was not waged with the same intensity in Canada as in the United States. However, the debate over church union that took place in Canada at the same time as the struggle over theological modernism elsewhere was anything but irenic. What is fascinating is the resemblance between the

arguments against church union in Canada and the case against theological modernism in the United States, particularly after the reactivation of the Presbyterian Church Association in 1921.

Few champions of conservative theology were more articulate than J. Gresham Machen, professor of New Testament at Princeton

Theological Seminary, whose battles with the school and the Presbyterian Church in the USA spurred him to found Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia in 1929. Machen’s writings provided the intellectual underpinnings for fundamentalist attempts to stall the spread of liberal ideas among evangelical Protestants. Christianity and Liberalism, published in 1923 just as Presbyterians in Canada prepared to take their arguments to congregations and legislatures for what proved to be the last time, had a blunt message: liberalism was un-Christian.°* Liberalism was even more pernicious than other heterodox expressions of Christianity, claimed Machen, since its understanding of God and humanity, its seat of authority, and its approach to salvation constituted a different religion. “We have,” he concluded, “the entrance of paganism into the Church in the name of Christianity,” and he predicted that such churches would soon be “given over altogether to naturalism.” ° Those wondering how Machen might appraise the common faith

at the theological heart of the Basis of Union did not have far to look: the opening pages of Christianity and Liberalism belittled all such efforts. “In the sphere of religion, as in other spheres, the things

about which men are agreed are apt to be the things that are least

worth holding; the really important things are the things about

Controversy and the Construction of Identity 51 which men will fight.”7° His final chapter on “The Church” dismissed “the liberal program for unity” because it was based on the assumption that doctrinal differences were mere trifles, readily resolved by uniting around a program for Christian service.7* Machen

condemned the dishonesty of ministers who no longer held to the theological standards of their church, insisting that “evangelical churches are creedal churches.” By implication a so-called creedless church (as critics were fond of calling the proposed united church) was no longer evangelical. He urged those who no longer accepted

the Westminster Confession to which they had subscribed at the time of their ordination to join another denomination or start a new church. Commending the Unitarian Church for its honesty, he described it as exactly the home liberals were seeking: “a church with-

out an authoritative Bible, without doctrinal requirements, and without a creed.”7*

The General Assembly minority that refused to adjourn after the majority officially constituted the United Church of Canada later approved a resolution to formally thank Machen “for his substantial and

continued interest in our cause.” Machen’s letter of support for the

continuing Presbyterians, read to the gathering and written into the Acts of Proceedings, reflected his affinity with the anti-union cause. Machen compared the ordeal of the Presbyterians in Canada to events in the United States, and identified their common source: “a compromising interdenominationalism.” Assuring them of prayers of support

from around the world, he commended them for their example: “In these days of defection and unbelief, your Church is like a city set on a hill.”73 In addition, Machen provided tangible support for the continuing Presbyterians by recruiting Americans for pastoral charges left vacant because of union, even paying some of their expenses out of his

own pocket.74 A number of the ministers arriving from the United States to serve Presbyterian congregations had studied at Machen’s new seminary.7°

Church union also came under fire from fundamentalists closer to home. T-T. Shields of Jarvis Street Baptist Church provided local

newspapers with colourful descriptions of the union threat. Not even an astronomer skilled in measuring space could determine the distance between church union and the spirit of Christ, he reportedly

said. Like Machen, Shields described the United Church as “not Christian, it is essentially pagan; and the movement is a part of the

52 A Church with the Soul of a Nation general apostasy of the age.”7° The Toronto Telegram reported that on one occasion Shields preached on the subject of church union for over an hour, linking the idea to “Rome” and warning that such a church would attempt to impose its will on a free people: “You will have to have the permission of the United Church to live after a while.”77

The affinity Shields saw between Rome and a united Protestant church was far from apparent to Catholics, who found little to like about union. The Catholic press dismissed the troubles within the Presbyterian Church as typical of the turmoil that had come to char-

acterize Protestantism since the sixteenth-century Reformation. “There is a merry war on among the sects,” reported the Catholic Register, “and Catholics are vastly amused at the game of Presbyterian kettle calling Methodist pot black.” The coverage of the controversy

in the daily papers confirmed “that no Presbyterian or Methodist clearly knows what or why he believes” and revealed a “mass of conflicting doctrine, confusing incoherency and bewildering inconsistency” in the squabbling. One thing was clear, observed the editor: “a great part of Protestantism is tainted with modernism and pagan

unbelief in Christ’s Divinity and is therefore not Christian in any sense.” The controversy confirmed the Catholic contention “that Protestantism is a bedlam of contradiction, based on the arrogant say-so of cock-sure individualism, and infallible egoism” that doomed it to multiplicity, subdivision, and disintegration.7°® The Catholic press joined Presbyterian and fundamentalist critics of the theological basis for union by emphasizing lingering religious differences between the uniting parties. The Antigonish Casket con-

trasted Presbyterian religion with its “intellectual appeal to reason but a reason carried to fantastic lengths, and soured with gloomy theories taken from the Old Testament” with Methodism’s “appeal to spiritual excitement ... which found expression in writhings on

the floor and in despairing abandonment or else in unreasoning certainty of salvation.” The editor could think of no two religions more unalike and described union as “an abandonment by both Methodists and by Presbyterians of all that was ever distinctive in their respective creeds.”79

Theological conservatives and Catholics were not alone in raising doubts about the prospects for uniting under the umbrella of a common faith. Charles Frederick Paul, the Unitarian editor of

Saturday Night, presumably had little theological affinity with

Controversy and the Construction of Identity 53

either fundamentalist or Catholic critics of union, but articles on church union published in the magazine under his editorship from 1909 until his death in 1926 showed a similar antipathy.*° Pondering the question “Will the uniting parties live happily ever after?” the pseudonymous writer “Josephus the Second” had his doubts. Methodists were “born Cockney” and recruited from the middle and lower classes. Presbyterians were of Scottish heritage and (though Josephus left it unsaid) of a superior class. Theologically,

Wesley and Calvin stood on opposite sides of “an unabridged and unbridgeable chasm.” Temperamentally, they differed as well: the Scot, being “undemonstrative, scowls at the Amen corner, and will wait a lifetime before daring to take the sacrament,” whereas the

Methodist “was exhorted to testify for the Lord the night of his conversion, was trained to talk in class meeting of his spiritual ups and down, and in general wore his heart upon his sleeve.” Josephus contrasted the dignity of Presbyterian worship services with the informality of Methodist gatherings, where “emotionalism used to swing exuberant Methodists off their base” during revival meet-

ings. He mischievously compared Methodists as the equal of Presbyterians in numbers, missionary zeal, preaching power, vital-

ity of church life, work with youth, and application of Christian principles to social problems — they were a match for Presbyterians “in everything but prestige. They are handicapped by immaturity. They have not the culture.”*!

The denigration of the public role that the new church was expected to adopt was just as severe and, given the need to garner legis-

lative support for union, potentially more damaging. The church union bill before Parliament was ominously cast as a debate over whether Canada would have a state-controlled church. Instead of being the Church of Christ, the United Church would become “a civil corporation, a creation of Parliament, a creature of the State, having its existence and name by grace of Parliament, its teachings authorized by Parliament, its life dependent upon the will of Parliament.” **

Social progressives who opposed church union objected to the premise that a united church would be a more effective means of creating a Christian social order in Canada. D.J. Fraser had made no secret of his own liberal leanings over the years. As he prepared for the final General Assembly vote, he summed up the case for his side

in the controversy: “What many of us feel to-day is the need of a change of emphasis from legislation to regeneration, from reform to

54 A Church with the Soul of a Nation redemption, from outward change to inward conversion. The pulpit is not a platform for discussing the questions of the hour, but is a medium for the message of the Eternal.”°3 W.D. Tait, professor of psychology at McGill University, agreed, charging unionists with wrongly placing faith in “church organization” as the solution to social problems: “it should be plain to all that the curse of the modern world is organization.” “Organization” stifled effort since “it destroys personality, deadens refined, sensitive feelings and obliterates the ge-

nius of the individual.” He concluded that spiritual power “must come from the individual or not at all; and spiritual unity is not a necessary consequence of social or ecclesiastical legislation.” *4

Suspicion of a hidden agenda in the guise of church union was pervasive among its critics. E. Lloyd Morrow, author of a book that catalogued their complaints (and himself a supporter of a federation model for ecumenical co-operation),°5 was scathing in his analysis of what he called a “Big Merger Church.” A “Big United Protestant Church might cause racial and religious strife in Canada” if Frenchand English-speaking Catholics sensed that their civil and religious

liberties were threatened. The past, as he read it, told a different story than the unionists had related: “All history is a protest against the argument of the moral,|sic] and spiritual efficiency of the one big Church idea,” he protested. Protestant national churches had proved to be as decadent as Catholic ones.*® He dismissed as absurd the argument that a Protestant national church was needed to “obliterate these precious religious differences, in order to mould the char-

acter of our citizenship.” Canada was already bound together by imperial, national, economic, family, and religious bonds that were unbreakable. “Beware of the religio-political motives for Union,” he warned, for it might actually divide Canada by creating a split with Quebec “if a United Protestant Church were strong enough and unchristian enough to start a quarrel with our fellow-Christians of the Roman Catholic faith.” 7 Suspicion about the union movement’s political aims crossed de-

nominational lines and international borders. Once again, those identified as fundamentalists took aim. Machen’s attacks on the “program” of the modern liberal church in the United States was strikingly similar to what was being said in Canada about the proposed united church. There was little emphasis on heaven in the lib-

eral understanding of salvation, said Machen, and liberalism’s emphasis on “this world” had resulted in a religion that was a “mere

Controversy and the Construction of Identity 55 function of the community or of the state.” The liberal Protestant response to new immigrants drew his scorn as an attempt to repress their mother languages in order to produce “a unified American people.” The state had turned to religion to implement its agenda, and immigrants were now greeted with “a Bible in one hand and a club

in the other offering them the blessings of liberty. That is what is sometimes meant by ‘Christian Americanization.’”*®

Machen’s Canadian readers would have had little difficulty in translating this as an indictment of the unionists’ hopes of Christianizing the social order and creating a new type of Canadian. While he conceded that such tactics might provide a good defence against Bolshevism, produce a united country or a healthy community, and even

promote international peace, Christianity for Machen was more than a means to such ends; a religion could no longer be considered “Christian” if it was principally concerned with such objectives.®9 He rightly predicted that his assessment of liberalism would be interpreted as an attack on the social gospel, which differed significantly from his own view of the social dimension of the Christian faith. He was particularly suspicious of social Christianity’s view of the state, cautioning that even the family, the most important social institution, was being “pushed into the background by undue encroachments of the community and the state.” He warned readers that soon children would no longer be “surrounded by the loving atmosphere of the Christian home, but by the utilitarianism of the state.”?° Fundamentalists closer to home were likewise worried about what they saw reflected in the founding vision for the new church. T.T. Shields attacked $.D. Chown for claiming that union would result in godly legislation: “The work of the church is not to interfere in polltics; and no church body has the right to go to the legislators of the land and ask for legislation, godly or otherwise.” Himself a staunch

supporter of temperance, he feared that while union supporters might “succeed in having other Acts such as the O.T.A. [Ontario Temperance Act] written upon the statute books of the land,” they were “forgetting the hearts of the people; and so they bring great joy to the devil.”9" Uneasiness in some quarters of the Anglican Church was reported

in the Canadian Churchman, whose editor opined that religion “must be a thing of the heart and of the will, an impelling impulse of

life. It would never do to exchange the Church of God for a great social service institution, a law enacting body or an organization to

56 A Church with the Soul of a Nation spike the guns of the Roman Church.”9* A number of bishops took issue with the paper’s position, stressing that it was not the official organ of the Anglican Church; still, the editorial was a reminder that union was far from popular in some Protestant circles. In the heat of the debate over church union in the Ontario legislature, MpP J.A. McCausland, an Anglican, pronounced the bill as “good as dead.” He explained to the reporter that “we have a legislature here that is not going to let that domineering bunch of Methodists have their own way — that bunch that for the last ten years or so has been telling us what we must eat and drink ... Do you think we Anglicans are going to let Dr Chown tell us what we are to do? I'd see him...” — at which point words were uttered that the reporter was not allowed to quote!?>

Catholics also had misgivings about the political repercussions of church union. An issue of St Peter’s Messenger that came out shortly after the inauguration ceremony expressed shock at how quickly and easily its leaders circumvented the “tests of Holy Scripture,” citing as evidence calls for the ordination of women. While United Church ministers were free to “preach the silliest and most absurd

doctrines” and “follow the paths of error and darkness to their heart’s content” within their own ranks, the paper drew a line: “when they invoke the power of the law to enforce their petty ideas of reform upon us, when they want to tell us what kind of religious

instruction our children are to receive in our schools, when they want to tell us what we should drink, and so on, then we are obliged to call a halt.” 94

Secular press coverage of the controversy likewise often displayed the uniting churches and their cause in an unflattering light. Methodists found themselves pictured as power-hungry social climbers. Chown, in particular, drew harsh personal criticism. As one critic put it, “Dr Chown cracked the solidarity whip about his shins, and he changed his Highland fling to the Methodist solidarity goose step. Politico-religious control has arrived.”95 An editorial in the New York Sunday Times on the rise of the church union movement expressed the apprehension of its opponents that the new church

would become a political force as “the State Church potentially, though of course not in name, of the English-speaking Provinces.”

Union supporters no doubt were dismayed to find the Basis of Union itself quoted as evidence: “There is a clause in the ‘Basis of

Union’ which proposes that the United Church of Canada shall

Controversy and the Construction of Identity 5a ‘enact such legislation and adopt such measures as may tend to pro-

mote true godliness and repress immorality, &c.” The newspaper had failed to notice that it was quoting from a section of the Basis of

Union (8.6.10) outlining the General Council’s responsibilities to regulate the church’s own actions. The American newspaper mistook this for a quite different kind of ‘legislation’ and remarked dis-

approvingly: “The Dominion has long suffered from church intervention in politics, and knows the tendency of the ecclesiastical temperament to dub as ‘ungodly’ or ‘immoral’ any action or opinion with which it fails to agree.” 9° The Act of Parliament that legally formalized church union made

it even more suspect in the eyes of those who opposed it. As one letter to the Toronto Telegram put it, “The Dominion Government by confirming the ambitious name it had assumed, and by ratifying its constitution, has to all intents and purposes conferred upon it the dignity of being the Established Church of our New Nation,

and all who are not in organic union with it will rank as mere dissenters.”97 Saturday Night sounded its usual libertarian alarm: “The question arises whether this co-operation [between church and state] is to take the form of a vast sin-factory for the creation of new statutory offences; and to impose on the rest of the commu-

nity the Unionist discipline with regard to alcoholic beverages, horse racing, card playing and possibly smoking (for the word ‘narcotics’ is of wide meaning).”?° The unflattering press coverage iden-

tified the social agenda of the new church with temperance, and played on the growing unpopularity of prohibition. George Pidgeon suspected that the legislative opposition to church union in Ontario

was a way for those who opposed temperance legislation to hit back at the Methodist Church for promoting it.?? Led by R.J. Wilson, the Joint Committee on Church Union vigorously responded to the barrage of criticism. A pamphlet pointedly titled The Fundamentals answered questions raised about the “central truths of evangelical religion.” It upheld the doctrinal section of the Basis of Union, in particular the articles on grace, as being as

“clear and strong as any authoritative statement issued by any Church in recent times.” '°° Those who took time to read the Basis of Union would have indeed discovered that Article VI, “Of the Grace of God,” declared that “God, out of His great love for the world, has given His only begotten Son to be the Saviour of sinners, and in the

58 A Church with the Soul of a Nation Gospel freely offers His all-sufficient salvation to all men”; it was followed by articles on Christ’s atonement “for the sins of the whole world,” regeneration, repentance, justification, and sanctification. Supporters of church union also drew attention to the affinity of

their cause to the Reformation. Affirming the authority of the Scripture and acknowledging the importance of the ancient creeds, the preamble to the Basis of Union added: “We further maintain our allegiance to the evangelical doctrines of the Reformation” adopted by the uniting traditions. However, the Joint Committee rejected the notion that the competition among post-Reformation denominations was preferable to a national church. Dismissing the charac-

terization of a national church as “medieval” or “Roman,” T.B. Kilpatrick claimed that the United Church was akin to the Protestant model developed in the sixteenth century. Reformers then had envisaged a particular type of Protestant church in each nation. “There is no room, properly, in any one nation, for any other Church than the

Church of that nation, which shall be the expression and organ of the national religious life.”*°!

As the final vote neared, unionists distributed leaflets in an attempt to assuage concerns about political interference. “The United Church has no political aspirations, its primal purpose 1s to lay the foundation for that unity of soul and conscience, which must come first in all our nation-building,” one pamphlet explained. “By breaking down the barriers of provincialism and sectionalism within itself, the United Church will stand as a symbol of national unity, and it will be the task of the United Church, so far as lies within its power,

to create and maintain a United Canada. The United Church of Canada will be one from ocean to ocean; one in the East and in the West, and it will become a uniting influence in the national life.” '°* The alternative to the adventure in faith that union promised was

“separation from the Mother Church; separation from the great West; separation from foreign missionaries and their work; visionless isolation; unrest and distraction; perpetuation of strife.” '°3 Little matter, then, whether one were a member of a large congregation such as Bloor Street Presbyterian or a small local-union church in “new Ontario” or the West: each was called to take part in the new venture. Preaching before a crowd described as having

“taxed the capacity of Bloor St Presbyterian Church,” George Pidgeon urged the “churches of the east” to “win the whole land for Christ.” Well aware of the appeal that was being made to preserve

Controversy and the Construction of Identity 59 the distinctive features of the Presbyterian tradition, he reminded them that just as a person could shut out the sun by holding a penny too close to the eye, so local differences might blind them to “the greatest opportunity of the age.” If the name “Presbyterian” had to go, it was “only the bursting of the acorn shell in order to let the oak develop,” for the tree could not otherwise grow.'°4 The printed mat-

ter distributed to his congregation included a pamphlet that succinctly presented what the unionists believed to be at stake for them in the upcoming vote: “Consideration of our place within the Nation forbids our remaining aloof, as an independent congregation, and, with almost equal emphasis, suggests that there is no place within a small dissenting group for such work as our people wish to undertake for the sake of Canada.” *°5 Entering the new United Church with churches like the large and prosperous Bloor Street Presbyterian were hundreds of small and struggling congregations in the West that were heartened by hearing

the case for church union: the future of Canada depended on the kind of co-operation they had already demonstrated in their local unions. From his vantage point in Saskatoon, principal E.H. Oliver

predicted that a united church would create a “great healing and unifying bond of kindliness and love” between East and West. He was convinced that there could be no turning back, for “the church of the future in Western Canada is a united church; do not make any mistake about that.”'°® Demographics seemed to support Oliver’s case. Considering the question of the consequences of reversing the decision to unite, the Manitoba Free Press reported that “it would

mean the abandonment of a constructive work of national proportions that has extended over the past sixteen years ... It is not possible to go back without disrupting the life of three thousand congregations scattered over the whole Dominion.”'°7 Church union

supporters may have exaggerated the strength and significance of the union movement in western Canada,'®* but the thought of losing such a large block of congregations was sobering. Critics downplayed the spiritual aims of church union; supporters countered with a vision of Christian Canada and its mission in the

world. Addressing a gathering at Old St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Toronto, J.R.P. Sclater painted a vivid picture of what he saw at stake in the controversy. “We have just seen Christian civilization doing its very best, all but successfully, to commit suicide. You have seen the nations reeking with the fumes of war and reeling in

60 A Church with the Soul of a Nation the shock of it, and that in a professedly Christian world — in the very centre of the Christian domination of the world; and yet people think they are getting on very nicely!” Sclater was not so sanguine. “Stretches of Canada are untouched, stretches of the world unheralded by the Gospel of Jesus Christ; and you say the Church is getting on very nicely! I say it is getting on tragically; and if ever there was a time for men to consider the proper adjustment of the means at their disposal, it is today when we stand amid the ruins left by the greatest catastrophe that has ever befallen Christian civilization.” To him the implications for the church union question were clear: “If, in these days, we cannot learn that the Christian Church has much to unlearn, particularly in regard to its insensate divisions, then we are sunk too deep in self-complacency, even to be taught.”?°? And yet going ahead with union held its own dangers once it became apparent that the Presbyterian Church could unite only by dividing. Even some of its earliest supporters began to harbour doubts. By 1916 D.M. Gordon had come to believe that the benefits of union would outweigh the losses. A quarter-century earlier, in the style of King Arthur, he had gathered young theological knights at his Round Table in Halifax. Together they had championed the cause of church

union. Now, plagued by ill health that would lead to his retirement as principal of Queen’s University the following year and torn in his loyalties, Gordon’s public statements expressed concern and his private correspondence reflected growing sadness. The tangled personal and professional ties that were frayed by the controversy were evident within Gordon’s own network of family and friends. Daughter Minnie was considered the key organizer of the antis in Kingston, although she declined to hold office in the Presbyterian Women’s League because of her father’s position at the university.''° Son-in-law Will, married to his daughter Katherine, was W.E. Nickle, known in his public life as the anti-union attorney general of Ontario. Yet still supporting the cause of church union were old friends from his Halifax days who, despite his pleas to suspend negotiations, in-

sisted on going ahead with union even with the knowledge that many congregations would vote against it. One of those old friends and fellow-knights, Clarence Mackinnon, was elected moderator in 1924 and charged with the responsibility of overseeing the last steps toward union.

Gordon was caught on the horns of a dilemma. He had been a member of the first union committee and long regarded as a

Controversy and the Construction of Identity 61 supporter of a united church. In the story of church union as he remembered it, his committee had assumed that union would only proceed if the whole church supported it.*'' It was folly, he wrote in 1916, for the majority to form a united church while its opponents were left with the old name and some of the property.*'* His letter of congratulations to Mackinnon on his “elevation to the Moderator’s chair” urged him to consider the costs of forcing a union which, far from fostering spiritual unity, would “open the floodgates to strife, resentment and other destructive forces.” As “the really wise course,” Gordon proposed suspending negotiations with the Meth-

odists and Congregationalists in an effort to go back to the way things were before the 1916 vote. The immediate task for Presbyterians was to restore unity within their own ranks and wait for divine guidance on organic union with others.?> By then Gordon had lost confidence in those who were steering the process. To say he was disappointed in the actions of the Joint Committee was “a very mild expression of my feeling, and it might shrivel up this paper, as with fire, if I were to use anything like adequate language. Words fail me,” he confided in a letter to a friend. His disappointment was palpable as he reminisced about his own early involvement in the movement, concluding that it was premature: “The seed was unduly forced into bloom, and therefore failed to yield the fruit we had hoped for.”''4 Yet, other Presbyterians who

had opposed union eventually overcame their reservations and joined the United Church. John Mackay soon gave up his fight for federation.''5 By the time the United Church was inaugurated in 1925, he was principal of Manitoba College, once headed by his past antagonist Patrick. Even the statistics told two stories of church union and, concludes Moir, could be “juggled to prove whatever one wanted to prove.” By simply counting the number of ballots cast, those against union claimed their support was growing. But many congregations (especially in the West) did not bother to cast ballots since support for union was a foregone conclusion. In the end, about the same number chose to continue as the Presbyterian Church in Canada after 1925 as had voted against union when it was put to a congregational vote in 1911: roughly a third. However, the distribution of dissent was not evenly spread across Canada. According to Moir’s calculations, 21 per cent of the non-concurring congregations were

in the Maritimes, 25 per cent in Quebec, 38 per cent in Ontario

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Controversy and the Construction of Identity 63 (particularly the wealthier ones), and less than 5 per cent in the West.''® The vast majority of ministers and overseas missionaries chose to join the United Church, leaving the United Church with a surplus (and the Presbyterians with a shortage) of personnel. Unfortunately for the United Church, the enabling legislation in Ontario and Quebec awarded Knox College in Toronto and Presbyterian College in Montreal to the continuing Presbyterians. The loss of Knox College was a particularly bitter pill to swallow, since the new building completed in 1915 had been linked in principal Alfred Gandier’s fundraising activities to preparing leaders for a united church. A decade later he had no choice but to raise money for a new college after he and his faculty, as well as three-quarters of the students, vacated Knox College.*?”

It is hard to gauge the impact of this bitter, protracted, and at times unseemly controversy. The continuing resistance to church union secured the survival of the Presbyterian Church in Canada by denying the claim of the founders of the United Church that its name had been carried into union. The dispute thereby became a defining moment in shaping the identity of the continuing Presbyterians. But it forged the identity of the United Church as well: first impressions of the new church and its leaders were formed while watching the two sides argue. The public was thus exposed to two sets of convictions about the mission of the church, particularly in the North and West, as well as tactical disagreements over how to carry it out.''® Tensions heightened when anti-union groups converged with anti-modernist theology to cast the Methodist and Congregationalist union partners in an unfavourable light. The effective use of such disparaging terms as “creedless” and “political club” created an impression that

the United Church found hard to shake long after 1925. And by becoming modernists in the eyes of fundamentalists, their claim to be a stream of the evangelical tradition was suddenly suspect in some circles.

What can be said with certainty is that out of the controversy came two stories about church union. As told by the continuing Presbyterians, it was a tale of the rise of a new sect misnamed “The United Church of Canada.” As lovers of liberty, the Presbyterian Church in Canada was willing to let them leave, as long as they left the trusts and property — and, of course, the name — behind. Ephraim Scott complained that the phrase “you'll never know the difference”

64 A Church with the Soul of a Nation had been “a constant opiate to Presbyterians, to dull them during the

attempted extinction of their Church.”''9 Little wonder that many years later, the history of First United Church in Victoria, BC, observed that “congregations in the Presbyterian tradition,” like theirs,

were “reputedly loath” to give up their old name. It was not until 1937 that the superscription “Former Presbyterian Church” was removed from its own notices and bulletin board.'*° The story as told by the founders of the United Church emphasized that they had not given up their heritage, nor anything essential to their traditions — only their old names. Writing shortly after union,

another minister in British Columbia was still defending the case for church union: “We fully and gladly concede then that The United Church must be something different from any Church to which we

belonged before union came. It should be capable of larger views and larger undertakings, and it must be ready for new experiences. That does not mean, however, that we are to lose any vital thing

which was in our history or experience.”'*' The whole of the Methodist Church and nearly all of the Congregationalist churches were persuaded that it was so. A significant minority of Presbyterians were not so sure. Both sides of the controversy that ensued claimed to be preserving the past, and each constructed an identity that initially denied the right of the other to exist. One of the terms of the 1938 ceasefire was the acknowledgement that both could claim continuity with the pre1925 Presbyterian Church in Canada.'** The Presbyterian Church in Canada survived alongside the United Church, but the financial and emotional cost for both was high. Property was divided; so were families, friends, and co-workers. Was it worth it? There was little time to

ponder that question once former Presbyterians joined former Methodists, former Congregationalists, and the recently created local union congregations to become “The United Church of Canada.”

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ie } a : ’ te Ld uN q& ad j ’ x : y A } * The old watchword of “evangelization of the world in this generation” that had inspired those at Edinburgh in rgTo raised very different questions for those gathered nearly two decades later as they considered a new theme: “The World Message of Christianity.” Joining the Canadian contingent in Jerusalem as an observer was E.W. Wallace, who had recently returned to Canada after serving many years as a Methodist missionary to China. His perceptive reports about what he had witnessed at the gathering identified the key issues to which the United Church and its ecumenical partners would respond over the next decade. In addresses and essays, including ten articles for the New Outlook, Wallace prepared the United

Church for tactical shifts in what he billed as a new approach to missions.33 As he saw it, the Jerusalem meeting marked the beginning of a “new day in the life of the whole Christian movement.” The change of direction was evident in the delegate selection, with over half representing “mission lands,” which were primarily in Africa and Asia.}4 It was, he claimed, the first time in history that the whole

The Mission and the “Machinery” 81 world was “directly represented in a Christian gathering”>5 (although Catholic delegates were conspicuously absent). The Jerusalem meeting approached evangelism from an unconventional perspective. Instead of a map of the world with unevange-

lized areas painted in black (a familiar visual aid at missionary gatherings), those gathered in Jerusalem were challenged to think rather of the “dark continents” of human existence, where the Spirit of Christ was absent — to racial conflict, industrial relations, and rural life for instance.3° So the mission field now included the West, quashing the idea of “sending” and “receiving” countries. Even references to “older” and “younger” churches were questioned as the focus shifted from the duration to the degree of Christianization manifest in the social order. The focus on Christianization was further sharpened by linking it to a more expansive approach to evangelism.37 The consensus at Jerusalem was that evangelism should involve the practical implications of the Christian message, as well as its proclamation. Any activity that delivered the message of Jesus Christ was viewed as evangelism, with preaching, teaching, and healing in particular representing the full range of Jesus’ own ministry.3° However, spreading that message and advancing the Kingdom of God by calling for both individual and social redemption once again drew the ire of fundamentalists, who disparaged it as a “soulless” social gospel.>?

Conferences are rarely as momentous as those who plan and attend them expect, but Wallace could feel change in the air at the Jerusalem meeting. Its effect was perhaps amplified because ideas that its organizers billed as new and groundbreaking had already been given a test run and were gaining support in missionary circles. Notably, Jerusalem provided an international platform for Daniel Fleming of Union Theological Seminary in New York.4° Described by one historian as “the most prolific, influential, and creative liberal theorist of missions between the world wars,”4* Fleming was already

known in Canadian mission circles. Nearly half the students at the Canadian School of Missions in Toronto had enrolled in a one-week course he offered in 1927-28. There they were no doubt introduced to ideas from Fleming’s recent book, provocative when first published in 1925 and soon to be disseminated in missionary circles after the Jerusalem meeting. Published reports communicated the meeting’s message to missionary boosters around the world. Its

82 A Church with the Soul of a Nation proceedings were studied in many educational settings, the Canadian School of Missions among them, and discussed at formal and informal gatherings.4* Coming so soon after union, the conference evidently made a deep impression on United Church leaders. They were heartened by its message, and proved adept at adapting its insights to their work. Its principles found a warm welcome at the executive level, and were popularized in many congregations by ministers and missionary societies. Wallace himself redesigned his course for Emmanuel College

students preparing for ministry to introduce them to this new approach to missions.+3 Four years after the auspicious meeting in Jerusalem, Wallace (by then president and chancellor of Victoria

University) announced to the 1932 General Council that the old missionary maps of unevangelized lands were gone, replaced by a focus on “the unevangelized areas of life which are found in Canada as well as places like Africa or India.”44 Before its final benediction, the 1932 General Council would set

an ambitious agenda that accented Christianizing all areas of life. Among the program initiatives was support for a joint committee of the four largest Protestant churches chaired by George Pidgeon, tellingly called a movement for the evangelization of Canadian life. It also called for related studies that were presented two years later as “Evangelism” and “Christianizing the Social Order.” These noteworthy reports placed the United Church squarely in the camp of inter-

national ecumenism in its assumptions about the mission of the church and the significance of its social role.45

Those who think of the social gospel as the wellspring of the United Church’s “social passion” often overlook the missionary movement as a driving force. Church union supporters were among those com-

mitted to the evangelization of the world in this generation after Edinburgh. Jesse Arnup, who along with James Endicott and A.E. Armstrong formed the triumvirate in charge of the Board of Foreign

Missions after union, saw “abundant evidence that a world vision and a world purpose” was shared by the founders. Indeed the United Church’s “ultimate objective was always set down as the evangelization of the world,” he informed readers of his study book for missionary societies and the Young People’s Union (y PU) in 1937.4° His description of the scope of the church’s outreach was likewise ambitious: “Of set purpose it aims to make Canada wholly Christian; but

The Mission and the “Machinery” 83 its ultimate objective is nothing less than the fulfillment of God’s purpose for the whole world.”47 The long-standing resolve to build the Kingdom of God and thereby create “His Dominion” in Canada lingered in the evangelistic language of home missions supporters,4° and translated easily to the new aim of Christianizing all areas of life.” It meshed well with the aspirations of moral and social reformers who advocated relating Christian principles to social realities, thereby enjoying the support of many at E&SS, whose coterie of paid staff and elected volunteers included a number of prominent activists and some of the church’s best minds. Among them was Ernest Thomas, the brilliant and at times acerbic associate secretary. Thomas praised the Jerusalem meeting (along with the first World Conference on Faith and Order in Lausanne in 1927 and the Anglican Communion’s Lambeth Conference a year later) for proposing an approach to evangelism that differed “from all revivalist movements,” some of which were “far from sharing the aim or the outlook” of its message.*? What is sometimes referred to as the “social gospel ethos” made a lasting impact on the United Church, in large part because the enthusiasm for missions at home and abroad bolstered key aspects of E&SS’s progressive agenda.5° The work of proclaiming the gospel while providing practical assistance was shared by missionary soci-

eties and two mission boards, which had at their disposal much larger budgets for education, hospitals, etc. than Exss alone. The missionary movement, with its many voices, deeper pockets, and undeniable link to the evangelical impulse of the past, joined the cause of moral and social crusaders in Christianizing all areas of life. With every land now considered a mission field, even small congregations (often the recipients of mission support) were acquainted with programs designed on the assumption that Christianizing the social order was a missionary task.

Much was made of the United Church’s unique opportunity in this regard. Church union propagandist R.J. Wilson was characteris-

tically assertive in presenting the opportunities ahead.5' With the “larger part” of Canada’s population living in rural areas, few, if any,

Protestants would be out of reach: “the vast majority of them will find that The United Church is the only Church doing Christian work in the areas where they settle.” It was, he added, the United Church’s aim to “claim every community in Canada for Christ and to minister in His name to all, regardless of creed, language or color,

84 A Church with the Soul of a Nation who need her help, and who are dependent on her for comfort and instruction in the Gospel.” 5*

Likewise Jesse Arnup portrayed the United Church as a church committed to assisting others. Since more than half of its pastoral charges received support from mission funds, the United Church was, he claimed, a home mission church,53 operating in at least twenty-five languages as well as serving “isolated Indians and white communities in the far West and North.”54 He was particularly pleased about ministry to indigenous peoples that had been provided as the land in Canada came under the “control and occupancy of the white man.” It had become “apparent that the future welfare of the Indian would be contingent upon his ability to adapt himself to new and still changing conditions of life,” he explained. Both the churches and the government had stepped in — the churches accepting the “duty” of evangelization, the government meeting its economic and social obligations under the terms of various treaties by constructing buildings and, in the case of day schools, providing salaries for the teachers. It

was, in Arnup’s estimation, a partnership that had “worked out to the advantage of all parties.” 55 Arnup presented a glowing account of the educational program of

the residential schools as an alternative to day schools: “Immoral customs among the pagan Indians, unsatisfactory home life, the absence of parental discipline, nomadic habits, the activities and influence of the medicine man, all served to neutralize the effect of Christian teaching, given for only a few hours each day.”5° Not only

did residential schools help Indians to become better citizens of Canada; they were preserving aboriginal culture by sparking a “revival of Indian art and design,” including totem poles and Cowichan sweaters.57 Arnup boasted of the educational and professional success of graduates who scored well on high school entrance exams and went on to become teachers, nurses, and ministers.>* This was a theme repeated in other study materials and reports.5?

In seeking to Christianize the social order, the United Church worked in partnership with various levels of government to ‘Canadianize’ immigrants and indigenous peoples. Efforts to create a common culture by providing pastoral care to those who were ‘different’

were accepted as necessary and constructive, a way of creating a better nation. To those who wondered whether such efforts were still necessary, given the restrictions on immigration after 1925, the Missionary Monthly responded with an unequivocal “yes.” Mrs J. Erle

The Mission and the “Machinery” 85 Jones estimated that 80 per cent of immigrants already in Canada were not connected to any Christian church, and described them as drifters who had lost faith even in what they had once been taught to believe. She warned, “If we Christian people let them adrift we are

responsible for a great menace which may threaten Canada.” She urged readers to “show them that the Church is ready and eager to help them to become the citizens they ought to be.” °° Readers of missionary reports and study materials learned about United Church activities in small, remote, or linguistically diverse

communities (many of them identified as “Non-Anglo-Saxon”). Such work was crucial in efforts to become “the Church of the rural areas and the Prairies,” noted R.B. Cochrane, secretary of the Board of Home Missions in 1938. “Paganism in one form or another is as real in the life of our Dominion as in the heart of Africa,” he claimed,

predicting that “we shall not overtake our missionary task abroad until we get an awakening at home!”°! J.I1. MacKay, superintendent of the Church of All Nations in Toronto, was also concerned about

the future of Canada. He admitted in his preface to The World in Canada that his own choice of title for his missionary study book had been “Can the Church Save Canada?,” for he feared that the country might disintegrate. Canada’s people (or their parents) had come from “the ends of the earth,” he wrote, bringing with them “all the things that make for antagonism and discord, improperly related, but with the qualities also that will make for harmony and beauty and strength if wisely coordinated.” The church’s “unparalleled opportunity” in the midst of this complex situation was to save this “world in Canada” and thereby “point the way to the saving of the larger world.” °*

One did not have to live in a remote community in Canada, or in another country, to encounter the United Church’s missionizing im-

pulse. Most congregations had to look no further than their own WMS meetings, where local missionary educators were well positioned to promote ideas that were current in ecumenical circles. At a time when most denominations (including the United Church) had separated the administration of home missions and foreign missions, the WMS remained responsible for both, and was able to explore the interconnections between them. Historians have wondered how the social ideals of national denominational leaders were communicated to local congregations — what Richard Allen describes as the “under-

brush” of church life.°3 Perhaps a clue lies in the organizational

86 A Church with the Soul of a Nation structure of these missionary societies with their connections to women in local congregations. Those wanting to find the women who seem to be missing from standard accounts of the social gospel movement might do well to look more closely there.°4 Many United Church leaders had come to believe, like their ecu-

menical counterparts, that the key to world harmony was a new international order based on Christian friendship.°5 They considered the missionary cause an essential precursor of peace, and praised the missionaries themselves as “builders of that world-wide community of Christians which is at once the embodiment and the instrument of world brotherhood and the basis of world peace.” °° In a world threatened by the rise of aggressive nationalism in some

countries, the missionary’s role became even more important to global unity, insisted Arnup.°” But others, including the predictably provocative Daniel Fleming, were beginning to ask difficult ques-

tions about the Anglo-Saxon form of nationalism unwittingly spread by the early missionary movement.® Ironically, the antiWestern nationalism that was rising in many parts of the world was

at odds with Christian internationalism, heralding complications for missions in years to come. “Doors are open everywhere,” mission reports claimed. Missionaries themselves reported that opportunities abounded if only staffing and money could be found to support them. The idea that their years of sacrifice might come to naught due to a lack of funds likely caused many to inflate opportunities and overstate the strategic importance of a Christian presence in their area.°? However, events soon belied their optimism. With money for existing programs in short supply and hostility to their presence as foreigners on the rise, missionaries’ reports sounded increasingly desperate. Evangelistic work was particularly vulnerable, and even educational and medical work was not as welcome as in the past. A special committee formed to advise the church on how to deal with its financial crisis frankly stated another problem: “We cannot win the world for Christ to-day on the strategy of a century ago or even twenty-five years ago.”7° The committee’s recommended objectives and methods drew explicitly on the current assumptions and strategies of the international missionary movement, emphasizing an expansive approach to evangelism that involved preaching, teach-

ing, and healing.7* However, even the usually sanguine Arnup sounded apprehensive as he described the new world the church was

The Mission and the “Machinery” 87 facing. The missionary enterprise was in jeopardy — and so too was the future of the church. “You cannot think of God except as a mis-

sionary God,” he warned. “So it is with the Church. Rob it of its missionary purpose and passion and you remove both its right and its power to carry on.”7*

Meanwhile, there were indications that Canada’s own national aspi-

rations and the rise of what Doug Owram calls the “service state” (which defined itself by the help it offered to its citizens) were affect-

ing the United Church’s mission by changing its role as a service provider. After the First World War, the government had extended its

authority by taking on new social responsibilities.73 State-funded public agencies soon superseded voluntary associations and rivalled both churches and service clubs in providing social services they could not afford to match. Such increases in government spending would have been unthinkable only a short time earlier, remarked Frank Stapleford approvingly as he observed the scene in 1925. Stapleford was a United Church (formerly Methodist) minister and head of Toronto’s Neighbourhood Workers Association, which he had helped found in 1918. He reckoned that social work had been transformed by a more confident attitude about what human beings could accomplish and an assumption that change was the result of social research. Whereas churches continued to organize philanthropic enterprises such as orphanages, rescue homes, settlement houses, and inner-city missions, these establishments were increasingly run by welfare institutions under non-religious auspices.74 This shift in delivery of social services was to have important implications for the United Church in the coming decades. Was it time to hand over even more administrative responsibility to the state and secular agencies? Stapleford himself was unperturbed by that prospect, pointing out that since the boards of even so-called secular institutions were still comprised of men and women holding deep religious convictions, churches need not be discomfited by this trend. He guessed that over 90 per cent of those doing either professional or volunteer social work in Toronto were religiously inspired. According to Stapleford, the church had a critical role to play in energizing social initiatives and raising awareness of the connections between moral and economic issues — especially among

business leaders (obviously considered in need of such education and enlightenment).75

88 A Church with the Soul of a Nation Others were less certain. By the 1930s, a more sombre mood pervaded discussions of the church’s relationship to the state, a marked contrast to the energetic and enterprising spirit of social reformers

at the turn of the century. Social welfare and prohibition were among the issues that complicated the church’s working relationships with various levels of government. Like Stapleford, the United

Church had initially assumed it would become an integral part of Canadian society and a shaper of its values, particularly in moral matters. With its offer of friendly service to the nation, the newly founded church had expected a supportive, or at least neutral, state partner that could be persuaded to advance a progressive social agenda. It saw itself as neither totally accommodating of nor completely separate from secular culture. For many United Church leaders, losing the fight for prohibition was an eye-opener. It revealed a different reality: a state with diverg-

ing interests on particular issues, unresponsive, and at times even hostile to the church’s agenda. Prohibition was the public policy issue with which the United Church, at the time of its founding, was most closely identified. Despite considerable church effort to sway the political debate, the tide turned against temperance as one province after another rejected prohibition and adopted government control of the sale of alcoholic beverages.’° Ironically, tax revenues from such purchases (and from the proceeds of gambling, which the

United Church also opposed) were badly needed to fund the new social services the church favoured.

Prohibition was a reminder of the complexity of the church’s relationships with federal and provincial governments, whose decisions proved more resistant than expected to united Protestant influence. For temperance supporters it was sobering to see their

concerns dismissed or ignored. The state had become not only an unreliable consociate but also an obstacle to moral reform. Misgivings surfaced among some ardent social reformers, wary of relying too heavily on the state to implement the church’s social policies.7”7 Ernest Thomas found himself at odds with some of his colleagues for questioning their calls for legal prohibition of alcohol and reminding them that attempts to coerce people by legislation to become non-drinkers no longer enjoyed wide public support. His efforts to inject a dose of reality into discussions alienated many in the church.7® Thomas did not live to see the United Church accept his strategy in the 1950s: promoting of personal abstinence

The Mission and the “Machinery” 89 through education and building of consensus through persuasion rather than coercive prohibition legislation. If the task of the church was to Christianize all areas of life, where did politics fit in? How far should the church go in siding with particular political parties? Was the church limited to presenting general Christian principles when making pronouncements about moral and social issues? These were questions that threatened to substitute political quarrels for theological ones over where to draw the line between theology and partisan politics. D.L. Ritchie, dean of the newly formed United Theological College in Montreal, alluded to the cus-

tomary distinction between religion and politics when he warned that the church’s efforts to build a new social order would not be advanced either by mingling organized politics with religion or by the church becoming an extension of a particular political party. Only by refusing to become political would pastors remain prophetic; they were to be spiritual teachers who presented ideals and prin-

ciples rather than political contestants who translated them into policy. Their part was to redeem the role of the politician by honouring and supporting those who discharged their responsibilities faith-

fully, and to encourage the best persons in their midst to consider public service as a worthy calling. Ritchie put out a special plea for the church to use its considerable influence with women to encourage them to regard public office as a suitable position for their husbands (though apparently not for themselves).7? Fresh questions about the role of the church in politics were asked after the organization of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) party in 1932, in which some United Church ministers were conspicuously involved. D.N. McLachlan, secretary of Ex&ss, repeated the standard position of the executive leadership: the United Church had no interest in promoting any particular party, whether left or right. On the other hand, being non-partisan did not mean remaining silent, he insisted, and the church reserved “the right at all times to cry out against injustice and wrong.” If this was not part of the church’s mission, he added, the church had no mission.*° Still, not everyone agreed on what that meant in the real world of

politics. Anti-prohibitionists outside the United Church had long memories of what to them smacked of the church dabbling in politics to promote temperance legislation. Critics of the United Church’s

statements on economic issues archly noted that “prohibition” was now extended from the use of alcohol to the making of profits. There

90 A Church with the Soul of a Nation were even rumours that the church was considering an affiliation with the ccF.*! Such allegations became more credible when Toronto

Conference, in a close vote at its 1933 annual meeting, denounced the capitalist economic system “unchristian” and supported state control of a number of key industries. Those who objected to what they saw as an intrusion of the church into the political arena warned of the danger of such pronouncements: once a position was declared to be “Christian,” it was difficult to get rid of it if it proved impracti-

cal. An editorial in Saturday Night asserted that a church could hardly change its mind about what was or was not “Christian” every second or third year. “The last two occasions, in Canada, on which [God] was extensively enlisted in support of courses of action ...

were the War and Prohibition, and the long-term results were not good in either case,” it warned.*” How could Christian responsibility be translated into public influence without becoming partisan in the process? This was the vexing problem assigned to the Commission on Christianizing the Social Order that reported to the General Council in 1934. Chaired by Sir Robert Falconer, recently retired from his position as president of the Univer-

sity of Toronto, it brought together those who were “expert in the fields of industry, finance, statecraft and church life,” and was billed as “the outcome of a great body of representative opinion throughout the

Church.”°3 Falconer was an interesting choice as chair. Not even the conservative wing of the social gospel movement claimed him as a supporter. For his part, he dismissed the social gospel as the response of “impatient members” of Protestant churches to “what seems to be a loss of moral authority.”*4 Yet he and more radical Christian socialists evidently shared a number of concerns: political corruption, financial speculation, and the preoccupation with profits in farming and business alike. As his biographer puts it, Falconer “selectively weeded the socialist garden to suit his own taste.”°5

The commission grappled with some of the most complex issues spawned by the Depression. Those who crafted the report urged “a more complete commitment of professing Christians to the principles and practice of Christian living both in personal and corporate life.” However, this “Christian” program was not to be identified with any political party or group. Ministers of the church were given explicit instructions: whatever they might say or do as citizens, the pulpit was not to be “used for purposes which lie outside its sphere.”

The Mission and the “Machinery” gI And yet a minister was not to “consent to keep silence as to any part of the Christian Message because some particular group avowedly

seeks the same end.” Persuasion, not coercion, was the church’s weapon in its warfare against social evils. On matters where the consensus of informed judgment pointed in a clear moral direction, the role of the church was to bring the issue to the attention of the public and political leaders, and rely on them to act.*® The report thus stopped just short of prescribing a specific course of action for Christianizing the social order. As it felicitously put it, the task of the church was “to be the light rather than the engineer of the City of God, to give direction and reveal goals rather than to devise programs.” In this spirit, it supported the idea of public utilities and applauded initiatives to provide more income security for the elderly, unemployed, and disabled.*®7 At several points the report

explained that the church did not have the “technical ability to prescribe the process by which [unemployment] should be eliminated.”

Its task was to shape public opinion on moral issues through the enlightened consciences of its members, but not to directly advise the government on the details of public policy.*®

This approach was perhaps a reflection of the cautious political instincts of the commission’s chair. Falconer’s own frank assessment

of the social role of the church, published in an autobiographical

account a few years after the commission completed its work, appraised the church’s current political influence in blunt terms: national leaders did not consult church leaders in times of social difficulty — and with good reason in his opinion: “The advice given by churches and by good Christians is often of little value, because it is not determined on a sufficiently broad understanding of what is feasible.” To expect anything more was to misunderstand the task of the church, which was “not intended to be another earthly kingdom legislating for the social and political welfare of even its own mem-

bers, to say nothing of the multitudes who would never acknowledge its authority.” Its more modest role was nonetheless crucial: rather than dictate or even prescribe solutions, it was to educate and enlighten its members in an effort to “release [their] moral energies.”

Its task was to co-operate with the home in producing educated Christians whose “fundamental convictions and intelligence” would guide them in “active citizenship.” *?

Still, the report of the commission was “pretty radical” for its day in the judgment of another of its influential members. Richard

92 A Church with the Soul of a Nation Roberts, the minister at Sherbourne Street United Church in Toronto who had been elected moderator by the same General Council that

received the report, claimed that he and Falconer were mainly responsible for drafting it.°° He largely agreed with Falconer’s assessment of the church’s task in political and economic life, and like him

distinguished between ethical and technical judgments (the latter being outside the church’s competence). Just as the church lacked the expertise to run a chemical laboratory or preside in a court of law, it lacked competence to pass judgment on capitalism and communism as economic systems. It could, however, assess the possible or actual consequences for the souls and bodies of those living under those systems. All social processes were to be governed by Christian principles that would promote the growth of personality and community.??

Despite its mediating stance, the report was not endorsed by all who took the time to study its recommendations. A response from the congregation of St Marys United Church in southwestern

Ontario objected to the findings, stating that righting economic wrongs would come only as “the result of individual experiences of reconciliation with God through Christ Jesus our Lord.” While the St Marys’s Session agreed that “more Christian operation” of the

economy was important, the church’s main task was preaching the message of salvation. Their response also took exception to the report’s critical assessment of Western civilization as “debased” by materialism. Admittedly there were problems, but capitalism was certainly preferable to Communism or Corporate Nationalism.%* While some criticized the United Church for going beyond its spiritual mandate, others were just as disappointed by what it left unsaid. The tasks assigned to the commission by the General Council had included a request “to define those particular measures which must form the first steps toward a social order in keeping with the mind of Christ.”93 The commission stopped short of detailing such measures in the final report, admitting it was unqualified to do so. However, a minority of commission members felt that the report should have more emphatic on a number of points. Several unresolved issues were identified in a paragraph that followed the report, all of them showing the influence of the Christian socialist critique of capitalism.%4

The United Church, in large part through the work of E& Ss, continued to vigorously press the case for moral and social reform based

on Christian principles. Its leaders were perhaps naive in hoping

The Mission and the “Machinery” 93 other issues would meet a better fate than the temperance cause. Yet at times there was reason to think that the active citizenship upheld by the Commission on Christianizing the Social Order might indeed produce results. The federal government appeared to be open to lis-

tening to the church’s overtures for social initiatives that we now identify with the welfare state. On some issues, the United Church found its interests aligned with a state that was once again looking for friends. By the 19308, federal and provincial governments were facing their

own difficulties in implementing the ambitious social programs anticipated during the 1920s. Social assistance was still minimal a decade later, and organized locally and provincially rather than nation-

ally. The British North America Act had given responsibility for welfare and unemployment to the provinces (some of which by the mid-1930s were assumed to be well-nigh bankrupt). In tandem with the very real problem of deficits and constitutional restrictions was the lingering suspicion that going beyond the most rudimentary welfare system would only encourage indigence.?5 Voters and the politicians they elected seemed more concerned with reducing the national debt accumulated during the First World War than with launching new social programs. Hence the federal government was slow to open its coffers (which were nearly empty anyway). After a number of ad hoc programs failed to counteract the dev-

astating impact of the Depression, Conservative Prime Minister R.B. Bennett announced in his 1935 New Year’s address a New Deal modelled on the American plan for recovery. The legislation brought before Parliament shortly before Canadians went to the polls later that year included provision for a minimum wage and unemployment insurance, but still fell short of what Bennett had promised.?° His party’s crushing defeat to W.L.M. King’s Liberals

likely had less to do with whether Canadians approved or disapproved of his policies than with their lack of confidence in his abil-

ity to follow through on them. The Liberals won by an electoral landslide of 173 of 245 seats, but with less than 45 per cent of the popular vote.?” Historians suspect that King may have been less enthusiastic about social security measures than Bennett; at any rate, his party could claim it had no choice but to keep the status quo when the Privy Council of the United Kingdom dealt the final blow to Bennett’s New Deal by ruling in 1937 that key elements of its munificence were ultra vires.?*

94 A Church with the Soul of a Nation An important step in overcoming the constitutional obstacle to greater federal involvement in financing social security was taken when the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations (chaired first by Newton Wesley Rowell and later by Joseph Sirois) was called in 1937. The principles central to the United Church’s report on Christianizing the social order were evident in “A Brief on Social Security,” which the United Church prepared in response to an invitation from the Royal Commission. Although a letter accompanying the brief disclaimed it as “a report of The United Church of Canada,” the group that prepared the submission assured the commissioners that they had “worked in cooperation with consultative

committees set up in various parts of our Church.”9? Their brief went beyond simply the principles in unequivocally supporting constitutional changes that would make it possible for the federal government to fund Old Age Pensions and assume a proportion of the debt incurred by provincial and municipal governments in providing unemployment relief.'°° The Royal Commission report did not disappoint those who submitted the church’s brief: completed in 1940, it proposed a national standard of services, with additional powers to tax income in order to provide grants to supplement provincial coffers. More social programs followed when economic recovery and the outbreak of war created a more favourable political environment for formulating and funding social security measures.'°' Social ethicist Roger Hutchinson

credits the United Church with helping to lay the groundwork for these initiatives by changing the Canadian mindset that had once looked with suspicion on involvement of the state in providing social

services.'°* Reports such as Christianizing the Social Order, circulated widely for discussion in pamphlet form, prepared its members to accept a more expansive role for the state in social programs by linking proposals for social welfare in Canada to such familiar concepts as the Kingdom of God and a Christian social order.

Whether its members were happy with the machinery that the United Church had put in place to advance the Kingdom of God and a Christian social order was another matter. Mobilizing for mission had figured prominently in the case for unification, and the machinery set in motion was designed to coordinate the church’s

work across the nation and around the world. Not surprisingly, the resulting organizational culture quickly became an issue. How

The Mission and the “Machinery” 95 could institutional demands for order and efficiency be balanced with a yearning for spiritual renewal that was resistant to being ‘organized’? Nostalgia for the old ways and disillusionment with the new were evident from the start. At issue was not only what was being said and done but also how and by whom. Joseph Flavelle of Sherbourne Street United Church in Toronto was among those unhappy with the situation. A former Methodist and a wealthy businessman well versed in secular patterns of organization and fundraising, Flavelle soon grew wary of the concentration of power in the office of the general secretary, and with T. Albert Moore, the particular person charged with wielding it. Flavelle was blunt in his assess-

ment of Moore, remarking that if he were in New York and not a Christian, he would “make an excellent lieutenant to a Tammany Chief.” He perhaps had Moore in mind when he complained of the type of church leader who found “great satisfaction in office,” and who was “restless for meetings, for Conventions, for conferences, and councils, for inspirational meetings, etc. etc.” Flavelle put his finger on a predicament that was to plague the emerging corporate style of church administration for years to come: the friction between older pastoral structures, where preaching and

faith formation were of paramount concern, and modern attempts to promote denominational priorities.‘°+ He noted that local leaders

were becoming irritated “because they think there is an attempt at domination from the central bureau.” Sensing that the practice of ministry was changing, he saw it overshadowed by “the tendency of

the modern, highly-organized church ... to make the minister somewhat less important in initiative and constructive leadership.” Aware of what was happening in the church at both the national and coneregational level, Flavelle identified the problem as planning gone awry, not dissatisfaction with particular policies. They needed to “wisely control the disposition to organize,” since he believed it was sapping the spiritual energy of the church. Perhaps, he mused, competition had not been so bad after all.'°5 Flavelle was not alone in sensing a clash between the institutional demands and the spiritual dimensions of religious life, a danger that other staunch supporters of union had spotted early on. D.L. Ritchie warned those gathered at the first General Council that if the new

church were to become only an “ecclesiastical organization,” it might be “great and powerful for certain purposes,” but would eventually become “a burden if not a tyranny in the world” — unblessed

96 A Church with the Soul of a Nation by God and unable to bless others.'°° Four years later, Ritchie reported that he was still hearing “not a little about the dread of the big machine” from outside critics and discontented insiders. While he celebrated the signs of life he saw evidenced in “liberty, flexibility

and a certain measure of nonconformity,” he admitted that “one hears much about money and machinery and maintenance and schemes and buildings, and it is well, for these also may be fruits of the spirit.” But there was, he added, “a longing for something more”; well-oiled machinery was not enough.'° One did not have to be a conservative to have qualms about the means and methods the church was using to achieve its ends. As the United Church approached its fifth General Council in 1932, social gospel advocate Salem Bland lamented that the previous four had, of necessity, been concerned with “the perfecting and adjusting of

the machinery of such a Church as up to its formation the world had not seen.” He believed the time had come to show whether the

United Church still cared about the convictions that had given it birth, or whether it had become absorbed in maintenance like other

churches.'° J.W.A. Nicholson, another Christian socialist, complained that the United Church had, like churches in the past, “oravitated back to the pagan notion that the important thing is to keep the machinery going.” '°? Even those running the machinery were occasionally anxious about its organizational style. As his term as moderator began in the fall of 1934, Richard Roberts evidently shared some of his parishioner Flavelle’s concerns. The first decade’s preoccupation with method, order, organization, and “adequate temporal machinery” had been inevitable, he allowed, but it was time to attend to the church’s “spiritual offices.” In remedy, he offered to spend his two-year term organizing spiritual retreats and meeting with ministers, church executives, children, and young adults.''° But as his term came to an end, Roberts made no secret of his continuing disquietude. Religious communities that cared less about their purpose than their organization, machinery, importance, and prestige were “sick unto death,” he warned, and efficiency, clubs, and good balance sheets would not save them. His prognosis was bleak: if a church “forgets or becomes

indifferent to its worship, to the preaching of the Word, to its Sacraments and its devotional life, to its missionary calling, the writing is on the wall.” For him, a church organized like a department store “was under sentence of death.” Preoccupation with statistics

The Mission and the “Machinery” 97 was a symptom of the organizational malady infecting the church: “as though it mattered very much how many of us there are, when the real matter is what kind of people we are.”'"! However, the machinery of the new church needed more than a spiritual message to run it. The vastness of the land and the opportunities it offered for expansion had captured the imagination of

the founding generation of the United Church, but the financial burden of realizing that vision hit congregations squarely in the pocketbook. Outreach at home — whether in urban, rural, or developing communities in the North and West — was the overarching

practical problem that church union was designed to solve. The United Church had also inherited most of the overseas commitments of the founding traditions. At first, consolidation relieved the pressure on the Board of Home Missions budget in some communities, providing a rationale for closing struggling pastoral charges and making it possible for ministers to have “a man’s job” (presumably a reference to salary)."'* But the Missionary and Maintenance Fund, which was essential to home mission opera-

tions, was hit hard by the decline in church income during the Depression. Shrinking budgets during the 1930s put plans on hold. There was not enough money to support existing programs let alone develop new ones. Between 1928 and 1935, the United Church closed 233 of its 3,117 pastoral charges, nearly three-quarters of them in the Prairie provinces.'" Home Missions accounted for the largest draw on the Missionary and Maintenance Fund, with Foreign Missions typically vying with Pensions as the second-largest disbursement. In 1936 came the distressing news that foreign missionary personnel had been reduced by 20 per cent, and their salaries by 25 per cent. The reserve fund was soon spent, and the Board of Foreign Missions was in debt and beholden to the wMs, which had come to its aid with a grant of $15,000, despite its own fundraising problems.''+ The wMs spending on its work at home and overseas exceeded receipts, and the difference was underwritten by dipping into its reserve funds. The situation was no brighter for E& $s. It was responsible for a broad range of philanthropic endeavours such as hospitals, maternity homes for girls, reform schools for youth, and drought relief to the Prairies.''5 However, ten years after union, its budget had been slashed to about $40,000, less than half its nearly $90,000 appropriation five years earlier.**®

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The Mission and the “Machinery” 99 Recruitment of pastors and missionary personnel was a further concern. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Canada had been

well represented among Anglo-American student volunteers for overseas missions. But enthusiasm waned in the interwar years, and an anxious Arnup admitted that younger members were losing interest in the missionary movement. Recruitment was a problem for the WMS as well. It sponsored teachers and medical staff, many of them sent to schools and hospitals in indigenous communities. Its deaconesses provided religious services in areas where ordained ministers

were already in short supply (a situation that worsened after the outbreak of the Second World War).''” Staffing was a constant chal-

lenge as rates of attrition through resignation (usually in order to marry) and retirement outstripped new recruits.

There were still some brilliant young recruits like Katharine Hockin, the daughter of missionaries to China, who understood her own call to become a missionary in terms of being an ambassador for Christ. Many of those who joined her considered their decision to become missionaries “a living part of the concern for peace and, more profoundly, for personal and global reconciliation in Christ.” !"°

Other young idealists were drawn to the peace movement, racial reconciliation, and reconstruction of the social and economic order, Arnup noted.''? Given the prominence of these pursuits in the new thinking about Christian missions after the Jerusalem meeting, is it any wonder that they turned to public service instead of the ministry or the mission field? Stanley Knowles, a United Church minister and long-serving MP from Winnipeg, at first felt called to be a missionary after a conversion experience in 1924, but involvement in the Student

Christian Movement (SCM) and the Fellowship for a Christian Social Order (FCSO) redirected his energies.'*° Eugene Forsey’s autobiography tells of the significant role religion had played in his life.

Although he had once considered becoming a missionary, his declared candidacy for the ministry “wilted” as he became more actively involved in the social gospel movement.'*' However valuable their contributions elsewhere, the lack of young recruits to replace retiring ministers and missionaries was disquieting. New leaders were badly needed to succeed those who had strad-

dled the stages of negotiating and implementing church union. Finding able personnel to make the vision a reality was a problem the United Church shared with other organizations. Speaking to a group of students at the University of Toronto, Richard Roberts remarked

IOO A Church with the Soul of a Nation that a whole generation had perished in the First World War, leaving

public affairs “in the hands of old or oldish men with pre-war minds.”'** He may well have had in mind the organizational culture of his own denomination. To outsiders the public face of the United

Church may have seemed orderly in the extreme, but behind the scenes matters were more chaotic. Privately, Roberts expressed misgivings about the lack of coordination at head office. Life there was “not happy” in his view, despite an improving financial picture as the economy recovered. McLachlan’s long illness had left things at

E&SS “in a pretty bad mess.” Roberts mused that “there is something in the view that the best proof of the doctrine of original sin is to be found in Ecclesiastical Offices.” 173

The year 1936 was something of a watershed at the national executive level. Eight vacancies were filled by relatively young appointees, among them Gordon Sisco succeeding T. Albert Moore and G.R. Cragg succeeding W.B. Creighton in the key positions of general secretary and New Outlook editor respectively. These were not just new faces; they were a new generation.'*4 Even so, a few years later and by then retired, Roberts was still pessimistic about the organizational changes he had helped put in place as a member

of the 1936 nominating committee. In a letter to his son-in-law, he complained that the national church lacked staff with “both spiritual insight and business acumen.” He felt they were “pretty second-rate,” except for Jesse Arnup in Foreign Missions (“rising to the critical missionary situation with some spirit”) and J.R. Mutchmor, who by then had succeeded McLachlan in Ex&ss (deemed “all right”).1*5

It is easy to criticize church leaders for their lofty ambitions and lack of foresight about the impact of national and world events on congregational life in local communities. Their failure to meet their own expectations should not obscure the real achievements even, and es-

pecially, during the difficult years of the Depression. There were many early successes, some directly attributable to the effectiveness of the church’s machinery, which gave it a public voice and allowed it to deliver spiritual and practical aid. The E&SS is a case in point. Ian Manson’s analysis of its activities before 1945 shows its leaders

determined to “challenge others in the church to open their eyes to the many changes occurring in society, take society’s problems

The Mission and the “Machinery” IOI seriously, and do their part to try to eliminate many serious forms of injustice.” A cautious attitude, rather than assumption of inevitable

progress, characterized E&SS’s work in the interwar years.'*® Its leaders paved the way for its institutional advances after the Second World War — when the future for a time seemed to belong to organized religion. With time would come the realization that the machinery was not the only problem. The rise of the service state had the practical consequence of relegating religious social service to a dwindling role,

inadvertently eroding an important corner of the foundation on which the United Church had been built. At times the mission of the United Church coincided with the interests of the state and its machinery was effective in promoting it — but, as in the case of temper-

ance, not always. More often than not, the economic crisis of the 1930s confirmed what the prohibition issue had signalled: religious-

ly motivated reformers could play an important role in launching social initiatives, but even the combined resources of the uniting churches were not enough to sustain them. Key aspects of the United Church’s mission — and with it, its identity — changed as functions were taken over by the state, even though the ‘transfer’ was made at the church’s entreaty. First, those early aspirations were tempered by the realization that shrinking resources meant a more limited offer-

ing of specialized social services. And second, an ambitious state with its own plans for remaking Canada — without the friendly service of the United Church — gradually edged the church to the margins of public life. International ecumenism’s notion of Christianizing all areas of life fared no better. As he watched the growing antagonism around the world to Western imperialism, Ernest Thomas saw the “more friendly contacts” that the church offered in its evangelistic, educational, and medical work as “all the more needed” to promote world friend-

ship. Yet, with typical candor he pointed out the church’s limits: “Our own type of Christianity has made no wide appeal to any people except to those in the Anglo-Saxon or Teutonic family, and even there mainly to the well-to-do middle class. How can such a Church provide unification?”!*7 Soon after he penned these words in 1937, the world changed in ways that dashed any hope for international peace based on Christian friendship, or even the United Church’s more modest mission of a Christian social order in Canada.

4

The Search for a Faith for Sociable Souls Tension is a creative force. But polarization, which seems an abiding sin of our age, is worse than useless. It stifles creativity, whereas a healthy dose of negative capability, the ability to hold differences in tension while both affirming and denying them, enlivens both poetry and theology. Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith

With only a few hours remaining in his term as first moderator of the United Church, George Pidgeon rose to preach at the opening service of the second General Council. Words from the prophet Zechariah had given him a title for his sermon and inspired an image of the church he hoped would be built in Canada: “The City without Walls.” What he had witnessed in communities across Canada over the past year had been heartening. But as he looked ahead, he saw a danger: the church could be “dwarfed into a sect.” A sectarian spirit characterized by sharply drawn lines, strong positions, closed minds,

self-interest, and contention with other Christian believers was in stark contrast to Pidgeon’s “New Testament church”: Gospelcentred, loyal to the truth, open-minded, tolerant, comprehensive, interested in other religious groups and the whole community, offering “a vital experience” of religion and a “clear-cut message of salvation.” Pidgeon’s sermon reiterated the United Church’s commitment

to its evangelical past while distinguishing it from what he called “modern Fundamentalism.” Allegations that the United Church was

apostate and creedless were perhaps still in his mind as he complained, “If you go beyond them [the fundamentalists], you will be disowned, and your place among the faithful forfeited.”? The theological issues raised during the church union controversy

continued to vex the United Church during the interwar years. It came as no surprise that its expectations of the coming Kingdom

The Search for a Faith for Sociable Souls 103 differed markedly from end-of-the-world scenarios preached by many fundamentalists.> What was just as unsettling — and likely more per-

plexing in the long run — were new controversies on the horizon. Making its way to Canada from the United States and continental Europe was a revolt within the ranks of early twentieth-century liberalism that took various forms. Many younger critics identified themselves as neo-orthodox, Christian realists, or Barthians. Still others

turned to natural theology or to a secular brand of humanism that not only competed with religion but also was viewed by some as a religion.

At stake for the United Church in these debates was its conviction that Christianity was both personal and social in character, formed in fellowship, and practiced in the course of everyday life. Decades after the United Church was inaugurated, a new generation of leaders would still praise as wise the decision not to separate moral and social concerns from evangelism, as many of their denominational

counterparts in the United States had done by 1925. The United Church aimed instead to focus on ‘souls’ as well as ‘the social order’; its people, so it was hoped, would become sociable souls.3

The United Church faced the challenge of communicating this message to people who had experienced the end of a world war, a

burst of prosperity, and economic collapse in little more than a decade. Popular culture celebrated the passing of older mores and values. And yet some historians take issue with the Jazz-Age picture associated with the 1920s. Instead they find that traditional values and concern for preserving the past persisted alongside the prominence of novelty and social experimentation. “The post-war generation was less disillusioned than it was uncertain, less cynical than nervous,” suggests historian A.B. McKillop; it was “an ambivalent and tense generation living at a time when old and new forms co-existed uneasily.” 4 That was certainly so in the United Church as it turned to its pastors, professors (mostly ordained ministers teaching at its theological colleges), and national church staff to deal with theological issues left over from church union while addressing fresh concerns. Pidgeon

was among those convinced that there was a place in the United Church for both old and new points of view. Recalling the case of a minister who left his congregation even before union because he was a premillennialist, Pidgeon insisted that “there should be room in the

104 A Church with the Soul of a Nation United Church for men of strong evangelical spirit who take this view of our Lord’s return.” But, he added, the United Church needed social settlements, All People’s churches, and stately cathedrals such

as Toronto’s Metropolitan Church as well. Each contributed to meeting contemporary spiritual needs, and “the one is as essential as the other to a full-rounded Christianity.” And yet becoming “full-rounded” was an elusive aim. To many

outsiders (and, to be fair, more than a few insiders), the United Church was not viewed as sufficiently spiritual. Its approach to the religious life was what sociologist Talcott Parsons has described as inner-worldly, a category he proposed to counter the equation of “degree of religiousness” with “sense of other-worldliness.” There was a tendency, he noted, to consider one who engaged in acts of devotion or contemplation and minimized practical acts of social involvement as religious, while economic and political engagement suggested a lack of religious interest. Parsons traced inner-worldly

religiosity back to what at first glance seems an unlikely source: Calvin’s understanding of secular callings and his notion that each person had “a positive assignment to work in the building of the Kingdom” in their “worldly lives.”®

An inner-worldly approach to piety that aimed at making sociable souls was also characteristic of the Methodist tradition. A capacious and comprehensive sense of individual salvation enlarged the

importance of Christian service as an expression of the faithful Christian life, and was a widely shared conviction.? While some historians have assumed that Methodist progressives were concerned only with changing the social order, William McGuire King

argues that even for them the primary concern was “about the structure of concrete personal experience and about the emergence and preservation of meaning within the self.” Social service thus had a dual purpose: “to enable others to discover the personal ful-

fillment of authentic human relationships and to enable oneself to find a personal center of meaning.”® The United Church sought to balance the care of souls with care of society. Its approach to lived religion tapped the root meaning of ‘pietas’: personal duty to God and to others that included right relationships. Limiting the church’s role to “saving souls” smacked of “indifferentism” when it came to social questions, wrote E.H. Oliver. He characterized this approach as typical of Plymouthism (a reference to the Plymouth Brethren movement that had influenced modern

The Search for a Faith for Sociable Souls 105 fundamentalism). Nor did the United Church and other major Protestant churches attempt to “pervade all life, have hospitals, schools, everything of its own, all dominated by its religious view of life,” an attitude that Oliver claimed to have observed among Catholics in Saskatchewan, where he served as principal of St Andrew’s College. Its social engagement differed too from either social humanitarianism, which inadequately emphasized the worth of individuals by submerging them “in the interests of the whole,” or philosophical idealism, which similarly treated human nature “largely in relation to its ultimate significance.”? For Oliver, the individual was still the key to social transformation, and the church’s greatest social service would always be “to create men, kindled with the passion for the good of their fellows, strengthened by Divine might in their inner man.” But while regenerating in-

dividuals was the most important task, the church’s work was not complete unless the persons it influenced engaged in “fighting against social evils, Christianizing all human relations, establishing social justice, outlawing War, and crusading for God’s Kingdom.”'° Whether branded as conservative, moderate, or radical, members of the United

Church generally concurred: there was a moral dimension to community life that they and their newly organized church were uniquely

positioned to shape. They were inclined to suppose that the world could be made more hospitable to the principles of the Kingdom of God. Many whose politics differed from J.S. Woodsworth’s still would have said “amen” to his assertion that to pray “thy kingdom come” did not refer to “some future state in some far off world, and not in some vague way all over the universe, but thy kingdom come right here in Canada, in Manitoba, in Winnipeg, in Brownsville, in my own township.”"! The United Church took as a given that its members belonged not only to congregations but also to families and communities. Its piety was thus civic-oriented, formed in the web of associations both in and beyond the congregation. In its ranks were such prominent public figures as novelist Nellie McClung, politician Newton Wesley Rowell, and newspaper publisher Joseph Atkinson. Countless other men and women in local congregations were active in their neigh-

bourhoods, their understanding of ‘being United’ extending to homemaking, volunteering for community service, and supporting civic organizations, as well as gathering for public worship and other church-sponsored events. Their activities were intertwined with

106 A Church with the Soul of a Nation participation in the life of the wider community, and hence were more difficult to see as religiously motivated than were the devotional practices of those who drew a more distinct line between faith and civic engagement. Casting this social bent of the United Church’s piety as ‘evangelical’ — even if qualified as a liberal variant — proved easier said than done. No matter how often the word was used in its programs and

policies, the United Church seemed unable to satisfy those who looked for emphasis on a definite experience of conversion or particular doctrinal formulations as the true marks of an evangelical church. Part of the confusion resulted from different usages of the term. As a report from E& $s on “Evangelism” explained it, the word had initially been used in the sixteenth century to refer to Protestants, then later to promoters of the “Evangelical quickening” of the eigh-

teenth and nineteenth centuries (which had profoundly influenced all of the uniting traditions). However, the term had been “revived near the close of the last century” to identify those opposed to the historical approach to the Bible and theology. Since then, claimed the report, this narrower use of the term “evangelical” had become a “party badge” by which to exclude Christians who were no less definite in their emphasis “on the character of sin, the atoning sacrifice of Christ, the redeeming power of God, the guidance of the Spirit

and the authority of Scripture.”'* Fundamentalists considered the United Church’s theology as suspect on precisely those points.

“Can nobody stop the use of these absurd terms, Fundamentalism and Modernism?” asked an exasperated J.R.P. Sclater, pastor of Old St Andrew’s United in Toronto. Fundamentalist beliefs were not fundamental to the faith, nor were the Modernists particularly modern, he maintained. Attempts to label Christians as one or the other were succeeding only in “chloroforming the mind.”'3 R.J. Wilson, whose role had shifted from coordinating publicity for the pro-union side to handling requests for information about the United Church,

complained that in the United States, “the fundamentalist press is sedulously circulating the idea that the Presbyterian Church (continuing) stands for evangelical religion and the United Church quite defi-

nitely for a surrender of the evangelical position.”’4 He perhaps detected the meddling of J. Gresham Machen, who continued his attacks on the United Church after 1925. When invited to speak at Knox Presbyterian in Toronto and MacVicar Memorial Presbyterian in Montreal in 1926, Machen delivered a popular sermon that he had

The Search for a Faith for Sociable Souls 107 preached and published in the United States, which linked those he castigated as modernists to past Christian heresies.'5 Unwilling to cede exclusive use of the word to either the Presbyterians or the fundamentalists, the United Church vigorously defended its own understanding of what it meant to be evangelical. It countered by insisting that to be evangelical did not oblige one to adopt

the theological formulations of the gospel message propounded by fundamentalism. Indeed, the editors of the Canadian Journal of Religious Thought (most of them connected with the United Church) were convinced that the days of fundamentalism were numbered: “it

can only live on in uninformed and unreflecting minds.”'° Another editorial characterized it as imported propaganda and a barren approach to the study of the Bible. Their confident conclusion was that “Jesus and His truth have nothing to fear from a grave scientific enquiry. They have everything to fear from credulity, scribal ingenuity, unbrotherly temper and gross slandering of the scholarly institutions of the land.” '7

While insisting that the United Church was evangelical in its theology, there was still uncertainty about the effectiveness of old methods of evangelism, particularly revivalism, once thought to hold the key to both spiritual renewal and social transformation. The same results could no longer be counted on, warned E& Ss secretary D.N. McLachlan. “‘Conversions’ as we formerly understood them” were declining in number, he noted in 1928, a trend he attributed to a toorestrictive understanding of what conversion entailed. Its connotation in the past had been “the saving of the individual soul,” and still involved “the relation of the soul to God.” But the United Church had come to the realization that Christianity had “a social as well as an individual application” that involved not only a mystical expe-

rience of conversion but also a visible manifestation on earth of fellowship where each served the other. The once-popular revival meeting was no longer effective; its message no longer resonated with the so-called lapsed masses.*®

Rather than mass revival meetings, worship services and other church activities were the key to E&SS’s emerging understanding of

evangelism. In this respect the timing of church union was propitious. The church itself was a “transmitter of religion and the mother of saints,” and it was there that the “super-personal urge to sin” was

met by a “super-personal organization of grace.”'? Gathering for

108 A Church with the Soul of a Nation public worship on Sunday mornings was the most visible expression of this collective experience of organized grace. The United Church immediately took steps after church union to encourage an ‘ordered

liberty’ in liturgical practices that would make Sunday morning worship a demonstration of its common faith. Forms of Service (1926) compiled services that were already in use for Communion and other occasions: thirteen Presbyterian forms, four Methodist, and one Congregationalist.*° That same year, committees were struck to prepare a hymn book and service book. The result of their

work was publication of the Hymnary in 1930 and the Book of Common Order in 1932. The new hymn book proved durable, more than meeting expectations that it would form a bond among worshipping communities

across the country. It was widely used, and shaped the United Church’s piety, worship, and outlook for over four decades, despite some early griping about the disproportionate Presbyterian influence, personified in Alexander MacMillan, the respected musician who served as secretary for the hymn book committee.*! To counter a tendency toward subjectivity, some of the more popular hymns were deemed unfit for public services. “Rock of Ages” was scrutinized but made the final cut because it expressed so well the “soul hunger” of Christian experience. The committee was searching for hymns that would cultivate “a right approach to the Deity” when sung by “all devout persons united in the act of worship,” rather than hymns chosen for their entertainment or even educational value.**

Reception of the Book of Common Order was another matter entirely.*3 Attempts to promote its two proposed orders of service for Sunday worship were to no avail. Decades later those making the case for a new service book to meet the worship needs of expanding congregations following the Second World War rated it as “of its kind, excellent — but not very much use seems to be made of

it, except for some of the special services.”*4 One disappointed minister, G. Campbell Wadsworth, described it as “a root springing

out of dry ground” because the denominations that formed the United Church shared “an extraordinary ignorance of the manner in which their fathers had worshipped and an almost pathological distaste for the ways of liturgical devotion.”*5 The resurgence of interest in worship that many took to be an answer to prayer for spiritual revival was evidently not greeted with the same enthusiasm in all circles.

The Search for a Faith for Sociable Souls 109 The tepid reception of the Book of Common Order at the congregational level was evidence of anti-ritual tendencies that surfaced from time to time.*° Osbert Morley Sanford, president of British Columbia

Conference, cautioned his assembly in 1931 about the growth of a “ritualistic spirit” that he feared was supplanting the “devotional spirit.” Familiar with both the hymn book and advance copies of the new service book, he gently chided the formality they displayed. The Lord’s Supper, which had begun as a simple meal, was becoming “an elaborate Eucharist, with very scrupulous doctrines about the minutest details.” There was room for spontaneity and freedom in the new church, he countered, and former Methodists owed it to the United Church to invite Brother Smith to lead in prayer or to suggest singing a verse of

“Q Happy Day that Fixed My Choice” (a popular hymn that managed to survive scrutiny by the committee). Doing so “might destroy a

very solemn and formal communion service,” he allowed; “on the other hand, it might save it.””7

Sanford believed that the United Church would soon have to decide whether to be a prophetic church “preaching or teaching truth to the highest place,” or a priestly church seeking to guide people to God “by way of forms and acts of worship committed particularly

to the care of ministers especially consecrated for such service.” While he recognized the importance of the priestly functions of ministry, his own predilection was clear: prophets were needed more than ever at a time when their preaching was scorned. “We appear in the movies as the most absurd and impossible of men. We are the butt of

coarse jokes in cheap magazines and in newspaper columns ... If someone has a passion to do something heroic, let him preach the gospel to this age.” The Holy Spirit had often had to escape bondage to “so-called orthodoxy and regularity of order, and above all, from

the repressing environments of worldly-minded and even corrupt [church] administrators,” he reminded his audience (made up mostly of theologians, ordained ministers, and church staff).*° Not all ministers agreed with this assessment. A.G. Reynolds made a compelling case for more emphasis on worship. With the United Church’s many rural churches in mind, he argued that it was false to regard the church as “an agency established merely for the good of

the community, like the school or a department of public works,” since the church existed “primarily for God, and not for a community.” Reynolds was blunt: “We do need to strive for social righteousness; let us make no mistake about that; but we have been

TIO A Church with the Soul of a Nation neglecting worship, and unless we learn to make way for God at the

centre of our lives in the best tradition of Christian worship, our fussy concern about the social order will do little good.”*9 He per-

haps had in mind such Christian socialists as R. Edis Fairbairn. Alarmed by the preoccupation with liturgy among United Church youth, Fairbairn had argued that in the past, worship had often been a “real evil,” offering an escape from moral obligation. The substitution of interest in social worship for social righteousness verged “on religious treachery and moral cowardice,” he stated bluntly.3° Fairbairn’s flery letter was one of several printed in the denominational paper in 1940, evidence of a continuing reluctance to exchange the freedom of the eclectic pre-union worship directories for the stan-

dard forms of the Book of Common Order. The debate over ritual, like the qualms about the old-time revival services, showed efforts to come to terms with an experience of God that was less direct than in the past. Public worship in the United Church offered a mediated experience of God through formal and liturgical actions. Its more ‘catholic’ approach was a striking shift from the immediacy of experience that evangelicals had generally expected, and reflected a grow-

ing uneasiness with the display of emotion as a mark of religious vitality. Walter Brown insisted that worship still involved what he described as deep emotional experiences. But he admitted that among

the students he had observed as a professor at Victoria University, emotion was “no longer fashionable in religious circles”: an age “dominated by the scientific spirit which loved the objectivity of facts” had “no place for the so-called subjectivity of emotions.”3'

In its public statements, the United Church tried to represent its theological moorings as having been shaped by both its evangelical past and its more recent brushes with liberalism. Even those ready to move beyond evangelicalism wrestled to retain both the personal and social dimensions of the Christian message. A 1932 report on the church and industry, for instance, described the United Church

as formed by the traditions belonging to the evangelical type of Christianity, characterized by emphasis “not on Church orders and forms, nor even on creeds, but on personal salvation through right adjustment of the individual to God, and on personal religious expe-

rience.” The report pictured the United Church at a crossroads: “Christianity as we have known it” versus “Christianity as it might

be.” Even so, attending to social ills was not meant to displace

The Search for a Faith for Sociable Souls III “ministry to personal religious life,” the report explained: the two were not in conflict, for “the causes of evil, of human maladjustment may lie in the economic structure as well as in personal character, and Christianity can only be made complete by the rectifying of both.” 3 The Great Depression provided further evidence of the brittleness of the liberal evangelical accord, and forced the United Church to scrutinize the degree to which it could still be assumed that transformed individuals — in either evangelical or liberal terms — were the key to changing society. Could the economic collapse be the judgment of God, as some suggested? If so, why was its personal impact felt so inequitably? Why were those who worked in fishing, mining, the for-

est industry, construction, and transportation dealt a harsher blow than those in manufacturing, retailing, banking, service industries, or the public sector, such as teachers and civil servants? Even the weather turned against the Prairie economy, as drought ravaged the farms of Saskatchewan. In contrast, deflation was actually beneficial to people with continuing sources of income, who often found themselves better off than before 1929.33 The economic crisis seemed impervious to individual deeds, no matter how ‘Christian’ their motivation. To complicate matters, liberal evangelicals who were identified with what had been touted in the early twentieth century as the New Theology found themselves the target of a fresh theological challenge that drew its energy from liberalism’s disenchanted supporters.34 Heather Warren finds that between 1928 and 1932 “the theological tide in American Protestantism turned sharply from prewar liberalism” as younger theologians turned to neo-orthodoxy.35 That changing tide was evident in Canada at a conference held in Muskoka in 1931. United Church participants listened to W.A. Visser ’t Hooft, the Dutch secretary of the World Student Christian Federation, give a memorable address that was the highlight of the event. Those hear-

ing him for the first time were likely startled to hear him recount how he had been inspired by the “Barthian revolt against loose thinking and the vagueness of liberalism.”3° Bidding farewell to the old social gospel was to become a regular theme in Visser ’t Hooft’s speeches and publications over the next few years, convinced as he was that American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr’s attack on utopian liberalism would prove fatal.37

The title of a 1933 Christian Century article by American theologian John Bennett dared to ask, “After Liberalism — What?,” a

riz A Church with the Soul of a Nation question on the minds of many up-and-coming theologians. Bennett

expressed the misgivings of his generation with an opening salvo that left no doubt about how he viewed the perilous state of liberalism: “The most important fact about contemporary American theology is the disintegration of liberalism.” It was, he explained, quite literally coming to pieces. It no longer enjoyed its earlier coherence and confidence, leaving many with a sense of “theological homelessness.” Like Visser ’t Hooft, Bennett praised Niebuhr for dispensing

the European criticism of liberalism in North America in a dose “mild enough to be taken without too much risk of complications.”3® Among those who sent a congratulatory letter to Bennett was Gregory Vlastos, a young philosophy professor from Queen’s University. The piece was grand, he enthused, adding that he largely agreed with the way Bennett had “put the whole matter.” 3? But for those still committed to the principles of the early social gospel movement, Niebuhr’s medicine left a bitter taste. His sermons

and publications dismissed their handling of political issues as a “substitution of sentimental illusions for the enervating pessimism of orthodoxy.”4° He belittled liberal Christianity for its “pious hope

that people might be good and loving, in which case all the nasty business of politics could be dispensed with.” Calling the liberal approach to social and economic problems politically unrealistic and religiously superficial, he claimed that their efforts would have been

“less inept and fatuous” had they “less moral idealism and more religious realism.”+4!

While attention has generally focused on the deleterious effects of fundamentalism and continental theology on early twentieth-century liberalism (including its evangelical variant), historian William McGuire King finds that a more serious theological challenge came from another source: religious naturalism.4* According to its proponents (which included the major process theologians), liberalism had not gone far enough in its rejection of older religious forms. For instance, process theologian Henry Nelson Wieman of the University

of Chicago turned the traditional approach to worship on its head by emphasizing its private rather than public dimensions. The reader of his book on Methods of Private Religious Living was advised to “earnestly seek the best adjustment to whatever in all the universe he believes to be that which can help him most, even though it be nothing more, in his belief, than his own subconscious self, or his fellow associates in the group to which he belongs.” Wieman viewed public

The Search for a Faith for Sociable Souls 113 worship as a gathering “to help one another find God each for himself and in his own way.”43 Worship was “the time when a man

deliberately undertakes to make the best possible adjustment to that which he believes in all sincerity to be the matter of greatest concern.”44 All were in need of ‘salvation’ by adjustment: “Every one of us, even the reformer who is so sure of himself and his

plan, must undergo personal reconstruction before he is fit to reconstruct society.” 4 Empiricism was essential to theological naturalism, and science was its ultimate methodological key. The appeal of naturalism was further evidence of the complexity of undertaking theological refor-

mulation in a cultural storm that was battering old landmarks. Those who were drawn to it saw science as a new ally as they considered the implications of the new physics and the theory of relativity for the Christian understanding of God and spiritual phenomena. In the 1930s John Line, then a professor of philosophy at Victoria College, was hopeful that a fresh approach to science, with room for a “transcending Cause,” would avoid the mechanistic dualism of the past. The writings of scientists A.S. Eddington and A.N. Whitehead had introduced him to process theology, which he saw as recognizing both the transcendent and immanent dimensions of God’s relationship to the created world.*° The president of the University of Toronto was less sanguine as he considered the challenges of a scientific world view for those teaching theology and other disciplines in the humanities. In his presidential address to the Religious Education Association in 1928, Robert Falconer observed that “when psychology in the name of science makes wide claims, philosophy, that ancient mistress, is almost put on her defense; as for the humanities they need apologists; theology

appears to many as an antique.” Surrounded by material accomplishments, the average person asked no questions about the ultimate origins of life, and was too enmeshed in the world to allow the mind “leisure to ponder the imponderable.” Even worship practices were on trial, since there was skepticism about rituals that emphasized the mysterious or the miraculous.47 Like a canary in a coal mine, theological discourse was at risk of being an early casualty of the growing dominance of science. The challenge to Christianity was even greater when a secular form of

humanism joined forces with naturalism. This new threat was the subject of a provocative paper presented at the gathering of world

114 A Church with the Soul of a Nation Christian leaders in Jerusalem in 1928. In it, Quaker philosopher Rufus Jones had added secularism to a list of non-Christian faiths as a new religion, singling it out as Christianity’s chief rival. Defined as an approach to life where God had no place (and often linked to the struggle for material well-being), Jones claimed that secularism had spread in the West and was sweeping the East and the southern hemisphere.4® His warning gave pause to those accustomed to considering the boundary between Christian faith and the secular world as permeable. Many progressives had thought of secular culture as the benign or even synergistic mate of the sacred. Now, not only science was promoting secularism; a new brand of humanism that was explicitly non-theistic in its orientation was circulating in academic circles and being popularized by leading intellectuals. One event that provoked theologians was John Dewey’s Gifford Lectures in 1929, published as The Quest for Certainty; another was the widely disseminated “Humanist Manifesto” (1933), which presented what its critics called a religion without God.#? The new humanism generated intense discussions about the threat that naturalism, even in its religious guise, posed to Christianity.5° Alarmed by its implications for Christian theology (and perhaps suspicious of Dewey’s influence on teachers), critics pointed to religious education as the fountainhead of what naturalism’s proponents were candidly presenting as the only approach to religious life adequate to the demands of the new day. Shelton Smith, an influential professor at Duke University, was dismayed at its impact on religious education, customarily the method by which liberal religious faith was transmitted. While some saw naturalism simply as a new education-

al method, Smith argued that it had given rise to a “reconstructed religion,” and predicted that it would either expand the meaning of religious experience to include any enriching human event, or lead to “spiritualizing” human value.5!

Progressives in the United Church received the new humanism gingerly, recognizing its affinities with liberal theology. Their at-

tacks left little doubt that the old alliances were strained. The Canadian Journal of Religious Thought carried a cautious review of Dewey’s Gifford lectures written by Line. The journal continued its coverage with a special issue that included assessments from some of the United Church’s leading scholars. While recognizing that the

humanist shared much in common with the Christian in matters of faith and morals, Scottish theologian John Baillie (for a time a

The Search for a Faith for Sociable Souls 115 professor at Emmanuel College) pinpointed the issue that separated them: not whether we can find God or believe in God, but whether we any longer have need of God. He detected “something in the atmosphere of our popular philosophy which makes our age feel that they do not want Him.”5* Other contributors pressed for a new for-

mulation of the faith that would prepare Christians to meet this alternative to theism. ? These theological trends were likely on the minds of those who prepared the statement on evangelism for the General Council in 1934.54

Their report urged the United Church to recognize that a crucial change in the contemporary context called for new methods of evangelism. Whereas, in the past, evangelism involved awakening faith that was already present, if only vaguely, such religious convictions had since faded. The certainties of the past were now only “spiritual

intuitions” for some, and “alien if not impossible” to accept for others. The task of evangelism, while more complicated, was all the

more imperative if the Christian message was to reach those who saw no need of God. Humanism was named specifically as an alternative to faith in God, appealing especially to “people of high morality and fine idealism.” In preparing to “conquer the intellectual habit

that excludes the knowledge of God,” the modern evangelist was fighting against what the report called “poisoned air.” 55 Some religious leaders seemed unaware of this new danger, optimistically interpreting the lively interest in personal transformation and self-improvement as spiritual hungering. What caught the atten-

tion of a number of United Church theologians was the absence of reference to God in that personal quest. Whether thought of as transcendent or immanent, God and not oneself had been for both evangelicals and progressives the key agent in transformation. A rival to Christianity was now on offer: se/f-transformation (or at least adjustment) that owed nothing to God. Seekers had before them a veritable feast of options, ranging from the highbrow to the popular, spiced with ideas from science, philosophy, psychology, and education. Self-help and self-improvement books were best-sellers. Secretary McLachlan was troubled by these trends as he prepared his annual E&Ss report in 1930. He remembered the social idealism and optimism of the period just prior to the First World War and the calls for reconstruction that had followed. Appeals to service, loyalty, and sacrifice were now regarded by a younger generation as having

116 A Church with the Soul of a Nation drawn their older siblings to their deaths. Personal selt-realization had become the goal of life, he mused, replacing the ethical focus of bygone days. Books on devotional life, applied psychology, and mental hygiene were read instead of social gospel writings; the aesthetic details of the worship service were considered more important than social service.5°

Among those who shared McLachlan’s concerns was Richard Roberts, minister of Sherbourne Street United in Toronto. “Our great-grandfathers believed in God,” he observed, “our grandfathers believed in Reason; our fathers believed in things: and all these have, it seems, been found wanting. What then is there left for us to believe in? Only one thing — namely, ourselves.” As evidence, he cited the growing fascination with physical fitness, and a shift in interest from

physics to psychology. There appeared to be, he wryly noted, no shortage of work, even during the Depression, for psychologists!57 Roberts was both fascinated by psychology and wary of its implications for religious practice. He was particularly critical of what he called the pseudo-psychology associated with power — whether willpower or mind-power, which he dismissed as little more than autosuggestion. To counter this “quackery,” he called for a restatement of the New Testament’s doctrine of spiritual growth: growth in grace by cultivating the qualities that St Paul had described as the fruits of the Spirit.5®

Religious leaders competed with tutors of popular culture, with their different world view, much of it imported from the United States. The circulation of Maclean’s, the best-selling Canadian magazine, fell well behind the Saturday Evening Post (which advertised

itself as “Canada’s leading magazine”), Ladies’ Home Journal, Pictorial Review, and McCall’s. By the time Chatelaine was launched in 1928 to compete with American magazines, the market in Canada was dominated by the United States.5° American-made movies were also popular. In the 1920s the middle classes flocked to the theatres, which had at first been frequented only by the poor and less literate.

Attendance increased dramatically during the Depression years, peaking in the early 1950s with the advent of television. There were virtually no Canadian movies available during these years. Before the First World War, an estimated 60 per cent of films were produced in the United States; by the 1930s and ’4os, almost all the movies

seen by Canadians were made there — even those about Canada! Canadian news segments were added to American newsreels.°°

The Search for a Faith for Sociable Souls Ti7 Not surprisingly, United Church ministers were experiencing the same challenges that Charles W. Gilkey, dean of Rockefeller Memorial Chapel at the University of Chicago, found in the United States: many people were turning to books, magazines, and the radio for religious instruction. Detecting a trend in the 1930s that would become even more pronounced after the Second World War, he speculated that “many of those who prefer their religion so, likewise do not go to public lectures for their information or to mass meetings for their politics: they distrust or dislike uplift at wholesale, and want both their education and their religion to their individual and private order.”°! For those filled with the spirit of the times, religious practices were no longer considered an expression of either duty or gratitude to God; their value was assessed on whether they were deemed helpful to the person performing them. Attitudes toward worship reflected this drift.°*

Another illustration of the quest for personal renewal was the in-

terest in the Oxford Group movement, introduced to Canada by Frank Buchman soon after the economic collapse.°3 To some observers, the movement was an answer to prayers for religious revival be-

cause it emphasized personal transformation. But critics noted that the social implications of Jesus’ teaching were not part of its message

(and in fact, there was not much mention of Jesus at all).°4 While some attributed the movement’s success to its ability to exploit nostalgia for the evangelical past, the movement likely owed at least as much of its popularity to the new therapeutic spirit of the era. The discord the gatherings created among those calling for a revival of religion hinted at the threat the movement was thought to pose to the United Church’s more expansive approach to evangelism.

By the time the Oxford Group movement tore through Canada in late 1932, even those who considered it benign worried that it would divert energy and attention from the Joint Committee on the Evangelization of Canadian Life that the major Protestant churches had recently formed. The latter connected personal religious experi-

ence to home, school, work, recreation, and national life in ways that were considered appropriate to the United Church’s ethos.®> But even this broader approach to evangelism did not escape criticism. Writing it off as “the last kick of a decayed Moodyism,” Richard Roberts (whose term as moderator in 1934-36 coincided with the campaign) expected it would be a flop. Highly organized events “seem to estrange the Holy Spirit,” he mused, and were at

118 A Church with the Soul of a Nation odds with Christianity because of the anonymity of “monster gath-

erings.” He feared it might “provoke a reaction that would leave the church deeper in the doldrums than before.”°° Evidently he had good reason to worry, for despite an impressive roster of organizers

at the national level and a few successful rallies in cities across Canada, the outcomes of the evangelization campaign repeatedly fell short of expectations.°7 Harsher criticism of the evangelism campaign came from J.W.A. Nicholson, a pastor from North Bedeque, PEI, who sardonically accused the Joint Committee of simply going through the motions of

“eiving the prayer wheel another turn.” He argued that personal renewal — even broadly understood — could no longer bring about

social change; the iniquities of the day were “not in the direct human relationships, but in the indirect, circuitous relationships that we have allowed to become impersonal.” The Big Four churches (Anglican, Baptist, Presbyterian, and United) ought to be sponsoring an educational campaign to bring together political, industrial, and financial leaders to rectify the ills of social injustice.®* Nicholson was a member of the FCSO, a small but vocal move-

ment that attracted United Church support after its founding in 1934.°9 The Fcso contended that the economic woes facing Canada

and other capitalist countries were systemic; the shortcomings of particular individuals were not the cause. As economist and FCSO

member Eugene Forsey put it, since capitalism existed to make profits rather than to meet needs, “a flock of archangels administering capitalism would be under the same compulsion, and their ac-

tion could not be appreciably different.”7° If that were so, then emphasizing personal piety as the remedy for social and economic ills was misconstrued. John Line was among those drawn to Christian socialism in the 19308, and like Nicholson and Forsey, he joined the Fcso. He too was uneasy with the preoccupation with individual religiosity that he was witnessing. He cautioned that prayer and public worship by themselves, apart from social self-abandon, would produce religious introverts whose moods would “wobble between self-complacency and self-commiseration.”7' Line blamed the “vast collectivization of human living” for rendering conventional evangelical teaching on the relationship between personal and social transformation less effective than in the past.7* He poignantly pinpointed its inability to deal with the new economic realities: those who had trusted and

The Search for a Faith for Sociable Souls 119 followed it “as faithfully as men ever did are destitute and hopeless;

having been for years upright and industrious, they are now on the street.”73

As he watched the church organize retreats and special meetings, Line worried that religion had lost its way. To him it seemed that religion was “unable to recapture the certainty, confidence and directness which belonged to it in other days.” He offered some advice to those praying for revival: rather than assuming that religion revolved around “subjective moods,” they should instead commit to working “by all right means to establish God’s righteousness in

the world.” If they did so, Line predicted that religious renewal would soon follow.74

Nicholson, Forsey, and Line were contributors to Towards the Christian Revolution, a collection of essays that drew a stinging review from Reinhold Niebuhr. Though glowing in his praise of the contributors as persons (“as promising a group as could be found in any church”), he alleged that they still assumed the socialist commonwealth was identical with the Kingdom of God — the same illu-

sion that, in his view, had characterized the earlier social gospel movement.75 Reviewing the book for the New Outlook, Gordon Sisco, the United Church’s recently elected general secretary, defended the contributors on that score. The book’s message was “radically different from the social gospel of twenty-five years ago,” its theology “deeper, sadder, more tragic” than the liberal optimism of the former. “If we cannot keep such men within the fellowship of the Church,”

he warned, “if we stifle their freedom to prophesy merely on the ground that they are radicals, then our Protestant religion will gradually fade out as a saving force in modern life.” Sisco was not without his own reservations about their Christian socialist agenda (for instance, whether a transition from capitalism could be effected by a democratic process), but he highly recommended the book: “Brother ministers and laymen, read this book. You may not like it, but you need to face up to its challenging viewpoint.”7° These new theological currents found both a critic and a popularizer in Richard Roberts.’” He admitted to what he described as an “insuperable dualism” in his own thinking that lingered despite his efforts

at synthesis. He claimed to be content to live with two theologies that would logically seem to be irreconcilable: the substance of the theology of the creeds with their doctrines of Inspiration, Revelation,

T20 A Church with the Soul of a Nation Incarnation, Redemption, and Grace in concert with such modern elements as the Indwelling Christ, Jesus as the crown of biological evolution, and Immanence as Inner Light. “I mean to be a traditionalist and a modernist, as far as in me lies.”7®> He conceded that the range of theological options made agreement difficult, thus contrib-

uting to what he described as chaos in Protestant thought. With humanism standing at one end and Karl Barth at the other end, “Protestant Christendom is sounding every sort of interval along the gamut of testimony; and the trumpet as a whole gives forth an uncertain and unintelligible ground.” Nothing would serve the church better, he ventured, than the production of “a summary statement”

of its belief “respecting the great cardinal matters of faith: God, Man, the Incarnation, the Holy Spirit, the Church, the Atonement, and Eternal life.”79

Those who had formulated the doctrinal articles in the Basis of Union in the early years of the twentieth century would not have been surprised by a call for a contemporary proclamation of Christian

faith. They had urged that the next generation restate the common faith as its own. The General Council took up that challenge in 1936, appointing a commission to prepare a new doctrinal statement that appeared four years later as the Statement of Faith. In his last address to the General Council as moderator, Roberts threw his support behind the commission’s decision, hopeful that presenting the Christian faith in contemporary terms would counter the “strange and perilous gospels” of conservative “sects,” whose promoters were influencing those “not tutored in their own faith.”*°

Toward the end of his life, and awaiting publication of the Statement of Faith, Roberts sounded ready to pass the theological torch. He was candid about the social gospel movement: it had inspired Christians to redress the concerns of the poor and disadvantaged, but had placed too much blame for social anomalies on the economic system.°* Still, he rebuffed the idea that politics and economics were independent of religion as “a gross heresy.”°* He seemed

unable to situate himself comfortably in any of the theological camps. “I have no apology to make for the liberalism I once professed,” he insisted, while admitting that liberalism had “run its course — has indeed here and there run to seed in a non-theistic hu-

manism.” The evangelical revival that he had known in his early ministry had likewise reached a cul-de-sac, with its emphasis on per-

sonal salvation giving way to a vague personal loyalty to Jesus

The Search for a Faith for Sociable Souls re barren of the power for ethical behaviour or creative insight. Nor was Karl Barth’s “extreme theology” the answer.*3

Attempts to resolve the theological tensions that Roberts identified likely tipped the Statement of Faith closer to Barth than Roberts would have wished. Behind the scenes, personality conflicts complicated theological differences as pastors, professors, and national church staff joined forces to tackle the task of preparing the document. Early drafts show them picking and choosing elements from two presentations (identified impartially as Statement A and Statement B).°4 The influence of liberal theology was perhaps diminished due to Ernest Thomas’s poor health; he did not live to see the final draft.°5 However, his misgivings were well known to other commit-

tee members. The minutes of one of the last meetings he attended

record that he questioned “whether it would be wise to make Barthianism determinative.” *° The theological challenge to the old underpinnings of civic piety

that Barth represented was clear to all. Nevertheless, the United Church did seem to be taking a Barthian turn, with the Statement of Faith placing more emphasis on God’s transcendence and human sin — and less emphasis on a coming Kingdom that might be brought

nearer by ethical conduct. The fifth article described “man’s sin, God’s righteous judgment, and man’s helplessness and need,” while the sixth affirmed God’s “redemption of man” through Christ’s victory over death and evil as “at once an awful mystery and a glorious fact.” The authority of the church and its ministry nudged aside the Kingdom as the Christian community par excellence for life together before the end of time.

Sisco conceded that Protestant liberalism had held a “too-easy view of the reality of sin” by assuming that progress was certain. Barthianism had replaced the immanent God of liberal theology with “a God who is transcendent, whose Kingdom does not come by

anything man does, whose supreme realm is the believers’ soul, where grace alone can operate.” Hoping to reconcile Barth’s doctrine

of revelation with the liberal understanding of community, he was convinced that “we can have a Church with a strong spirit of worlddenial at those points where the world is opposed to the Christian way, yet world-affirming at those very points where society gives indications of becoming reconciled with the creative will and love of God.”*®7 Randolph Carleton Chalmers, who would serve the United

Church as pastor, associate secretary of E&SS, and professor of

Lee A Church with the Soul of a Nation theology during his distinguished career, expressed the dilemma even more succinctly: “Humanism belittles God; Barthianism belittles man. Neither the one nor the other can be a gospel of hope for our bewildered civilization, and so we believe they must both be superseded.” *®

Reconciling these different theological worldviews proved to be as difficult for theological radicals as for liberal evangelicals. While some, like Ernest Thomas, continued to hold firm to the principles of the social gospel, some prominent advocates for Christian socialism had second thoughts. Eugene Forsey moved toward the political cen-

tre during a career that saw him make important contributions to Canadian public life as constitutional expert and senator. In retrospect he was to assess some of what was said in Towards the Christian Revolution “and especially of what I said” as “very toolish, or worse.”°? Gregory Vlastos accepted a teaching position at Cornell University in 1948 before moving to Princeton University in 1955, where he enjoyed a distinguished career in philosophy. His biography, posted on the department’s website, notes that while he continued to advocate for a “radical social order,” he soon came to consider such ideas “more a part of his private than of his professional life; he never revisited these topics and, indeed, never again included them in his curriculum vitae.”?° R.B.Y. Scott, Vlastos’s co-editor of Towards the Christian Revolution, also left Canada for a time, accepting an appointment in bibli-

cal studies at Princeton in 1955 before retiring in Toronto. Aware during the McCarthy era that his earlier political views might be considered suspect, he was careful to point out that he had always steered clear of Communism. “I no longer hold — if I ever did — that the social problem requires simply the replacement of capitalism by a kind of Christian socialism; as I have grown older I have realized better the complexities and ambiguities of the situation. In any case,

you may be sure that I will not embarrass the University by illconsidered utterances or writings. As an alien resident I would keep strictly out of any political activities, for which in any case I would have little inclination.”9! Yet something of Scott’s earlier vision of a Christian social order was captured in lyrics that found an enduring place in hymnody.®* One of them, “O World of God,” set to the same tune as the hymn “Jerusalem,” a CCF favourite, poignantly pictured

the human dilemma and the Christian hope:

The Search for a Faith for Sociable Souls 123 O world where human life is lived, So strangely mingling joy and pain, So full of evil and of good, So needful that the good shall reign! It is this world that God has loved, And goodness was its Maker’s plan, The promise of God’s triumph is A humble birth in Bethlehem.?3 John Line’s theological journey more closely typified the tensions

that the United Church was experiencing. During the Depression, Line drew public attention when he championed a controversial anti-capitalist resolution passed by Toronto Conference in 1933. A flattering article in Saturday Night about the incident reviewed his career: his crossing from Britain to Newfoundland at the age of eigh-

teen as a shy young Methodist missionary; his studies at Victoria College; a teaching position at Mount Allison in philosophy and economics; and a return to Victoria College in 1929 after a brief stint at Pine Hill in Halifax. “Has the final stage in his development been reached?” asked the writer.%4

As it turned out, no. Ten years later Line would move again, pro-

fessionally and, it seems, theologically: he was still a professor at Victoria University, but now teaching systematic theology and philosophy of religion at its theological college. He remained at Emmanuel College until his retirement in 1953. Line’s shifts in thinking while serving on the Commission on Christian Faith likely tipped the Statement of Faith in a more Barthian direction.?5 The continuation in his spiritual trek toward a more liturgical expression of piety was reflected in his final publication in 1959, The Doctrine of the Christian Ministry, a study of the authority of the church and its sacraments.”° Much in demand as a committee member, Line was involved in preparing the reports on “Evangelism” and “Christianizing the Social Order” that E&SS presented to the General Council in 1934. Line later expressed the sentiments of those who wanted to save both souls and the social order: “If I could go off to the woods and spend a year there with no telephone and write a book, or try to, I think the book I would write would be an attempt to combine the ideas of these two Reports and put them into one document. | think such a book is very badly needed, and I don’t know anything more

124 A Church with the Soul of a Nation important in connection with the work of the Board [E&ss] than this question of how to co-ordinate these Reports.”97 A memorial statement presented to Toronto Conference to mark his death in 1970 described Line as “strongly evangelical,” one who “never lost sight of the necessary social implications of the Gospel.” No mention was made of the controversial anti-capitalist resolution of the 1930s. Instead, he was remembered for preaching on the street corners of Toronto during the Depression and working among the unemployed, often taking his students with him. Lauding him as one

who epitomized the ideals of the United Church, the memorial summed up his life of witness and service: “He combined great gifts of mind with a compassionate heart.”?® Such an approach to lived religion was encapsulated in a phrase credited to American missionary Sherwood Eddy: a “whole Gospel” that did not pit personal evangelism against the social gospel.?? Yet

this whole Gospel did not unite everyone. Writing under the pen name Candidus after the 1936 General Council, one observer expressed disappointment at the United Church’s timid response to economic problems. He contended that the reluctance to translate the gospel “into practical terms — ‘to serve the present age’ — came close to emptying the Social Gospel of all real content.”*'°° That assessment was perhaps too pessimistic. The report that had drawn the ire of Candidus actually claimed to be concerned with “man’s economic plight as well as his inward motives.” Its language was bold: “it must be our purpose to proclaim a whole Gospel for men and for the society of men ... Perish, we would say, the antithesis of individual Gospel versus social Gospel; perish even the distinction between

them. We will evangelize with a whole Gospel or none, for none other is the Gospel of Jesus Christ our Lord.”'! That not all were able to rally around this call for the whole Gospel spelled trouble for Pidgeon’s “city without walls.” United Church people who were participating in church activities, raising children in Christian homes, organizing turkey suppers, or volunteering for community service were likely unaware of the theological debates over what it meant to pray “thy Kingdom come.” Being inner-worldly was a mark of ‘being United’ for the sociable souls who gathered for worship and other church-sponsored activities, volunteered for its

many committees, studied together, and worked to extend the church’s influence in their community. The unresolved tensions that

The Search for a Faith for Sociable Souls 725 surfaced in the 1930s would return with a vengeance three decades later as the United Church considered how to deal with a resurgent fundamentalism, a declining neo-orthodoxy, and new forms of religious naturalism — discovering in the process that it was perhaps not nearly as modern as its critics in the 1920s and ’30s had claimed. In the meantime, theological friction combined with the growing appeal of the individual spiritual quest to weaken the sense of a fellowship united by a common faith.

That there was a connection between faith and the conduct of everyday life remained a shared conviction. But a critical minority was more doubtful about the impact of ‘good persons’ on a social system that seemed resistant to change. And what if those good persons disagreed on how to bring about social change? Did the church have a responsibility to take a stand on particular issues, speaking and acting as the collective conscience of its members? Theological clashes were made even more complex by the troubling questions about Christianity and culture raised by the worsening international situation. The whole Gospel for sociable souls was soon sundered

by conflict that made it challenging to be united in either faith or fellowship.

5

Christian Canada in a “New World Order” And one ought to consider that there is nothing more difficult to pull off, more chancy to succeed in, or more dangerous to manage, than the introduction of a new order of things. Machiavelli, The Prince

Many a Canadian would have smiled in agreement had they heard Lester Pearson’s reply when asked in 1941, “Are you American?” The diplomat who would later become prime minister answered tactfully, “Yes, | am Canadian.”* Accustomed to thinking of themselves as ‘British’ in some sense, Canadians shared a continent with a country that claimed the name ‘American’ all for itself. A decade or so later, Canadians were less likely to think of themselves as either British or American; they were becoming simply Canadian. It was a small but telling detail of how quickly the Second World War erased

old social identifiers. Although far from evident at the time, the 1940s were the beginning of the end not only of British Canada but also of Christian Canada. The political realities of the “new world order” that the victors hoped to create soon revealed the limits of Protestantism as a source of common values and a basis for national unity in postwar Canada.

The war raised perplexing questions about the intersection of church, nation, and international affairs that lingered long after the conflict was over. The seemingly intractable differences between Protestants, Catholics, and non-Christians around the world — and even in Canada — disclosed the narrowness of the ecumenical movement’s vision of the Christian message as the basis for international harmony. The collapse of the British Empire, the rise of the United States as a superpower, and the growing diversity of Canada’s popu-

lation as immigrants poured in during and after the war added new

Christian Canada in a “New World Order” ‘dy, wrinkles to the old issue of Canadian identity and the churches’ role in constructing it. It was not just that Christian identity was found to be insufficiently universal to counter Communism; even in Canada a united church was evidently not conducive to sustaining a united country. The war was a destabilizing experience for the United Church. Its place in Christianity’s global mission shifted as it came to terms with the realization that its missionaries were no longer welcome in China

and what was to become North Korea. Further, the movement of people during and after the war disrupted old patterns of interaction. Despite oft-repeated hopes for a new world order based on Christian principles, it was soon apparent that what had come into being after 1945 was anything but orderly. Even hopes that the United Church would evolve as the national repository of Protestant

identity for Canadians outside Quebec were dashed by the demographic realities of the influx of ethnically and religiously diverse immigrants, many of them Catholic, during and after the war. The new Canada that emerged, so unlike the country that the church unionists had imagined, presented unforeseen challenges for the United Church’s work at home and overseas.

A new world order based on Christian principles was a prominent theme at the World Conference of Christian Churches that met at Oxford University in 1937,” and its theme still resonated with United

Church leaders as they weighed their response to the grim international situation at their own General Council a year later. Delegates were presented with a report that reiterated the position the United

Church had taken in the past: war was contrary to the mind of Christ and Christian principles. It acknowledged that some would read Jesus’ command to “love thy neighbour as thyself” as a ban on participation in any war, while others would interpret it to mean they could not participate in an unjust war. However, couched in

language borrowed from the concluding pronouncement of the Oxford Conference was a broader and more assertive rationale for the use of force: “in the present unredeemed state of the world the state has the duty under God to use force when law and order are threatened or to vindicate an essential Christian principle, 1.e., to

defend victims of wanton aggression or secure freedom for the oppressed.” Rather than supporting only one position, in 1938 the United Church recognized “the conscientious right and action”

128 A Church with the Soul of a Nation of all three, adding (under the rather pointed heading “The Way of the Cross”) that “Christians must be willing that for the world’s salvation their own blood be shed.”3 A year later, when the United Church rallied to support the cause of defending Christian civilization, it thus found itself in an uncomfortable position. Although many of its members supported the war, and saw it as an unavoidable response to Nazi aggression, pacifists within the church argued that war was not the solution to the international crisis. To make matters worse, both sides claimed (with good reason, if they had checked the Record of Proceedings from the

previous year’s General Council) to have the church’s blessing. Pacifists kept this in mind as they called for the United Church to do more to press the federal government to provide legal services for interned aliens, care for child refugees from enemy countries, and ascertain non-military ways (such as reconstruction and rehabilitation projects) for conscientious objectors to serve their country.4 Despite the United Church’s recognition of conscientious objec-

tion as a defensible moral option, staunch supporters of Canada’s war effort were outraged when The United Church Observer published “A Witness against War,” a pacifist declaration signed by a number of prominent ministers.5 John Coburn, one of E&Ss’s field secretaries, tried to defend his church’s policy to critics by noting its

similarity to the statement on war that had come from the Oxford Conference, “the nearest possible approach to an ecumenical deliverance so far as non-roman [sic] Christianity is concerned.” War was indeed sinful and violated the basic principles of the Christian religion, even if the cause was just. But the state was in a different position and had the right, and indeed the duty, to choose between two essentially evil courses of action. The resulting dilemma, as Coburn

saw it, was that a church member was also a citizen and, as such, would have to make a decision about which course of action to follow. Both the Oxford Conference (expressing the mind of international ecumenism) and the United Church conceded that sincere Christian citizens could “come to opposite conclusions and take entirely different lines of actions.”°®

As realism nudged idealism aside, the United Church offered practical aid to the war effort.” It provided chaplaincy services to the enlisted men and women who identified themselves as members of the United Church in the Canadian Army (21.4 per cent), Royal Canadian Navy (25 per cent), and RCAF (31.87 per cent).°

Christian Canada in a “New World Order” 129 Representatives from its War Service Committee worked with the Department of National Defence to develop qualifications and classifications for chaplains, and nominated ministers for the positions. The women it employed were at the forefront of its ministry in communities where war industries and military training camps placed huge demands on social services and pastoral care.? An estimated 60,000 women became active members of its War Service Committee’s

units, which partnered with the Red Cross in supplying “comforts and necessities” to enlisted men and women.'® Deaconesses and WMS missionaries often coordinated these efforts. Among them was Verda Ullman, who was sent by the Dominion

Board of the WMS to visit communities across Canada soon after her graduation from the United Church Training School in Toronto in 1942. One of her specific tasks was to support soldiers’ wives and women working in war industries by assessing their needs for housing, recreation, and pastoral care.'' Pleas from across the country for a “woman worker” came from places like Prince Rupert, Bc, where a minister reported a doubling of the population in two years because of “soldiers, their relatives, Indians and other ship-building employees.”'* The wMs’s Dominion Board also tackled what one

newspaper referred to as the “delicate Japanese situation.” Its missionaries followed members of eight Japanese-Canadian con-

gregations in British Columbia after their internment, hoping to reestablish “the cultural and religious life to which they have been accustomed.” "3

Even before the end of the war, the United Church looked ahead to demobilization and resettlement. War had uprooted an estimated one-sixth of the country’s population. Nearly 800,000 (including about 32,500 women) were in the armed forces; less conspicuous were the over 1.1 million (including 250,000 women) employed in war industries.*4 Nearly all of them belonged to one church or another. The United Church was aware that once the war ended, adjusting to “the ways of peace and normalcy” would be difficult for many. As a pamphlet on the new tasks it would face bluntly put it, “voung folks who came from farm life with its long hours, seasonal heavy work, absence of regular income and nearby attractions, will

find it hard to go back to the quiet and drudgery involved in the noble vocation of agriculture.” Young veterans and war workers, especially female factory workers, were expected to be ‘different’ — at the very least, more mature — and this was of particular concern.

130 A Church with the Soul of a Nation There were fears that a woman’s place in society had changed. Young

women engaged in the war industry “may have lost some of the feminine touch and ... taken on some masculine qualities.” Some veterans might return with deeper spiritual convictions, while others would be resentful, cynical, and emotionally traumatized. New opportunities for ministry were anticipated: psychiatric work with the emotional casualties of war, personal counselling on a range of issues, and a “new emphasis on the therapeutic value of worship.” '5 While such efforts were considered by some to be minimal, critics

of the church’s support for the war protested that too much was being done. They were especially shocked to learn that the United Church was urging its members to purchase war bonds in its name,

putting the church in a position to gain a profit and retire its $1.7 million debt when the bonds matured. Unwanted international

attention was drawn to this fundraising ploy when the Christian Century’s C.C. Morrison, ordinarily an admirer of the United Church,

published a blistering attack in one of his editorials.‘° The bonds controversy further alienated pacifists. Among those uneasy with the idea, which smacked to some of compromising ideals for financial gain, was R. Edis Fairbairn, the minister who had crafted the controversial “Witness against War” petition. According to Fairbairn, people were asking whether there was any issue upon which the United

Church was willing to take a stand (and act on it) regardless of consequences. He suggested that the acid test was not “Will you die

for your faith?” but “Will you cheerfully suffer financial loss for it?” For him, the real tragedy was that the average person did not believe in Christianity because the churches no longer seemed to believe in it.?7 Others, however, still saw a constructive role for the churches. The

social and theological plan for a new world order that had been bandied about in ecumenical circles before the war seemed all the more relevant once the war was underway. Invited as the speaker for the “Church of the Air” series in 1941, E.G.D. Freeman, professor

and later dean of the Faculty of Theology at United College in Winnipeg, took as his theme “The Church and the New World Order.” More important than the conflict that had recently engulfed the world, he told his listeners, was the “conflict within the human soul.” The Christian church was called upon to take a side in this conflict and defend its values. He identified ten principles to which he claimed all Christians, whether Catholic or Protestant, should be

Christian Canada in a “New World Order” AT committed, among them equal rights and opportunities, freedom, justice, social security, protection of the family unit, and stewardship of resources. Like many United Church leaders, he searched for op-

portunities to move toward those worthy objectives, insisting that “unless we regard the present war as a stupid and meaningless dog fight, it is up against some such background that we must see it.”"® In his first address, Freeman set out a case for seeing Christian standards as a way to counter the materialistic and mechanistic “paganism” that had led to war.'? The second address elucidated what was becoming a common theme for those promoting the new world order: the ties between Christian faith and the democratic way of life.

Freeman’s God spoke to men and women “through the voice and pleading of high ideals,” and he was struck by the similarity of democracy’s values to those of the historic Christian faith.*° A supporter

of the policies that the Commission on Christianizing the Social Order had favoured in 1934, he conceded that during the Depression no one had the money to provide the social services it had recommended. But with the war came a different view of the state: “never again will people readily believe that a government that can finance a great war cannot in times of peace somehow provide work for people. The cry that there is no money in the country will never be believed again.”** His final lecture presented the implications of the new world order for the church in cultivating a public conscience and sense of social responsibility.** He made a special plea for co-operation in higher education: “All the kingdoms of this world are to become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ — and the most important of all is the kingdom of the mind.”*3

The United Church exuded this confident outlook as it prepared for

postwar reconstruction. A Commission on Church, Nation and World Order that reported to the General Council in 1944 oversaw an ambitious research project that included collaboration with ecumenical partners in the United States and Great Britain.*4 Canadian academics, business professionals, and civil servants served as volun-

teer consultants, working either directly with the commission or, more often, in regional study groups assigned to garner ideas and information on specific issues. It was assumed that this local wisdom would somehow find its way into the final report.*5 Behind the scenes, some troubling issues were surfacing. The phil-

anthropic demands of the Depression had depleted the church’s

133 A Church with the Soul of a Nation resources, forcing it to cut back on social research. It was evident that voluntary organizations could not compete with the taxation power

of government, particularly at the federal level, to amass research funding. What then could church staff or volunteers say or do to address social issues that specialists working in secular organizations would not do better? And what did the principles promulgated by national executives and General Council delegates have to do with decisions made by churchgoers across the country? Commission members disagreed about the means, ends, and even their own competence to address the questions. The United Church’s delegates to the

Round Table Conference at Princeton Theological Seminary found other church leaders facing a similar problem: it was easy to agree on

moral principles, but difficult to find consensus on how to apply them.*° A decade after the Commission on Christianizing the Social Order finished its work, the relationship between broad theological principles and specific social policies was still contested, leaving some puzzled and others disillusioned and angry.

Dalhousie University professor R.A. MacKay put the matter bluntly to J.R. Mutchmor, who was assigned to serve as secretary to

the new commission: the issues assigned to subcommittees were worthy of discussion, but since most committee members were not experts, he expected little would come of their input. His advice was to focus on the “moral, humanitarian, and probably a religious ba-

sis” of policies, and “leave to governments or other agencies the main responsibility of finding ways and means.”*7 A.R.M. Lower, a well-known historian and United Church layman who served as a

consultant to the commission, worried that the report might be viewed as politically biased. He critiqued an early draft as “an orthodox statement of the Christian position, followed by a social mani-

festo that does not intimately relate to the statement of doctrine preceding it.” Concerned that with a few changes, the policy sections might just as easily have been issued by “an advanced left-wing party,” Lower wondered whether it was the church’s business “to take its stand on too specific a social programme.”*®

Influential commission members apparently agreed with correspondents who expressed similar concerns,*? as did the new coordinator hired by the secretary of General Council to wrap things up. General secretary Gordon Sisco had discovered, to his chagrin, that after five drafts there was still little agreement on strategy, and not all members and regional groups were equally reliable in preparing

Christian Canada in a “New World Order” L332 their sections.3° With the deadline for the final report drawing closer, he turned to C.E. Silcox, a minister with extensive background in social research and administration.3* Silcox’s involvement in in-

ternational ecumenism included work for the Rockefeller-funded Institute for Religious Research in New York, which published his book Church Union in Canada: Its Causes and Consequences in 1933. Although Sisco asked him to revise only one section of the report, Silcox ended up restructuring the entire document, taking a global rather than a Canadian outlook as his starting point.3* Silcox’s conviction that detailed policy proposals were futile drastically changed the tone of the final report. It also put him at odds

with R.B.Y. Scott, at that time still professor of Old Testament at McGill (and no doubt still remembered for his involvement in the FCSO and as co-editor of Towards the Christian Revolution). In his

role as research director for the Church, Nation and World Order commission, Scott favoured incorporating the findings of policy studies into the report, such as those prepared by the left-leaning League for Social Reconstruction.33 Silcox disagreed, arguing that minimum detail would produce maximum agreement.3+ At eightythree pages (including regional reports and appendices), the commission’s 1944 report could hardly be called “minimum” in length, but its moderate and erudite tone no doubt came as a relief to those who had been fretting that the church might do harm by stumbling into matters beyond its competence. A proposal for a “Christian Charter for Man and Society” epitomized the mediating mood of the final report. It understood human rights as “not absolute, but conditioned upon man’s acceptance of corresponding responsibilities as a child of God and as a brother to his fellow-man.”35 The state’s role was envisioned as providing for “the mutual sharing of burdens beyond the powers of individuals, voluntary associations or lesser governmental units,” though not to “relieve the individual citizen of responsibilities” or take on tasks better handled elsewhere. Gone was the optimism about human nature and the coming of the Kingdom of God associated with early social gospel liberalism. “The Gospel must be brought to bear both

on personal lives and on the structure of human relationships as a whole,” it declared; however, “the Kingdom of God in its perfection is beyond any attempt to give it formulation.” 3°

The commission’s correspondence indicates that the United Church was perceived as wielding considerable political clout, hence

134 A Church with the Soul of a Nation the concern that it be exercised prudently.37 Its ambitious report weighed in on such issues as national unity, economic policy, social security, family life, racial relationships, the arts, and education, thus

lending support for social programs the Liberal government was proposing.3° It also shaped opinion in the United Church for many

years. The Committee on the Church and International Affairs (CCIA) that was set up at the General Council in 1946 saw itself as a creation of the commission, and considered the 1944 report “the basic statement of our church in this field.”39 However, in the sup-

posed influence of the church on its members, the report noted a disturbing trend: “an underlying hostility that has arisen within the church towards the pronouncements of Church Courts in the economic and social field.”4° Evidently, some still considered such matters none of the church’s business.

Even before the war ended, there were indications that the road to the new world order was unlikely to be a smooth one. The United Church’s own experience of dealing with diversity highlighted the difficulties of promoting common Christian values even in Canada. The predominantly Catholic province of Quebec was the most obvious challenge. A young George Monro Grant had once dared to imagine a national church that would include both Catholics and Protestants, but near the end of his life, even he sounded pessimistic about that prospect as he described religious differences in Canada to an international audience: “Even in cities where there is the closest association of Protestant and Romanist in commercial, industrial and political life, the two currents of religious life flow side by side as distinct from each other as the St Lawrence and the Ottawa after their junction. But the rivers do eventually blend into one. The two currents of religious life do not.”4*

Complicating matters further was the lingering effect of a bitter struggle over language that had erupted among Canadian Catholics around the turn of the century. It was fuelled, Robert Choquette argues, by different visions of Canada, with Catholic anglophones favouring “a homogeneous British English-speaking nation with allowance for a bilingual French-Quebec ‘reservation.’”4* The war

would test a tenuous truce between francophone Catholics in Quebec and Protestants in the rest of Canada, with English-speaking Catholics typically torn between the two sides.

Christian Canada in a “New World Order” 35 Quebec and the rest of Canada were running on separate tracks that only cautiously intersected, with linguistic differences reinforcing centuries-old hostilities between Protestants and Catholics. Looking back on a life of service that took him across Canada and around the globe, Lester Pearson remembered how the world once looked to a boy raised in a Methodist parsonage: “to transpose John Wesley, the parish was my world, geographically and in other ways.”

To someone born in 1897 and growing up in central Canada, Quebec was “virtually a foreign part which we read about in our school-books.” The rest of the world was defined in terms of the British Empire — a view he assessed as “normal for the times.” The man

whose government was to set up the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism in the 1960s admitted that Canadian nationalism “hardly touched us in those days since our teaching was concentrated on Canada as part of an empire.”43 Meanwhile, another future prime minister of Canada was learning

very different lessons about his country. It was not a Methodist parish but a Jesuit school that shaped Pierre Trudeau’s view of the world during the eight years he spent at Collége Jean-de-Brébeuf in Montreal in the 1930s.44 Asked during those formative years to prepare an essay predicting his future, he imagined himself arriving in

Montreal in 1976 to “take command of the troops and lead the army to victory.” He would then declare Quebec’s independence and form a country that would include the Maritimes and Manitoba. “I now live in a country that is Catholic and canadien,” he prognosticated.45 In an oratorical contest a year later, Trudeau’s speech on the survival of the French-Canadian nation argued that Quebec would

resist the “fatal tendency to continental assimilation” because of “the canadien miracle”: a high birth rate that was far outpacing that of Ontario and British Columbia.4° Later he would leave behind his youthful separatist leanings to become a strong Canadian nationalist and “citizen of the world.”47

Such different understandings of nationhood were unlikely to be reconciled easily. In January 1938, on the eve of the war, an address by Cardinal Villeneuve, later printed in Le Devoir, alarmed

Protestants in Quebec with its talk of limited toleration for those preaching “corrosive doctrines” and spreading “poisoned seeds.” Some quarters of the United Church worried that this would lead to a “bid for the supremacy of the Catholic Church in matters temporal

136 A Church with the Soul of a Nation and spiritual, making Canon Law superior to that of the state in matters affecting the doctrines and aims of Roman Catholicism.”4°

The gloves came off later that same year at a conference on “Problems of Canadian Unity” at Lake Couchiching organized by the Canadian Institute on Economics and Politics. Speaking at a session on religion as a facet of political conflict, C.E. Silcox addressed the simmering tensions between Protestants and Catholics. Protestants objected to the Canon Law requirement that marriages to “heretical Christians” (such as they) were valid only if solemnized in the presence of a Catholic priest. Particularly troubling was the expectation that children would be educated in the Catholic faith, a

practice looked upon by many Protestants as a means by which “Catholics can overcome their minority status through breeding and thus gain political power.”49 Other thorny issues included restrictions on public criticism of Catholicism due to the church’s control of Quebec’s censorship board, public funding for Catholic schools,

Catholic labour unions, and the Catholic Church’s extensive taxexempt properties. The difference between Catholic Quebec and the rest of Canada was put on national display in 1942 with the call for a plebiscite on conscription for overseas service. Protestants and Catholics generally agreed that the conflict was in defence of Christian civilization; their disagreement lay in the role of democracy. While Protestants tended to see democracy as essential to a Christian civilization, many Catholics in Quebec disagreed: democracy was often anti-Christian in practice, replacing the rule of Christ by the rule of the people.%° There was no sense of solidarity with Protestant social reform, which was met instead with suspicion, suggests historian Tom Faulkner. In Quebec, Christian civilization was primarily canadien, secondarily Canadian, and “most emphatically ... never British.”5! Protestants contrasted their emphasis on individual freedom with the authoritarianism they associated with Catholicism. They would hardly have been calmed by the notion of “corporatism” discussed by Quebec’s religious leaders, which featured an active role for the state in creating a distinctively Catholic alternative to socialism, fascism, and even capitalism.5* Little wonder that Protestant leaders regarded Quebec Catholicism as an obstacle to their plans for post-

war reconstruction and Canadian unity. Mutchmor stated as “a fact” — not as a criticism, much less an argument — that Roman Catholic influence in Quebec was “a threat to any constructive

Christian Canada in a “New World Order” 37 post-war planning.” French Canadians had created “a state within a

state, in which the Roman Catholic Church is dominant,” and Mutchmor assumed that its influence in Canadian politics was consequently considerable. 5?

The animosity soon spilled over into other areas of domestic policy. Not surprisingly, Silcox was among those incensed when Parliament provided for family allowances by passing in 1944 what he described as “the most precipitate and indefensible piece of legislation which a civilized government has ever ventured to pass in wartime.” 5+ He viewed it as a crassly political concession to Quebec’s demands, not a step toward a comprehensive and fiscally sound policy.55 He was not against social welfare — quite the contrary — but rewarding families with high birth rates was not the way to go about it in his estimation.5° He suspected a conspiracy to “push even high-

er the fertility of French Canadian women” by subsidizing them with funds from Protestants and non-francophone Catholics (whose

birth rates approximated Protestants). The Liberal government seemed prepared to pay the price “if only it can maintain its hold on its darling Quebec bloc!”57 With the country at war, Silcox predicted

that the move would be resented elsewhere in Canada, especially since Quebec was under-represented in the armed forces. As someone had said to him, “They breed, while we bleed.” 5°

That Protestantism would remain a minority in Quebec had long been conceded, but its dominance elsewhere in Canada had been presumed. In 1944, alarmed by the prospect of a demographic time bomb, E&Ss set up a special committee chaired by George Pidgeon (a native of Quebec). A “strictly confidential” report to the executive of General Council warned that population trends indicated that in the not-too-distant future the majority of Canadians might be Catholic. Already some areas outside Quebec formerly peopled by English Protestants were becoming French and Catholic. While

ruling out a “bigoted or intolerant anti-Catholic campaign,” the committee recommended co-operation with other Protestants to remedy the “lamentable ignorance” about Catholic beliefs, including Canada’s “distinctive protestant [sic] doctrine as to the relation

of church and state, the church in international affairs, and the duties of the individual citizen.”59 The United Church took the lead

in organizing an interdenominational committee on ProtestantRoman Catholic relations in 1945, with Pidgeon serving as its first chair.°°

138 A Church with the Soul of a Nation Not all were convinced that the cradle would triumph. Among the

doubters was general secretary Sisco, another Quebecer who had risen to prominence in the United Church. As the only Canadian invited to address the founding assembly of the World Council of Churches (wcc) in 1948, Sisco introduced those gathered to the religious situation in Canada. Canadian Catholicism was not as cohesive as it was in United States, he explained, because “the French Canadians keep pretty much to themselves and are somewhat obsessed by the idea that they can win Canada by means of the battle of the cradle.” He expected this plan to fail, however, since industrialization would likely lower the birthrate in Quebec as it had else-

where. In his view, the cause of ecumenism had actually been advanced by Catholicism — by provoking Protestants to unite in order to counter it.°? Apprehension about the growing number of Catholics, especially

outside Quebec, and the threat to religious freedom they were assumed to represent persisted into the 1950s. Requests for clear answers to the question “What’s the difference?” resulted in a controversial publication by that name. Its catechetical question-andanswer style allowed the pamphlet to tackle the most sensitive issues

head-on. To the question asking whether one type of Christianity was as good as the other, the response was frank: “No. Two mutually contradictory beliefs cannot be equally true.”°* The last of the twenty-five questions were reserved for the most contentious issues:

“What is the attitude of the Roman Catholic Church to religious liberty?” and “What is the attitude of the Roman Catholic Church to mixed marriages?” Readers were warned that the “Roman Church”

was a religious dictatorship that expected to control civil government in Catholic states. In countries like Canada where it was not

yet powerful enough to claim that authority, “it is working for advantage and privilege and power in other ways until the day of ‘liberty’ when it can rule by sheer force.”°3 As for mixed marriage, the conditions for granting a dispensation threatened to hasten that day, since the “heretical” Protestant partner had to sign an agreement allowing children of both sexes to be baptized and brought up in the Catholic faith.°4

Though “the revenge of the cradle” persisted as a popular image of religious rivalry, ironically it was the open refugee and immigration policies that many United Church leaders championed that more

Christian Canada in a “New World Order” 139 decisively altered the makeup of Canada’s population. Quebec was not the United Church’s only or most immediate challenge when it

came to religious and cultural diversity. More pressing was the church’s failure to appeal to the non-Anglo-Saxons outside Quebec,

the very problem that the church union movement had hoped to solve by creating a strong national church for them to join. Years later, despite energetic efforts to broaden its appeal to immigrants, the United Church still drew its membership primarily from those of Anglo-Saxon ancestry. Immigration continued to complicate the issue of Canadian identity. The vision of Canadian society as a cultural mosaic that invited but did not demand homogeneity gradually nudged aside the image of Canada as a melting pot of diverse cultures.°> In the 1930s old

questions still dogged those who pored over census figures and surveys to assess whether some immigrants were more easily Canadianized than others. John Cormie, superintendent of home missions in Manitoba, wondered how well the “material” being “poured into the pot” was “melting and fusing.”°° His study of immigration and population for the Social Service Council of Canada confirmed a widely shared feeling: the “fusing process” was pro-

eressing well with “North Western Europeans,” but those from “South Eastern and Central Europe” were integrating more slowly. He concluded that “those who are not akin to us in their political and cultural traditions should, as far as possible, be discouraged from coming to Canada as immigrants.” °7 A survey of three rural areas conducted by J.R. Watts, a professor at Queen’s Theological College, gave the United Church even more

to worry about. He detected only a vague sense of purpose in the United Church’s home missions work, especially when working among Southern Europeans. Was the aim to make them AngloSaxon Protestants, or was it to provide them with religious ordinances more in line with their own traditions? Watts knew that Saskatchewan Conference pastors had been encouraged to work with immigrants (and especially with young people) if pastoral care from “their own church” was inadequate. That directive assumed that home missions work needed to be “enlarged and pressed with greater vigor and earnestness if we are going to make Canada the

Christian country that The United Church of Canada holds as its ideal.” Watts himself sounded dubious about the eventual outcome of such initiatives, rightly predicting the challenge awaiting a

140 A Church with the Soul of a Nation congregation that found itself “contiguous to a foreign block expanding into territory once wholly British-speaking.” °* “The replacement of the old Canadian stock by the New Canadians

continues to weaken many rural United Churches,” observed a Manitoba Conference report on home missions that described growing numbers of Ukrainian and Mennonite settlements in the prov-

ince.°? According to the 1941 census, such immigrants identified with the United Church in larger numbers than any other denomination;7° yet the results were still discouraging. G.B. King, dean of the Faculty of Theology at United College in Winnipeg, made the startling claim that in Manitoba, “leadership, so far as the numbers go, has already passed from the Anglo-Saxon group.” Between 1931 and 1936, what he described as “the British element” had actually decreased by 5,621 compared to an increase of 16,698 in other groups.

As these new Canadians moved in, congregations that were once “solidly Anglo-Saxon” and resilient faced a more precarious future. King was not inclined to abandon work with recently arrived immigrants, especially since conservative evangelical groups (which he referred to as “the smaller sects”) seemed to be making headway in some communities, appealing to those he disparagingly characterized as “ill-adjusted and starved personalities.”7* The short supply of ministers willing to serve in mission-supported congregations was reduced even more by the demand for chaplains for the armed forces. Although amalgamating pastoral charges was a

solution to personnel shortages, it created a different problem by opening the field to religious competition, usually from smaller conservative denominations. Home mission reports noted the arrival of the Salvation Army, the Gospel Hall, and Pentecostalism. “On many of our Home Mission Fields, we find such groups already in action, as

well as in the process of organization,” a British Columbia report noted in 1940. Commenting that these new movements were drawing

“recruits from our own United Church congregations,” the report urged “a more determined effort to find wherein our own work has lost its appeal.”’* Even after the war ended, vacant positions went unfilled. The Board of Home Missions report for 1948 warned that the United Church’s work was “being taken over by others, who, for

one reason or another, seem to have more personnel available for these communities than we have.”73 Other depictions of the competition were less charitable. For example, Newfoundlanders who were drawn to the Salvation Army and Pentecostalism were described as “emotionally unstable, reactionary, and older church members.” 74

Christian Canada in a “New World Order” 141 Canada’s population was not only growing more diverse but more mobile. The Board of Home Missions estimated that at least 750,000

Canadians had migrated from one area to another between 1939 and 1942, many of them from rural communities to the city.75 Farm labour was in short supply, with many young adults moving to jobs in urban areas or joining the armed services. A report on home missions work in central and northern Alberta gave a frank description

of what was happening in many communities as the number of farms sold to new immigrants increased. Families had moved there forty or fifty years earlier, organizing a church when they arrived. The parents were now too old to do farm work by themselves, their children lived elsewhere, and hired help was hard to find. When a farm was put up for sale, “a young Non-Anglo-Saxon arrives with the money in his hand to purchase the farm implements and stock.” These newcomers generally were uninterested in joining the church; to make matters worse, the previous owners, usually older pillars of the church, often moved to the city once their farms were sold.7° In response to repeated expressions of concern about work with

ethnic minorities, the United Church formed a commission that completed its report on “City Missions and Non-Anglo-Saxon Work” in 1944. The findings of congregational surveys in prairie communities and visits to institutions that worked with immigrants were discouraging. The investigation uncovered little inclination (especially among those of Catholic background) to affiliate with the United Church. There was some success among Ukrainians immigrants, especially children and young adults. Those born in Canada were “tired of the candles and incense,” according to the pastor from the Canora-Buchanan pastoral charge, and “secretly aspire to ‘equality’ & fellowship with Anglo-Saxons. They like our Sunday Schools and young people’s organizations: to my mind, this is the key.” Yet he found their involvement hampered by “bias and bigotry among A.S.’s |Anglo-Saxons]” in his six-point pastoral charge.”7 Urging the church to be “jolted out of its complacency,” the report recommended that a new emphasis be placed on “comprehensive inclusiveness.” It sounded a warning: unless there was “a change of attitude on the part of many ministers and people,” the United Church would be “in danger of becoming an Anglo-Saxon sect.”7®

Some United Church groups took up the challenge. Educational programs alerted WMS members, most of whom lived in racially homogeneous communities, to the inequality that faced racial mi-

norities in Canada. Issues were presented in terms of Christian

142 A Church with the Soul of a Nation citizenship and tied to the WMS’s own objectives, lending them an air of indisputability. A series in Missionary Monthly on “The Church Woman as Citizen” that concluded with a two-part article on “race prejudice” framed the issue in terms of a WMS objective: “to create bonds of Christian friendship between our members and peoples of other races and other lands.” Winnifred Thomas described race prejudice as a problem at the international, national, community, and personal level. Urging readers to root out prejudice in their own hearts and minds, and then aid others around them to do likewise, she reminded readers that “public opinion is personal opinion.” 79 The first step toward “curing” race prejudice, she counselled, was to acknowledge that it was unchristian, learn about other races, and acquaint oneself with their members.°° Appeals on behalf of war refugees added to the urgency of over-

coming prejudice toward new Canadians. United Church groups were among those who took up their cause, speaking, writing, and supporting petitions for those hoping to resettle in Canada.*' Among

them were Jews from Germany and Czechoslovakia who caught the attention of well-placed advocates. Silcox was aware of the dire situation they faced in Europe even before the outbreak of war.** Convinced that economic fears were partly to blame for immigration restrictions, he presented a financial case for easing regulations: European refugees were “assimilable people” who would become consumers and build new industries. He bluntly noted that opposition to immigration was cultural as well as economic, based on fear that unless Anglo-Saxons remained the majority, “our whole British outlook on life may be destroyed if we do not encourage fresh infusion of Anglo-Saxon blood.” What was more necessary, he countered, was “the Anglo-Saxon spirit,” and where, he asked, was it more likely to be found than among such refugees?*} Their “intellectual standards and their understanding of and passion for democracy” would uphold British ideals and institutions.*4 Ernest Marshall Howse was another who joined those calling for Canada to open its doors to refugees. An up-and-coming minister from Newfoundland, Howse preached two compelling sermons on the European refugee problem to his parishioners at Westminster United Church in Winnipeg in the spring of 1939. He deplored the hypocrisy of North Americans who for years had been “dripping over with sympathy for the oppressed people in Europe,” but now refused to help Hitler’s victims.*5 He favoured increasing Canada’s

Christian Canada in a “New World Order” 143 share of refugees, quoting with approval the Canadian National Committee on Refugees (headed at the time by Sir Robert Falconer): “A nation which has the potential resources of Canada and refuses to help in such an emergency does not deserve economic prosperity; it does not even deserve the right to be called a Christian country.” *° Obviously alluding to Jewish immigrants, he praised those seeking refuge as belonging to “the most highly trained and gifted families

in Europe,” and likened them to “refined gold from a very fierce crucible.” Their only offence was to belong to “the race that gave us Isaiah, Jesus, and St Paul.” Suffering beside them were Christians who had “protested the paganization of the German race.”*7

Missionary societies also took up the cause of refugee resettlement. The WMS co-sponsored E&SS’s petition drives. Its literature confronted negative depictions of Jews, such as their predilection for living in cities, by presenting information aimed at dispelling stereotypes — in this instance pointing out that in the Middle Ages, restric-

tions placed on Jews prevented them from owning or tilling the land.8* Such articles often tackled the issue of anti-Semitism headon, disclosing that the refugee petition was “revealing a great deal of anti-Jewish feeling,” and reminding readers that for many Jews the alternative to living in Canada was starvation in Europe. There was a religious rationale as well: “If Christian people turn their backs on the homeless, how can we call ourselves followers of the Christ?”®? Yet even those who agreed with such principles found them diffi-

cult to put into practice, and outcomes were modest. Constance Hayward, executive secretary of the Canadian National Committee on Refugees, admitted that “enlightened opinions had only limited effect” in convincing policy-makers that it was in Canada’s interest to admit refugees fleeing Nazi tyranny.?° While more local studies are needed to confirm it, one is left with the impression that in the United Church, there was well-intentioned talk, but almost no ac-

tion of consequence.?' For example, a study of the Ministerial Association (mainly Protestant with some Jewish involvement) in Kingston, Ontario, and the Catholic diocesan newspaper suggests that relationships with local rabbis were cordial, but local concerns took precedence over international ones.?” Similarly, the United Church opposed (though, again, with little to show for it) the punitive government policies that abrogated the civil rights of those of Japanese ancestry, even the Nisei who had been born and raised in Canada.?} Japanese-Canadians had joined the

144 A Church with the Soul of a Nation United Church in significant numbers. Many remained under its pastoral care, sometimes accompanied by missionaries, after they were

forced to leave their homes. Elda Daniels escorted eighteen girls from the Oriental Home and School in Victoria, Bc, to the Girls’ Residence in Assiniboia, Saskatchewan, where their anticipated arrival was nicknamed “The Invasion.” Her charges were reportedly well received in the community, a feat that she credited to “the groundwork done by church leaders and school teachers in preparing right attitudes before our arrival.” Her mission involved more than attending to the spiritual welfare of the girls. According to Daniels: “We hope to show the community how truly Canadian our family is, and how the church is doing its part in helping the state to train Christian citizens for tomorrow.”94 But such efforts were of little immediate help to the Japanese, described by one report as having the worst experience of any group of immigrants to Canada.?5 Their treatment belied the belief that Anglo-Saxonism was a cultural identity that was acquired rather than innate, with conversion to Christianity a critical step in the process; it did not bode well for either British Canada or Christian culture. There was more unwelcome news awaiting international ecumenism and those associated with it as they confronted the geopolitical revo-

lution that followed the war. Britain, says historian Peter Clarke, “survived the war only to find itself a ghost of the great power

that had held a dominant position in the world since the fall of Napoleon.”9° The United States emerged as the ascendant world power, a change in fortunes with effects that rippled around the globe. Weakened by the terms of the war loan negotiated with the United States, Britain lacked the economic resources and the political will to retain its mandate in Palestine, which reverted to the United Nations in 1947. Its empire in India was lost to Gandhi’s independence movement the same year.?? Chronicling the details of the “liquidation” of the empire, Clarke sees the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 as a key indicator of Britain’s fate: though few had expected the Zionists to succeed, the United States exerted its considerable influence at the UN on their behalf, and sided against the Arabs in the conflict. “In the end,” he concludes, “the British generally chose the Arabs and the Americans chose the Jews.”?° Although its placid decolonization process did not make headlines

around the world, Canada’s relationship with the mother country

Christian Canada in a “New World Order” 145 was changing too. After the Canadian Citizenship Act came into effect in 1947, Canadians were no longer British subjects. Being British and part of the empire — the core identity for anglophone Canadians since Confederation, and touted as the linchpin of cultural assimilation of new immigrants — faded in significance. Arthur Lower claimed in 19§2 that while old sentiments for the British Empire still lived on

and found expression at ceremonial occasions, people probably knew “in their bones” that the old world was gone. “The average English Canadian retains relatively unchanged his traditional attitudes to the Crown,” Lower claimed. “But while he listens respectfully to appeals to the idea of the Commonwealth, he has difficulty, as with a long prayer, in remembering what has been said.”9? Less perceptible was the religious impact of this loss of “Britishness,” where Protestantism had enjoyed what historian Linda Colley describes as a place of “absolute centrality,” with Europe viewed as the Catholic “Other.”'°° Canada’s Protestant identity soon proved to be as shallow as its British identity — and was to fade away almost as quickly.

The new superpower status of its neighbour further complicated matters. English-speaking Canadians had grown accustomed to using their British identity as a buffer against the rising American em-

pire after the Great War.'°' By the 1920s the United States had already supplanted Great Britain as Canada’s largest foreign inves-

tor; by the 1950s it accounted for close to 80 per cent of foreign investment in Canada. Whereas the British had preferred to hold railway and government bonds, Americans favoured direct control of manufacturing and resource companies; hence, their investments were more visible.'°* As the pace of investment quickened, uneasi-

ness heightened. Had Canada shed its colonial status only to fall under the control of another imperial power? The first report from the Committee on the Church and International Affairs (CCIA) in

1948 noted a marked shift in trade patterns and warned that “Canada may find herself in the unhappy position of having to elect whether to be a British or American nation.”

Although Canada benefited economically from its proximity to the United States,‘°3 at times the American way of life seemed a more immediate threat to the Canadian way of life than more dis-

tant Communist foes. The drift toward democracy, rather than Christian civilization, as the banner under which the Cold War was fought added another wrinkle. The linguistic turn was at first barely

146 A Church with the Soul of a Nation discernible. In 1946, Winston Churchill, in his famous “Iron Curtain” speech, rallied Christian civilization against its Communist enemy. Louis St Laurent, soon to succeed W.L.M. King as prime minister, described Christian civilization in similar terms a year later, as one of five principles upon which Canada’s foreign policy rested.'°4 But

in the United States, the battle against Communism was becoming linked to defending the American way of life, a cause that drew its citizens together as Americans in a way that superseded their particular identities as Protestants, Catholics, or Jews. The democratic principles of individual freedom and human rights became associated with a secular ideology that had no need of Christianity as a source of shared values — perhaps an attractive alternative once it became obvious that there was no common understanding among Catholics and Protestants (to say nothing of Jews and other religions) of what Christian civilization signified.'®5

This lack of Christian unanimity dashed the hopes of United Church leaders who linked the church’s world mission to fighting

the Communist foe. Howse, newly arrived from Winnipeg to Toronto as minister of Bloor Street United Church, boasted that in the nineteenth century, Christian missionaries had been alone in calling for “one common and universal allegiance.” Although he conceded that in many places in the world Christians were a despised and persecuted minority, there was still an organized church in every country except Tibet, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia. Christianity was the only religion that could rationally claim to be universal since

it was “unthinkable that all mankind will ever become Sikhs or Mohammedans or Buddhists.” Howse warned that, for the first time, Christianity was facing a dangerous world rival that aimed to be a substitute for all religions: “The authoritarian state, Fascist or Communist, is the expression of a competing world culture, utterly incompatible with the Christian view of life ... It is, so to speak, a black

religion. It has not only in the most astonishing fashion taken the guise and regalia of religion, it aspires to take the place of religion.” '°° What Howse failed to see was that the democratic state might also compete with Christian internationalism once Christianity’s universal appeal was found wanting.

Many in the United Church considered the cause of democracy and the goals of Christian civilization as analogous. A pamphlet for AOTS men published in 1948 described the club’s intent to build a “Christian democracy.” It was imperative therefore “to create public

Christian Canada in a “New World Order” 147 opinion on all important issues, based on [Christ’s] life and teachings” as “THE CONDITION OF SURVIVAL.”'°7 Women were also inspired by the democratic ideals of Christian citizenship. Margaret

McWilliams, an active member of St Stephen’s-Broadway United

Church in Winnipeg and married to the lieutenant governor of Manitoba, was a civic leader in her own right as founder and first president of the Canadian Federation of University Women and a four-term alderman.'®® As she saw it, western civilization was facing

a “deadly challenge.” A struggle was being waged between liberal democracy and the ideology of materialistic Communism. She believed that Communism would be defeated “only by proving to the world that our liberal democracy, which has flowed under the influence of Christianity, brings more happiness, more well-being to everyone within its sunlight.” However, the way in which this contest was being waged concerned her; she sensed that the “indubitable fact” of the Christian roots of liberal democracy was being forgotten. Instead religious beliefs were becoming merely “private possessions,” and there was a reluctance “even to bring the names of God and Jesus into our daily conversation.” '°? Just as disturbing was the discovery that democratic values were sometimes at odds with the aims of Christian internationalism. By the time the wcc met for the first time in 1948, the language of ecu-

menism was changing in ways that hinted at uncertainty about its assumptions of universality. At first the signs were subtle. The foremost ecumenical journal, launched in 1935 as churches prepared for the Oxford Conference, went by the name Christendom: An Ecumenical Review. With the founding of the wcc, it became simply The Ecumenical Review.The omission of the word “Christendom”

clearly demonstrated Christianity’s more precarious international standing as a source of common values. More telling was the re-

placement of order by disorder to describe the new world that emerged out of the crucible of war. One of the four books published in preparation for the first wcc assembly was titled The Church and

the International Disorder, edited by a group that included John Foster Dulles, a politically well-connected American Presbyterian. Dulles’s essay on “The Christian Citizen in a Changing World” drew the stinging conclusion that Christianity’s impact on the fight against Communism was at present “wholly inadequate.” If Christians were to play a role, it was imperative that their churches “have bet-

ter organization, more unity of action and put more emphasis on

148 A Church with the Soul of a Nation Christianity as a world religion.”''° His hopes for the wcc soon foundered due to its reluctance to share his confidence in the American way of life as tantamount to God’s way of working in the

world.''? The wcc’s early assemblies steered away from granting the United States the redemptive role that Dulles had proposed, leaning too far to the left in his view, and leaving him wary of the political judgment of church leaders.’ Defending the individual liberties of the Free World, rather than Christian civilization, became the new rallying cry of those who agreed with him.1"3 The new dominance of the United States in world affairs was soon felt in Canada. For a time there was a continuation of the close collaboration that had developed during the war, and only minor dif-

ferences of opinion surfaced on issues of international security.‘ However, the unequal partnership between the two North American nations was bound to cause resentment. As the Cold War escalated, Canada’s relationship with United States chilled. Tensions came to a head during discussions of the defence of North America. American politicians and military leaders seemed to be treating Canada as an extension of the United States. As Canada demanded to be consulted about the production and use of nuclear weapons, the United States became more secretive. Canada wanted to play a mediating role in

international conflict as a middle power, but was treated as poor cousin and ignored unless it was willing to take the American side.**5 A defining moment in the United Church’s assessment of Canada’s

dealings with its powerful neighbour came in 1960 after news that the Soviets had shot down an American U-2 spy plane flying over the USSR. The CCIA’s report to the General Council expressed shock at

the way national interest had trumped the truth: the United States had been caught in a “flagrant, detailed, and circumstantial selfjustifying lie” after proclaiming its “moral superiority so aboundingly.” The incident made it clear that “Canada has little voice in policy and no influence on decision; its counsel is heard but ignored; it is not kept informed.”''® The report raised a moral question: was the United States about to cross the line between defensive action and pre-emptive war, not only with the U-2 flights but also in its willingness to conduct chemical and bacteriological experiments? Canada had good reason to be concerned, since it had made testing grounds available for such experiments. “The affluent society drifts,” the report warned, and the committee clearly did not like the direction in which it was headed: “In a half-informed society, spoon-fed with the

Christian Canada in a “New World Order” 149 official half-truth, security is equated with secrecy, safety with more destructive weapons, survival with mass murder. What is there in this to attract the new African nations, the Latin Americans, the awakening Asians, to our side? They account for more than half the human race.”''7 The Vietnam War would deepen these divisions.

The changing world presented the United Church with a host of new questions about policies and programs it had once wholeheartedly supported. Those who championed principles of fairness and justice for refugees were torn, for instance, between supporting the

establishment of a homeland for Jews and sympathizing with the Palestinians who suddenly found themselves displaced because of it. Refugee advocates who had once worked on behalf of Jews escaping from Europe were accused of latent anti-Semitism when they took up the cause of the Palestinians who fled from their homes in 1948 after the war in the Middle East. The United Church found itself in the awkward position of supporting the cause of both Arabs and Israelis, but not fully siding with either, until the war in 1967 tipped a number of prominent church leaders more decisively toward the Palestinians.'!® Among the early critics of the UN’s proposal to create a Jewish state was Silcox, described by one scholar as the “pre-eminent cham-

pion of the Jewish refugee cause in Christian Canada.”"'? Well known in Jewish circles as director of the Canadian Conference of Christians and Jews from 1940 to 1946, his disapproval no doubt came as a disappointment to Israel’s supporters. Defending his position, he pointed out that Balfour’s famous declaration in support of a homeland for the Jewish people had also promised that nothing would be done to compromise the rights of the non-Jewish communities already living in Palestine. Nothing good would come of a clash of nationalism, imperialism, and ideology in this strategically important area of the world where three continents converged, he

predicted.'*° He identified another geopolitical concern: since Islamic countries formed a buffer between East and West, understanding their world was of the utmost importance for western countries.‘* Though he remained sympathetic to the Jewish cause, his telling of the history of the contested land emphasized that the region was peopled before the arrival of Abraham’s descendants, and many who were not Jewish still lived there. A bi-national state was the solution he favoured.

150 A Church with the Soul of a Nation After 1948 the CCIA treated the creation of the state of Israel as a

matter of fact; the refugees were the nagging problem. Its reports blamed the United States, the UK, and the UN as well as Israel for the impasse. The Arab allies were complicit too; they had left the

Palestinians in deplorable camps, noted one report, callous in the knowledge they had “immense reserves of men and territory, and of world Muslim sympathy” as well as the advantage of time. Arab

states were urged to recognize the state of Israel, and Israel was

advised to compensate the refugees who could not return to their homes.'**

The cc1A claimed to be avoiding a partisan position, hoping the United Church would remain friends with everyone in the Middle East.‘*3 But concerns that the Palestinian plight was ignored in the mainstream media swayed them to remind the church that the Palestinians were bearing the brunt of the guilt of others for treatment of an earlier group of refugees: “The Western conscience was soothed by sending [Jews] somewhere else at bitter cost to less favoured peoples who have had to provide ‘living space’ for Israel’s immigrants with their own villages, gardens and homes.”'*4 Those who followed the CCIA reports and related study materials also learned of the bitter hatred of Israel among Arabs, a hostility that was nurtured even in the UN — quite an admission, given the United

Church’s largely uncritical support of that organization at the time.'*5 The CCIA was alarmed by the growing numbers of refugees

worldwide, including 400,000 Jews forced to leave Iraq, Yemen, North Africa, and Egypt in the decade after the 1948 war and an additional 15 million refugees from Europe — equivalent to the population of Canada, as the report pointedly put it.1*°

Another unwelcome consequence of the “new world disorder” was the blow dealt to the United Church’s overseas missionary program. Enthusiastic promotion of Christian internationalism before the war seemed hopelessly misdirected as tangible missionary support withered for pragmatic more than theological reasons. As late as 1937, Jesse Arnup had claimed that the uniting churches were “providentially ... led to plant their foreign missions” in a way that brought the United Church “into helpful contact with the great races and nations of the non-Christian world.” Four-fifths of its mission sites were in Asia, and over two-thirds of its missionaries served in China, Korea, and Japan.'*7 Little more than a decade later, these

same locations spelled disaster for its missionary enterprise as

Christian Canada in a “New World Order” I51 political authorities turned hostile to the presence of missionaries from North America and Europe. Bad news from the international missions scene continued as Communism swept away what was left

of work in northern Korea and China, already destabilized by depression and war. The cessation of WMS-sponsored missions in North Honan was reported in 1948,'*® and missionaries to China were evacuated over the next few years. With its Korean missions situated north of the 38th parallel, the United Church concentrated on meeting the needs of refugees who fled south; its Korean work became “a mission in exile.” '*9 The impact was devastating when measured in terms of missionary

personnel abroad. Between 1940 and 1950, the number of overseas personnel plummeted as missionaries from Asia were recalled. The pol-

icy review presented to the 1948 General Council still claimed, “our missionaries contribute greatly to the Christian goodwill among nations, essential to ‘One World,” '™° Although the United Church’s role was obviously diminished, the demise of Christian internationalism was only slowly accepted. “The closing of doors in China and the disruption of our work in Korea are not to be interpreted as failures,” insisted a report on overseas mission policy in 1952.'3! Phrases like “one world,” “partners in a common civilization,” “one mission,” and “one Church” were used over and over in making the familiar case for world evangelization, but less convincingly. By that time some missionaries were disillusioned Christian internationalists. Two young Canadian idealists, Mary Austin and James G. Endicott, met at a missionary conference in Washington, DC, in 1925.A whirlwind romance followed, and before the end of the year they were serving as missionaries in China. As hopes for Christianity as the basis for international harmony dimmed, they became convinced that support for the Communist party offered a better chance

for world peace.'3* Jim resigned from the ministry of the United Church in 1946 in order “to take an active part in the struggle for human betterment in the field of social and political movements,” activities he deemed difficult for ministers “unless possibly they hap-

pen to be on the ‘right’ side.”'33 He continued to maintain that he was a “Christian Liberal Reformer” rather than a Communist (since he believed it impossible to be both). Mary was less reluctant to be called a Communist sympathizer.'34 Together they weathered a barrage of criticism from inside and outside the United Church, including Jim’s vilification in the press as “public enemy number one” in

152 A Church with the Soul of a Nation 1952 for accusing the United States military of using germ warfare against the North Koreans."}5 The United Church maintained a missionary presence in Japan, India, Africa (expanding to the Copperbelt of Northern Rhodesia in 1953), and Trinidad, often in co-operation with other denominations. Shifting the focus to these locations brought new issues to its members’ attention. For example, articles and reports on international affairs often mentioned concern for Africa, and were critical of churches that supported apartheid in South Africa. The CCIA’s report in 1958 presciently observed that Christianity was not the only alternative to ancient African tribal deities, and Muslims were witnessing to their faith in places like Malaysia, Indonesia, and the areas bordering the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean “with a zeal and passion reminiscent of the days when they conquered Spain and spread into France.” The Prophet’s followers in Africa did not have the burden of association with “the white man of Christian heritage.” The

“missionaries of the Crescent” were champions of anti-colonial movements in Africa, a development that “missionaries of the Cross” were advised to note.*3° International missionary conferences before the war had called for

indigenization, but did not anticipate the conditions under which it actually happened: as the only recourse, given the hostility to anything that smacked of Western influence during postwar decolonization. A policy report on the WMS’s overseas missions announced that what was left of its administrative authority would be gradually transferred to indigenous church associations as part of the changing relationship between home base and foreign fields.37 Ecumenical co-operation through involvement with the newly formed Canadian Council of Churches and the International Missionary Council, and links with the National Council of Churches in the UsA (successor to the Federal Council of Churches), became a matter of necessity as well as principle as United Church missionaries joined church workers from other countries in areas such as Angola and India."3° Before the Second World War, “doors are open” had been the missionary movement’s rallying call. After the war, the image tended to

shift from doors to windows, from ‘entering’ to ‘looking in.’ It reflected a different attitude toward overseas work, one created by the political restrictions that missionaries faced. Wide Windows (1951) was the title of a widely circulated study of the history of the wMs, but even windows that were wide open must have seemed small to

Christian Canada in a “New World Order” 153 those whose expectations for Christian internationalism had once been so grand. The United Church’s missionaries and their families continued to play diplomatic roles during the Cold War Era."}9 However, the hopes for one world bound together by Christian friendship were shattered. World events belied the confidence that Christianity could provide a

basis for cohesion in Canada, let alone the rest of the world. The church union movement had been launched at a time when it was still widely assumed that religion enhanced shared values and encouraged social responsibility. Spiritual ideals were a source of social

cohesion. The implicit assimilation in the United Church’s search for a common faith had been reinforced by prevailing cultural assumptions about nation-building. Although early twentieth-century Canada was in reality far from culturally monolithic, appeals to the Anglo-Saxon ideals of the British Empire and the Christian civilization associated with it held the promise of a common identity that could be acquired, absorbed, and passed on to the next generation. Christianizing the social order was in that sense an inclusive goal. The challenge of diversity — both religious and racial — sounded a

knell for the aspirations that had energized those who founded the United Church. The decline of Canada’s British-American identity (and the Protestant values attached to it) was neither necessarily secular nor antithetical to Christianity. Yet it coincided with the end of the British Empire and the beginning of the end of Christendom in both Britain and Canada. After the Second World War, Canada stepped hesitantly toward a new world where liberal democracy was viewed as the source of universal values. No longer was Christianity as confidently assumed to be a foundation for either international harmony or national cohesion.

6

Calling Postwar Canada to Christ GLENDOWER_ Ican call spirits from the vasty deep.

HOTSPUR Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I

“The Hidden Failure of Our Churches” was how the Maclean’s cover story in the 25 February 1961 issue announced the startling find-

ings uncovered in its survey of churchgoers. Canadians had been attending religious services in record numbers for over a decade, and the United Church was among the churches enjoying the statistical windfall. “Amazing” was a word that cropped up often as its growth

met and even exceeded expectations. This long-awaited revival of religious interest begged the question: how much influence did the churches really exert on people’s lives once the Sunday morning services were over? Maclean’s decided to ask. It hired a firm to conduct a survey (described as “the first of its kind”) of the residents of Guelph, Ontario."

The results so astonished veteran journalist Ralph Allen that he retraced the trail to confirm the findings for himself. Most of those surveyed said they believed in God and thought of the church in

much the same terms as had their forebears, but admitted they were not guided by its teaching in their everyday lives. While 70 per

cent of Protestants (and over 90 per cent of Catholics) attended church at least once a month, only one in five claimed that their behaviour had been influenced as a result. More specific inquiries about the conduct of those surveyed supported that finding. Among

Protestants, church attendance had limited impact on decisions about the use of alcohol (11.4 per cent); birth control (5 per cent); sexual behaviour (2.5 per cent); political decisions (6.6 per cent);

Calling Postwar Canada to Christ C55 public causes and organizations (12.5 per cent); and business conduct (20 per cent). Catholic teaching seemed to have even less influence on behaviour with two exceptions: birth control (21 per cent) and sexual behaviour (11 per cent). Only 6 per cent of Catholics said the church influenced their business conduct, and the impact on political decisions was an astonishingly low 3 per cent.” At least in Guelph, Catholics appeared not to be priest-ridden — perhaps something of a consolation to Protestants as they read an article about the soon-to-be-released census figures alongside the main story: “The Swelling Stream of Catholicism: Will It Soon Be Our

Majority Faith?” Religious leaders interviewed to discuss the survey seemed less surprised by the results than Allen, but there was a mood of appre-

hension among them. Former United Church moderator Angus MacQueen described the state of organized religion in Canada in stinging terms: churches in general were too preoccupied with denominational programs, congregational budgets, and buildings; they were “too comfortable and too well adjusted to the status quo, and

too ready to equate it with the Kingdom of God on earth.” The church was “unfit for the tasks of the hour” and becoming irrelevant in the face of the “real stuff of life,” he warned, and was instead “the feeble guardian of personal decency and the fount of tranquility and optimism.” J.R. Mutchmor, secretary of the Board of E& ss and well known for his colourful quips, summed up the uneasiness of many

in his denomination even as they watched it grow: “I believe the United Church stands in a slippery place because it is becoming a clubby, chubby Church.”4

Critics had once scorned the United Church as a “political club” that was more interested in moral and social reform than in personal faith. The survey suggested a different and more disturbing possibility: a church that was no different from the rest, and whose statistical health masked failure to influence its own members. Becoming a “clubby, chubby church” redefined the meaning of “social” in United

Church parlance. Rather than too much social gospel, it seemed a case of not enough — or more to the point, a disturbingly narrow notion of “social” that ran the risk of simply reflecting rather than challenging the status quo. This was a diminished understanding of the United Church’s mission as understood by its founding generation. In its stead was a more insular and inward-looking gathering of the faithful, whose religious life was identified in terms of what

156 A Church with the Soul of a Nation happened inside the building but inconsequential beyond it. With the fraying of connections between the church and the broader community, the “larger fellowship” that the founders had hoped to build suddenly appeared much smaller.

A different future for the United Church had been envisaged not only by the founders but also by those who laid the ambitious plans for a Forward Movement to create a new world order after the war. Programs and publications, including the 1940 Statement of Faith in pamphlet form and various devotional resources related to it, assumed that the personal faith of its members had public consequenc-

es for community-building both locally and nationally. The new catechism’s answer to the question “What is the task of the Church?”

still identified social engagement as central to its mission: “The Church is called to worship God, to watch over and care for all within her fellowship, to preach the Gospel to all mankind, to minister to the needy, to wage war on evil, and to strive for right relations among men.” This conviction was shared across a broad theological spectrum, including those whose enthusiasm for the social gospel was tepid at best. Among the latter was Richard Davidson, principal of Emmanuel

College and chair of the group that put together the catechism. Writing for Saturday Night in 1944, with the catechism hot off the press, he admitted that the priority after union had been “to get the machine to run smoothly and do the work it was devised to do.” Davidson sounded relieved that the founding generation had been otherwise engaged. “A blight had fallen on theology” during the nineteenth century, he contended, almost as if human success and

prosperity had “lulled the Most High to sleep,” and “the Social Gospel flourished in place of the historic Gospel.” But in the last two decades things had changed: the Most High had “awaked and got on His feet again.” Yet even Davidson identified the social implications of the gospel as central to the mission of the United Church, naming

as its “chief innovation” its affirmation of “man’s duty to man.” There was no sphere of life — political, social, or economic — to which

Christianity was indifferent, although Davidson warned the church not to go beyond its competence in statesmanship and trade, matters that were best left to “individual churchmen.” All in all, the United Church appeared to have made remarkable progress, erasing the concerns of the 1930s about its survival. As he

Calling Postwar Canada to Christ 57 assessed social trends after the war, sociologist $.D. Clark described religion in robust terms. Canada “has been, and remains, a fundamentally religious nation,” he observed.7 Church union had strengthened Protestantism enormously in his estimation — to the degree that “the influence of organized religion in the country has perhaps never been stronger.” So strong were Canada’s churches that he doubted whether a political party could survive an open attack on them.°®

Statistics showed the United Church to be a healthy institution, equal to or surpassing the growth of other Protestant churches in numerical terms.?

Outside observers concurred. The United Church was a success story, or so it seemed. It could put effective pressure on federal and provincial governments to provide services that churches and other philanthropic agencies could not afford.*° Its civic piety was respected, even if considered a tad self-righteous by some. It was keeping a close eye on Canada’s spiritual frontiers, enthused editor Harold E.

Fey to readers of the Christian Century following his attendance at the General Council in 1956. In fact, the American added, no U.S. church assembly provided “a comparable sense of the church struggling for the soul of the nation.” He was particularly impressed by the calibre of the discussion surrounding the abolishment of capital punishment, and the fact that the United Church’s “consistent effort to link conversion and conscience, the saving of souls and the saving of society, is producing really responsible Christian leadership.”"' Yet a curious disquiet could be detected among those who knew the United Church best. Their experience suggested that although to many the church symbolized continuity and stability, the reality was otherwise. The old patterns of interaction among church, family, and community were being disrupted. The threat that modern culture posed to the church was a theme regularly sounded by seasoned ministers, professors, and church executives as counterpoint to the encouraging statistics. They fretted that the United Church (and indeed Western Christianity) was entering uncharted territory, cautioning that the challenges facing Christianity were social and cultural as well as moral and spiritual. Complicating the familiar tension between the personal and social dimensions of faith was what E&$S’s associate secretary R.C. Chalmers called a “third front”: culture was subtly undermining the gospel.t* He warned that Christianity was in danger of being considered an interest or hobby irrelevant to everyday life, creating a

158 A Church with the Soul of a Nation situation that he claimed was unique in history in its complexity, breadth, comprehensiveness, and “anti-spiritual nature.”'} John Line likewise sought to disabuse theologians of the illusion that they were still living in a Christian world. He wondered whether Western civilization could any longer be called Christian. Writing for the interna-

tional readership of Theology Today in 1951, he urged readers to prepare to make a “basic re-presentation of Christianity to a world near the edge of being void of it.” His prediction was that the general public would soon have no interest in Christian truth. To counter the coming cultural shift, he urged the church to emphasize “the primal truths by which Christianity is identifiable as Christian.” '4

The venerable George Pidgeon agreed that a cultural crisis was looming, and the consequences of inaction dire. He warned that if the United Church failed to intervene in time, it would “be unable to enter at a later date.” It needed to follow people to the new suburbs and settlements if it expected to hold “a place in their lives and guide the use of their power.” To support his case, Pidgeon spoke of the

de-Christianization of Europe, a phrase used by one of the presidents of the wcc who had reportedly said that Europe had “in great part become pagan again” — still comprised of many Christians but no longer consisting of Christian nations. It was a pessimistic assessment, Pidgeon admitted, that “must make us pause.”'5 Perhaps this explains why a church so often accused of being liberal and even modernist in its theology was decidedly reserved in its embrace of contemporary culture. Many of its leaders lashed out against popular forms of entertainment, sometimes pejoratively described as pagan, that competed with art forms more closely associ-

ated with the church. The media were suspect as well, accused of being cultural purveyors of paganism. Jesse Arnup blamed the radio

for dispensing “an overdose of syncopated disharmony known as jazz.”'° The Commission on Church, Nation and World Order report went further, anxiously noting “the emergence of the new paganism which divorces sex from true romance, and gets a foothold in the screen, the radio and in prurient literature” — a list to which television was soon to be added.'7 The first Tv set arrived in 1952, and cost 20 per cent of the average annual income.'® This signalled a new social ‘problem’ for the middle class: what to do with leisure time, much of it spent inside the home or participating in activities controlled by secular agencies and businesses. Movie theatres, bowling alleys, and dance halls were old amusements that

Calling Postwar Canada to Christ 159 threatened the vitality of the church by draining it of its best community leaders. New attractions in government-funded community halls, centres, and rinks were tempting politicians to turn to the “liquor people” and other questionable sources for operating funds. Watching television or attending sporting events was more appealing to many than the church’s attempts to create Christian fellowship. “Large areas of our people’s life are a wasteland, suffering erosion from pagan — if not pagan, certainly sub-Christian — influences,” warned one minister in calling for the United Church to “evangelize unchurched recreation.” '? An impressive report prepared in the late 1940s by the Commission

on Culture expounded on similar themes. With R.C. Chalmers as secretary and some of its most respected academics and ministers (including a young professor at Victoria College by the name of Northrop Frye) as members, the group’s terms of reference assumed

that the customs, habits, and thinking of modern culture were at some points in tension with the Christian faith. Their task was to ponder how to transform culture (including the media) to “a Christian pattern,” and to advise the church on its role in “the redemption of culture.” Published in 1950 as The Church and the Secular World, their findings laid the groundwork for the brief that the United Church presented to the Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences (more commonly known as the Massey Commission) in 1949.7° Erudite and ambitious in scope, the report was the work of a group familiar with the latest developments in the arts and sciences but wary of their implications for Christian faith given the impending cultural crisis. The report claimed that the United Church was justified in “believing that the salvation of souls must be understood in such a way as to include the cultural enterprise of men.”** Recognizing the escalating importance of communication media, literature, drama, music, and art, the report offered Christian resources for making them more wholesome.** It bemoaned, for instance, what was happening

to modern music under the influence of popular forms of entertainment: “The gushing fountainhead of American jazz with its pro-

pensity towards self-expression imperils the development of pure melody, enervates the artistic sense, stimulates eroticism, and at the very best generates nothing more than mediocre products.” Clearly steps needed to be taken to “arrest this wild orgy”! The report admitted the church was not blameless in the corruption of music,

160 A Church with the Soul of a Nation which had been treated “brutally” by people whose apathy and carelessness had failed to distinguish between the sacred and the secular in art. As for hymns, the number of “atrocious” ones was “astonishing.” *>

The urbanization of Canada was adding to the problems of modern culture, creating a situation that was entirely new, noted WJ. Gallagher in an address to the Christian Social Council of Canada. No longer was the country rural. The work of the church was changing, and not always for the better, due to a complex mix of factors: ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ wars, urbanization and industrialization, the welfare state, immigration, modern educational trends, new means of com-

munication, and new ideologies.*4 A resolve to enlist and equip clergy and laity to rescue Canadian society from the incursion of undesirable elements of modernity was fundamental to the strategic decisions made by the United Church in the 1950s. There were plenty of indications that church members were becoming captivated by cultural affluence and alienated from Christian influence. The middle class was especially at risk. A mid-decade survey of Observer readers found that 26 per cent were in professional and managerial groups compared to 14 per cent of the general population. Its readers were much more likely than the average Canadian to have telephone service and to own cars and electrical appliances. Drawing on the survey’s findings, a 1954 E&SS report concluded, “our Communion is, in large measure, a middle-class one.” As such it was becoming susceptible to a North American form of “culturereligion,” one that stressed comfort and mistook “chummy acquaintance for fellowship.” Church leaders were urged to make Christian fellowship “more inclusive”; to challenge culture-religion with “true

Christian standards”; and to make “every possible attempt ... to reach, save and teach all for whom Christ died.”*5

At the core of the United Church’s major postwar initiatives to reassert its social and cultural agenda was a broad approach to evan-

gelization. Events that provided opportunities to make a personal commitment to Christ were organized and linked to plans for church expansion in developing residential neighbourhoods and a new approach to Christian education. The core message was clear and unequivocal: it was not enough to focus only on conversion, for faith had implications for the personal conduct of individuals, the social welfare of communities, and the cultural well-being of the nation.

Calling Postwar Canada to Christ 161 J.R. Mutchmor personified these objectives. As secretary of E&SS he was in a pivotal position to shape the United Church’s policies and programs. He became the voice of the United Church during the

1940s and ’50s, and was the most recognized religious leader in Canada by the time he retired in 1964. Indeed, to a remarkable degree, Mutchmor’s life mirrored the denomination’s own maturation.

Born in 1892 in Providence Bay, a small community in northern Ontario, he grew up with the church union movement already underway. Raised a Presbyterian, he was proud that some still misiden-

tified him, as had novelist Robertson Davies, as one of the “few remaining ranting old Methodists.”~°

Mutchmor studied at the University of Toronto just before the First World War during what he described as a time of high idealism, when many believed that the world would be converted to Christianity in their generation. An interest in social work (and a rather low opinion of theological education at Knox College) took him to Union Theological Seminary in New York for graduate studies in theology, which he combined with a master’s program in economics at Columbia University across the street. In 1920 he returned

to Canada, accepting a call to Robertson Memorial Presbyterian Church in Winnipeg, where his work included oversight of a mission

in the north end of the city. A part-time position as a member of Manitoba’s Welfare Supervision Board (serving as its chair from 1926-36) gave Mutchmor access to surveys and studies on a broad assortment of social welfare issues. All in all, it was valuable experience that prepared him for his appointment as associate secretary of the Board of E&ss in 1936.*7 Due to D.L. McLachlan’s illness, he was effectively in charge before he was formally appointed as secretary in 1938. Mutchmor was fully committed to both parts of his board’s mandate — evangelism and social service. He encouraged and coordinated countless initiatives that he described as “witness in deeds, not talk.”*> But he also used words to promote his causes, vocally opposing such vices as drinking and gambling. Not one to shy away from unpopular stands, he objected to women working outside the home — “mothers swept into gainful employment” as he put it. He was shocked to see them dropping off their children “in indiscriminate places” to be cared for while they worked. For him, this was a

practice as dangerous as taking children from their mothers and forcing them to work in canneries or mines: both were threats to

162 A Church with the Soul of a Nation child welfare that called for child protection. And yet he defies facile pigeonholing as a social conservative. The Observer’s cover story

following his election as moderator at the 1962 General Council claimed that “no churchman in Canada took big business to task as

often as Mutchmor.” Visibility had its drawbacks, however, and Mutchmor received threatening telephone calls, often several dozen throughout the night. His very public stand on temperance predictably drew ridicule. But he attracted admiration too, some of it from surprising quarters. When Mutchmor became the butt of jokes at one cocktail party, CBC reporter Stanley Burke came to his defence by recalling an incident that happened after he “unwittingly blasphemed” while still on camera. Among the pile of disapproving letters was one expressing appreciation for his work, praising him for the high calibre of his UN reportage, and closing with, “I just thought that at this particular time you might appreciate knowing. Sincerely yours, J.R. Mutchmor.”*? His notes and letters reveal a gracious man with a wry sense of humour. “I cannot understand you having the flu,” the teetotaller wrote to an ailing friend, “must be that you have not the right kind of rum.”3° Mutchmor fervently believed that the church was the conscience of the state, a conviction that he attributed to the Reformed tradition (while admitting that Calvin may have enforced it “to an extreme” in Geneva).3 He assumed that the United Church’s “political witness and warfare” extended from the global arena to fighting the devil in one’s own back yard — at the town-pump level, as he put it.3? His advice to ministers presumed that they would play an influential

role in helping church members to connect faith and community: preaching sermons on social issues that were both biblically and factually sound, making effective use of denominational structures and pronouncements, encouraging their congregations to use church re-

sources to study social issues, liaising with community organizations, and even becoming specialists on particular social issues.33

But Mutchmor was just as avid an advocate for evangelism, and

claimed that he was a stronger defender of it than many former Methodists.34 His travels across Canada in 1943 convinced him that support for it was growing.35 With his enthusiastic endorsement, the

United Church joined mainstream churches in the United States, Great Britain, and Australia in organizing mass evangelistic meetings that boosted church attendance during the 1940s and ’50s.3° Under his leadership the United Church promoted evangelistic

Calling Postwar Canada to Christ 163 campaigns whose themes advertised the hopes of the organizers: Crusade for Christ and His Kingdom, National Evangelistic Mission, Mission to the Nation, and Calling Canada to Christ. The Crusade for Christ and His Kingdom was the United Church’s

first major postwar evangelistic initiative, a two-year program launched in 1945.37 Interest in evangelism was running high in North America at the time, and Youth for Christ rallies favoured by fundamentalists were attracting huge crowds. Charles Templeton, a charismatic Canadian preacher from a conservative evangelical denomination, was making headlines.3* When he began to question his faith, the young evangelist turned to Mutchmor for advice, hoping that theological studies would assuage his doubts. At the urging of

Mutchmor and Pidgeon, president John A. Mackay of Princeton Theological Seminary arranged for the high-school dropout to study there as a “special student.” 3?

Templeton began his studies in 1948, and three years later accepted a position as evangelist for the American mainstream denominations that comprised the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA (NCC), on condition that he could preach in Canada four months of the year.4° The Templeton Missions, organized in conjunction with the United Church, filled large churches like Chalmers United in Ottawa to capacity, with people occupying “every bit of space that was possible to place them without creating a fire hazard.”4' The Observer provided glowing accounts of Templeton’s cross-Canada itinerary as tens of thousands flocked to the churches and arenas where his meetings were held. Thousands

went forward at the end of the service to make a commitment to Christ.4* These rallies featured Templeton as preacher and his talented wife as soloist. The music and the sermons reflected the United Church’s

efforts to deal with the imminent cultural crisis. Refusing to pander to popular tastes with female octets, brass bands, and Negro spirituals (associated with rallies organized by conservative evangelicals), the United Church insisted on music accompanied by the piano or organ, with a church choir or Connie Templeton singing classical pieces by Handel and Bach.#3 Those who hired Templeton may well have suspected that the audience preferred more lowbrow entertainment, but given their concerns about sacred music, they were determined to give those attending a taste of something more appropriate — nothing that might be confused with jazz! As for Templeton’s

164 A Church with the Soul of a Nation message, historian Kevin Kee’s summary of what listeners typically heard would have had a familiar ring to those raised in the United Church: a “total gospel” that related Christianity to all areas of life and emphasized the link between personal faith and service.*4 The social implications of the gospel message became even more

prominent when the United Church used the momentum from the Templeton Missions to launch its own four-year National Evangelistic Mission (NEM) in 1954. Directed by E&Ss staff member William G.

Berry, the strategy for this Mission to the Nation was set out in Calling Canada to Christ, a booklet that he edited. Central to the campaign was a focus on national life that connected the call for individual commitment to Christ to four areas of living: family, community, daily work and the economy, and civic and political engagement.45 “National salvation” was the prescription for “national sin,” a “deeper and more powerful form of evil than individual sin.”4° The literature distributed by the NEM committee offered concrete

advice for everyday living and tools for measuring advancement toward the goals of the campaign. The pamphlet on the Christian family, for instance, featured an eleven-point checklist of practices for parents that included personal declaration of faith in God and loyalty to Jesus Christ, daily devotions that included all family members, and participation in the mid-week and Sunday programs of the church.47 Likewise, a pamphlet designed for women’s groups challenged them to use a “Group-Analysis Chart for Church Organizations” to calcu-

late the “lost potential for evangelism.” Several questions probed whether the women’s group at the church was distinctly Christian and thus different from a secular club.4® The campaign concluded with a series of special events organized around its four themes, and congregations were encouraged to promote them. Billy Graham brought his crusade to Canada a year after the creation of the NEM, raising a fresh round of questions about the United Church’s approach to evangelism. An editorial in the Observer before his arrival in Toronto noted that the national leadership of the

United Church had not endorsed Graham’s campaign (as was the case with the Templeton Mission), leaving it up to presbyteries and conferences to decide on their own whether to become involved. One sticking point was Graham’s literal approach to interpreting the Bible, but Observer editor A.C. Forrest identified another: “In the United Church we have been taught that the Bible is relevant to every department of life — social, political, economic, and personal. And

Calling Postwar Canada to Christ 165 we will not sacrifice that truth for the sake of successful techniques in mass evangelism.”+4?

Graham was conspicuously absent from the list of evangelists invited to participate in the NEM. Although terse when questioned about Graham’s absence, its coordinator was more loquacious when asked about the place of periodic revivals. The “genius of the United Church,” Berry replied, did not lend itself “to the revivalist technique of evangelism.” Its best work was done “through the ordinary channels of pulpit evangelism, visitation evangelism, communicant classes and the occasional preaching mission.” He added that contemporary revivalism was in some cases based on a theological per-

spective that differed from what was taught at United Church theological schools. While not denying that some still came to religious faith through a “catastrophic conversion,” Berry thought this had become rare in the United Church: most of its people were converted through the “ordinary preaching of the gospel and the fellowship of the church.”5° The divided mind of the United Church over evangelism was evi-

dent in the Observer. Forrest reminded readers that the United Church had deliberately placed evangelism and social service togeth-

er under one board at the time of its founding, convinced that one must “not go rushing off into revivalism unrelated to moral issues and social concerns,” nor to divorce social reforms from personal evangelism. To explain the distinctive features of the United Church’s approach to evangelism, he quoted at length from a statement about

the NEM prepared by Angus MacQueen, minister of St Andrew’s United Church in London, Ontario, and chair of E& $s. MacQueen believed Donald Soper, the famed British Methodist preacher from the West London Mission, was the person who came closer than Billy Graham to representing the mind of the United Church on evangelism. He reported that when Soper challenged his Canadian audience with the demands of Christian discipleship, some left angry and disappointed because they had come expecting the “cheap brand”

of evangelism: “fanfare and ballyhoo, hot songs and catchy tunes, pretty soloists and well-groomed announcers, and a ‘come to Jesus and collect your advantages’ appeal.”5! MacQueen admitted that although the United Church stood in the evangelical tradition, many ministers had misgivings about modern evangelism. Should a type of evangelism be approved, he wondered, just because it seemed to get results? Or should they be asking,

166 A Church with the Soul of a Nation what kind of results? Will the results last? What about scruples in matters such as intellectual and theological integrity, ethics, or social relevance?>* These questions remained long after the NEM ended.53

Joining the Board of E&ss in calling postwar Canada to Christ was the much larger Board of Home Missions, which Mutchmor credited with contributing even more to the church’s active witness than E&SS.54 Under its auspices, presbyteries made ambitious plans for new church development, especially in the expanding suburbs, and a National Committee on Church Extension chaired by Malcolm Macdonald launched a campaign to fund it.55 Macdonald passion-

ately believed that the program “to extend the Kingdom of God within this land” was as great a challenge as the United Church or its parent bodies had ever faced.5° While he insisted that the United Church did not proselytize those from other faith traditions, it was

“ready to provide not only a spiritual home for them, but also to assist them in understanding and finding their true place in our Canadian way of life.” 57

Macdonald admitted that in the past, meeting the religious needs of every community in Canada had been easier: a missionary who

arrived with a plan to open a new church had been met with an enthusiastic welcome. At present, indifference or competition from other attractions made church development in frontier areas or new

suburbs more challenging. Yet the consequences of failure were grave and “exceedingly detrimental to the well-being of the nation,” for much of the population would be “left to the often extreme and eccentric leadership of the sects or else succumb to the invading secularism, materialism and paganism of our age.” 5° Church extension committees handled most of the details of starting a congregation, but the commitment of lay leaders was essential to success. It was a layman who alerted Winnipeg Presbytery to the religious situation in his suburban neighbourhood. He’d stopped a young boy to ask why he wasn’t in Sunday school. The boy’s answer — “What is that?” — startled him so much that he started talking to others about organizing a congregation. Twenty-five women from the area joined fifty other women from Winnipeg Presbytery to con-

duct house-to-house surveys to gauge interest in having a United Church Sunday school and worship service nearby. As a result, Westworth United was built and quickly flourished. Within five years, over 500 children were enrolled in Sunday school. The church

Calling Postwar Canada to Christ 167 Table 6.1 Membership of Woman’s Missionary Society auxiliaries, bands, and affiliated CGIT groups

Years Auxiliaries! Mission bands Baby bands Affiliated CGIT?

1950 88.693 49,874 58,574 16,786

1951 89,185 oP ie Abe. 61,004 17,714

Ia 90,415 $4,654 61,632 17,609 153 91,943 58,747 67,921 7 252

1954 92,931 49,953 70,605 20,507

i Besos oA Wi 47,812 71,697 22,060

1956 Ae fl 47,378 69,669 24,427 1957 94,937 47,724 70,490 23,978 1958 25.704 48,054 69,102 26,842 i Bee be, poe AF 46,849 67,942 LES 52 1960 98,821 48,234 66,032 Soy 1961 96,444 43,227 56,242 31,452 from 1950-52. 2 Affiliated CGIT groups included in the total membership during this period; method of counting other affiliates (e.g., Explorers) varied. Source: Annual Report of the Woman’s Missionary Society and The United Church of Canada Year Book (reports of the Woman’s Missionary Society)

was abuzz with Mission Band, Explorers, cG1T, Cubs, Scouts, Tyros, Hi-C, and Young People’s groups. Women were invited to join the wa and the wMs; men served on the Session as elders and stewards until 1968, when women too became eligible.5?

Following the Second World War, similar growth was reported across Canada. An increase in membership was not the only good news. Between 1941 and 1946, subscriptions to the denominational paper, renamed The United Church Observer in 1939, increased from 15,000 to over 50,000. A capital campaign exceeded expectations, raising $4 million in pledges in 1946°° and helping to replenish the mission funds depleted during the Depression. The wMs announced in 1950 that a new record had been set for fundraising, and that amount was bettered in subsequent years. There was fellowship aplenty. With a baby boom well underway, a notable increase in Baby Bands and study groups for mothers soon followed.°! Programs for children and youth challenged the church building’s

168 A Church with the Soul of a Nation -s—-Woman’s Missionary Society - Woman’s Association (all purposes) $5 750 000 SS S00 000 $5 250 000 $5 000 000 $4 750 000 $4 S00 000 $4 250 000 $4 000 000 $3 750 000 $3 500 000 $3 250 000 $3 000 000 $2 750 000 $2 500 000 $2 250 000 $2 000 000 $1750 000 $1 500 000 $1250 000 $1000 000 $750 000 $500 000 $250 000

ssaCa Se YS Ty RSET Oy EN TPG SLOT = ee ee COO OE OC EE ah, kr Se ai ko nk ed ee ee ae ed ed ee) 1)

i ee ci i pil pi pda nd aha fd na od a

Figure 6.1 Funds raised by the Woman’s Association (all purposes) and the Woman’s Missionary Society, 1926-61 Source: The United Church of Canada Year Book. + 1926 and 1927: year ending 31 March. All others: year ending 31 December.

capacity in many congregations. The Young People’s Union flour-

ished during the 1950s. By mid-decade it was among the largest youth organizations in the country with some 30,000 members between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four. A new organization called Hi-C quickly attracted 20,000 teenagers.°* Couples clubs, service clubs, and even camps for men and women in their thirties and early forties were organized to tap the spiritual and social longings

of young adults. The first of several schools for lay leaders was opened in Naramata, BC, in 1947, and the training school for deaconesses in Toronto celebrated its move to a new building in 1955. A conspicuous exception to the successful ventures of the 1950s was recruitment of personnel for overseas missions, a situation that editor A.C. Forrest considered “the greatest concern of our time.”®°? However, the vibrancy of congregational life likely generated more

Calling Postwar Canada to Christ 169 interest in ministry as a profession and helped to ease the chronic shortage of personnel after the war. In 1954, the United Church reported that 159 young people (nine from one Moncton congregation alone) had entered the candidacy process for ordination, the most in its history.°4 Despite record high numbers of candidates, there were still not enough ministers by decade’s end to match the projected demand.°5 This cohort prepared for ministry at an auspicious time. There was much talk of a theological renaissance under-

way, and many dared to believe that a positive and redemptive engagement with modern culture would ensue. Convinced of the transformative possibilities of Christian education for all ages, the United Church laid plans to capitalize on the revival of interest in religious questions by linking learning to evangelism and church extension. It launched a number of initiatives to acquaint

its members with its particular theological orientation (and sometimes to defend itself against detractors). Broad and moderate was how United Church leaders liked to picture themselves. Their church was “liberal without being radical or humanistic,” explained Preston MacLeod to Christian Century readers, with neo-orthodoxy enjoy-

ing a “strong following, especially among the younger ministers” who, though not inclined to repudiate liberal theology, wanted to go beyond it to make theology “more central and vital in the life of the

church, and distinctively Christian in its interpretation of biblical revelation.” °° Writing for an American audience in 1947, C.E. Silcox claimed that even the United Church’s critics had to concede that it was a dynamic church. While it admittedly had a tendency to issue unwise pronouncements before fully thinking through the implica-

tions, it could not be accused of pussyfooting. In general he found that it repudiated “both the mushiness of liberalism and the crudities of fundamentalism and is essentially liberal-conservative.” °7 R.C. Chalmers agreed. A key staff member on the committee that

had prepared the Statement of Faith, he reported that “orthodox liberalism or progressive conservatism” was “very apparent in lead-

ing theological circles in our United Church.”°* The publications

that he oversaw at EXSS championed what he portrayed as an “evangelical type” of Christianity,°? a stance that continued to be as

contentious in the 1940s and ’5os as it had been in the 1920s and °30s. Chalmers made the customary distinction between the United Church’s evangelical identity and other parties who were claiming to

170 A Church with the Soul of a Nation define what it entailed: “a legalistic and rigid Fundamentalism,” or “some special esoteric and emotional religious experience,” or as “synonymous with the sect type of Christianity.” He urged the United Church to become more evangelical in faith and practice by seeing “the whole of life religiously interpreted through Jesus Christ.”7° But becoming more evangelical was easier said than done. On the one hand, there were hopeful signs of a growing interest in learning more about the Christian way of life. The Observer seized the opportunity to educate its readers, publishing a series on “What the United Church Believes,” which dealt with topics related to revelation, sin, and salvation.”' Reacting to religious competition on two different fronts (fundamentalist and Catholic), over the next decade the Commission on Christian Faith would prepare materials stating the United Church’s position on doctrines emphasized by sectarian

groups, as well as on the differences between Protestants and Catholics: Why the Sects? (A.C. Forrest); In Remembrance of Me:

Being an Account of Man’s Part in the Lord’s Supper (Harvey Forster); Is Christ Coming Again? (C.C. Oke); Christianity and Healing (C.G. Park); British-Israelism: Is It Christian? and Jehovah’s

Witnesses (both by Alfred E. Cooke); and What’s the Difference?

Protestant and Roman Catholic Beliefs Compared and Life and Death (both by A.G. Reynolds).7* As Mutchmor reviewed the United Church’s accomplishments in

anticipation of its fortieth anniversary in 1965, he proudly recalled that a pamphlet containing the Statement of Faith was a best seller from the beginning and the catechism based on it in steady demand. By its nature and of necessity, the United Church was “deeply theological,” he boasted: “it’s a plain fact that a far larger proportion of the ministers and members of the United Church of Canada strive to learn and comprehend the deeper things of God and Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit; of man and his sin, of salvation, and of the Christian witness on all the fronts of life than any other Christian Communion in Canada.”73 The pamphlets by Reynolds in particular sparked a lively debate both inside and outside the United Church.74 What’s the Difference?, boosted by complaints from cardinals James McGuigan of Toronto and Paul-Emile Léger of Montreal, showed unprecedent-

ed numbers in sales of a United Church publication. Sales for Life and Death also shot up after fundamentalists condemned it.75 The “New Curriculum” became the linchpin of the United Church’s

plans to create a more theologically literate membership. Utilizing

Calling Postwar Canada to Christ cha the tools of modern biblical scholarship to interpret the Bible, the materials aimed to relate its teachings to the contemporary context.7° The project drew much of its inspiration from the Christian Faith and Life curriculum that had been launched by the Presbyterian

Church in the USA in 1948. Not surprisingly the United Church’s New Curriculum was similar in assumptions and planning process to its American counterpart.’ A critical difference was timing: development of the curriculum materials in Canada lagged behind by at least five years. Although the decision to produce new materials was made at the 1952 General Council, a series of consultations at both the national and regional level followed; the critical response to the presuppositions announced in 1958 likely slowed the process as well.7°

The impact of delay proved devastating. Like the Presbyterian materials, the United Church’s New Curriculum focused on the family

as integral to Christian education, and produced hardcover illustrated books intended for reading at home during the week. The failings of a family-centred program in the United States were per-

ceptible even before the New Curriculum was sent to press in Canada.’”? Alas, for the United Church, its poorly timed launch co-

incided with the end of the baby boom, more-complicated family relationships, and a completely different theological climate from the one that had informed its design. Unveiled in the mid-196os, it was infused with the theological and educational presuppositions of the 1940s and ’5os. Its critics in the 1960s failed to appreciate how deeply biblical and theological it was in both aim and actual content — it was exactly what respected leaders like Line and Pidgeon had called for to preserve Christian culture. However, it appealed to nei-

ther conservative evangelicals nor a younger generation of more radical liberals.*°

The troubled development of the New Curriculum provides a glimpse of the uphill battle that the United Church faced even at a time when people seemed to be deeply interested in religious matters. For all the talk of a postwar theological renaissance associated with the names of Barth, Niebuhr, Tillich, and other so-called neoorthodox theologians, how extensive was their influence? Speaking at a dinner at Emmanuel College in 1957, Forrest conjectured that if Victoria University’s president and Emmanuel College’s principal were to announce that Billy Graham and Norman Vincent Peale had

been appointed to the faculty, “there would be within The United

172, A Church with the Soul of a Nation Church great rejoicing.” But the response to the appointment of Reinhold Niebuhr or Paul Tillich would likely be, “Who are they?” What he described as a cultural lag was greatest among “some of our best people” from farms and small communities. Forrest noticed a spiritual disorientation that surfaced when those folk moved to the city: despite being raised in the United Church, some felt more at

home in Gospel Halls, small Baptist churches, or a Pentecostal Tabernacle.*' Little wonder then that a few years later, the New Curriculum was

greeted with suspicion even by some of the church’s most stalwart supporters. The controversy it sparked revived memories of Billy Graham’s visit to Canada in the 1950s and the gap that was evident even then between his theology and that of the United Church. It was also out of step with a cadre of younger ministers who found it not sufficiently progressive. Such theological misgivings added to the practical problems of the New Curriculum after its launch in the 1960s. The design — in retrospect, flawed — disclosed a church operating in denial about the degree of acceptance of theological liberal-

ism shorn of its evangelical roots, and seemingly unaware of the damage already done to the crucial links between church, home, and

community life it presupposed. It epitomized the ill-fated efforts to negotiate with modernity in the 1950s — to correlate faith and culture, as neo-orthodox theologians liked to put it. The United Church’s miscalculations in its approach to Christian edu-

cation matched its misplaced confidence in mass evangelism and church extension. Its leaders were astute in identifying signs of a culture shift underway but ineffectual in their efforts to influence its direction, despite impressive outlays of time and resources. Headlines in the 1950s tended to trumpet the church’s accomplishments, but as-

sessments of its leaders were more guarded. After visiting United Church congregations across Canada during his two years as moderator, James S. Thomson sounded somewhat optimistic in 1958 as he described the “manifold signs of a quickened vitality” indicated by the upswing in church attendance. He sensed a turning of the tide of interest in religion that he candidly characterized as an “anxious, some-

times ill-informed, yet not the less genuine seeking for spiritual enlightenment and help rather than profound spiritual revival.” However, he found little or no inclination to apply the gospel to social questions or world problems. That there was “no passion for public

Calling Postwar Canada to Christ .73 righteousness or social reform” was in his view the consequence of the

relativity in faith and morals of an age “devoid of moral enthusiasm.”°* Thomson’s disturbing observation was consistent with other indications that modern life was running counter to the dynamics that had propelled the church union movement. Everyday life seemed to sap the sense of collective purpose that was integral to the identity of a denomination designed to connect faith and community. City life further hindered this goal. Those who gathered for worship on Sunday might otherwise have little contact with each other

or the community in which the church was situated. The first of several reports from the Commission on Urban Problems set up in 1936 assessed “the cutting-off from the old social and spiritual moorings” as the most significant obstacle. Rural life could be nasty, vicious, and coarse, said the report, but seldom was its outlook so secular as in the city. Though religious observances in a rural community might suffer from neglect, the tradition of churchgoing overshadowed daily life. Not so in the city, where “public scrutiny and

popular appraisal” of conduct were impossible due to urban anonymity and secular distractions. Social and racial groupings tended to be more “socially disintegrative” than in smaller communities where people knew each other and mingled at community events. The report found the impact on children particularly disturbing. “They belong to nowhere in particular. They grow up in no church or school, in the soil of which their lives become rooted. Their lives are barren in respect of loyalties and friendship.” *3

The shadow of the church was even less visible to those on the move after the Second World War. Mobility disrupted old social networks and group norms, complicating the rituals of family life. Family members who moved to find employment in another community were no longer able to worship together as a clan. Memories of baptisms and funerals were associated with several church build-

ings rather than one. The disruption of old community ties also increased the likelihood of mating with someone from a different religious background. Mixed marriages were identified as a problem in the United Church’s first statement on marriage issued in 1932, which noted in particular the difficulty of rearing children in a home “where united religious acts are impossible, in which silence or ex-

treme reserve must be maintained.”*4 Concern for protecting the next generation of Protestants heightened as the number of mixed marriages increased after the war.*5

174 A Church with the Soul of a Nation Church attendance at first withstood these pressures. The habit of going to church on Sunday morning was associated with ‘normal’ behaviour and good citizenship. Sin became a common theme in the preaching of the day, stirring feelings of guilt that some apparently tried to ease by attending church services regularly.®° Perhaps height-

ened anxiety about an unsettled world and the threat of nuclear weapons brought out a tribal instinct to be with others. However, on many city street corners, the community church was becoming an

artifact of a bygone era. The residential patterns of city life were proving to be problematic, admitted Malcolm Macdonald in 1961 as he compared current home mission strategies with those of the past. What to do about the “great apartment structures, sometimes ten or twelve or even more stories high,” that had sprung up after the war baffled church workers. In one area of Toronto, for instance, it was estimated that 75 per cent of the 4,000 or so people living in the six Or seven apartment complexes had little or no connection with a church. Tenants were hard to contact in the first place and difficult to track once they moved. Many were still childless, and thus had no sense of urgency to affiliate with a congregation. They thought of their situation as temporary and were unwilling to make a commitment to a particular community by joining a church.*7 Rural life, usually applauded for its moral values, was changing too.®* In his role as associate secretary of E&ss, W.G. Berry was pleased to find strong and well-organized congregations in the cities

he visited in western Canada in 1949. It was in the rural districts that he spotted failing congregations, apparently unable to make the transition from the horse-and-buggy era to the automobile era. Moral issues were becoming more challenging, at least according to some parents, who told him that they thought moral awareness was easier to instill in a child in the city than in a small Prairie town. The growing “alcohol problem” was evidence of a serious moral laxity among country youth. The decline of rural communities was a dangerous trend, he cautioned, since the United Church had more congregations there than other Protestant denominations.*?

Nowhere was the widening gap between the United Church’s ideals and cultural realities more evident than in the homes of its members, microcosms as it were of the church’s troubled efforts to translate its teaching into lived experience. The Christian home was considered the critical nexus between church and community. Hugh Dobson

Calling Postwar Canada to Christ 175 summed up what was at stake in the drawn-out title of a pamphlet issued in 1940 — The Christian Family Is Essential to Democracy, to

Canadian National Life and to the Coming Kingdom of God for Which We Pray — and sternly warned: “If family life breaks down, national life will crack.”9° As the 1946 report of the Commission on Christian Marriage and Christian Home put it (apparently missing the irony of the language), the home was “the symbol of the Kingdom of God” and built on the conviction that “all men are brothers” and

that “God is the Creator-Father, and that the world of men is or should be a family, a household of faith, inspired by family loyalty."°' The 1950 report of the Commission on Culture still recommended that parents be mindful of the importance of the family in spreading Christian culture “through such means as reading the Bible aloud, singing hymns together, prayer, church fellowship and above all, by the kindliness, good temper, good manners and behaviour of the father and mother.” 9” And yet domestic Christianity was not as robust as the rhetoric about its redemptive potential made out. The report on marriage

and the home admitted that parents had been content to let the church take over responsibility for religious education, wrongly assuming that an hour of Sunday school would suffice to teach the Christian faith.?3 To make matters worse, the home itself seemed in danger of disintegration. Family dislocation, secularism, materialism, encroachment of “outside groups” (such as state services), a lower childbirth rate, and divorce were listed as threats that had left Christian family life in a precarious situation: “A generation is growing up that knows little or nothing of Christian knowledge or experience, and in the time of crisis has no invisible resources to draw upon for its salvation.” 94

One solution to the failure of the Christian home to nurture Christian beliefs was to expand the role of the church among children and youth beyond the Sunday school hour. In a bold depiction of a church intent on being at the centre of personal lives and social relationships, principal Richard Davidson pictured its authority extending far into homes and communities, usurping even the importance of the family in nurturing piety. There would have been few if any women present in 1943 at the Winnipeg retreat for ministers where he likened the church to a mother, a metaphor more familiar to Catholics than to his Protestant listeners, assigning to “her” responsibilities more commonly associated with the familial piety of

176 A Church with the Soul of a Nation the Victorian home. The family of God was the “home” of the Christian child, and the church was responsible for raising the infant member. “The Church teaches him what the Father is like and

what a child’s duties in the family are. The Church shields him from evil and cares for him at school and at play.” (How “she” did so was not elaborated.)?5 Worship was essential to raising the child: “She [the Church] knows that some of the richest memories men have in later years are of looking on at the Sacraments. She arranges and adorns the church building so that the child will feel there that he is in his Father’s house.” He stressed the effective use of architectural lines, light and shade, colour, windows, hangings, pictures, texts of Scripture, the font, the pulpit, the Communion table to convey a sense of the Father’s presence. Once the child reached manhood, the church was there to meet him “with God’s strengthening grace” by teaching him about God and duty, praying for him, confirming him, and then admitting him “to the fellowship of the Holy Sacrament.” The men who gathered for the retreat were assured that the church “loves each one of her children with the particularizing love of a mother” — indeed, its task was “mothering the children of men from the cradle to the grave.”%°

The emphasis on God as Father and the church as Mother was an expression of a liturgical theology that had practical consequences as those influenced by Davidson’s teaching at Emmanuel moved into congregations. For instance, a more liturgically proper service of baptism was less focused on the natural family. Forrest observed in 1961 that it was becoming difficult to persuade younger ministers to perform private baptisms. Instead, they expected to have the babies

and the parents “present before the whole congregation, so that vows may be made publicly and members of the congregation will realize they have a responsibility too.”97 It was also more challenging to schedule a Sunday morning baptism at a convenient time, especially for relatives travelling some distance. The escalating number

of mixed marriages further complicated the details of performing a baptism, especially in the days before Vatican II. For a variety of reasons, the number of baptisms was declining in the 1950s even though church membership was on the rise. For many migrants to the larger cities who were experiencing the loss of old ties to family and friends, the church provided artificial forms of kinship and a semblance of community — though perhaps

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Uncoupling Christianity and Culture in Canada Original sin of institutions: priests may pray for guidance with utter sincerity, but what they are unconsciously praying for is the continuance of the social ascendancy of their Church. Northrop Frye, “Notebook” rre [56]

As the retiring United Church moderator stepped forward to give his final address, few of those assembled for the 1962 General Council were expecting a speech that would make headlines the next morn-

ing. The Rev. Hugh A. McLeod had been introduced to delegates two years earlier as the “quiet and highly respected minister” of Winnipeg’s Knox United Church — more of a “highland mystic” than

an agitator. Yet reputedly where he stood was always clear if he thought it necessary to take a side." On this occasion, there would be no doubt about his views on immigration trends.* The nation’s future would be in peril, he predicted, if immigration continued “overwhelmingly as in the past ten years to make Canada predominantly Roman Catholic.” McLeod tried to explain that his objections were not personal — the immigrants themselves were praiseworthy. Their church, however, was another matter entirely. Insisting that Catholicism favoured “the establishment of a monolithic infallible authority under Rome”

(and rejecting the notion that Canadian Catholics believed otherwise), he feared that their growing numbers heralded “the end of liberty as we have known it.” Democracy was “very vulnerable to infiltration,” he cautioned, for political parties wanted to win votes and the press wanted to increase circulation. “By reason of our vaunted tolerance we are in danger of losing our freedom by default.”

Uncoupling Christianity and Culture in Canada 197 Although aware that the Second Vatican Council was to get underway in a few weeks, he dismissed the optimism of those who hoped for a different kind of Catholicism.3

Given the prevailing assumptions about the role of organized religion in society, McLeod had good reason to be uneasy about the rising number of Catholics: more members, it was supposed, would translate into more political influence for a church’s leaders. However, what McLeod and other leaders failed at first to appreciate was the extent to which the public role of both Protestant and Catholic churches was shifting. Faced with the prospect of conflicts generated by religious pluralism, Canada and other western countries ventured to promote solely secular values to provide cultural cohesion — among them the tolerance, liberty, and democracy that McLeod had proudly promoted as distinctively Protestant ideals. With the demise of Christendom that this move signalled, churches were to find their influence in key social and cultural areas more limited than in the past.

An examination of issues of the semi-monthly Observer following McLeod’s speech illustrates some of the complexities of the United

Church’s relationship with the Catholic Church at that pivotal moment. The magazine was quick to defend McLeod against the critical press coverage that his controversial remarks drew. The comments on immigration had been taken out of context, explained the Observer, insisting that the address had been well received by those who heard it.4 A.C. Forrest, editor of the Observer (and still dealing with the fallout as the next issue went to press), declared the super-

ficiality of the secular media startling and claimed that little notice had been given to the steps the United Church was taking to deal constructively with Canada’s rapidly changing religious configuration. He drew attention to two commissions that the United Church’s recent General Council had set up to study the related issues of immigration and religion in the public schools.5 By happenstance a miniature photo of Pope John XXIII, inserted to publicize the cover story for an article in the next issue of the Observer, appeared just a few pages away from Forrest’s attempt to

deal with criticism of the former moderator.° The situation was further exacerbated by what readers saw when that issue arrived two weeks later: an attractive picture of the pope graced the cover

and inside was a reprint of an article by a prominent American

198 A Church with the Soul of a Nation theologian, Robert McAfee Brown, who attended Vatican Council as a Protestant observer. Readers learned that the idea for convening a council had come to the pope during a period “devoted to prayers for the re-union of Christendom.” It is unlikely that those Protestants who feared Catholic domination were placated by the disclosure that the pope sought to show the world how the Catholic Church was facing its internal problems in hopes of welcoming back to the fold “other sheep” that had “strayed.”7

Forrest was shrewd enough to anticipate the furor the picture would create. He assured readers that the cover story had been planned for some time to mark the opening of the Vatican Council. “Just in case some think that we decided to put His Holiness on the

cover as a public relations gesture after all the recent bad press, please be assured we don’t scare that easily.”® His attempt at humour

did little to soften reader response: almost all the correspondence published in “Letters to the Editor” was negative — and that was just

a sampling. One angry, unsigned, and unprinted note was blunt: “Your Observer just came. I am returning it as I am a Protestant, and feel I shouldn’t have to be staring at the Pope’s picture from a church paper, that I understood was Protestant. | don’t want it in my home.”? At the same time, to Forrest’s dismay, word came of a request for more government support for Catholic separate schools in Ontario, a proposal that he knew was bound to open old wounds and spark new controversy. “Not This!” shouted the editorial headline, with the body of the editorial denouncing the bishops’ request, calling it “political dynamite.” '°

There was reason for Protestants to be apprehensive about the population patterns. Postwar immigration had made for a reli-

giously plural mix, with Protestant numbers increasingly in the minority. After years of restrictions, the resumption of admissions

brought refugees and other immigrants, and showed a definite trend: more continental European immigrants meant more Catholics outside Quebec, an unsettling demographic fact that further undermined the notion of “British Canada.” It did not help mat-

ters that Catholics were said to be smugly aware that the recent census showed them at 46 per cent of the population — and growing. “We Will Bury You with Babies” was the title of an article in a Catholic magazine that turned the old revenge of the cradle into an attack on the United Church’s position on artificial birth

control."

Uncoupling Christianity and Culture in Canada 199

The United Church was of two minds where immigration was concerned. Its International Affairs committee supported a “vigorous and well directed immigration policy” to attract people to Canada from all regions of the world. It recommended that Canada

accept “at least a token number from the Orient, India, The [sic] British West Indies and Africa,” '* including a “fair share of the ‘Hard Core’ in refugee camps, at the rate that this country can successfully integrate them.” '} The committee was fully aware that a more open immigration policy would complicate social integration, especially at a time when Anglo-Saxon culture was disappearing as a source of

common values. Making the case for admitting immigrants from places beyond the UK and Europe, one International Affairs report stated the problem candidly: “There is the dilemma between the need to open up empty lands by immigration and the desire to restrict immigration only to the assimilable — had the Indians been able to enforce such a policy of assimilable immigration they would have been around still!”'+ The committee denounced Canada’s immigration laws as a “brand of apartheid” because they were based on racial discrimination.'5 The tone of its reports was still pro-immigration in 1962 as the country awaited details of a new immigration policy that would benefit chiefly Asians, Africans, and those from countries in the Middle East.*®

The response of the Board of Home Missions was more reserved, reflecting perhaps the mixed results of the United Church’s outreach programs to immigrants under its auspices, especially in urban areas.'7 Statistics confirmed what many suspected: the United Church

had kept pace with other Protestant churches, but lost ground to Catholicism even outside Quebec due to lower fertility rates and higher numbers of Catholic immigrants.'® Home Missions secretary Malcolm Macdonald reported in 1961 that of the 106,928 persons

admitted into Canada during the previous two years, only 33,235 were Protestants. The most dramatic change was in Toronto, then Canada’s second-largest city and long considered its Protestant centre. Projections showed that the city would be predominantly Roman

Catholic by 1980. It was already losing what he called its AngloSaxon Protestant stock to the suburbs (still mainly Protestant), “while Roman Catholic Non-Anglo-Saxons concentrate in the city proper and replace old church constituencies that were Protestant for decades.” '? Protestants and Catholics in Toronto were soon to be joined by significant numbers of new Canadians who were neither.

200 A Church with the Soul of a Nation The year 1962 was arguably a tipping point for both the United Church and Canada. A reckoning with religious and cultural plural-

ism was inescapable, for by then, it was apparent that Quebec’s Quiet Revolution was dramatically altering the role of the Catholic

Church and its vision for a Christian society in that province.*° Outside Quebec another revolution, just as momentous, was underway. Among its casualties was the cultural role in nation-building ascribed to the major Protestant churches. With the search for a new collective identity for Canada would come the realization that religion was as much a hindrance as a help in that enterprise: no longer could Christianity be harnessed as a unifying force in a religiously diverse Canada. Evident at the General Council that year was what the Observer described as a liberalizing trend. Delegates had affirmed the controversial position on remarriage taken two years earlier by accepting broader grounds for divorce, recommended that birth control information be provided to married couples, rejected a call for a censorship board, and acknowledged “the increasing prestige of gainfully employed women” (more commonly known as working women).

The call for laws against gambling; restrictions on production, advertising, and sale of beverage alcohol; and protection of the Christian Sunday were more muted than in the past, replaced by calls for “self-discipline of the members in faith and practice.”*? A ten-year process of restructuring was set in motion with the first re-

port of the Long Range Planning Committee, whose task was to answer the question: What is the purpose of the church and the nature of a congregation?** A commission was formed to study how the United Church could “best share in the World Mission of the Church.”*3 A new organization for women, United Church Women (UCW), was celebrated as a merger of the WMS and the wa.

Publication of The Word and the Way for adult education marked the arrival of the New Curriculum. And it was at the 1962 General Council that the indomitable J.R. Mutchmor was elected on the first ballot as the next moderator. Mutchmor promised to make evangelism his priority during his two-year term as moderator by targeting the 1 million persons who had recently told census-takers that they belonged to the United Church but were never seen there. He implored the church to think of these no-shows as “a fringe to be cultivated, not cut off.”?4 This was likely a reference to changes to the United Church’s membership

Uncoupling Christianity and Culture in Canada 201

policy being considered at the time. In 1956 a Committee on Membership, chaired by Donald Mathers of Queen’s Theological College, had been appointed to clear up some problems that had surfaced in recent years. Church records had not kept pace with postwar mobility and church growth in the 1950s. The committee’s interim report had already been presented to the previous General Council and then discussed at most presbyteries, where it generated “a considerable volume of comment and suggestion.”*5 By 1962 the committee’s final report was ready.

Compared with the many other contentious matters before the General Council that year, the membership issue was a sleeper. The recommendations seemed innocuous. The only item that drew any real attention simply encouraged congregations to enforce an already existing provision in the Manual that authorized the removal from its roll of the names of members who “without reasonable excuse” had been absent from public worship and Communion in their local church for three years (or some other period determined by the session).*° There was no need for a person to make a formal request to have their name removed from the membership roll.*7 It was a solution to a practical problem of church discipline that perhaps had unintended consequences, as congregations followed this directive and purged their membership rolls over the next few years. One wonders how many commissioners took note of the bold new introduction to the final report, which set the practical recommen-

dations for church membership in a theological framework that divulged the precarious condition of Christendom in Canada and offered a frank theological assessment of what was in store. A year earlier Mathers had offered a group of United Church leaders a preview of what his committee members saw on the horizon. Speaking

to representatives of two key boards (Christian Education and E&SS), he warned that the Constantinian Era, a period of more than a thousand years when “Christian standards were accepted by all as the normal and natural basis of public life,” was coming to an end.

He mused that the United Church might overestimate its political and social influence in its attempts to adapt to the end of the era and be tempted to take stands on issues that would lead to humiliating defeat, weakening whatever influence it still held.*® He also cau-

tioned that the end of Christian civilization meant that the public school system could no longer be counted on to provide effective religious instruction, making it all the more important for the church

202 A Church with the Soul of a Nation to develop its own educational resources.*? As author of The Word and the Way, the adult study book for the New Curriculum, Mathers himself was already deeply involved in one such initiative. The seriousness of the new situation was set out in response to an obvious question (given the rather mundane subject matter of the report and a booklet based on it that was being prepared for congregational discussion): Why study church membership? “We have become aware of a great change in relations between church and world,” was the reply. The report announced the end of Christendom

in Canada with its blunt assertion that “the Middle Ages have fnally come to an end.” Living in a religiously plural society, where one no longer needed to be a church member in order to be a good citizen, would soon mean making a clear distinction between church membership and citizenship. The report predicted that the United Church was about to enter a new and different age. It would con-

tinue to “seek to serve society” as in the past; however, church membership would no longer be considered “the religious aspect of citizenship,” and Christians would no longer be expected to accept the “standards of good citizenship uncritically from the state.” This new freedom was cause for celebration, according to the report, for Christianity was awakening from “the comfortable slumber of a thousand years of European domesticity” and could now embrace its “world mission” more fully.3° Although other United Church leaders were soon to take the notion of a new world mis-

sion much further, Mathers and his committee laid some of the early theological groundwork. The end of Christendom in Canada, as elsewhere, meant that religion was soon less visibly present in everyday life. The quest for secular alternatives to the guiding principles of Christian civilization raised a host of new questions. What did it mean to be a Christian citizen if the notion of Christian civilization no longer had currency? Were churches whose mission had been construed in those terms rendered useless? What was the role for the church in community life if Christian values were separate trom civic values, rather than their source? If religion divided opinion when it entered the public arena, should it simply be kept out? Politicians and pundits were quietly asking those same questions as they pondered the new exigencies of postwar Canada. It had long been presumed in the West that religion had a part to play in civilizing society. The close ties between Christianity and culture had

Uncoupling Christianity and Culture in Canada 203 survived the division of medieval Christendom after the reformations of the sixteenth century; in and beyond Europe, religion continued to shape the identity of nation-states. As he studied Canadian society in the 1940s, sociologist $.D. Clark identified the close relationship of church and community as an important feature of nationalism in the western world. One of “the fullest expressions” of that association,

he claimed, was “found in one of our own churches, the United Church of Canada.”3' That connection still appeared to be intact as Canada faced the uncertainties of the nuclear age; in public, at least, political leaders

applauded the church’s civic contributions.3* The International Affairs committee began its 1952 report to the General Council with

testimonials from three United Church Members of Parliament. Leading off was Lester Pearson, who urged the United Church to take a greater interest in Canada’s foreign policy. He assured the church that its attentiveness to international issues was helping “to ensure that Christian principles and endeavour are directed to the task of promoting a just and peaceful world order.”33 His words would have had a familiar ring to those raised, as he was, in homes and churches imbued with the missionary spirit of Christian internationalism. The United Church exuded a sense of its own importance.

Meetings with prominent politicians and civil servants such as Pearson and Paul Martin occurred frequently; likewise, collaboration with other church bodies (notably the wcc) and consultations with scientists and other academics in preparing of recommendations were common.?4+ When the Learned Societies met in Ottawa in 1957, the United Church moderator presided at a meeting of church

leaders and scientists.45 And it was a service in Sydenham Street United Church in Kingston that Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip attended during their 1959 royal visit to Canada.

Pearson’s addresses in the early r950s reflected the customary assumption of Christianity’s influence. His installation address as chancellor of Victoria University challenged the school to give its students “a faith, a sense of mission, and understanding of social and moral values.” Education, “especially at a university such as ours” (perhaps a reference to its standing as a denominational college of the United Church) “must be based on a belief in something deeper

and higher than oneself, whatever it may be called; on Christian morality, as a basis for the individual and for society.”3° His public

roles sometimes called for him to speak from pulpits where his

204 A Church with the Soul of a Nation Methodist father or grandfather had preached. In what he later de-

scribed as the nearest he came to giving a religious address, he offered his listeners counsel with Christian overtones: “Today, it is true, we live in fear and tension and under the awful shadow of a nuclear cloud. But if each of us remains true to those Christian ideals and Christian principles, which provide an answer to every question, a solution to every problem, we have no cause for despair.” 37 Particularly vexing was that implementing some of the progressive social and cultural initiatives associated with those ideals and principles seemed to erode the customary relationship between church and community in Canada and elsewhere. In Victorian times governments had shown little interest in providing social services, leaving it up to individuals to help themselves or to seek help from a benevolent organization, often under the auspices of a church.3® In their attempts to meet the public demands of Victorian society, argues historian Jeffrey Cox, the Non-Conformist churches in Britain (the denominational counterparts of the United Church’s founding traditions) idealistically claimed responsibility for education, poverty relief, entertainment, character development, and social cohesion. In time, as their inability to meet expectations became evident, they were happy to turn these tasks over to specialized institutions. But in doing so their own world view, and their role as regenerators in it, disintegrated; the next generation was less convinced of the power of the church’s influence. Cox describes what followed in the interwar period as a “sort of retreat into the church,” with a shift of emphasis from serving to belonging.3? Cox pinpoints more specifically what some have referred to variously as the impact of secularization, secularism, urbanization, industrialization, and materialism: churches were “hit all at once by the emergence of new philanthropic, administrative, and educational bureaucracies which destroyed their claims to social utility, by a changing age structure, and by a generational revolt.” In order to gain an advantage in their bid to influence Victorian society, they had invested in philanthropic work. Now, with the dismantling of

that philanthropic work, they became irrelevant: they were “left with little to do and even less to say, since ‘church work’ had been a central justification for their existence.”+° In Britain, the expansion of government into education and social services during the interwar years was, as historian Frank Prochaska

Uncoupling Christianity and Culture in Canada 205

sees it, “both the cause and effect of Christian decline.” Ceding responsibility for social well-being to the government “reflected a

social and cultural transformation that had repercussions for Christianity that were arguably as great as any since the eighteenthcentury religious revival.” Although at least some of the impetus was connected to war and reconstruction (and thus, he concedes, beyond the churches’ control), he poignantly pictures church leaders participating in their own demise by calling for more government invest-

ment in social welfare: “The bishops blew out the candles to see better in the dark.” 4! The situation of the United Church was strikingly similar, and the impact on its social services (and the volunteerism of the Christian citizens who supported them) was likewise protound.** By the 1940s

its boarding schools were closing because there were too few residents.43 The prospect that Canada would have thousands of new immigrants once the war was over, with their children filling the schools, delayed dealing with a situation already described in 1944 as a crisis.44 By the end of the 1950s, it was clear that boarding schools were headed for obsolescence, school buses and rural school consolidation making it possible for more children to attend school while living at home.*5 Hospitals operated by the United Church were undergoing a simi-

lar transition. Church union had brought together the medical mis-

sions of the Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church, a number of them operated by the wMs. The Board of Home Missions and the wMs shared oversight of hospitals that were set up to serve indigenous peoples and immigrants in sparsely populated districts where there was no other provision for medical care.4®° Hundreds of doctors and nurses saw this as an expression of practical Christianity that paralleled overseas missionary service. Longest serving among them was Morley A.R. Young, whose career at the Lamont, Alberta,

hospital between 1922 and 1977 included such distinctions as a term as president of the Canadian Medical Association.47 Rising health-care costs and shifting demographics made this form

of Christian service less feasible. Better means of transportation meant that even those who lived in rural areas had access to a wider range of medical services than church hospitals could provide, especially with more generous government funding of municipal hosp1tals. The wMS realized by 1954 that hospital work was in transition and asked the Commission on Church Hospitals that year if it was

206 A Church with the Soul of a Nation time to withdraw these services now that the government was taking responsibility for caring for the sick.4* The commission’s first report (1956) noted that in the past, hospital work had served an important

social purpose. It reiterated the findings of an earlier survey that medical missions in “Non-Anglo-Saxon districts” was of “special value in breaking down natural barriers of prejudice and suspicion and in securing a better mutual understanding and in promoting good fellowship among the various racial groups.”4? But the vulnerability of medical missions was evident in its second report two years later. Of the twenty-four facilities in operation before the war, only eleven remained; six were operated by the Board of Home Missions

and five by the wMs. It noted an ironic consequence of the new government-funded hospital insurance plans: although the grants had reduced the church’s outlay in some areas, the rising costs of

maintaining modern standards of hospital care meant that the church could expect larger capital expenditures in the future.5° As the United Church withdrew from medical ministries, its hospitals were sold to municipalities or, in some cases, Catholic charities.

A benevolent state with the power to tax was covering more and more of the escalating costs of education, health care, and other social programs. Secular standards of social work made religious social service appear outdated and redundant, and its past contributions to the community were quickly forgotten.5* It was difficult to object to better-funded government initiatives — after all, the United Church had lobbied for them! Yet the church’s place in society was subtly transformed once it relinquished responsibilities that had made its presence visible in many communities. Friendly service to the nation had been central to the case for church union. Its congregations, once considered centres of community activity, suddenly had less to do — and in any case, with more women working outside the home, not as much volunteer time available. There were fewer and fewer church-related institutions to oversee. And for church members, there was not as much to lose by flouting the church’s moral authority; they now relied instead on the state for social services.

Meanwhile, the state was emerging as a formidable rival in other vital areas of Canadian life. By 1949 the threat of American ascendancy in mass culture, competing claims about who was to control the broadcast media, and a crisis in university funding were serious enough issues to persuade the Liberal government to appoint a

Uncoupling Christianity and Culture in Canada Rog commission to address them.>* The findings of the Royal Commission

on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences (more often dubbed the Culture Commission or the Massey Commission, in recognition of Vincent Massey’s role as chair) went far beyond the mandate suggested by its name. It implicitly endorsed Massey’s own view of culture as a political rather than moral force, and presented a compelling case for state support of culture as a means of promoting national identity.

As a young man, Massey had been an active member of the Methodist Church, a delegate at the Edinburgh Conference in 1910, and a participant in congregational and denominational affairs. But his church’s attitude to culture was fraught with contradiction, as historian Karen Finlay’s study of Massey notes: support-

ive of educational institutions on the one hand, but frowning on visual arts and the theatre, to which Massey found himself drawn.53 Shortly after his father’s death in 1926, Massey became an Anglican,

and criticism of “Puritan” attitudes toward the arts and contempt

for their use as moral propaganda cropped up in his writings around the same time. After diplomatic postings in the United States and Britain, Massey returned to Canada in 1946 convinced, says Finlay, of the peril that Canada faced from the escalation of American imperialism.54 The Massey Report offered a defensive strategy based on the interlocking connections it presumed between

citizenship, national sovereignty, and culture (notably the arts, sciences, and education). The United Church was one of three churches invited to present a brief to the commission.55 All underscored the importance of religious broadcasting on CBC radio and television to communicate the Christian message.5° Some of the United Church’s theologians had at first frowned on religious broadcasting as a “menace,”57 but most had since come to see its opportunities, especially after witnessing

the adroitness of conservative preachers who disseminated their teachings on radio programs originating in the United States. The United Church was among the early supporters of public broadcasting, and provided material for the cBc’s religious programming.°>° It no doubt hoped that the Massey Commission’s work would elevate the tone of Canadian culture and defend it from American domina-

tion. For its part, the commission perhaps considered the United Church a useful ally, given its customary antipathy to popular entertainment as “pagan” (or at least American) in tone.

208 A Church with the Soul of a Nation Canada’s churches still wanted and expected a voice in the cultural affairs of the nation. However, the report’s bold call for govern-

ment funding of cultural activities gradually relieved them of their responsibility to sponsor literary work, education, and the performing arts. Instead the Massey Commission created an expectation in the public mind that the government was responsible for developing

and funding a cultural policy for Canada; this was its greatest achievement, concludes historian Paul Litt.5? And so the state joined technology and mass culture in competing with the churches for the

time and attention of the Christian citizen.°° It was hardly a fair contest, for federal and provincial governments had more means (taxes) and greater access to contemporary methods (such as more direct use of media) for shaping the hearts and minds of Canadians.

The impact of its recommendations was to silently chip away at Christianity’s contribution to national distinctiveness by creating the

impression that Canadian culture was itself a sufficient source of national identity. This new departure was later cause for concern for at least one of the five commissioners.°! Hilda Neatby was a professor of history at the University of Saskatchewan and a staunch Presbyterian. While she saw Canada as “formally a Christian country,” with the vast ma-

jority of its people affiliated with a church, she was uneasy about the tension between Christianity’s message of sin and salvation, on the

one hand, and the belief that human striving alone was sufficient. There was a great deal at stake in her view: “It is impossible to say whether a culture can develop without being centred in a religious faith of some sort; it is a fact that such a thing never has happened.” °*

One of a number of prominent Canadians asked in 1957 whether there was a religious revival underway, Neatby expressed her misgivings by critiquing a CBC religious program produced by the National Religious Advisory Council. Within this program the hymn “Praise,

My Soul, the King of Heaven” had been followed by a reading that included the words “man on earth has no one to help him but man.” Her assessment was scathing: “When popular ‘Christian’ national programmes combine purely pagan teaching with profoundly Christian hymns, without, apparently, any sense of irreverence or even of logical inconsistency, it is impossible not to fear that the apparent signs of religious revival may dissolve into the purely sentimental and archaic, or develop into a religious movement, powerful, but not Christian.”°3

Uncoupling Christianity and Culture in Canada 209 The publication of the Massey Report in 1951 was to become a landmark in Canadian history. It coincided with new cultural initiatives that included the National Ballet of Canada, Stratford Festival, and cBc’s telecast of Hockey Night in Canada.*4 After his appointment in 1952 as the first Canadian-born governor general, Massey used his influence, along with his close ties to the Liberal govern-

ment, to promote the report’s recommendations. In combination with other initiatives — abolishing the right of Canadians to appeal to the British Privy Council in 1949, letting the term ‘Dominion’ fall out of usage, and defining what it meant to be Canadian in terms of

certain social programs to which all citizens of the country were entitled — it recommended measures that had the effect of downplaying British identity. For anglophones, says political scientist Kenneth

McRoberts, it thus fostered “a new conception of a Canadian nationality, directly attached to the Canadian state and unmediated by any previous identity.” °5

However, tampering with national identity appears to have raised hackles in Quebec, where the Massey Report was considered an attack on its prerogatives. McRoberts argues that premier Maurice Duplessis saw it as a challenge to the notion of Canada’s dual nationality. In 1956, Duplessis called his own Royal Commission of Inquiry on Constitutional Problems. The Tremblay Report reaffirmed Quebec as a Catholic society, but told the story of Confederation the way the separatists were to tell it a few years later, as a compact between two peoples, rather than a political pact between the provinces. Quebec also resisted Ottawa’s efforts to knit the country together by declining to participate in a number of national social programs that in-

volved cost-sharing with the federal government.°° Government policies after the death of Duplessis in 1959 and of his successor, Paul Sauvé, a year later triggered a series of events that saw Jean Lesage’s Liberal party successfully campaigning in 1960 to become “masters in our own house.” The Massey model of national unity was on a collision course not only with Christian culture but also with Quebec’s aspirations for autonomy.°7

By 1962 the precariousness of the situation was evident to Pearson.

That year, as leader of the opposition, he delivered what he considered one of his most important speeches before the House of Commons. Warning of a divided Canada, he mused that most English-speaking Canadians considered protecting French language

om Ke A Church with the Soul of a Nation and culture a commitment that pertained only to Parliament, federal courts, and the province of Quebec itself. They assumed that “for all practical purposes, there would be an English-speaking Canada with a bilingual Quebec: What is called the ‘French fact’ was to be provincial only.” However, francophones in Quebec saw Canada as an equal partnership between two founding races, and presumed protection of their language and culture across Canada. This fundamental difference over the meaning of Confederation had been obscured by what Pearson described as a bicultural coexistence, with English as the language of communication when the two came into occasional contact.°* It was clear to Pearson that the people of Quebec were determined to control their own economic and cultural affairs, a situation that he likened to shock treatment for the rest of Canada. Hinting at the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism that he would call once he became prime minister the following year, he predicted that an inquiry would “show the importance of the contribution of

our new Canadians other than the founding races, a contribution which has been of special and indeed exciting value since World War II.”°? What was nicknamed the “B& B Commission” was to go even further in redefining how Canadians thought of themselves as a peo-

ple. The old notion of two races — and their tacit association with two faiths — no longer fit the new social reality of Canadian life. What historian Ramsay Cook found most striking about the final report was that “in some 140 pages religion was barely mentioned,” an omission that he guessed would not have been possible even ten years earlier. He was prepared to “state categorically that at no time before 1945 would it have been possible for a survey of FrenchEnglish relations to have been written without devoting a very considerable amount of space to religious differences.”7° Although the United Church may have been disappointed at that outcome, its own experience of preparing for its hearing before the B&B Commission showed why the commissioners preferred to steer clear of the subject. Constitutional expert Eugene Forsey agreed

to serve as chair of the group that prepared the brief. Born in Newfoundland, he had spent most of his years in Quebec, and was an active member of one of the United Church’s French-language congregations. He was in a unique position to address the commission’s terms of reference (which his committee believed to be too narrow) and set out to convince the commission to “consider the

Uncoupling Christianity and Culture in Canada 211 suggestion that the situation in Canada is wider than biculturalism and extends to multi-culturalism.”7! “We are not happy with the term ‘founding races,” the United Church brief stated, noting that it was not a good translation into English of the French word peuples. Moreover, the reference to founding races might give the unintended and offensive impression of British or French superiority (sec. 21). To underscore the point,

the brief made a pointed reference to “the contribution of the Indians and Eskimos, who were here before any of us, and who might well dispute the claim of French and British to the title ‘founding peoples’” (sec. 47). The brief also reminded the commission of the United Church’s long-standing concern for the school-

ing of Protestant children in Quebec and other predominantly French areas of Canada, and pressed the point that “French” schools should not be assumed to be “Catholic” schools. It urged the provision of French public schools in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada (sec. 53-64). The United Church’s brief exuded the more open and tolerant spirit that had captured the imagination of many Canadians, especially new immigrants or those growing up after the war, who had never thought of themselves as British. However, there was more going on behind the scenes. Some of the United Church’s own mem-

bers were reluctant to let go of the old animosities between English/Protestant and French/Catholic. Hostility toward francophones and dismay over the federal government’s failure to prevent Quebec from ‘controlling’ Canada filled their correspondence. Typical of such sentiments was a letter to Mutchmor from Alexander Smith of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. He derided the aim of Canadian unity as an excuse “to give the French whatever they want — turn us into half Frenchmen — a new mongrel sort of breed which will always acquiesce with the French, IE |[i.e.], the Roman Church in any

demands.” It seemed to him that Canada was being asked to join Quebec, rather than the other way around. Although Wolfe had won at the Plains of Abraham, “our Religionists are well on the way to

hand the country back without a fight to the Roman Catholic Church personified in the French Minority in Canada.” The only solution was for Quebec to separate completely: “then we will have an English speaking non denominational [sic] country free from Roman Catholic influence. Whether now or later it must come in the interests of the whole of this country.”7*

212. A Church with the Soul of a Nation B. Doerksen from Regina, Saskatchewan, uttered similar sentiments: “we can see no room for bilingualism of any type. Having failed miserably to keep Canada British, we now face the prospect of keeping it English-speaking at least.” He was certain that “Quebec

punks are itching for a bloody revolution,” and supposed that Canadians would have to ask the UK “to help us defeat the French a second time.” If that proved unsuccessful, he speculated “Canadians may well ask Uncle Sam to come in and liberate us from the French Romans.” The writer held Pearson responsible. With a Cabinet “half

full of Frenchmen or Roman Catholics or both,” Quebec had him “exactly where they want him — over a barrel.”73 A copy of a circular letter, signed by a man from Ottawa, claimed that a French minority

was attempting to “pack our Civil Service with French nationalists, to monopolize the voice, ears, eyes and legal system of Government by controlling radio, television, printing bureau, film board, Dept. of State, the Mint, and also the foreign service and Public Works, the last being the great pot of gold useful for purposes of patronage.” The flag, the national anthem, and the public school would be next, the letter warned. The writer was angry at the inference that only the French were “Canadian” and concerned that others could claim “no roots,” for they had been destroyed by subversive methods “conceived and well planned in the Province of Quebec.” The letter ended with the ominous words: “It is later than you think.” 74 Forsey no doubt considered such sentiments extreme, but a trip to

Banff to attend a conference on Canadian unity opened his eyes to equally disturbing views circulating among francophones. Growing up in Quebec, he was familiar with the old revenge of the cradle version of Quebec nationalism that dreamed of New Brunswick becoming a predominantly French province, and of spreading across eastern

and northern Ontario and encircling the English in southern Ontario.”5 The new brand of nationalism was more alarming. Forsey

admitted to United Church general secretary Ernest Long that the meeting had been a “searing experience” that left him “a good deal less enthusiastic about the whole business than I was.” The three prominent French-Canadian academics who had spoken -— selfdescribed moderates — were, as he put it bluntly, “insane.” If they spoke for Quebec, the future for Canada looked grim: the “jig is up,” he predicted. He fumed that “not one English Canadian in a thousand would tolerate for thirty seconds” what they were demanding: a new constitution, an “Austro-Hungarian” style of dual government,

Uncoupling Christianity and Culture in Canada 7H be!

and the adoption of French “as a working language” across Canada

(and if “extremists” took over, the terms would be even worse). Lest Long think he was exaggerating, he added, such views were available in print.7°

Forsey repeated his concerns to J. Ralph Watson, secretary of Montreal Presbytery and a member of the group that had prepared the United Church’s brief, and described himself as “plunged in gloom” by the remarks of the three “quite crazy” professors from Quebec. “I did tell them plainly that if this is what French Canada really wanted, then I thought the reply of English Canada would be, ‘In God’s name, go!” He confided, “Personally I would sooner have two completely separate states than the sort of associate state monstrosity these gentry intimated was the only alternative.”7”7 Forsey

wondered at the time if his protest to what he had heard at Banff had been forceful enough, but some thought he had gone too far. Reminiscing about the conference in his memoirs years later, he recalled that he was considered an Anglo-Saxon bigot. Most of the English-speaking delegates “were so anxious to show themselves kind, conciliatory, broad-minded, and penitent that they were prepared to agree to almost anything, however impracticable, absurd, or destructive.”7°

With a month to go before he was to present the church’s brief to

the Royal Commission, Forsey summed up the dilemma facing Canada and its largest Protestant church as he saw it: “Once our brief has gone into the Royal Commission, the subject may become a pretty hot one in the United Church, for I am rather afraid that a

large part of our membership will go into orbit at what they will regard as too many concessions to French Canada. At the same time, a great many French Canadians may dismiss the whole thing as mere crumbs; but this reaction is of less immediate importance to us.”79

The conciliatory tone of the United Church’s brief hinted that a change in its relationship to the Catholic Church was in the offing. Dominican priest Philip LeBlanc was likely right in conjecturing that the United Church’s presentation to the B& B Commission was “in striking contrast” to what would have been said a decade earlier.®°

But that was in part because the situation of the Catholic Church was changing too — both in Canada and internationally. Facing similar challenges, the two were discovering commonalities that had been ignored when pamphlets like What’s the Difference? focused on dissimilarities. Vatican II was still in session as the B&B

214 A Church with the Soul of a Nation Commission wrapped up its hearings in 1965 and issued a preliminary report*! that signalled to Canada’s churches that the political calculations that had inspired the notion of the revenge of the cradle for Catholicism and the movement for a united Protestantism had suddenly changed. The B&B Commission showed even less interest than Massey’s in harnessing Christianity as a cultural force. A Protestant Canada outside Quebec was not the aim of those promoting a bicultural Canada, and a Christian Canada was a contradiction in terms for those who fully embraced multiculturalism. Instead, bilingual/bicultural (and later multicultural) became the Canadian mantra. Christianity — in both its Catholic and Protestant expressions — was left out of the new formula for creating national identity. The state looked to its

own social and cultural programs rather than to the churches to provide the new glue to make the Canadian mosaic. By the time the commission’s work was completed, the Pearson government had already proposed a new Canadian flag to replace the Red Ensign, strengthened national social programs, and launched plans for the country’s Centennial celebrations in 1967. If the B& B Commission needed a reminder of the political complications of religious differences, they had only to follow the latest round

of an old controversy that had erupted in Ontario over the place of religion in public schools. Growing up in a country that still thought of itself as Christian, one did not have to be raised by devout Christian

parents or attend church to be exposed to at least a modicum of Christianity. Many public schools taught the rudiments of the Christian faith through daily prayers and Bible readings. Except in provinces where public funding of Catholic separate schools was constitutionally permitted, and in Newfoundland where public schools

operated on a denominational basis, religious instruction in public schools was non-sectarian, that is, non-denominational.** From its inception the United Church had considered the school a

critical link in connecting faith and community life. Its ambitious postwar agenda included promoting religion instruction in the curriculum of Canadian schools wherever provincial regulations permitted it. Religion could not be separated from culture, argued C.E. Silcox, commending the work of R.C. Chalmers and the Commission on Culture that had prepared the brief for the Massey Commission: “to ignore or pretend to ignore the significance of the relationship is

Uncoupling Christianity and Culture in Canada as not only tragic, but, if persisted in, will prove suicidal.” Nor could religion be segregated from education by leaving it to the home and

the church, “no matter what the secularists say.”*3 The public schools of Ontario, the United Church’s demographic centre, were of particular concern. Troubled by evidence that “a growingly large proportion of children are receiving no religious training in the home, and that many do not have even that wholly inadequate modicum of religious influence — one hour a week at Sunday school,” Alfred Gandier and other church union supporters had advocated more religious education in

public schools. Community well-being was at stake, for religion’s primary purpose was “not restricted to the individual soul. Character as well as knowledge is essential to good citizenship, and stable moral character has its roots in religion.” Hence, given the public consequences of failing to provide religious education, a “Christian state,

the organized government of a Christian people,” could not ignore the problem. Gandier was undeterred by the argument that not everyone wanted religious education in the schools, retorting that “no self-respecting community can allow a small minority to turn it aside from what the majority believe vital to the well-being, not only of their children, but of the community and the country.” Canada was a Christian country, and as such, its people had the right to have their children “educated daily in the great facts and distinctive teachings of the Christian religion.” *4

Gandier was part of a movement that historians R.D. Gidney and W.P.J. Millar see as forming in the 1920s and culminating in legislation introduced by Premier George Drew in 1944, which gave instruction in a non-denominational Protestant form of Christianity an even larger place in the Ontario public school curricu-

lum.°5 The Royal Commission on Education in Ontario (Hope Commission) that reported in 1950 gave further encouragement to

those who pictured the school co-operating with the home and church in a child’s religious training.°®° The United Church was among the denominations that seized this new opportunity. An Observer article described a visit to a school in Lambeth, Ontario, in the mid-1950s, where Allen Duffield, a United Church minister with degrees in both theology and education, was in charge of reli-

gious instruction of students from kindergarten through grade eight. Since Duffield was the only minister residing in the small community, there was little opposition to his involvement: all the

216 A Church with the Soul of a Nation students participated, and all the teachers helped with the preparations.®7 In other schools, classes were taught by United Church teachers who had taken courses in religion as part of their training. However, more needed to be done, according to George Pidgeon. In 1955 he urged the United Church to “lead in giving Divine Truth a new place in the mind of the nation.” Although the door to the public school was open, whether or not to step in had largely been left to personal or local initiatives, and in many communities the work was left undone or was undertaken by “sectarian groups who have their own axes to grind.”®* There was little coordination either denominationally or ecumenically.

While the United Church prepared to coordinate religious instruction, the realities of dealing with postwar pluralism — and the anticipation of even greater diversity in the future with changes

to Canada’s immigration policy — eroded support for its nondenominational approach. Opposition to religious instruction became more vocal. According to the Observer, the non-Christian reaction was “much harsher than ever expected.”*? Joining the Canadian Jewish Congress and the Unitarian Church was the Ethical Education Association (EEA), a new organization founded by Doris

Dodds. Dodds herself was Unitarian, but saw her organization as working on behalf of and alongside others who opposed the way religion was taught in Ontario schools. By all accounts her group was very successful in heating up the debate. Critics of religion in the public school curriculum had three main

concerns. Firstly, they charged that current instructional practices were “sectarian,” which caused dismay in United Church circles. How could non-Christians see them as sectarian, the same term the United Church scornfully used for those it considered fanatical? Moreover, “non-sectarian” in the context of education had a long history and well-established meaning: instruction was presented within a general Christian framework, avoiding beliefs that were

“peculiar” to any particular denomination and resonating well with the common faith on which the United Church was founded.

Not surprisingly, it was taken aback by “the attempt to say that Christianity is itself a sect as over against Buddhism or other ethnic faiths.” This was “a warping of the original intent of the word,” protested E.R. McLean, the Board of Christian Education staff member responsible for religious education in the schools.?° But it was more

than hairsplitting and potentially devastating, as McLean would

Uncoupling Christianity and Culture in Canada 217 well have known, for the legislation in many provinces called for education to be conducted on a non-sectarian basis. Secondly, critics claimed that religion in the public schools was a violation of the principle of separation of church and state. Even Winnipeg Presbytery had deferred to such criticism when (against the sentiment of the United Church in most other places) it sided with those opposed to religious instruction in Manitoba’s public schools.?' This perpetuated an erroneous reading of history, church leaders protested, patiently pointing out that no such principle existed in Canada. Canadians had rejected an American model of church-state separation in favour of a co-operation between them more akin to the British pattern.?* Defending the teaching of religion in the public schools rested on the conviction that Canada’s unique history had led to a distinctive pattern of church-state relations.

Forrest appealed to the customary story of Canada’s past as it had been told after Confederation, at least outside Quebec: “Two peoples were deposited here with different languages, cultures and religions,” an Observer editorial reminded readers. Education had been the area of most controversy between church and state, resulting in arrangements that differed in each province. Forrest likely spoke for the majority of Protestants of the day when he said that

they expected only some of the rights to religious instruction in

public schools that had been granted to the Catholic minority through the funding of separate schools. However, he was seemingly unaware of the rapid and radical change that was about to take place; in 1960 he boldly (but wrongly) predicted, “Whether our system is ideal or not — and we prefer it to America’s — it isn’t

likely to be basically altered.” Finally, critics of religion in the public schools claimed that their rights as non-Christian minorities were being violated. This was a more difficult concern to counter, admitted the Observer’s reporter Kenneth Bagnell, who interviewed EEA’s Dodds for a story about the dispute. In this case, the minorities most vocally opposed were “infinitesimal” — Jews comprised only 1.4 per cent of Canada’s population, and Unitarians, Buddhists, and Doukhobors even less. Turning to C.B. Sissons, an authority on church-state relations in education, for a perspective on minority rights, Bagnell was informed that in a democracy, a minority was given the right to free discussion in order to persuade the majority of the rightness of its cause. This, too, was about to change in a more pluralistic Canada more inclined to agree

218 A Church with the Soul of a Nation with Dodds than Sissons. Issues should be decided on principle, rather than majority-minority percentages, she contended — after all, today’s majority could be a minority tomorrow. Rights should never be ignored, even if represented by only 1 per cent of the population.4 Bagnell’s story cited a statement that was “evolving” in the United Church’s Board of Christian Education in 1963, which he expected

to be approved at the upcoming meeting of the General Council Executive. The board’s support for emphasis on “the HebraicChristian heritage” in the curriculum acknowledged that the majority had no right to “trample a minority,” but added a qualification: “neither has a minority the right to frustrate a majority.”°> A detail that Bagnell mentioned in passing did not bode well for that standpoint. It was often said that there was no controversy over religion in the public schools outside metropolitan Toronto (and even there, mainly an issue in North York — home to many Jews). However, Dodds told him that she had found support for her views wherever she spoke, and she claimed that United Church people were almost always in agreement with her.9° It was another hint that the leadership of the church did not speak for all its members — and that there was divergence on the left as well as the right.

Reaching consensus within the United Church proved surprisingly difficult. Even the Commission on Church and State in Education appointed at the 1962 General Council was unable to bring recommendations two years later. To explain the delay, an update in 1964 pointed out that the commission’s work was complicated by the time-consuming task of consulting separately with each province, and the proposed extension of funding for Catholic separate schools

in Ontario had made the situation there even more complex. Its members were reportedly studying a statement on the topic of the church and education by James S. Thomson, retired from the faculty of theology at McGill and a former moderator.27 Thompson presented his findings to the General Council in 1966, but as his own, rather than the commission’s, position. Instead of presenting a report, the commission asked to be discharged, admitting that no substantial recommendations could be made until the church arrived at an “adequate philosophy of education.” And there was the rub: to

do so would require prolonged research and study by a smaller working group because of the wide diversity of opinion within the denomination itself.?®

Uncoupling Christianity and Culture in Canada 219

Thomson’s statement on “The Church and Education” was a thoughtful proposal that insisted that the church had an obligation to “express its mind on all the influences that affect the national life” — a long list that included education. To do otherwise would “be a complete abandonment of our responsibility and, certainly a departure from our historic role.”9? Catholic schools were not about to disappear any time soon, he added; numerically they enjoyed “an entrenched position” from which no government would be likely to dislodge them. However, Thomson’s conjecture that Protestants and Catholics might soon become allies in promoting religious education in the schools was an indication of how quickly the situation was changing on the ground.'°°

This did prove to be the case, as Protestants and Catholics in Ontario found common cause in fighting the quiet drift toward separation of church and state in education. But the battle was lost on the public school front in that province, where the most intentional program of religious education in the country became the most endangered. The Committee on Religious Education in the Public Schools of the Province of Ontario (1969) was set up by the provincial government to study the problem. Headed by the Honourable J. Keiller Mackay, the committee saw Ontario’s program of religious

instruction as Christian, and reasoned that as such, other faiths might be offended by it. “In no uncertain terms,” historians Gidney and Millar contend, “the Mackay Report proceeded to recommend an end to this sorry state of affairs.” Instead of reading the Bible to open the school day, it suggested singing the National Anthem and saying the Lord’s Prayer or some other inclusive prayer for God’s help.t°? While the Mackay Report still affirmed the importance of religious faith, it represented a shift from teaching religious values held in common to teaching about religious differences. An Ecumenical Study Commission brought together representatives from the Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Education and several Protestant churches to respond to the Mackay Report. Among them was Robin Smith, associate secretary of the United Church’s Board of Education, who no doubt would have endorsed the ecumenical coalition’s criticism of the Mackay Report for treating religion as a personal commitment that ought to be cultivated at home or in church but not in public schools.'°* Such an assumption negated the United Church’s customary claims of connections between home, school, and church. Severing one of them placed even more

ip ke A Church with the Soul of a Nation responsibility on the church for religious education at a time when it was already dealing with criticism of its New Curriculum. The coali-

tion also took issue with the separation of values from religion, stressing that it was “not only legitimate but necessary to look beyond culture to religion as a fundamental source of morality.” *% However, those who had the ear of Ontario’s Ministry of Education disagreed, preferring instead to teach moral education divorced from religious particularity. By the 1980s, even the vestiges of Chris-

tianity that remained after implementation of the Mackay Report’s recommendations were excised after the courts ruled that compulsory religious instruction and opening exercises that featured Christian Scriptures or the Lord’s Prayer violated the guarantee of religious freedom in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Teaching about religion was allowed, but only if all religions were given equal atten-

tion. Christian prayers and readings could only be used in opening exercises if secular and other religious material was given equal weight. Christian holidays were still acknowledged, but categorized as secular pause days rather than religious celebrations. Gidney and Millar conclude that Christianity was not only “disestablished but banished, at least as an animating force, in both the ceremonial and mundane activities” of Ontario’s public schools. Politicians and educators were among those whose work attuned them to the new religious and cultural realities of pluralism. Political scientist Paul Fox astutely assessed the difficulty sincere Christians faced when the “inner light” of conscience led them to hold different Opinions on social, political, or economic issues. With some French Canadians conscientiously opting for an independent Quebec, and English Canadians supporting national unity, it would be foolhardy

for a church “to try to declare one truth.” Writing in 1968, with church union negotiations between the United Church and Anglicans underway, Fox made a prediction: if a united church “attempted to give one answer to the question of nationalism, I doubt that it would stay united very long.” He suggested that churches be free to express

the views of their ow members, but not try to speak on God’s behalf for all Christians, a proposal that he admitted came close to advocating a separation of church and state.'° Arnold Edinborough, editor of Saturday Night, was harsher in his assessment, blaming the churches for their marginalization. An Anglican himself, he might have had the United Church in mind as well when he complained that churches had tried to influence

Uncoupling Christianity and Culture in Canada 221 politicians “to legislate for everybody that which they believed requisite and necessary for the body and souls of the chosen few.” They had looked like “dinosaurs in the political pit” in the discussion of public and separate school education in Ontario and in debates over liberalization of divorce, contraception, and abortion laws. Edinborough observed another important indication of the churches’ changing public role: mass media and universities had replaced them as “teaching institutions” on such issues.'°°

Whether or not separation of church and state was the goal of the mass media, public school boards, or politicians, the practical outcome was the same. It became more difficult to claim that church and state were co-operating in areas of mutual concern. In a society

that was becoming more and more diverse, no particular faith tradition could claim to be a national church, and no definition of non-sectarian pleased everyone. Pluralism thus led in practice to the neutralization of public expressions of religion. It was a solu-

tion that was attractive not only to secularists but also to those dealing with the realities of pluralism. Since religion was a source of conflicting definitions of the common good, the state relied instead on secular values (with no necessary reference to Christianity as their source) to define it. The gamble was that liberal democracy’s values could stand on their own once they were dislodged from their religious moorings. These struggles to define the place of Christianity in Canadian cul-

ture are illustrations of a broader global trend that philosopher Charles Taylor identified as a “switch in mind-set” that made earlier notions of cultural assimilation unsustainable: the beginning of the erosion (probably in the 1960s, he suggests) of the assumption that “one ought to suppress one’s difference for the sake of fitting in to a dominant mold.” Religious minorities were among those who de-

manded that the dominant culture be “modified to accommodate them, rather than the other way around.” While most migrants were prepared to assimilate, they no longer considered it imperative.'°7 One could add that it was not just newcomers who were unwilling to conform. Women no longer automatically assumed their traditional family role, and insisted on freedom to make choices about reproduction and paid employment outside the home. Young people

resisted assimilating to prevailing mores as they moved toward adulthood, ignoring the received culture of either their family or

apap) A Church with the Soul of a Nation their church. To be different and do your own thing captured the cultural mood of the times, and the size of the postwar cohort amplified the effect. Taylor predicted that if this emphasis on difference were to become an unstoppable reality, democratic societies would have to “engage in a constant process of self-reinvention” to accommodate the variety of identities they encompassed.'®® So it was that both Quebec and the rest of Canada would undertake to reinvent themselves in the 1960s.

A frustrated Forsey complained that Canadian history was being rewritten to make it appear that Quebec’s place in Canada was not as secure as English Canada had assumed. The pseudo-history (as he

termed it) taught at one French school in Quebec claimed that the Fathers of Confederation had intended to form only a loose Confederation, but were duped while under the influence of alcohol after John A. Macdonald had gotten them drunk!"°? In English public schools, a less British version of Canadian history

was ready in time for Centennial celebrations. It featured a new Canada that was built on differences — individual, religious, and cultural — rather than a common culture shaped by Christian ideals. A Just Society replaced Christian Canada as a unifying vision of nationhood; Canadian culture was the new “orthodoxy,” with a “common faith” in human rights and social programs as its chief tenets. There

was a growing separation of Christian virtues and secular values — and Canadians increasingly opted for the latter. Canada had set itself on a path that led away from a collective Christian past, and to-

ward a future where religious expression was an individual right guaranteed by the state, with no reference to organized religion. New icons of culture replaced the old, perhaps in the hope that Canadians would rally around the maple leaf flag more readily than the cross. The old connections between church and community that had long

been taken for granted were dissolved in the hopes that a distinctively Canadian identity, with no reference to a particular religious identity, would coalesce.

Likewise, religious institutions that were deeply influenced by democratic principles found themselves in a parallel process of rein-

vention, perhaps none more urgently so engaged than the United Church. It had prided itself on being the most Canadian of churches. Yet there was mounting evidence that the nation-building partner-

ship it had taken for granted at the time of church union was no

Uncoupling Christianity and Culture in Canada papa! longer viable, thus dissolving the core of a founding vision that had

energized and guided the church’s national mission for four decades. As Christianity and culture grew more distant, its notions

of a Christian Canada and a national church were becoming anachronisms. Even calls for Christianizing the social order were quietly dropped. The end of Christendom in Canada raised a troubling new question for the United Church: if it no longer served the community and provided a civilizing cultural influence, what was its mission?

The uncoupling of Christianity and culture was a giant step toward a more complete (though still formally undeclared) separation of church and state in Canada — the practical result of the state going its own way. This distancing, if not formal separation, of church and

state consigned a different public role to all Christian churches, whether Protestant or Catholic. It erased religious particularity from public life. Few religious institutions were as profoundly altered as the United Church by this de-Christianizing of Canadian society. Its leaders had taken for granted the effectiveness of religion in promoting social responsibility and national solidarity. But the convergence of religious and cultural identity turned out to be far less inevitable

than they assumed. In fact, its friendly service to the nation was sought less often. Its reputation as custodian of the common good and purveyor of culture was slipping. Its side had lost the battle for religious education in the public schools. It was small comfort that the situation in which the church found itself was part of a wider trend in the United States, continental Europe, and England: all the

major churches, Protestant and Catholic alike, faced the consequences of a truncated alliance with culture.

An incident in 1969 epitomizes the turnabout for the United Church and its place in the new Canada. Shortly after becoming prime minister, Pierre Trudeau appointed an envoy to the Vatican. Before making this daring move (one that Pearson had viewed as too controversial), he first sought the public’s advice. According to the Observer, Trudeau admitted that the response from Protestants, liberal Catholics, and non-Roman religious groups was overwhelmingly negative — but he made the appointment anyway. Trudeau was quoted as saying it was “better to please ten million Roman Catholics

than to be deterred by a few militant Protestants.”''° Forrest was miffed. He felt that the prime minister had used him as window

224 A Church with the Soul of a Nation dressing, attempting to give the impression of a “democrat seeking advice,” and so advised Trudeau to “fly his kites elsewhere” in the future if this were the case.*'? Ironically, by then politicians were offering similar advice to leaders of the United Church who sought to influence them.

8

Listening to the World Revolutionary moments attract those who are not good enough for established institutions as well as those who are too good for them. George Bernard Shaw, Androcles and the Lion

J.R. Mutchmor’s retirement in 1964 was aptly billed by the Observer as “The End of an Era”! — for the man and for the United Church. As Mutchmor prepared to give his final address as moderator, a position to which he had been elected two years earlier, there was much to celebrate. The United Church’s membership was still on the upswing,

despite a downtrend in the Anglican, Baptist, and Presbyterian churches.* And there was other good news to report. Fundraising had set a new record, ministers’ salaries were up, and properties were in good shape. However, other numbers were not so reassuring: funerals were up, while baptisms, confirmations, and adult professions of

faith were down, particularly in the major cities. Stricter practices, such as refusing to baptize children of non-members and purging the membership rolls of the names of those who no longer attended, explained some of the loss. But other statistics came as more of a surprise. Membership in men’s clubs was down, as was Sunday school attendance — an inauspicious sign for the New Curriculum materials

for children that were to be introduced that fall. The Observer did not mince words in its assessment: “The United Church is financially stronger than ever. Spiritually it faces a crisis.” 3 Those who had characterized the United Church as too modern in

1925 might have been surprised to discover how conventional it looked four decades later. There were still complaints that its theology was too liberal and its social agenda too politically left wing. However, when Mutchmor ventured in 1961 to make a few predictions about its future, he had pictured a church “heavily influenced

226 A Church with the Soul of a Nation by those who would make her membership more exclusive,” either by emphasizing “narrower doctrinal teaching” or adopting social posi-

tions favoured by “elite members” and “posh congregations.”¢ It was also drawing the ire of secular pundits who saw it as too complacent about social issues. “Just a social club” was a putdown of a church that to outsiders — and sometimes even to insiders — appeared

rather smug about its solid position in society. Those staid congregations were about to be shaken up by men and women who had been born, baptized, converted, and educated after church union. Personal memory of union was fading, and assump-

tions that had once seemed obvious could no longer be taken for granted. Across the country major educational and executive positions were being filled by ministers ordained long after church union; by the mid-196o0s only two of the national church officers had been ordained before 1925.5 This new cohort was handed responsibility

for a church that was headed for trouble. Among them were some considered radical for their insistence that the church pay attention to signs that the times were changing. They pointed to mounting evidence that past initiatives, including the United Church’s recent evangelistic campaigns, had failed to Christianize the social order. They were inspired by talk of a new world mission that called into question aspects of the old. Joining the vanguard of international ecumenism, they rejected the traditional approach to evangelism. Instead of the church proclaiming the gospel to the world and calling Canada to Christ, they appealed to the church to “listen to the world.”

J. Raymond Hord, Mutchmor’s successor, soon came to personify the new era. Hord stepped into the media spotlight when he was nominated as secretary of E&SS at the 1962 General Council. There was little at this point in his career to indicate that he would soon become “the most controversial churchman in Canada today” and “minister to the come-alive generation.”° Though one newspaper

reported that the United Church had “picked a man it scarcely knew,””? Mutchmor would have been acquainted with him and might well have applauded the choice. A few years earlier Hord and Mutchmor’s brother had co-signed a letter expressing consternation about plans to allow the Regina Braves baseball club to play three games on Sunday. The matter was “one for serious concern,” their letter stated, for the United Church was “disturbed by an action which might turn a holy day into a pagan holiday.”*® Hord’s preaching as pastor of suburban congregations in Regina (Lakeview

Listening to the World 227 United) and Toronto (Royal York United) was thoughtful and at times hard-hitting, but consistent with the United Church’s piety and practices. While he did not expect the Kingdom of God to be “established perfectly in this world of sin,” it was still the “sacred duty of Christians to improve life on earth as much as we possibly can.”? Hord’s conduct during his congregational ministry was a clue to the resolve he was to show once he moved into his new leadership position in 1963. His sense of duty was uncompromising — almost

to the point of compulsion. He conducted a funeral service for another child the day after his own son Jamie drowned at camp.'®

He preached a sermon on “Why Does God Allow Accidents to Happen?” the following Sunday.'! He was in the pulpit the Sunday after being attacked and badly beaten in his home.'* Once in office, burdened by his hopes for the emergence of a new kind of church, he tackled his new responsibilities with that same intense commitment. Talk of his dismissal was in the air. When he died suddenly of a heart attack in 1968, his family and some of his colleagues held his critics responsible for hounding him to death.t3 And yet one might wonder whether the pressure of his own ideals was at least in small part to blame. Hord claimed the only thing he had in common with Mutchmor was his initials (J.R.). An article in Star Weekly contrasted his efforts

to tackle the “big issues” that would make the church “relevant” with Mutchmor’s preoccupation with moral issues such as drink, decadence, and divorce. Mutchmor was “virtually adulated by middle-of-the-road church leaders and lay people,” his manner “gracious, exuding personal charm as he travelled the country, dropping

in on powerful men and lobbying quietly against either open bars or open Sundays.” Hord was not always considered so charming. Whereas Mutchmor was associated with the moral battles of “fighting evil, standing for righteousness, criticizing the world, but rarely the church,” Hord made headlines for tackling controversial political issues with his criticism of big business and the U.S. war in Vietnam, Prime Minister Pearson (whom he described as a “puppy dog on LBJ’s leash”); his support for draft dodgers; and his calls for more rights for Canada’s indigenous peoples.'¢ In his lifetime he was considered “a prophet of the New Age”; his untimely death was to make him its martyr. Much of the responsibility for what happened in the United Church

after the Mutchmor era was ascribed to Hord and the board he headed. However, the dramatic changes that the church experienced

228 A Church with the Soul of a Nation in a brief span of time were not the result of Hord’s drive alone: his call to listen to the world resonated with a new approach to world

mission that had captivated international ecumenism. It was the wcc that general secretary Ernest Long credited for drawing attention to “the pressing questions of the meaning of evangelism and of conversion for our time.”'5 By the time the wcc met in Evanston, Illinois, for its second assembly in 1954, how to proclaim the gospel to the world was becoming a matter of debate. “The church is mis-

sion” was shorthand for a new understanding of the task: God’s mission was to the world, and the church had no mission in and of itself.1°

More signs that ecumenism was in flux were evident at the next assembly, held in New Delhi in 1961, which saw the wcc merge

with the International Missionary Council. Five years later, the United Church’s Commission on World Mission would declare this to have been a turning point: it “underscored the place of mission in the whole life of the World Council of Churches and so gave that body a new direction and significance.”'7 The merger accentuated the double meaning of world mission: it was global in outreach, and it focused on the world rather than on the institutional church. The study process that followed urged groups to think of God as “His own evangelist” by pondering the question, “What is God doing in the world?”?®

The idea that God’s mission could not be separated from other aspects of the church’s life and teaching generated much controversy as its implications for evangelism and social ministries were explored at ecumenical and denominational gatherings around the world. The

temperature of the debates shot up when what was thought of as traditional evangelism was castigated as a distortion of the church’s true mission. At the World Student Christian Federation in 1964, for instance, a case was made for redefining evangelism as Christian presence, rather than proclamation: the church’s witness at times needed to be silent.'? And evangelism was not the only thorny issue. Ecumenism’s left wing was challenging the middle axioms approach

to dealing with social issues that had been a breakthrough at the Oxford Conference in 1937. Then the aim had been to agree on a range of options for translating Christian principles into policy, in order to broaden consensus. When the wcc’s first World Conference

on Church and Society met in 1966, it discarded the flexibility of middle axioms; they “fell by the ecumenical wayside as clear-cut

Listening to the World 229 positions were taken on issue after issue, from patterns of economic growth to U.S. involvement in Vietnam.”*° The deepening divide within Protestantism was on display two

years later as the wcc celebrated its twentieth anniversary at Uppsala. Long after that 1968 assembly was over, the new approach to mission, with its attendant implications for evangelism and social action, created rifts between ecumenicals and evangelicals (as the two sides were often called by then). Historian William Hutchison

describes the preparatory materials, published under the title The Church for Others and the Church for the World, as “a high point of antitraditional thinking among ecumenicals.” Evangelicals, disturbed by the takeover of ‘their’ terminology to promote a different approach to mission, considered it “unusual provocation.” “It seemed to conservatives that once again, as so often in the past, modernists

with dubious Christian credentials had stolen the evangelicals’ rhetorical clothing and were trying desperately to wear it.”*' At Uppsala, Union Seminary professor Johannes Hoekendijk raised more hackles when he condemned the traditional approach to evangelism as heretical. Dismissing the “introverted” parish system as a medieval invention, he questioned whether converts should join existing congregations. Instead he proposed direct action in society, a model of church organization that he dubbed “go-structures.”** This new thinking about the relationship of the church to the world

raised fresh questions about the viability of one of the United Church’s most cherished convictions. During the fundamentalistmodernist controversy at the beginning of the twentieth century, many Protestant churches in the United States had adopted what historians have called a two-party system by separating oversight of evangelism from social concern.*3 The founders of the United Church had deviated from the typical pattern, insisting that the two belonged together. Whether out of commitment, convenience, or connivance, evangelism and social service remained under the administration of the same board.*4 By joining the work of evangelism and social service the United Church had, as a special issue of the Observer in 1963 put it proudly, “laid down the conviction that a man’s faith cannot be held aloof from his work, that evan-

gelism cannot be carried on apart from deep concern for the world in which men are redeemed and in which they earn their daily bread.”?5

230 A Church with the Soul of a Nation The new staff at E& ss still spoke of these twin aims. Hord insisted that evangelism “must start with personal commitment or it will not

start. But it must never end there if it is to have any impact on our world ... A basic law of evangelism is: we can never give to others what we don’t have ourselves. Its corollary is, we haven’t got the real

thing if we do not share it.”*° He advocated keeping “private conversion and public responsibility in proper balance and tension.”*7 Stewart Crysdale, who joined E&SS as assistant secretary at the same time as Hord became secretary, made a similar point in his first annual report: “The genius of our Board is that evangelism — the telling of the news of God’s love — is tied directly with social service. Either one without the other is a truncated Gospel.”*°

Little wonder, then, that seeing the United Church torn apart along seams that had been so deliberately stitched together was painful. Data appeared to indicate that church attendance made little difference when it came to changing everyday attitudes or actions. If that were so, was evangelism partly to blame? Was Australian Methodist theologian Colin Williams right in claiming that ministry

in a twentieth-century society that was no longer Christian required a different approach to making disciples than in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries?*? To complicate matters, evangelism was not the board’s only problem. Now that it was speaking more softly (if at all) on moral issues and turning over its social welfare work to government agencies, what was left to do in the field of social service? Did one objective have to be sacrificed in order to save the other, or did both evangelism and social service have to go? The new way of thinking about the church’s mission was soon reflected in E&SS’s programming. A “project on evangelism” had been included on the Centennial Committee’s list when it gave its first report at the General Council in 1962.3° Two years later “social

action” was added to the committee’s name, and forming “truly worldly Christians” became the top priority of the National Project of Evangelism and Social Action.3' Hord and his colleagues were determined to use what was often simply called the National Project

to move people out of the church building and into the community.3* The word evangelism was still used (rather hard to avoid, given the name of the board) — but often qualified as “new” or “ex-

perimental,” or circumvented with “outreach.” The upshot was to distance evangelism from traditional evangelistic campaigns, even the United Church’s own recent initiatives.??

Listening to the World 237 The National Project gave a voice to a more radical bloc within the United Church. Among them was Rex Dolan, professor of homiletics and worship at United Theological College. In 1965 and 1966, Dolan delivered a series of lectures across Canada, urging his audience to tackle the pressing social concerns of the day, such as poverty, war, oppression, and technological change. Later published with Hord’s encouragement as The Big Change, Dolan’s talks took aim at traditional evangelism.34 Convinced that many spiritual seekers were confused or even repulsed by “God-talk,” he proposed that the United Church consider outreach, rather than evangelism, as its objective, no longer necessarily connecting it to church attendance. Unlike the careful planning usually associated with evangelistic cam-

paigns, there was no need of a blueprint for outreach — nor was it necessary to put a Christian label on it: “If it is loving it is Christian and part of the evangelistic task.”35 Dolan’s “big change” did not stop there; what he and the National

Project had in mind discounted a good deal of what the United Church had customarily thought of as service as well: teaching Sunday school, singing in the choir, assisting in the congregation’s administration as a member of the board, or raising funds for the men’s club or the ucw. He had a ready response to those who wondered what this would mean for men’s and women’s organizations: they were “introverted,” their drawing card was sociability, and their work was directed toward maintaining the church itself. As such they were among the United Church’s “deficiencies” that the new reformation was intent on correcting.3° Proponents of the new reformation had in mind a church that existed for the sake of the world. Worship was to prepare the congregation for outreach in the community. The focus was no longer on the minister as resident “holy man,” but on the ministry of the laity, whose vocation as the people of God, when rightly understood, would put them in contact with the world.37

Listening to the world involved removing walls that prevented the church from hearing society’s most pressing needs. “Breaking the Barriers” was the theme of E&SS’s 1964 annual meeting, which fea-

tured Eugene Carson Blake, a prominent American Presbyterian minister. The publication distributed for study after the meeting included an article by Blake on breaking racial barriers, illustrated by a photo of his arrest at a civil rights march.3° A selection of articles

232 A Church with the Soul of a Nation on racial issues portrayed Canada’s treatment of indigenous peoples

as the most striking parallel to American segregation. It reprinted Peter Gzowski’s stinging indictment of Canadian racial attitudes

written after the murder of a young Saulteaux man by a party of white farmers and businessmen from Glaslyn, Saskatchewan. “This is Canada’s Alabama,” Gzowski had written, referring to re-

cent events in Birmingham. In fact, the situation of the Indian in Saskatchewan might be worse than the plight of the Southern Negro,

he mused, since the latter shared the same language, religion, and culture in most respects as their oppressors, whereas many Indians spoke a different language and had “moral and cultural values utterly different from ours.” To join the North American way of life would be far more wrenching for the Indian than the Negro, he predicted, “and our acceptance of him as an equal could well be an even more difficult decision than the Southerner’s acceptance of the black man.”39

After the 1960s it was hard to imagine that the United Church had once promised, as it did in the first issue of the New Outlook, that it would “preach the elements of the Gospel to these primitive minds still influenced by pagan superstition” so that “very slowly but also, surely, the truth will enlighten even these dark understandings, as long ago it enlightened the minds of our British ancestors.”4° Accounts of its work in indigenous communities became less glowing as evidence of the failure of assimilation (and the tragic consequences of the attempt) raised questions about its complicity in their plight in the past and cast doubts about ending segregation.*' Was integration just as misguided as assimilation? Observing the deplorable social conditions he witnessed at a school on a reserve, one teacher likened adaptation to the aggressive economic practices of white culture to “feeding them into a new kind of cultural gas chamber.”4* Listening to the world did not mean that E&ss’s leaders intended to stay quiet. Much of the theological and sociological groundwork for the new strategy was laid by Crysdale, who saw clashes between what he called the prophetic-reformative and priestly-pietistic functions of religion as a positive sign of viability and creativity.43 His three-fold typology of the church’s relationship to society — accommodation, isolation, and conflict — reserved no place for the oncefavoured option of co-operation. The days of friendly service to the nation were over. There was a more combative tone to his claim that the third option, conflict, was the United Church’s role as E&SS now

Listening to the World 233 understood it: “critical, prophetic witness to the eternal demands of the Gospel in the changing conditions of the world.”44 To help them formulate their prophetic witness, Hord and his colleagues at E&SS made the controversial move of turning to critics of the institutional church for direction. Some of these outsiders turned out to be what historian Hugh McLeod describes as a novelty for most Western countries: “those who rejected Christianity and were increasingly ready to say so loudly and openly.”45 An unflattering image of organized religion was forming in the public mind. Instead of building a Christian Canada, the United Church found itself accused of constructing what one of its critics dubbed a “comfortable pew.” In 1965 Pierre Berton’s The Comfortable Pew made publish-

ing history in Canada with record sales. Drawing on the New Theology popularized by British theologian John A.T. Robinson in Honest to God two years earlier, Berton’s captivating book called on Canada’s churches to reconsider their outdated theological and ethical positions. Berton’s own views had evidently evolved since the 1950s, when he had pronounced the Christian ethic as “timeless,” and complained that it was the “constant urge to modernize that, in the end, makes the church appear to be forever out of date.”4° A decade later (and by then a proponent of the so-called new morality), he accused churches of being out of touch with the issues that really mattered.47 His devastating critique of the typical Protestant congregation gave credence to predictions that organized religion would be irrelevant in the coming New Age. The Comfortable Pew had been commissioned by the Anglican Church, which Berton had left some years earlier.4® Asked whether the book would have been different had he been hired by the United Church, he reiterated that it was an indictment of Protestantism in general, not one church in particular. United Church sermons might perhaps be considered more relevant, he supposed, but its congregational life was no different. It displayed the same “success motivation, the conformist attitudes, the status-seeking of the clergy.” It

was behind the times in its approach to such issues as drinking, Sunday observance, abortion, and premarital sex. And while the New Curriculum was commendable, as far as he could see it hadn’t

yet done much to change what was taught in Sunday school in Kleinburg, where his wife Janet, a member of the local United Church, was a leader of the Explorer group and their children were active in Sunday school, cGIT, and Scouts.*9

234 A Church with the Soul of a Nation While Hord and his staff may have taken exception to some of the particulars of Berton’s book, they agreed with its central thesis: a New Age was dawning and the United Church was woefully unprepared for it, especially in urban areas. Statistics to support their case were supplied in an ambitious National Survey of the United Church in Canadian Life conducted by Crysdale that confirmed that congregational life in the United Church was predominantly middle class, and primarily suburban or rural rather than urban.5° The findings showed steady membership losses even in city neighbourhoods that had once been strongholds of the church. Read as corroboration that traditional approaches to evangelism no longer worked, the results supported calls for a New Evangelism designed for the New Age.>?

Berton was among the contributors to Why the Sea Is Boiling Hot: A Symposium on the Church and the World, described in moderator E.M. Howse’s foreword as “a cogent and vivid picture of the Church as it appears to the critical but not hostile outsider.” It was not a flattering picture of either clergy or laity, or of the organized church itself. The candid sketches pictured the United Church as irrelevant and insular. Berton repeated his general criticism of organized religion. Journalist and social activist June Callwood bitingly depicted congregational life as displaying “a de-humanizing pride in

bigness, a preoccupation with pettiness and a viewpoint no taller than the steeple — but not including the Cross.” The staff at Exss, who had overseen the project, concluded: “There is no doubt that the sea is boiling hot. Now we must plunge into it.” The choice was to “take up the challenge or end with nothing.” 57 E&SS wanted to provoke — and to be provoked. Its 1966 annual meeting featured an address by Saul Alinsky, a social activist from Chicago who, one reporter claimed, made Canada’s arch-critics of the church Pierre Berton and Gordon Sinclair “look like a couple of simpering Victorian spinsters by comparison.”53 Alinsky immedi-

ately served notice that he wasn’t afraid to step on the toes of his teetotalling hosts. His amusing anecdote about his unsuccessful attempt to order a double Scotch when he arrived at the meeting was perhaps calculated to put them on edge, as was his comment that, to an American, the one thing that Canada represented was whiskey. Alinsky’s hard-hitting speech took North American church leaders to task for their complacency, insisting that action, not dialogue, was the only solution to social problems. He urged them to frame issues

Listening to the World 225 in black and white, rather than grey, and to create, rather than avoid, controversy and conflict — to go out to streets of the “secular city” and make their souls a little cleaner by getting their hands dirty.54 Such calls for action involved changing the tactics that Mutchmor and others of his era had championed. As recently as 1960, the printed materials for the Calling Canada to Christ campaign had reiterated the recommendation of the 1934 Commission on Christianizing

the Social Order: those speaking on behalf of the United Church should avoid identification with any particular political party. The church was to be the conscience of the state, bringing Christian prin-

ciples to bear on the issues of the day by preparing timely resolutions. Ministers were to confront critical issues boldly, without displaying political partisanship.55

A new generation of leaders called instead for direct action, clear-cut policies on pressing social issues, and even political par-

tisanship.5° With a federal election approaching, University of Saskatchewan chaplain Ben Smillie contended that it was “time for

Christians to take off their halos and put on their party buttons.” The old spirit of non-partisanship still lingered in his reminder that

no party was the Christian party (admitting that the NDP that he supported found it hard to remember that it did not have a “corner on righteousness”). However, he belittled the effectiveness of the customary approach to social issues in the real world of politics: “resolutions pouring out of committees.”57 Some ministers were prepared to go even further. Claude de Mestral defended what he called political ministry. Political action was an essential but neglected form of evangelism, he argued, dismissing the notion of political neutrality as “a dangerous illusion.” 5°

Listening to the world made it harder for the New Age reformers to tune in to supporters of traditional evangelism as theological disagreements between them grew. The two sides differed, for instance, on whether or not to support Billy Graham’s evangelistic campaigns, which caused more discord in the 1960s than it had a decade earlier. Critics pointed out, as had Forrest and others in the 1950s, that a denomination that endorsed the biblical and theological scholarship behind the New Curriculum should perhaps think twice before inviting fundamentalists to be its evangelists. They saw Graham’s approach as regressive, simplistic, and out of touch with the younger generation. But finding fault with Graham had its pitfalls. It was “as

236 A Church with the Soul of a Nation if we opposed mother on Mother’s Day,” one Ottawa minister complained. Oddly, given the desire of proponents of the New Evangelism to appeal to the New Age, Graham’s use of modern technology to communicate was dismissed by them as “Madison Ave. sales techniques.” 5?

Congregations and their ministers were put on the spot when the Billy Graham Crusade announced a six-city Maritime campaign led by Leighton Ford, Graham’s Canadian-born colleague and brotherin-law, for the fall of 1963. E&Ss had already decided to focus on its own plans for evangelism rather than join Graham’s team. Still new

to his position at E&ss, Hord sounded conciliatory when interviewed for the Observer’s cover story: “We are greatly indebted to Billy Graham; he has a lot to teach us,” he was quoted as saying. Even so, Hord hinted at the direction that E& ss was headed by cautioning that mass evangelism might create a wall of suspicion and misunderstanding between the church and the world that only dedicated Christians, practising their faith in daily life, could pierce. He expected the crusade to have its greatest effect on those already connected to the church.°° Many United Church ministers in the Maritimes supported the

Billy Graham Crusade, but it met a less-welcoming reception in other parts of the country. “Let’s Stop Backing Billy Graham,” Ben Smillie bluntly proposed in 1965. He explained that as chaplain, he often met students who were suffering from a “fundamentalist hangover.” Evangelists like Graham encouraged biblical ignorance, he

argued, and invited people to join an “ecclesiastical ghetto” (the church) rather than to pay attention to the world outside its walls. Smillie had served on a committee that reviewed the findings of Crysdale’s national survey, and knew that presbyteries and congregations were divided over whether to support Graham. He was, nonetheless, adamant: “in the name of honesty, the Anglican and United Churches should both get out of this game completely.”®! Smillie’s article provoked a flurry of letters to the Observer, most

of them sympathetic to Graham. One was from R.C. Chalmers, a Pine Hill professor who had earlier served as Mutchmor’s associate secretary at E&SS. Publications whose production he had overseen had typically presented the United Church as evangelical in its theology, though of a liberal rather than a fundamentalist variety. His defence of Leighton Ford illustrated the fraught position of the United Church. At nearly all of the evangelistic meetings in the Maritimes

Listening to the World 239 the previous year, the largest group who signed cards to commit their lives to Christ identified themselves as members of the United Church. Working with the campaign in Halifax had been a positive ecumenical experience for Chalmers, and an opportunity to gain a deeper appreciation of other theological points of view. He was disturbed by the rigidity of the “stop backing Billy Graham” appeal. “To some of us, Mr Smillie’s liberal theology sounds very sectarian,”

he cautioned. “As one who is indebted to liberalism (and other movements, too) let me say that I am just as much afraid of sectarian liberalism as I am of sectarian fundamentalism.” °” Where Billy Graham was concerned, those who tried to find mid-

dle ground met with little success. Forrest had perhaps hoped to dampen Smillie’s fiery article with an editorial that questioned the accuracy of his description of Graham’s approach to the Bible as “literalist.” A few weeks later, a chastened Forrest conceded that his

attempts to get Graham to say more about biblical authority had failed: “we were wrong. He is a literalist; and he waffles, too. We don’t like to admit this, not so much because we dislike being wrong,

but we are deeply disappointed in Billy Graham.” Just as damning was Forrest’s allegation that Graham’s preaching had changed since the 1950s. Graham, he surmised, had reverted to the literalism of his childhood because it produced more converts. He had also taken to scolding churches that challenged the status quo on social issues such as disarmament, federal aid to education, birth control, and the United Nations.° As an alternative to the “Billy Graham type” of gatherings, proponents of the New Evangelism experimented with Planning Fellowships held across the country.°4 Facilitators stressed the importance of “lis-

tening to what God is saying in unmet human needs,” and built in large blocks of time for small-group discussion instead of formal presentations. The design reflected the assumption of the organizers that ministers needed to hear what “ordinary people,” rather than theologians, were saying about the questions of the day.°5 Few were more committed to putting this new approach to evangelism into practice than the minister of a Toronto congregation reputed to be “the swingingest church in town.”°° Clarke MacDonald

was convinced that without drastic change, the church would soon be written off. Ultimate truths needed translation “into terms that will be both received and lived by people,” especially young people. “We cannot do that when we express the truth in wooden creeds

238 A Church with the Soul of a Nation and mealy-mouthed platitudes,” he insisted.°7 MacDonald defended linking social action to evangelism with words from John Wesley’s preface to the first Methodist hymnal: “The Gospel of Christ knows no religion but social religion, no holiness but social holiness. This commandment we have from Christ that he who loves God loves his brother also.”°° Reservations about the New Evangelism were aired when Observer reporter Kenneth Bagnell interviewed MacDonald, Hord, and Ex ss staffer Gordon Stewart. Asked about what was widely perceived as a lack of enthusiasm for the type of evangelism the church had supported until recently, Hord denied that he opposed mass evangelism. However, he admitted that he could no longer support Billy Graham. The church could not, as he put it, ride “two horses theologically,” referring to Graham’s approach to the Bible and the United Church’s

own New Curriculum. He was also dismayed that Graham had “blessed the U.S. war effort” in Vietnam and had become the “arm

of the status quo.” When Hord mentioned that it was often conservative business groups who sponsored Graham’s organization, Bagnell asked, “What’s wrong with that? Is it a sin to be conservative?” Hord countered by pointing out that St Paul’s preaching had not been well received by merchants in first-century Ephesus.°?

Stewart then added that spreading the gospel message now involved connecting it to particular social causes, such as improving the welfare state, providing better housing, and expanding health care. “But surely,” prodded Bagnell, “it’s necessary to begin, not with

welfare statism, but with the faith itself.” Stewart replied that the gospel couldn’t be summed up in a “nice little set of words.” It was, rather, “the experience of the Lord Jesus, in whose person we find summed up all the significant self-disclosure of God as it reveals itself through the historical experience of the Hebrew people consummated in discipleship, those who went with Christ.” (One suspects that readers agreed with Stewart’s own assessment of this “relevant gospel”: it was “more and more complex”!)7°

Once the welfare state arrived, was the work of the church then finished? No, Hord and Stewart insisted, for even the affluent

were searching for the meaning of life. But isn’t that the point, Bagnell asked as he pressed them to consider whether “this whole emphasis ... of ‘listening to the world’ may be taking us down the wrong avenue. Has the world — confused and bewildered — any-

thing really penetrating and perceptive to tell us?” And was the

Listening to the World 2.39 board still committed to changing both the individual and society, or

was it interested only in social change? MacDonald was adamant that there was only one gospel, with both individual and social “prongs,” but agreed that the pendulum was swinging away from the individual, where the board’s work in the past had been directed.7? Hord had the backing of the United Church’s left wing and even part of its centre, with support in Saskatchewan particularly strong.7” But he was definitely out of favour with conservatives, whose efforts to take over the church, he claimed, were “more evident every week.” 73

Disappointed by their dealings with the executive staff of their denomination, conservatives sought support and solidarity elsewhere. In 1966, looking to build networks among ministers and laity of like mind, they launched the United Church Renewal Fellowship (UCRF). They also banded together with evangelicals in other denominations who shared their antipathy to the wCc’s new approach to world mission, disturbed by its implications for evangelism.

The growing polarization of ecumenical and evangelical Protestants was evident at the first World Congress on Evangelism that met

in Berlin in the fall of 1966. Co-sponsored by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Christianity Today, it brought together

700 invited delegates (all Protestant), observers, and reporters. Taking the theme “One Race, One Gospel, One Task,” it proclaimed itself the “spiritual successor” of the first ecumenical conference in Edinburgh in rgto, tacitly denying the wcc’s pedigree.74 Delegate James Somerville’s glowing portrayal of the event in the Observer identified the developing tactical differences between the two fac-

tions. He reported that rather than “listening to the world,” evangelicals were preparing to speak to it in a new way. It was “clear that evangelicals are ready to enter the New Age of history utilizing the tools it provides,” he enthused. For instance, World Vision, a relief

organization supported by evangelicals, was urging churches to make use of computers and other technological advances in promoting evangelism.75

United Church minister J. Berkley Reynolds attended the congress as another of the church’s four delegates.7° Sometimes dubbed “the Billy Graham of Canada,” Reynolds quickly gained a reputation for his outspoken criticism of the New Evangelism.’” He blasted liberals for being “more political than biblical,” and dismissed as nonsense the notion that “social reform and a jumbo church” (a disapproving reference to the aims of ecumenism) would result in a “regenerated

240 A Church with the Soul of a Nation society.” Wondering how long it had been since anyone at the United

Church’s national headquarters had given an altar call, he charged that Hord and his board had “all but forgotten their responsibility to seek individual conversion.” Reynolds also took exception to the board’s more direct approach to social issues, claiming that people wouldn’t notice the difference if the words “Evangelism and Social Service” were changed to “New Democratic Party.” The United Church could as easily be called “The Church Without Doctrine,” he complained.7®

Critics of Billy Graham were just as uncompromising. In “Why the Fundamentalists Are Wrong,” Smillie took issue with the theology he had been taught as a boy in a Plymouth Brethren Sunday school. He rebuked those in the United Church who were “trying to work both sides of the theological street,” and objected to the social conservatism he associated with Graham’s revivalism.7? Further crit-

icisms of Graham followed in the denominational magazine. One article featured an inside look at Graham’s crusade by two reporters who had gone undercover, one to usher and the other to sing in the choir, during a revival service at Toronto’s CNE stadium. They compared Graham’s preaching before a crowd of 45,000 to Nazi recruiting rallies. “Graham plays on the emotions, the insecurity, the fears

and the yearnings in the hearts of listeners, then at the moment of decision punches home the sale with soft music. His sincerity and integrity enable him to carry it off. But these techniques are the same ones Hitler used.”*° Those taking the customary United Church position on evangelism — that it was both personal and connected to all areas of life — were caught on the defensive. In Small Voice, a magazine published

by ucRF, Newfoundland Conference evangelist Norman Wesley Oake reminded readers that those who claimed evangelism was not concerned with social problems needed to re-read the history of revivalism. And yet he was troubled by what he saw as an attempt to reduce the evangelistic mission of the church to “purely social action,” thereby diverting resources from traditional evangelism — an indication perhaps of how conservative evangelicals viewed events sponsored by the National Project. Considering the United Church’s past insistence on linking evangelism and social concern, one can

understand his dismay as they diverged: “Confusion reigns as to what the mission really is.”*?

Listening to the World 241 Imagining the new possibilities for mission, however, was invigorat-

ing for some, among them Katharine Hockin, a renowned United Church missionary and ecumenical leader. Born to parents working as missionaries in China, she eventually served there herself after studying and working in Canada for a number of years.°* Among the last of the United Church’s missionaries to leave China, she returned to Canada and became involved in initiatives to redefine the mission of the church. She was well positioned to assess the challenges at home and overseas — as she put it, “the fluidity of so many things, the mobility of peoples and the growing irrelevance of much of what is customary and habitual.” She exuded enthusiasm for the new global outlook that was developing in ecumenical circles, characterizing it as “one of zest, confidence, adventure and anticipation

as we stretch to work under God in his world, in ways that may be unfamiliar but which will keep us growing in understanding, capacity and obedience.” *3

In 1962 Hockin was invited to join the Commission on World Mission chaired by Donald Fleming, recently retired from federal politics after serving in John Diefenbaker’s Cabinet as minister of finance and later as minister of justice and attorney general.*4 The United Church’s missionary program was facing some serious practical problems. Its failure to find replacements for vacancies in its overseas staff was what Observer editor A.C. Forrest considered the number one crisis facing the church. The United Church would soon have more of its staff “talking and writing and promoting mission, than are working at it,” he warned. The consequences were monumental: “The Church’s commission is to make disciples of all nations. The Church is mission. If we are not missionary, we are not Christian.”*5 The low number of missionary personnel was one of several issues that the commission was asked to tackle. The findings of the commission confirmed Forrest’s fears: the number of missionaries had indeed decreased dramatically in the postwar period.®° But Forrest was troubled for another reason as he observed the presentation of the lengthy report at the General Council in 1966. “We are not certain that the commissioners were fully aware of the radical change that has taken place in what we used to call ‘foreign missions, ” he wrote in his editorial for the next issue of the Observer. He was convinced that Fleming was either unaware of that shift, or unwilling to acknowledge it.°7

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Forrest told readers that he had quizzed Fleming about this matter from the floor when the report was presented at the assembly. Fleming had assured the General Council that “if this were a departure from the traditional evangelical emphasis, my name would never have been attached to the report.” Forrest was not convinced. In his editorial rejoinder to their exchange, he pointed out that the report had emphasized “witness, sacrifice, and total mission,” but contained “little or no emphasis on proclamation, persuading, converting, making disciples of all nations, or ‘winning the world for Christ in this genera-

tion.” Forrest himself had no quarrel with the theological shift; however, it bothered him that there had been “no clear-cut admission

of the serious and radical departure from what many of our people still consider ‘missions.’”®*

Fleming was riled by the editorial. His seven-page letter took Forrest to task for implying that the commission he had chaired was

unaware of a radical change in the context of mission (which the report had in fact analyzed at length). He had understood Forrest’s question at the General Council as inquiring about the purpose of mission. Insisting that the report proposed no change in what

Listening to the World 243 he characterized as “the traditional evangelical concept,” Fleming demanded a retraction.®? Forrest refused to back down. In his view

a radical change in theological emphasis, not just method, had taken place. “If this report does not reflect that change then in my opinion it should, or we mislead our people,” he contended. As a compromise, Forrest invited Fleming to write a brief piece for the Observer to set the record straight.2° Fleming refused to settle for anything less than either publication of his lengthy initial letter in full or a retraction.?! In a last attempt at conciliation, and after what he described as “a long telephone conversation” with Fleming, Forrest drafted a piece

for the Observer titled “Win Souls to Christ.” It confirmed that Fleming considered winning souls to Christ as the primary purpose of mission. However, Forrest went on to explain that while that bad been the emphasis at the time of church union, the contemporary aim of mission was “to serve the world for Christ’s sake.” Conceding that Fleming spoke for “many, perhaps the vast majority,” of United Church members, Forrest argued that present mission policies (and at least the subtext of the report) took for granted a different theological point of view that ought to be named as such.%* Failing to gain Fleming’s endorsement despite several more letters, Forrest dropped the idea of publishing the piece. Although Fleming insisted that the World Mission report represented no change in the traditional evangelical emphasis, C. Douglas Jay, secretary of the commission and instrumental in drafting it, apparently thought otherwise. When Jay, also professor at Emmanuel College, gave the R.P. MacKay Memorial Lectures a year later, he described how the ecumenical task had recently shifted from focusing on Missionary enterprises — “missions” — to making “an effective

Christian presence in the world.” This was, he suggested, “a more acceptable theological and strategic approach” in an age when proselytism (which the report had defined in its glossary as the practice of making converts) had been called into question.?3 Jay explained that highlighting the unity between home and foreign missions (as the wcc had recently done) had far-reaching implications for the conventional distinction between them. Whereas “revival, of recalling those with Christian memories, the lost sheep back to the fold of the church” was the focus of home missions, those working in foreign missions had been expected to “break new ground in a pagan world.” In current ecumenical thinking, however,

244 A Church with the Soul of a Nation the boundary was no longer between home and foreign missions, but between the church and the world. He saw the United Church’s Board of World Mission as “in general ahead of the church at large” in coming to terms with the end of Western missionary expansion.4 If that were so, little wonder that its advocacy of a new approach to mission met a chilly reception in conservative evangelical circles. They saw its emphasis on Christian presence and openness to other faiths as a repudiation of efforts to convert the world to Christ: what was evangelism to them had been defined by the United Church as proselytism, and disparaged as such.

Confusion over the new direction the United Church had taken (knowingly or not) was further evidence of a shakeup that was transforming inter-church relations. Denominational loyalties were waning — but not for the reasons an older generation of ecumenists had assumed. Astute observers were spotting startlingly new trends. Principal George Johnston of United Theological College made a prediction in 1968 that would have seemed preposterous even a decade earlier: the future of ecumenism would be shaped by conservative Protestants and post—Vatican II Catholics.95 From his vantage point as a church executive, Ernest Long also detected signs of that repositioning: the United Church was growing more distant from “so-called evangelicals,” but enjoying more cordial relationships with Catholics than had often been the case in the past.?° While some in the ecumenical camp were growing impatient with

making compromises to find common ground, their evangelical rivals were discovering the advantages of working together. The revival of interest in religion in the 1950s had swelled the numbers of fundamentalists and other conservative evangelicals, giving rise to what is sometimes described as a neo-evangelical movement.?” These evangelicals thought of themselves as non-denominational or trans-

denominational, rather than ecumenical, a word they deplored. Their ranks included many of the United Church’s “sectarian” competitors, who had generally adopted decentralized coordination of

resources rather than the bureaucratic model of governance that larger and more liberal Protestant denominations preferred.9* The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, founded in 1964, offered these groups what they saw as a more suitable approach to co-operation, welcoming local congregations and ministry organizations, as well as denominations, as members.?? “A unity is being cultivated among

Listening to the World 245 Christian believers unlike the current ecumenism which seems to superimpose a pseudo-unity on organizational structure,” enthused Berkley Reynolds as he heralded the founding of the UCRF as evidence of a new day dawning for Canadian evangelicals.'°° Meanwhile the United Church was finding the company of old adversaries more enjoyable as an era of co-operation with Catholics

commenced in the heady years following Vatican II.'°' The InterChurch Committee on Protestant-Roman Catholic Relations, formed

in 1944 by several Protestant groups to keep an eye on Catholic “encroachment” on the state, was discharged in 1973. By then neither ecumenical Protestants nor Roman Catholics seemed to have the energy for reciting old grievances. A committee report presented at the 1972 General Council recommended that the United Church “at every level” from congregation to the national divisions “no longer use any literature on Protestant-Roman Catholic relations which is pre-Vatican II,” and urged that new materials on mixed marriages be prepared to help couples accept their religious differences. '°* The pervasive sense of being on the cusp of a New Age, in which there was no secure place for any of the institutional churches, generated different concerns than in the past. The United Church remained fiercely proud of its francophone members, many with longstanding connections to Protestantism. But some were former Catholics. The situation presented a new dilemma: should ecumenical Protestants encourage the latter to return to the Catholic Church in order to renew it from within?'®3 Others were more wary as they read the documents issued after the Vatican Council. George Johnston was troubled by what he feared was a “new type of Roman Catholic imperialism” that still regarded Protestants as belonging to mere ecclesial communities rather than true churches.'°4

What did these changes portend for ecumenism as once understood by the United Church? With the uncoupling of Christianity and culture underway in many countries, Canada among them, the old strategic intention of reuniting Christendom by first creating united national churches was no longer as viable. There was continuing interest in bringing confessional families together in the kind

of organic union that the United Church had achieved in 1925. However, ecumenism was transformed by those who imagined alternatives to that model. Moreover, for those still committed to an or-

ganic model of Christian unity, Vatican I] dramatically redefined what was at stake. It offered an intriguing new possibility: a church

246 A Church with the Soul of a Nation made more fully catholic by the return of the “separated brethren” of non-Roman ecclesial communities. At the same time, a glimmer of a different understanding of ecumenism, informed by the changing approach to world mission, was evident in the United Church’s avid support for inter-church coalitions organized around issues of common concern. This approach shifted the emphasis from beliefs held in common (still the basis for much of the co-operation among conservative Protestants) to working together despite confessional fault lines. There would still be amalgamation in the future, Hord predicted, but with less money spent on buildings (temples to the idols of denominationalism, as he put it) and more on specialized staff, community service, and world mission. Inner-city work would be done ecumenically and coordinated with community developers and social workers in existing

agencies.'° Such a venture in ecumenical outreach was launched in the Lakehead region of Ontario by Lois Wilson, serving in team ministry at First United Church, Fort William, with her husband, Roy Wilson.

In the fall of 1967 they invited Protestant and Catholic churches to join in planning Town Talk, a month-long multimedia public forum to discuss such relevant community topics as family problems, poverty in an affluent society, pollution, science, and foreign aid.'°° But the fissures that were remaking Christianity elsewhere were apparent in northern Ontario as well. While the success of Town Talk exceeded expectations, Wilson recalled that some conservative churches boycotted the project because there wasn’t enough emphasis on the Bible.t°7 It was a sign of the new ecclesial times: although the United Church’s interaction with Catholicism was growing less oppositional, it was drawing more criticism from conservative Protestants, including some within its own ranks.

Town Talk was to reshape how Wilson viewed the United Church’s public role and the church’s place in an urban setting.'°® The event

showcased exciting possibilities for urban outreach, a crucial element of the United Church’s new mission strategy. The spiritual needs of the frontier had figured large in the case for church union. Its home missions strategy had been aimed at providing religious services for small communities as well as for non-Anglo-Saxons in cities. However, it was the urban frontier that caught the imagination of those preparing the United Church for its new mission to the

Listening to the World tag world. “The cradle of our pluralistic society” was how the first report

of the Commission on the Church on the Urban Frontier portrayed the city in 1964. People were flocking there to seek power, opportunity, and excitement in the economic, social, educational, and artistic

exchanges it offered. But most congregations were unprepared to meet the demands of the new sort of community taking shape on this

new frontier, and were in danger of providing answers in rural or outdated terms that expressed “nostalgia for bygone days.”'°? Nothing was safe from scrutiny. The United Church’s praiseworthy studies on immigration, war and peace, capital punishment, na-

tional health insurance, and the use of alcohol and tobacco had sometimes shaped public policy in the past, noted a second report; however, “the large majority of church members have never heard of these reports, let alone taken action following their recommendations.” The New Curriculum — already under fire from conservatives — was hit with a different criticism: it might not be suitable for all

communities, prepared as it was for “average, middle-class young people.” Nor should the church expect to make its influence felt in urban communities through social service work as in the past, now that the government or secular agencies were providing such services. Congregations were instead urged to take up “community issues of importance with a view to political action.” ''° Shifting the focus to the urban frontier had serious consequences for the old frontier. Although rural churches still made up 65 per cent of United Church congregations, the encroachment of urbanism was having a negative affect. Changes in pastoral leadership were frequent. Some pastoral charges were in a precarious financial situation. Controversy over biblical interpretation or moral standards could be devastating in a rural church, Board of Home Missions associate secretary Harold Bailey reminded those who complained about the slow pace of change there. Losing some members over a hotly contested issue might make little difference in a large church, whereas such division in a small rural congregation could threaten its survival.''' Perhaps it is not surprising then that there was more resistance to adopting the New Curriculum in rural churches than in large urban ones. Moreover, the new ecumenical spirit created uncertainty about the purpose of home missions. When Forrest editorialized about the meaning of the term “national church” in 1957, he reiterated that the United Church had never intended to become a state church, but

248 A Church with the Soul of a Nation hoped to “provide fellowship for all who would come to Canada from whatever nation or culture.” Although at that time 80 per cent of its members still considered the British Isles their ancestral home, the United Church’s aspiration was that every Christian who came

to Canada would “find fellowship in our church.” Forrest could boast that “in a real sense it is becoming the Church of Christ in Canada.”''* Home missions had helped to make it so. For instance, in contrast to the Anglican and Presbyterian churches, the United Church had expanded missions to Chinese immigrants in the 19 50s, and the results were impressive. By 1961, over half the persons of Chinese extraction in Canada had joined a Protestant church, and the United Church’s share of Chinese Protestants was 38.7 per cent

(up from 13.6 per cent two decades earlier.)''? Even though the 1961 census showed that Catholics were gaining ground on Protestants, the United Church could point to such successes.

However, the theological and cultural rationale for sponsoring missionary work among immigrants was becoming less clear by the mid-1960s.''4 Since most immigrants to Canada had no direct confessional link to the United Church in the country they had left, how

was the United Church to extend fellowship without seeming to proselytize? Ecumenical sensitivity to the overtures of Vatican II combined with the new theology of world mission to scuttle the old home mission strategy, especially in urban centres where Catholic immigrants were arriving in large numbers. The shift to providing only technical services in health, education, agriculture, industry, etc. alienated some who believed, as George Johnston bluntly put it, that the Christian message was “proselytizing at its core.” ‘15 Conservative

evangelicals certainly thought so, and did not hesitate to encourage Catholics — and unhappy Protestants in liberal congregations — to join them.

Caught between the old and new frontiers was suburbia, where the majority of the baby boomers were born.''® The merits of an ambitious church extension program in new housing developments had seemed obvious in the 1950s, and it was to new suburban congrega-

tions that the United Church owed most of its postwar success. Suburban churches were in a paradoxical situation: they were caught between the tug of nostalgia for old traditions associated with the congregations (often rural) in which their members had grown up, and their willingness to experiment.''? A sympathetic

Listening to the World 249 Observer editorial published shortly after release of The Comfortable Pew noted that new suburban congregations were criticized for adjusting too much. Some had even gone so far as to change the time of worship from eleven o’clock on Sunday morning and cancel the Sunday evening service. Their ecumenism was expressed by dispens-

ing with denominational programs that they deemed ineffective, and ignoring denominational labels, “partly because they [suburban parishioners] don’t know the difference or because they just don’t care.”''® To make matters worse, their sociability was suspect to those who urged the church to listen to the world. What critics de-

nounced as a social club, suburban parishioners saw as putting down new roots: “They want to find or create a community and rear their children in the fear of God and the knowledge of Christ among believers — nice, decent believers.” With the inner city “left to the Roman Catholics, the ethnic churches and the Gospel halls,” Forrest protested, “jibing at the suburbs or depreciating their witness” offered “no assistance and no cure.” ''? The Comfortable Pew no doubt reinforced negative images of the

suburban congregation. But Forrest also attributed some of the snide remarks he heard when he was out and about to the impact of Americans Vance Packard and Gibson Winter, whose writings depicted superficial suburbanites switching churches casually in their quest for status.'*° Months after the editorial about suburban congregations appeared in 1964, Forrest found that his positive assessment was making the Observer “the object of wearisome attack.” “You can’t mean it,” wrote someone he described as a good friend, who wondered if he was trying to be ironic!!*! Forrest did mean it, and repeated his admiration for what was happening in the suburbs as “the most exciting and promising manifestation of our changing religious life.” Despite obvious experimentation, suburban churchgoers had “sought to preserve and nurture the best elements of community life they left behind on farm and in village and town.” They displayed “the best questioning, the freshest thinking, the most venturesome planning, and the most sacrificial giving.” Indeed, if there was to be a new reformation, it was likely to have the best chance in suburban churches, which had become “little ecumenical institutes.” '*”

Forrest decided to investigate what a wide cross-section of church leaders thought about suburban congregational life, and the result was a symposium published in the Observer in 1965.

250 A Church with the Soul of a Nation Many (including all the principals of theological colleges who commented) praised suburban churches for their innovation, enthu-

slasm, openness, and generosity. Disparagement was motivated by jealousy, retorted principal E.S. Lautenschlager of Emmanuel College, and “initiated by the devil.” Bruce McLeod, who had spent six years as minister of a suburban congregation, reminded readers

that behind the power mowers and morning cups of coffee were men, women, and children living in situations as hopeless as any other place. “What I miss in many well-phrased criticisms of the church’s involvement in suburbia is some alternative plan of caring for these people.” Mutchmor commended suburban churches for displaying “visible proof of a strong, intelligent faith” and providing

more for the worship, work, and witness of the Christian church than his own generation.**3

Hord, the former pastor of two flourishing suburban churches, took a more critical stance. He described the suburbanite as living a “schizophrenic existence” between the “impersonal structures of the business corporation and political machine” and the comforts of a

middle-class, split-level home in the suburbs. Citing Winter’s Suburban Captivity of the Churches, he insisted that only by accepting responsibility for the inner city would the suburban church find its true life.7*4

Among the most scathing of the published responses were two letters from women, one a suburban minister’s wife who asked to remain anonymous. She characterized the suburban community as comprised of one socio-economic group (mainly families of young executives) who thought it was good for business to belong to a church. The main concern was for the building itself, rather than what was happening inside it. A compartmentalized attitude to religion that saw it as unrelated to social issues was being passed on to the youth of suburban churches, who, like their fathers, thought the church should “stick to its knitting” and not speak out on educational, economic, or political matters. She had found suburban congregations filled with status seekers and nominal Christians “rejoicing in broadloom wall to wall, full of pride, arrogance and selfrighteousness,” willing to “serve suppers and salve their consciences with a token money gift.” '*5

Katherine Burbidge concurred. Outsiders could not be blamed for “equating us with an ultra-respectable service club with religious

overtones.” She claimed that the service club spirit of the United

Listening to the World oS Church repelled many suburbanites. Consequently, “thinking Christians” were drifting to Unitarian churches. “We are not all born fund raisers, and it should be possible to sing in the choir, or teach Sunday school, lead a youth group or serve on the session without becoming

involved as a huckster of anything from variety show tickets to 50-pound bags of potatoes,” she complained.'*® Sociability had been a virtue associated with faith and fellowship, especially in rural communities and small towns. Now secular pundits and even some of the United Church’s own leaders, who frowned on the festivals of suburban church life, mocked it. Suburban churches had assumed that cultivating community within the congregation

was laudable as an antidote to the anonymity of modern life. But this aspect of congregational life was coming under fire from those who insisted that rather than being preoccupied with drawing people in, the church should be sending them out into the world. Perhaps

it is not surprising that some who had been only loosely connected to the United Church chose to stay at home rather than engage in activities that its own leaders considered a hindrance to God’s mission in the world.'*7 Some worried that old practices of pastoral care were no longer appreciated. Even if the welfare state were to take care of most material needs in the future, Forrest reminded Observer readers, the government was not equipped to care for persons suffering from loneliness, frustration, neuroses, and ills that beset even the affluent. Sewing circles, knitting clubs, Bible classes, suppers, bazaars, prayer meetings, and choirs provided effective ministry to the lonely. “This, too, is evangelism,” he insisted.'*® But those who associated evangelism with Billy Graham’s methods would not have agreed — and they

appeared to be gaining exclusive recognition as the evangelical brand. Forrest was startled to hear conservative Protestants referred to simply as evangelicals. “Aren’t we all?” he asked plaintively, still convinced that Protestants who weren’t evangelical should be.'*? By the end of the tumultuous decade of the sixties, those who would answer “yes” to that question were a shrinking minority. Was there a remedy for what was ailing the United Church? Could it be cured by listening to the world, as those who embraced the new concept of world mission hoped? The mixed results of the National Project and its Planning Fellowships at both the national and local levels were not encouraging. What emerged in 1967 in conjunction

252 A Church with the Soul of a Nation with Canada’s Centennial celebrations was barely recognizable as the

National Project of Evangelism that had been announced in 1962. Many of the activities connected with the original focus on evangelism were sidelined to make way for the added emphasis on social action."3° The accomplishments described in the final report were modest: issues had been brought into the open, groups of like-minded persons (both conservative and radical) had come together, and the majority of those who attended the Planning Fellowships had experi-

enced “catharsis.” There was a frank admission that Planning Fellowships had often left participants feeling “hung up” — aware of

the church’s failings, but short on remedies.'3' Meanwhile other groups, including the Jesus movement, offered Jesus as the answer to what was ailing society.

Staffer Robert Christie sounded discouraged in 1970 as he approached retirement, timed to coincide with the closing of E&s$s’s Vancouver office where he had worked for nearly two decades. His stinging accusation was that the United Church’s misplaced priorities had “both minimized and jeopardized the ordinary Christian’s growth in faith and its practical expression in the workaday social setting.” Personal commitment to Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour

had been replaced by “a less demanding brand of sub-Christian fraternizing and sharing of human experience and joint social action — proclaiming this to be ‘the New Evangelism.’”'3* His visits to con-

gregations and presbyteries had convinced him that the church’s once generally effective social ministry was also imperiled; it was “renamed, redirected, devitalized, devocalized — if not totally confounded.” '33 He held his own board as partly responsible: the postMutchmor staff had replaced personal evangelism (such as preaching missions, teaching missions, visitation, schools for elders, Lenten studies, and evangelism conferences) with impersonal congregational self-analysis and Planning Fellowships.'34 William Berry, another long-time staffer, saw things differently as he prepared to return to pastoral ministry that same year. His parting report was a reminder of why the United Church had been per-

suaded to listen to the world in the first place. The man who had steered the Calling Canada to Christ campaign in the 1950s insisted that “only a daring, enthusiastic continuing [sic] and vital policy of evangelism can save western culture from the decadence into which it has already fallen.” Yet thinking of evangelism in terms that were “too personal” obscured the “corporate power of society.” No one

Listening to the World | person was responsible for unemployment or war; such social sins were “more blatant, vicious and brutal than the sins of any one individual.” By focusing on personal evangelism during the Mutchmor era, the United Church had missed an opportunity: “We tried winning people one by one in the hope they would challenge society. But it never worked out.” Instead the revival had produced a “lack-lustre feeble Christianity.” Yet he agreed with Christie that the gospel was both social and personal: “We have only a lopsided arch, which cannot stand if we emphasize one side and not the other.” 135

Even Hord admitted that the National Project had polarized the liberal and conservative wings of the United Church, dividing them over whether to emphasize evangelism or social service. But he still insisted that they “belong together and must not be separated if we are to be true to Christ.”"3° “Finding Life’s Meaning,” a winsome poem penned a year before his death, spoke to how the personal and the social were enjoined in his own piety:

Christ has broken the power of evil, And exposed it on the Cross; In response | want to serve Him Who has loved me at such cost. As Christ came to seek and win me And assure me I’m a child of God, So He sends me forth to win my brothers,

And point them in the path He trod.!’ The 1960s saw the rapid demise of the early twentieth-century approach to mission that had been celebrated with great fanfare at Edinburgh in 1910. Admittedly, balancing its twin goals of evangelization and Christianization had never been easy. But after the 1960s, there were fewer who thought the effort worthwhile. The so-called dual mandate of doing mission and doing justice was soon to replace the old two-pronged approach to evangelism and social service in the lexicon of the United Church."3® Evangelism still had liberal defend-

ers. But by the end of the decade, as the emerging notion of world mission drew the line more sharply between ecumenical and evangelical Protestants, to be a liberal evangelical was almost a contradiction in terms. Evangelism was viewed with suspicion to be sure; however, just as significant was scrutiny of old assumptions about

254 A Church with the Soul of a Nation the social role of the church, which revealed a diminishing demand

for the kind of social service the United Church had once delivered."39 The sometimes-querulous marriage of evangelism and social service was over, and the liberal evangelicalism they had once fostered was forsaken.

A desire to move beyond the impasse between them perhaps explains the enthusiastic response to what was hailed as the “social action report” at the General Council that convened a few months after Hord’s death. Among the recommendations of the Commission on the Church in the Field of Social Welfare was that the areas of evangelism, social service, and home missions (and perhaps others) be collapsed into a new Church and Society division."4° In promoting partnerships with governmental and non-governmental agencies, it insisted that there was nothing about “religious” social programs, as such, that made them superior; rather, the quality of service and sensitivity to human need were the only proper criteria for judging a program’s merit.'4' If in the coming years it was difficult to distinguish the United Church’s social ministries from secular social work, that was by design.

The leaders of the 1960s are often blamed for the failure of the United Church to keep pace with the growth of the previous decade. Yet it is fallacious to pin numerical decline on particular persons or programs. The appeal to listen to the world was a genuine attempt to confront the challenges facing churches around the world, and to rethink mission accordingly. To be sure, there were flawed decisions. But as the so-called radicals listened to the world, they were convinced that a greater risk than failure was to do nothing. By forcing a hesitant church to imagine a New Age where the church was no longer assured of its customary place, they primed it for the difficult days ahead. As she pondered that future, Katharine Hockin even dared to ask: “Can it be that God is active in our world in ways that may not always be to our advantage?”'4* As the 1960s drew to a close, the United Church was less certain of the answer to that question than the founding generation had been.

9

Reconceiving the United Church A real tradition is not the relic of a past irretrievably gone; it is a living force that animates and informs the present ... It appears as an heirloom, a heritage that one receives on condition of making it bear fruit before passing it on to one’s descendants. Igor Stravinsky, Poetics of Music in the Form of Six Lessons

Preaching at the annual pilgrimage service of the historic Old Hay Bay Church in 1965, general secretary Ernest Long warned an overflow crowd that unless his church changed its ways, it was headed for a “stunning defeat” over the next twenty years.’ Sounding even less optimistic two years later, “Mr United Church” (as Long was nicknamed) made headlines when he warned that his church had “five years to change radically — or else!”* Defending his dire outlook for the future, he bluntly declared that the old idea of a worlddominating Christendom was dead. It was evident to Long that the very survival of the United Church was in question too. The signs were unmistakable; it was already in the throes of change. During the revivals of the 1950s, some church leaders had boasted that the United Church’s “amazing growth” would “continue, and perhaps even be stepped up in tempo.”4 A decade later the swagger was gone. “The revival is over; we may be in for a difficult time of retrenchment,” announced Observer editor A.C. Forrest as he delivered the bad news in 1967: church growth had halted in 1962, and total church membership declined in 1966 for the first time since church union.’ There were dire predictions that churches in Canada

would follow the pattern of decline already evident in much of the UK and continental Europe. Statistical projections indicated that before long Christianity would become a minority religion in Canada.° One computer model predicted that attendance at Anglican

256 A Church with the Soul of a Nation Table 9.1 Geographical distribution of United Church membership, 1971

United Church

Total population Membership % of population

Canada 21,568,310 3,768,800 17.47

Newfoundland 5223105 101,805 19.50 Prince Edward Island 111,640 27,830 24.93

Nova Scotia 788,960 162,885 20.65 New Brunswick 634,555 85,185 13.42

Quebec 6,027,760 176,825 ZS Ontario 7,703,105 1,682,820 21.85

Manitoba 988,250 256,560 25.96 Saskatchewan 926,245 274,285 29.61 Alberta 1,627,875 456,925 28.07 British Columbia 2,184,620 537,565 24.61

Northwest Territories 34,805 3,005 8.6

Yukon Territory 18,390 3,110 16.91

Source: Census of Canada (1971), vol. 1, part 3, Table 1o

churches in Toronto would cease by 12 February 1981. The United Church’s future was not much brighter; one of its own studies predicted that it would suffer a similar fate by the mid-1990s.7 With negotiations between the two churches underway, it appeared that any union between them would be short-lived. The United Church was to outlast these grim forecasts of its im-

minent end. And yet Long was in a sense proven right: in many

respects the church that was born in 1925 did not survive the tumultuous 1960s. The hope of a Christian Canada that had inspired the bold experiment of the founders dimmed as the country grew religiously and culturally diverse. The customary insistence

that faith was both personal and social in character, formed in Christian fellowship and practised in the course of everyday life, sounded quaint to a new generation that was demanding relevance and social action. There were complaints from across the theological spectrum that the organizational machinery — once hailed as a key to the success of the United Church’s mission — was broken. In response

its leaders resolved to woo back the disenchanted, convinced that

2,600,000 = 2,400,000 pe. SS aise fo ™ — Persons under Pastoral Care -—e Members

2,800,000 5

2,000,000

1,800,000 1,600,000 4

1,400,000 —/-

1,000,000 ——— $00,000 ——

1.200.000 —__—_—_—_—_££_ _—-_\$_ iy \N\N\N\N\N\N\—o_ ue

240.0 90 0 Aaa 600,000 -

400,000 -

SRARSERSESRERSSTIR ESET FRET ARS EG RSS OSs esGssennren Figure 9.1

United Church of Canada membership, 1926-75 Source: The United Church of Canada Year Book + 1926 and 1927: year ending 31 March. All others: year ending 31 December.

—e Total Funds Raised $100 000 000 $90 000 000 $80 000 000 $70 000 000 $60 000 000 $50 000 000 $40 000 000 $30 000 000 $20 000 000 $10 000 000 $0

SAO AIT ATS PRONTO NONI S AO ONO CIDE AES DO NOLO ci SS hin ch dh Dal el ab ln pe ot dah acct i hc ah nh a Ya ic a inh rh a a et lb a

Figure 9.2 Total funds raised for all purposes, 1926-7 5 Source: The United Church of Canada Year Book. + 1926 and 1927: year ending 31 March. All others: year ending 31 December.

258 A Church with the Soul of a Nation those who were ambivalent about organized religion were not necessarily rejecting God or abandoning Christianity, but only the conformity, clubbiness, and bureaucratic authority that critics associated with it.

Scholars agree that the 1960s decisively changed the religious landscape of North America and Western Europe; they disagree on explanations for the sudden downward spiral in religious participation in mainstream Protestant and Catholic churches. Historian Hugh McLeod cautions that it is a mistake to single out one “master factor” to account for it. The United Church’s experience confirms his claim that a number of initially disparate currents converged to create the crisis: affluence, the decline of ideologically based subcultures, theological radicalization, political radicalization (especially opposition to the Vietnam War), the sexual revolution, and women’s search for independence, to name a few of the most significant.® He finds the most serious religious decline to have been associated with the “low-key style of piety which had flourished in previous decades, which emphasized Christian ethics and membership of the Christian community, rather than the dogmatic or the miraculous”? — an apt description of the United Church. In The Upside of Down, political scientist Thomas Homer-Dixon argues that the greatest opportunity for transformative change happens when a number of adaptive cycles collide. He uses the term “panarchy,” a concept borrowed from ecology, to refer to the unpredictable change that results from such “cycles within cycles.” '°

In social systems, as in nature, catastrophe can clear the ground for something new as innovations are introduced and tested."! Experiments that fail are abandoned, while those that succeed shape the next phase of development.'* Breakdown is disruptive to some

parts of a system, but does not need to be catastrophic overall; in fact, limited breakdown in a social system is necessary to create space for new leadership and structures to emerge.'3 On the other hand, “excessive exuberance” can threaten the survival of a system.'4 The challenge to leadership during times of adaptive change is to allow systems to “fail gracefully”: to limit the damage and preserve what will aid in recovery.'5 Panarchy aptly describes the situation of the United Church during the 1960s: its heightened vulnerability after a period of growth, the collision of cycles within cycles, and the tension between innovators and conservers who both played critical roles by preventing (or

Reconceiving the United Church 259 at least delaying) its collapse. Picturing change as an adaptive cycle recognizes the significance of links between the parts of a complex system — an intriguing way to think of conciliar governance in the United Church. Slow change at one level protects the system while faster-paced innovation at another level energizes it. The theory also emphasizes the importance of connections between “remembrance” (persistence) and “revolt” (evolvability) during a cycle of change and renewal. Healthy systems in society, as in nature — whether a forest after a fire or a coral reef after a storm — rely on “memories” during such times of reorganization and renewal.'® While innovators clear the ground for change, conservers look for ways to plant the seeds of memory for another generation to harvest. The adaptive challenges facing the United Church in the 1960s were unprecedented in its short history. Though often described as a mod-

ern church, it was not well suited to cope with some key cultural dynamics that ran counter to its founding vision. The United Church

had aspired to situate itself at the centre of communities across Canada, communicating both spiritual and social messages from a Christian vantage point. It had proudly identified itself within Max Weber’s famous typology as a church, rather than a sect, and adopted an organizational style to match. What seemed to catch the United Church by surprise in the 1960s was the growing presence, even in its own midst, of Weber’s third type. “Mystic” was a rather misleading English translation of the term Weber had used for those who regarded the autonomy of individual and immediate experience as their authority in religious mat-

ters.'7 In centuries past this third type had been predominantly otherworldly in its orientation. The 1960s demonstrated that this third type could be radically this-worldly in its spiritual focus. Such mystics were ambivalent and even antagonistic to organized religion, sentiments that were captured in phrases such as ‘secular religion, ‘no religion, and ‘spiritual but not religious” The subjectivity of their spiritual quest eroded the United Church’s faith in fellowship, and their suspicion of bureaucratic organizations undermined its conciliar structure. It was this new challenge that Ray Hord had confronted in one of his last addresses before his death in 1968. “It’s later than we think for the institutional church,” he warned. The church had helped to define modern Christendom, with its edifice standing in the centre of

260 A Church with the Soul of a Nation the community and the priest or minister relating its teachings to all of life through preaching and the sacraments. But now, he contended, “Christendom with its homogeneity and common standards has all but disappeared.” The church no longer held a central place in people’s lives, nor did it bring the community together as it had in the past. The church would only continue to influence the world if it discovered “forms of fellowship and service that are more congenial to current experience.” Comparing the situation of the United Churchto that of the Jews in exile during the sixth century Bc, Hord insisted that its most urgent task was “to prepare and train her members to be a part of the church of the dispersion” that was “scattered in a pluralistic culture.” Once it faced this new reality, he predicted it would worry less about its administrative structures and old forms of worship.*®

A radically different approach to faith and fellowship was shaking the theological foundations on which mainstream churches like the

United Church rested. Making Christianity “ready for the world” was how principal Donald Mathers summed up a decade of dramatic theological change to a gathering of the Queen’s University Saturday Club in 1969. The quest for salvation had once involved taking one’s sins to a religious expert, he mused, as one would take an ulcer to a doctor. But now individuals were expected to work out

their own solutions — in effect to bear their own sins. “We seem to have moved from confession and absolution to counselling, and from the external restraints of a community bound by an official orthodoxy to the internal loyalties of a fellowship of pilgrims.” Mathers explained how this fellowship of pilgrims was altering assumptions about the spiritual quest. Terms like ‘personal maturity, ‘integrity, and ‘social relevance’ had become the modern equivalents of ‘salvation. The time would come, he expected, when God would

be praised in the language of science, or politics, or medicine, for every workplace would be considered a place of service to God. Every person would be a priest, and each home a temple, he predicted (noting that the Apocalypse of John made no mention of a temple in the New Jerusalem). “We are indeed being secularized,” he

declared, explaining that this was “not an elimination of religion from the world but a religious transformation of the world.”'9 A conspicuous number of these “pilgrims” were affiliated with the United Church. They were inclined to turn to their own conscience, rather than the guidance of the church or even the Bible, in matters

Reconceiving the United Church 261 of moral and spiritual discernment. They distanced themselves from the organized fellowship that had defined their church for four decades, relying instead on their own experience to guide their actions. They did not want any organization — certainly not the church — to speak for them on social issues. This fellowship of pilgrims thus repudiated much of what ‘being United’ had entailed. Yet the United

Church’s hope was that these pilgrims who needed no priest for themselves might be drawn to the prophetic message of the gospel for the sake of others. Paradoxically, while the new spiritual quest was not necessarily solitary, it was subjective. The individual autonomy it prized entailed a

different understanding of belonging to a moral community. Not only was a person expected to make his or her own moral decisions (not an uncommon Protestant notion): autonomy now extended to the selection of criteria for making such decisions. This eroded the church’s traditional authority as the primary moral guide.*° Those wishing to uphold the moral values of the past were left to negotiate them privately with no backing from secular culture — and increasingly less encouragement from the church. As fewer heeded its advice on personal conduct, the United Church scrambled to find more

relevant language to defend old causes. After the 1964 General Council, Forrest complained that the commissioners had engaged in long discussions on smoking but “refused to call it a ‘moral issue’ not because it isn’t but because that sounds like sin.” Instead smoking was discouraged as “a health hazard and a deep concern to the Christian conscience.”*! Some fights it seemed — even good ones — could not be won. Coming to terms with the eclipse of moral community was particularly difficult in the matter of beverage alcohol. “ You have before you just about the most discouraging task of any group in Canada,” Forrest told a young people’s temperance group in 1965. Prohibition didn’t have a chance, and government control as a way of countering abuse had become a joke. Drinking was actually encouraged by gov-

ernment agencies to increase tax revenues. Even “decent people” were embarrassed about refusing to drink because of the bad image of the old temperance movement. He hoped that one day a politician might be able to do something to restrict the sale of beverage alcohol if, as he expected, things continued to get out of hand. “In the mean-

time we can be temperate in all things,” he counselled. “We must

262 A Church with the Soul of a Nation insist on our right to be total abstainers. And insist on the rights of others to be temperate users of alcohol. And promote and support every good effort aimed at understanding, and assisting the addict to solve his problems. If we do this then we may be able to enlist others who have a common concern for the welfare, economy and sobriety of Canada.”?* Nearly all churches had trouble with the topic of sex during the 1960s, and the United Church was no exception. The gap between

what the church taught and what people were doing was an old problem. However, the divergence between the churches’ approach to sexual ethics and the message of the media and psychologists was new.*3 Secular critics complained that churches were skittish about talking to young adults about sex. The United Church responded by tackling a broader range of issues and experimenting with ways to promote discussion. For instance, it joined the Anglican Church in commissioning Coffee House, a drama created to encourage young adults to discuss premarital sex, abortion, and the new morality.*4 And more change was on the way. During the sexual revolution of the 1960s, the collapse of what historian Doug Owram calls “the cult of virginity” blurred the relationship between sex and marriage. By the 1970s the three-fold purpose of marriage (procreation, com-

panionship, and the vocation of parenting) portrayed in United Church materials of bygone years was reduced to one: intimacy.*5 In many communities across Canada, a more secular Sunday was

another sign that belonging to a moral community was waning in significance. The effects of living in a secular society were felt with increasing strength each passing year, according to a 1962 report on “The Lord’s Day.”*° Pluralism was being used as an excuse to change Sunday legislation, the report complained. Conceding that urban areas of Canada were no longer “chiefly Anglo-Saxon,” it maintained that immigrants should generally “be prepared to accept Canadian ways rather than expect Canadians to adapt themselves to the ways of newcomers.”?7 A child living in a “Christian country” should not

have to choose between a baseball game and Sunday school; thus laws “which ensure such choices do not have to be made, are not only good Christianity but good citizenship.”*® A report on the same

issue a decade later proposed a choice between one of two days of rest (Saturday or Sunday), basing its case on promoting “human well-being.” By then the United Church was ready to concede that in a pluralistic culture, “the Christian segment can no longer expect the

Reconceiving the United Church 2.63 state to enforce, by the law, religious practices which are uniquely matters of individual conscience.”*? By the 1970s another moral cause had been abandoned. Not only were United Church people inclined to flout their church’s lead in moral matters, they were more likely than in the past to dispense with Christian fellowship, even on Sunday morning. As people weighed the benefits of belonging, convincing them to join one vol-

untary organization over another was a problem both inside and outside the church. Mutchmor reported in 1962 that “loss of fellowship is reflected in sparsely attended old time political meetings and in the current decline of trade union membership.”3° As other groups competed for volunteers, the United Church discovered that it was

harder to find adults willing to serve as Sunday school teachers, youth leaders, and committee members. Even showing up for an hour on Sunday morning was onerous, especially to young people who complained of being ‘turned off? by boring worship services. With supporters of experimental forms of ministry provocatively claiming that going to church on Sunday did not make a person good, what was the point of being there?}' A cultural revolution was underway, unleashing forces that affected the habits of churchgoers as well as the organizations and institutions to which they belonged, noted Forrest in 1969. Nowhere was that more evident, he suggested, than in the changed attitude to Sunday. After years of well-attended worship services, requiring a double-shift in some cases, there were forecasts that the morning service and Sunday

school would follow the path to extinction that Sunday evening services and mid-week prayer meetings had already taken.** There was nothing holy about scheduling, he granted, and structures needed to change. However, there was “something sacred about Christian fellowship, about disciplined worship and prayer, about study, about teaching, about meeting in the name of Christ,” he insisted. His quarrel was not with those who had rejected the church because they had lost their faith, but “the people who believe but are not working at it” — the

ones who still sent a cheque to support the church, but would rather curl, golf, play bridge, or spend time at the cottage than show up on Sunday morning.33

In communities across Canada, attendance at church-sponsored events was plummeting. For a denomination that placed a premium on fellowship as a way of nurturing faith, the declining appeal of

264 A Church with the Soul of a Nation

700,000 fe 600,000 a Mie, < oo ge 500,000 i

— Membership of Sunday Schools — -™ Members Through-Week Organizations

800,000 4¢——______?_—?_?_?_—$_$_$_$_$_$_$_$_$___—$———————————————————

400,000 | 300,000 | 200,000 | 100,000

SSSRSSSEDELRSR LESSER ERS SSS SERS E Seg SES ER REN TEES Figure 9.3 Membership in Sunday schools and through-week organizations, 1926-75 Source: The United Church of Canada Year Book + 1926 and 1927: year ending 31 March. All others: year ending 31 December.

such activities did not bode well for the future. Particularly disturbing was the prospect of losing the generation of young adults born

after the Second World War. With many of them pursuing postsecondary education in the 1960s, there was evidence that the baby boomers were entering university as Christians but leaving as agnostics or atheists.34 Student Christian Movement (SCM) general secretary John Berry reported poor attendance at worship services and Bible study groups on university campuses. The majority of sc Mers leaned toward what he called churchless Christianity, and were “intensely dissatisfied with the state of the church” because of its divisions and its failure to connect its message with “life in the world.” 35

The Sunday school was a leading indicator of the trouble that lay ahead. The United Church had invested heavily in the New Curriculum, expecting to tap the religious energies of children and youth. Despite the furor in the press after its children’s program was launched in 1964, the New Curriculum was in use in 90 per cent of United Church congregations a year later.3° But euphoria over class-

rooms filled to capacity and brisk sales of books was short-lived. Sunday school volunteers were dismayed to learn that three years after the New Curriculum was introduced, enrolment had dropped by 25 per cent. With the end of the baby boom, there were fewer

children to replace those who left to work or attend university

Reconceiving the United Church 265 elsewhere. Sales of New Curriculum materials plunged after the first cycle, perhaps as much the result of recycling as a negative response to content: rather than being given to children to keep, the durable hardcover books were retrieved and re-used three years later. Children were not the New Curriculum’s only target: it was billed as a program that would “revolutionize the Sunday church school, and put the emphasis back on adults.”37 Some congregations found that introducing the New Curriculum to adults was a greater chal-

lenge than using it with children: it demanded more time than the adults were prepared to give. Women in particular were showing signs of volunteer fatigue. Sunday schools for adults had not been common in the past, and the theology underlying the curriculum was unfamiliar even to people who had grown up in the church. Sunday school teachers were no longer sure enough about their own faith to instruct others.3®> Winnipeg’s Westworth United Church, for instance, reported that some members left because of the troubling theological issues that the New Curriculum raised, and even many who stayed struggled with it.39 Adults who volunteered to teach the New Curriculum were expected to be learners themselves. For in-

stance, upon opening the manual to prepare for a Sunday school class of nine- to eleven-year-olds in the first year of the New Curriculum, a teacher would have found nearly a hundred pages of biblical background and pedagogical theory written by professionals before coming to the material on what to do at the first session.4° Although conservative evangelicals inside and outside the denomi-

nation were wary of the New Curriculum, some who took the time to examine it were surprisingly appreciative of its merits. The consensus of those who discussed it at a gathering of the Christian Research Seminar was “very favourable in many respects,” according to Wilber Sutherland, the general secretary of Canadian Intervarsity Christian Fellowship (and a Presbyterian). Writing to a friend connected to the UCRF, he reported that there had been “enthusiastic agreement” that it made sections of the Old Testament “readable and interesting.” Its handling of science and creation was “excellent,” and even its controversial handling of the first chapters of Genesis did a better job of conveying their theological significance than evangelical publications. However, Sutherland was worried by an implicit “philosophical naturalism” that left the impression that Christians had no resources for living that were any different from non-Christians. Once young people had “imbibed” it, he feared

266 A Church with the Soul of a Nation it “would not take very much to move them completely away from the Church and espousal of the Christian faith.”4* Though conservatives castigated it as too modern, others found the New Curriculum dated as soon as it came off the press. Its release coincided with the stir over John A.T. Robinson’s Honest to God, so it was widely but wrongly assumed to be an expression of the theological trends of the 1960s — as if the United Church had rushed publication to be ‘relevant’ to the debate. In fact, its writers were harvesting the theological renaissance of the 1940s and ’5os. Work on the 1940 Statement of Faith and the catechism based on it were, according to Mutchmor, the “seed-bed” out of which the New Curriculum had grown.43 Production had been delayed when the General Council rejected the design for a three-year cycle organized around the questions: “Who is God?”; “Who is my neighbour?”; and “Who am I?” Years later, editor Peter Gordon White recalled that commissioners had wanted “a curriculum built on the great affirmations of the Christian faith” rather than questions, which might give the impression of doubt. The discarded design was a decade ahead of its time, he speculated, and might have worn better.*4 Like the New Evangelism promoted by E&ss, the New Curricu-

lum was arguably as much the casualty as the cause of the crisis facing the United Church.*5 With one in four families moving every

year, ties to the community church were tenuous. As one teacher noted, there were plenty of other things to do on Sunday. The New Curriculum had not caused those changes, she insisted — nor had it been able to meet them as well as some had hoped, despite what most teachers considered a greatly improved course of study.4° Yet some blamed it for the decline in Sunday school attendance, despite the fact that almost every other North American denomination was showing a similar trend.

A story in the Observer about a random sampling survey on Sunday schools taken in 1970, purportedly the first ever done at the national level, reported on the gravity of the situation. The Sunday school was on “a steep path to oblivion,” with the lowest enrolment since church union and a loss of nearly half of its teachers and students since 1962. Anglican numbers were, if anything, worse, while Presbyterian and Baptist Sunday schools were in trouble as well. Only “the most enthusiastically dedicated” (Pentecostals, unaffiliated congregations such as Toronto’s People’s Church, etc.) were flourishing — but by using “gimmicks” such as contests and prizes as

Reconceiving the United Church 267 attractions! The survey results also revealed a church divided — by region, age group, and community size — over how to respond to declining Sunday school attendance. Even the general reaction to the New Curriculum varied, with those from rural areas compared to those from communities over 50,000 opposing the New Curriculum

by a margin of 2 to 1. Notes and letters attached to the questionnaires indicated that while some appreciated the new manuals for Sunday school teachers, others found them frustrating. An old hand at Sunday school teaching from Climax, Saskatchewan, wrote that

he and his wife could no longer find time to prepare the lessons. More than a grade twelve education was needed to understand the material, he claimed, so where in a village of 400 would you find enough teachers?47

There was exasperation at the national headquarters too. Perhaps miffed by hearing constant criticism of the New Curriculum, the Board of Education was in no hurry to design another. According to one unnamed staff member, the New Curriculum had been the “last

gasp of uniformity for a national church.” There was no plan to continue publishing it beyond 1973. Rather than rallying congregations to save the Sunday school, as traditionalists might have hoped,

the staff at the Board of Education encouraged experimentation with new educational models and materials. “They insist that people must find their own answers — then they’l! help to find the resources

to put the programs into action,” the Observer’s managing editor James Taylor reported. He added, “I’m afraid that congregations are likely to find coming to grips with their own needs a trying experience.”4° That was an understatement.

The failure of the New Curriculum was only one of the challenges facing local congregations. They discovered, along with the Scouts and other organizations, that the formality, hierarchy, and authoritarianism associated with their activities had little appeal to baby boomers approaching young adulthood.4+9 The Young People’s Union

(yPU) had once attracted nearly 100,000 members who spent time together in Bible study, singsongs, and social activities such as weenie-roasts and sleigh rides. In 1964 the United Church approved

a recommendation to create a new organization for young adults, and Kairos replaced the yPu a year later. According to those interviewed for a story in the Observer on the new organization, time

seemed to have passed the ypu by, with secular organizations

268 A Church with the Soul of a Nation replacing church basements as places to gather. No longer was it possible to please everyone, explained field worker Wayne Barr, and those who showed up for yPU were too often those he characterized as rejects and misfits who “couldn’t make it anywhere else.” 5° Kairos epitomized the new approach to mission that was rocking the United Church.5' Its aim was to challenge social and economic structures. For many (perhaps most) members of Kairos, its empha-

sis on ecumenical opportunities for social action was a drawing card. Programs such as Summer of Service (SOS) attracted young volunteers to “become aware of and involved in the social problems facing Canada.”>5* But it also reflected the subjectivity of the new

spiritual quest. Based on what he had observed at a Kairos conference, reporter Harvey Shepherd found an “intense interest in personal development, interpersonal relations and techniques for improving these.” The most popular session had been a sensitivity group, featuring a discussion of how participants felt about themselves, the meeting, and each other. Groups seemed to be comprised of friends whose relationship to a particular denomination was incidental. Some were already wondering whether Kairos could still be called Christian. 53 Efforts to revamp activities for adults were also underway, and like-

wise met with mixed results. Creating a new organization for women

did little to sustain participation, which peaked in the mid-1960s. Much of the impetus for merging the wMs and wa to form the ucw in 1962 had come from women pressed for time. There seemed to be no good reason to support two women’s organizations that were often comprised of the same members. There were hopes that Bible studies, discussion groups, and practical projects rather than bazaars, bees, and suppers would better meet the personal and spiritual needs of working women.54 Sounding the new imperative of mission to the world, American theme speaker Peggy Way, a minister in the United Church of Christ, warned the Board of Women against seeking the “cheap grace” of irrelevant activities in a “sexual ghetto” rather than “attacking the social realities of our time.”55 But not all women wanted to leave church kitchens for community projects. Donating their time to help with suppers and bazaars was a way for women who had no money of their own to support the church. Reporter Patricia Clarke found

many of them reluctant to give up the fellowship they enjoyed as they worked together. As one woman put it, “If you can bake a pie

Reconceiving the United Church 269 better than engage in theological debate, get on with it. I doubt if the

pie is offered up to God, that he says, ‘I do wish she had made a political speech instead.’”5° As for men, a survey conducted in 1970 found a “sincere yearning for ‘fellowship’” and a desire “to know God better and serve Christ

more.” The results did not support the conclusion that men were looking for bowling, bridge, or even community projects to undertake. Nor did the survey uncover much interest in tackling social issues of national concern, although respondents still regarded the church as the conscience of the nation. Instead, the men said they needed guidance for Christian living, help in finding opportunities for service, and ways to deepen their faith. A sympathetic editorial response described them as “aching for clarification” about basic issues of faith.57

Do people belong to the church because they believe or, as some scholars have wondered, do they believe because they belong to the church and have their faith formed by participating in its life and work?>* That conundrum would test the connection between faith and community — both within and beyond the congregation — that was the heart of ‘being United’ What one generation prized as fellowship, another disparaged as clubby. Fellowship was the “secret weapon of the faith,” according to William Berry, a former church executive who had recently returned to the pastorate. Yet he had his

doubts about how well the United Church coordinated Christian fellowship. “I protest against the graded Church of the twentieth century,” he wrote. He saw groups that appealed to newcomers according to interests, rather than age or gender, as a promising alternative to over-structured organizations.5° Others went further in their criticism of church fellowship, focusing instead on experimental forms of ministry with youth, university students, business professionals, and housing project residents. Bill Phipps, one of the United Church ministers who had formed Community Consultants Services in Toronto’s Thorncliffe Park, described their work as “part of the silent church”: “No counselling in the name of the church. No visiting to get people out to church. That’s crap. We try to get agencies and people to work together for the sake of the people. But we don’t seek visibility in the name of the church. Just the opposite.”°° Some ministries financed by the United Church were deliberately not identified with it.°!

LTO A Church with the Soul of a Nation Thorncliffe Park was one of the projects highlighted in Churches Where the Action Is! Written to inspire Christians to move outside the walls of the church and into the community, the book featured

stories of ministries set up by the United Church (sometimes in collaboration with other churches) among people in diverse settings — blacks in Halifax after their displacement from Africville; low-income families in housing projects in major cities across the country; newcomers to suburban communities; hippies, indigenous peoples moving from reserves, and apartment-dwellers in Toronto;

even a congregation meeting in a seed and fertilizer store in an Alberta village.°*

But congregations that tried to combine outreach with fellowship sometimes met with resistance, as Rowntree Memorial United Church in London, Ontario, discovered. Its attendance had started

to drop around 1964. About the same time it saw changes in the surrounding neighbourhood, which was less affluent than it had been when the church was built a decade earlier. The congregation decided in 1967 to become “more secular” by welcoming a variety of non-denominational organizations to use its property. The strategy not only failed to attract new members but also created a split in the congregation. The two University of Western Ontario sociologists hired as consultants to help the congregation assess its needs found a clash between those they named the “Contented,” who saw themselves as part of mainstream Canadian society, and the “Discontented,” who were critical of mainstream society and wanted to change it.°? The consultants also discovered that the minister’s attempts at outreach to the Discontented were at odds with the priorities of the lay leadership. The minister had urged the congregation to accept “less reputable” groups, such as a drop-in centre for youth and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings; the lay leadership preferred groups like the Girl Guides and the Badminton Club. Survey results indicated that Rowntree’s “desired minister” was “not one who leads the church toward identification of social problems and community action, but one who concentrates his efforts on the personal needs of the members of the congregation themselves.” The study provided data that illustrated the tension between those looking for fellowship and those wanting social action. It also uncovered a sense of alienation that was developing among active women in the congregation, who did most of the work while men exercised most of the power.°4

Reconceiving the United Church ag a The dilemma of the Rowntree congregation, as described by the consultants, was the same one facing more and more congregations after the 1960s: “many people today, particularly the young, are less satisfied with life than the core members of Rowntree Church, and notably uninterested in joining a warm, supportive Christian con-

gregation.”°) But the alternatives offered by the United Church proved to be no more appealing to idealistic young people. Many who in the past might have been drawn by their social concern to serve as ministers, missionaries, or church volunteers were finding

new and exciting secular opportunities to engage in community development. Groups like Canadian University Service Overseas (cuso) and the Company of Young Canadians, organized in the 1960s and funded by the federal government, competed with faithbased initiatives such as overseas missions and the scm, which had once been magnets for student idealism.*°° Meanwhile the momentum was shifting to groups that were more adept than the United Church at emphasizing the personal dimensions of being religious. The church’s attempts to become more cosmopolitan clashed with the approach of conservative evangelicals who focused on a personal decision for Christ and a few other key beliefs as tests of valid faith. Neo-evangelicals were not schooled to consider the fellowship of a worshipping community as counting for much when it came to salvation.°? Nor were they saddled with structures that were as bureaucratic as the denominations identified with ecumenical Protestantism. Their conversion experience provided a narrative that oriented their spiritual pilgrimage. ‘Being United’ required no similar testimony to a life-changing or charismatic experience — a vagueness that was sometimes mistaken for coldness and lack of Christian conviction. The baby boomers, observes Owram, had elevated experience as a way to restore the emotion that was essential to individual and social transformation, often turning to music to find it.°* The United Church had come to regard emotion as suspect, and was at a competitive disadvantage in this new spiri-

tual marketplace, where religion was viewed as a personal, or at most ‘tribal, choice. Neo-evangelicalism was not ecumenical Protestantism’s only rival. At E&SS’s annual meeting in 1962, the Christian Century’s Kyle

Haselden warned that syncretism was the most dangerous threat facing American religion. Arriving almost everywhere in the world at the same time, according to Haselden, its particular expression in

272, A Church with the Soul of a Nation North America involved the practice of picking and choosing ideas from a variety of religions and putting them in “a secular basket” in

an effort to convert “the pagan mind of our age.”°? The United Church soon discovered that its liberal tendencies made its youth highly susceptible to this eclectic approach to spirituality.”7° The university campus was a place where the variety of religious experience was on display. The growth of departments of religion on university campuses was an indication that interest in religious questions was not dead. “Campus lectures on religion are crowded,” the Observer reported, but “mass meetings and preaching services are out.”7!

To complicate matters further, the United Church found itself struggling to identify its theological distinctiveness once the old markers that had defined its forebears were forgotten. It had not been created

to uphold or advance a particular doctrine, nor were there ritual practices that its members were expected to adopt. Though founded as a church that was broadly inclusive, it was not self-consciously diverse — in fact theological and cultural differences had initially

been suppressed. Author Lucy Maud Montgomery had once expressed the sentiments of disheartened Presbyterian dissenters when she dismissed the new church as “nameless.”7* It was a taunt that came back to haunt the United Church when immigrants to Canada

did not connect its name to the Methodist or Reformed churches they had left behind. After Vatican II, even the Catholic Church no

longer served as a foil against which to construct an alternative Protestant identity. The United Church was thus imperilled by a tradition of theological inclusion that gave it the appearance of sameness in an age where difference increasingly defined identity. Donald Mathers had sounded confident about the United Church’s theological future as he assessed the situation at a mid-decade consultation on the world mission of the church. “I think we all realize that in the United Church we have far more of a common mind than

most churches do in spite of the fact that people often think we are scattered, vague and uncertain.” Disputing that the desire for Christian unity had led to a lack of firm conviction, he used the phrase “extreme centre” to describe the United Church’s theological orientation: “a centre in the sense that we represent no unbalanced presentation of the Gospel, but extreme in the sense that we are no less convinced or enthusiastic about our convictions than anyone else.” 73

Reconceiving the United Church pg ge! During the 1960s, both the left and the right tugged at this extreme centre. The left offered a so-called secular theology that critics claimed was indistinguishable from the thought of Unitarians or well-meaning secular humanists. The right bore a resemblance

to fundamentalism in its emphasis on a narrow definition of biblical authority as a test of faith. Those caught in-between — including many United Church ministers — interpreted what it meant to be in essential agreement with the articles of faith in the Basis of Union in different ways. Those inside and outside the United Church assumed that its members had a wide berth for theological

exploration. The ideal of a common faith was moving toward a multi-creedal pragmatism.

A pivotal decision in that transition was the inclusion of what came to be known as the New Creed in the Service Book issued in 1969. The project to revise the Book of Common Order, which had

been in use since 1932, was launched in 1958. By the time the Committee on Church Worship and Ritual completed its work a decade later, the United Church was in an entirely different liturgical situation. The report presented to the General Council in 1968 reflected the committee’s struggle to steer a course between “a very vocal ‘left’? that demands radical change” and “a not-so-articulate ‘right’ that resists all but minor emendations.” Their aim was to pro-

duce a service book for public worship that was “the work of the whole Church.” The committee admitted that the language problem had bedevilled them; they were well aware that efforts to communicate with “technological man” had challenged the authority of the Bible in new ways by raising questions about the adequacy of biblical concepts. However, they were unequivocal about their own approach: the Service Book affirmed the use of scriptural language “as

the most fitting vehicle for liturgy,” insisting that to do otherwise would be “to cast ourselves adrift in a sea of chaos.”74 The committee assumed that worship would continue to evolve by adapting the best of the past to the needs of the present, as they believed they had done in preparing the Service Book. However, what they had witnessed as they prepared it led them to expect a revolu-

tion in liturgy in the years ahead that might well involve a sharp break with familiar practices.75 Despite the committee’s own instincts to preserve tradition, a decision made in 1965 proved to bea historic (though perhaps unintentional) step to break with tradition: a request was sent to the Committee on Christian Faith for a short

274 A Church with the Soul of a Nation creed that could be used as an alternative to the Apostles’ Creed in the baptismal service. By offering the choice of either an ancient or a modern creed, suggests N.K. Clifford, the new Service Book gave the impression that the use of a creed was “solely a matter of personal taste,”7° thus inviting theological novelty. Unlike many contemporary liturgical resources designed during the 1960s, the New Creed was to find an enduring place both as a baptismal creed and a brief statement of faith.”7 It resonated with and beyond the spirit of the times with its opening words that captured a longing for fellowship in defiance of existential loneliness: “Man is not alone.”7® Parts of the New Creed were controversial from the outset, and the General Council that received it in 1968 sent it back to the committee for redrafting.7? Even then, not everyone was entirely happy with the results. Reflecting the position of those who objected to the continued use of ancient creeds in the liturgy John Burbidge, a young United Church minister doing doctoral work in philosophy at the University of Toronto, found it ironic that a church that encouraged moral action expected “weekly perjury” by its members. The executive should have left the version presented to the General Council as it was, he complained, rather than watering it down until it had “the force of a wet dishrag.”°° He was especially disappointed to note that those he called “the orthodox” had succeeded in replacing “we proclaim his kingdom,” with “to proclaim Jesus crucified and risen, our judge and our hope.” However, he conceded that the redrafted version was better than no new creed

atau

Berkley Reynolds agreed that half a loaf was better than none, and praised God that “the most socialistic of any Council” in the United Church’s history had “refused to scuttle the cross and resurrection as the centre of Christian faith.” He commended the General Council for sending “the skeleton” back to the executive “to have some meat put on its bones.”®* He suggested that those who preferred a “humanistic” creed that spoke only of “the true Man, Jesus,” rather than the power of the resurrection, should join the Unitarians.*3 But other UCRF members were not appeased. Graham Scott charged that

a creed that was only half true was still “intolerably heretical.” A Unitarian would, in his opinion, have no theological difficulty with the New Creed. He urged UCRF backers to emulate those in the early church who had paid no heed to the authority of heretical Arian bishops by likewise ignoring the United Church’s “ecclesiastical

Reconceiving the United Church 275 bureaucrats.” Perhaps, he added, conservatives should write their own “short, memorable and accurate summary of the Christian faith in the several contemporary idioms of thought and language.” *4 One of the paradoxes of panarchy was that the evangelical wing had already developed what the UCRF was calling a “new creed,” which had reworded the article on Scripture in the Basis of Union.*5 This new article described the Bible as “God’s objective revelation in word written, given by Divine inspiration (God breathed), is entirely trustworthy, [sic] and therefore ‘the only infallible rule of faith and life””®° Its interpretation of revelation and infallibility ran counter to a report that had been presented to the General Council in 1966. The Committee on Christian Faith had admitted that after six years of study, it was still unable to “produce a clearly defined statement” on revelation. On one issue, however, its report sounded unequivocal: infallibility belonged to God alone, not to the human words of Scripture that bore witness to God’s self-revelation.*7 Prepared as the debate over biblical inerrancy was heating up in evangelical circles, the UCRF’s “new creed” placed more emphasis on the Bible “as a revelation in itself, rather than as a record of revelation,” Berkley Reynolds explained, and thus took “a stronger position on its infallible authority” than the Basis of Union. He admitted that the requirement that UCRF members be willing to sign this new declaration was a problem for some sympathizers, who objected to adopting it iz addition to the twenty articles of the Basis of Union.*® Reynolds reported that conservative evangelicals were encouraged by signs that some theological college professors were disenchanted with “the radical theology that has plagued the church.”*? But there was little evidence that they considered the UCREF a viable alternative. The “incipient fundamentalism” of the UCRF’s position on ver-

bal inerrancy was a feature of the movement that bothered Alan Davies, a United Church minister teaching in the religion department at the University of Toronto. He was “in favor of spiritual renewal” but “not at the price of a new orthodoxy that is really an old and potentially dangerous heresy.”9° Others no doubt agreed with a young minister who wrote that he was opposed to a “gutless liberalism that leans over backwards to join the chorus of the Church’s critics and ends up calling on us to surrender the gospel to the spirit

of the age.” However, he was just as opposed to the approach of Reynolds and the ucREF, which he described as “a sheer conservatism that blindly defends the status quo.”?"

276 A Church with the Soul of a Nation Liberal evangelicals were also uncomfortable with the demand to sign a statement of faith. Clarke MacDonald declared that when it came to proclaiming the fundamentals as summed up by the Saviour,

he would “take a back seat to no one in or outside of ‘Renewal Fellowship.” But signing a statement that would put him “in some creedal strait jacket” was another matter — and he wanted no part of it. He pleaded for toleration to keep the split that was developing from growing into a chasm that might take thirty or forty years to bridge.9* Failing to find common ground was a disturbing prospect that had far-reaching ramifications, since the United Church’s conciliar system of governance presumed the possibility that guidance might come from those holding a theological perspective different from one’s own.

With its own people testing the boundaries of being a “united” church, the 1960s was hardly a propitious time to explore what it meant to be a “uniting” church. Yet offers to try were hard to turn down. Since its own founding, the United Church had been hoping to add a chapter to the story of church union in Canada.?3 Not surprisingly it jumped at the opportunity to work toward a re-united Christendom, as an invitation from the Church of England’s General Synod put it in 1943.94 However, nearly two decades passed with almost nothing to show from that initiative except for occasional outbursts of frustration.25 Fed up with futile gestures, the Observer reported in 1964 that the General Council had listened with “restrained enthusiasm to the customary reports that progress toward union with the Anglicans was still being made.””° Suddenly there was a breakthrough in 1965 with agreement between representatives of the two bodies on the Principles of Union.?”

Hopes ran high that union would happen within the next ten years. Even the somewhat skeptical Forrest was convinced that if the Anglican General Synod approved the document (as quickly happened later that year), “nothing should stop it.”9° The United Church followed suit and accepted the Principles of Union as a working document at the General Council in 1966. A draft of the Plan of Union was prepared by working committees in advance of a joint meeting of the General Synod and General Council in 1971. After two more years of study and revision, it was approved by both parties in 1973. However, all was in vain: despite the high calibre of the work done to advance the cause, negotiations ended two years later.?? In 1975

Reconceiving the United Church PI Ae the implementation committee stopped its work after the General Synod of the Anglican Church reaffirmed a commitment to Christian unity, but declined to proceed toward organic union with the United Church and the Disciples of Christ.1°° Those who had optimistically presented the Principles of Union

for approval in 1965 were never able to work out some irreconcilable differences that were detectable from the outset. Anglicans generally assumed that the United Church had lost its distinctive Methodist quirks, relieving some of their lesser concerns. An Anglican sympathetic to uniting observed that the “emotional extremism” that had sometimes accompanied the Methodist emphasis on a direct experience of salvation (which Anglicans found “horrifying”) was no longer noticeable in the United Church. A puritanical attitude about personal conduct (which he claimed Anglicans found irrelevant) was gone too: “field research” at a cocktail party would, he conjectured, confirm that the younger generation no longer shared the same views of alcohol as the older generation. Its old moral fer-

vour had “changed form and sphere of interest.” Yet the United Church that was taking shape in the 1960s retained characteristics that Anglican sensibilities found just as hard to tolerate. To begin with, it was still unabashedly Protestant, and as such was not regarded by some Anglicans as a real church. At Forrest’s invitation, an Anglican priest identified with its Anglo-Catholic wing (and vehemently opposed to union) prepared a statement about Christian unity from the perspective of those who held that “the Church” was comprised of Anglicans, Roman Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox. In his view the United Church was one of the Protestant sects torn from the true Church by what he provocatively called the “Deformation.” Only by returning to the Catholic fold would the tragic schism end: “a watered-down Christianity, which would result from anything less than the complete submission of Protestantism to Catholicism, would be damnable.” '°

Forrest knew full well that this candid statement of differences would rile readers, suggesting in an accompanying editorial that they contain themselves until the next issue, which would feature a rejoinder.'°3 But as negotiations proceeded, issues that had been intractable in the past remained sticking points. Among the most contentious was ordination. Put simply, without ordination by a bishop in accordance with the doctrine of apostolic succession, was the ordination of United Church ministers really valid? And to

278 A Church with the Soul of a Nation complicate matters further, the United Church ordained women; the Anglican Church did not. Although the Observer’s editorial position favoured union, the magazine provided opportunities for well-known United Church leaders to express their reservations about the Principles of Union.

Couched in J.R. Mutchmor’s predictable defence of traditional Protestant practices was a show of support for the ideals of the new

reformers. He warned that the Principles of Union would put in place a hierarchy of bishops, priests, and deacons “at a time when this out-moded, status-ridden ladder should be reverently stored in some ecclesiastical museum.” Don Gillies, minister of Bloor Street United Church in Toronto, agreed. He was dismayed that the Principles of Union attempted to revive archaic and meaningless jargon and reassert a “religious ‘caste’ system” by making “fine distinctions between priest and layman, church and world.” Instead he

believed the church ought to be “streamlining its organization, so that it might be an effective community of concern in the midst of a troubled world.” !°4

Not all who had reservations about the Principles of Union were against union as such. Jean Hutchinson, former chair of the Board of Women, supported it, but was disturbed by the ambiguity about the role of women in the document. “One would not have thought it

possible that the question of ordination of women could be reopened in this age!” she remarked. Mary Coburn, chair of the Board

of Women’s finance committee, objected that women ministers would feel humiliated by being put in an anomalous position if the new church were to suspend the ordination of women. She poked fun at a scenario of “bishops assuming their full dignity, double layers of skirts to prove it, and our ordained women, not unfrocked but feeling slightly naked, meeting with their brother clergy to vote on

the propriety of admitting others of their kind.”'° Those who prepared the Principles of Union seemed unaware of how quickly the ecumenical scene was changing. Inadvertently, the negotiators stepped into what the United Church’s Committee on Ecumenical Affairs described in 1968 as an ecumenical ferment that

had been sweeping through “the Church everywhere” during the previous two years. The report credited two events in particular for the sudden transformation of ecumenical dialogue: the optimism unleashed by Vatican II that closed in December 1965, and the Church and Society conference convened by the World Council of Churches

Reconceiving the United Church 279 in 1966. Inspired by what the report called “Secularization Theology,”

a radical ecumenism was spreading like wildfire. European church leaders, particularly those influenced by the wcc, were saying that ecumenism ought to involve more than bringing together institutions that were themselves irrelevant.'°° Supporters of Anglican-United Church union discovered to their

chagrin that what seemed to them a daring plan to create a new church looked unadventurous when placed alongside the new ecumenism. George Johnston, himself a member of the General Com-

mission on Union, admitted that some of the criticism of the Principles of Union from the left, such as the lack of modern idiom and its theological verbiage, was justified. And if predictions of a “wholly secularized” future were to come to pass, he wondered if new forms of worship, music, and ministry needed to be considered as well.'°7 The proposed episcopal structure bore more resemblance to bureaucratic systems of the past than the religionless Christianity predicted for the future. On the other hand, for Anglicans who saw the historic episcopate and the ancient creeds as the basis for Christian unity, Vatican II held

out the enticing possibility of union on a more ambitious scale. Already suspicious about whether United Church ministers were properly ordained, Anglo-Catholics were unlikely to be reassured by

news that the United Church had adopted a New Creed and was thinking about ministry in even broader terms. Union met resistance from the Council for the Faith, an organization formed to preserve Anglican doctrine and forms of worship as well as the historic creeds as the minimal basis for union.'°°

The results of a 1970 survey conducted by the Observer and its Anglican counterpart, the Canadian Churchman, turned out to be closer to the mark than church union supporters would have wished. It detected a predilection for the status quo that five more years of study and discussion was unable to counteract.'°? Described as the first straw vote on the “feeling from the pews,” the survey was ad-

mittedly unofficial and open to the bias of mail-in polls (where strong feelings tended to be overrepresented). However, it was evident that United support for union was more widespread and enthusiastic than Anglican. There was also a striking difference between the young United and Anglican respondents: the former were most strongly in favour of union, while the latter were most strongly opposed to it (and threatening to leave if it took place).77°

280 A Church with the Soul of a Nation Another hint of the dissimilarity in religious outlooks was revealed when respondents were asked where they would worship if there were no church of their own denomination nearby. More Anglican respondents indicated that they would choose a Roman Catholic rather than a United service (and among the Anglican cler-

gy, the United Church placed third behind the Orthodox Church). By an even wider margin, United Church respondents picked the Presbyterian Church over the Anglican Church. When asked what change after union would concern them most, Anglican respondents chose doctrine, followed by the use of creeds, and worship practices. Acceptance of their ministers’ ordination was the main

concern for United Church respondents, who reported hearing Anglicans refer to them as “so-called ministers.” Older respondents

worried about being served wine at Communion, while younger ones wondered about the role of bishops (unimportant) and the ordination of women (imperative).'™' Church union with the Anglican Church that seemed tantalizingly close in 1965 ultimately came to naught, landing a serious blow to the United Church’s claim to be a “uniting” church. Union with the Evangelical United Brethren Church in 1968, which added sixty-two

congregations, was small consolation.''* The dream of re-uniting Christendom in Canada died; instead, interfaith coalitions attempted to transcend divisions by finding a common cause rather than a common statement of faith or common organizational principles. While there was public discomfiture when negotiations ended, those

who had caught a vision of a more radical ecumenism may have breathed a sigh of relief. They had little allegiance to the traditions of the past; hence, for them, the loss of Protestant principles was not an impediment. However, the new church that union would create was, in their view, not nearly modern enough to meet the challenges of a post-denominational and anti-institutional age.

So was organized religion doomed to obsolescence as critics supposed? The United Church’s own surveys concluded otherwise, but showed that it was facing serious challenges.''3 Stewart Crysdale, who had conducted a number of those studies, reckoned that its organizational machinery had been designed to meet the rural condi-

tions of the past, and was “singularly unsuited for dealing with modern social and personal problems” associated with urban life." Its structures assumed lines of authority and relationships that either

Reconceiving the United Church 281 no longer existed or no longer functioned as they had in the past. It was unclear what presbyteries, conferences, or the ‘Vatican’ (as the national leadership was sometimes called in jest) did for the church at the local level. The machinery was a mystery to some and a menace to others. And for those seeking religionless Christianity in the secular city, it was irrelevant.'') Two decades after church union, moderator J.R.P. Sclater claimed that his postbag was filled with letters on two issues in particular: whether the church “should, or should not, be solely an evangelistic power, dealing with the souls of men”; and who spoke authoritatively for the United Church, especially in cases where the proceedings of the General Council seemed at odds with regional and local church courts.t'® The Commission on Church, Nation and World Order had considered presbyteries pivotal in implementing the United Church’s ambitious postwar agenda. But its assessment of how presbyteries were actually operating in the mid-1940s was hardly encouraging —

and without well-functioning presbyteries, it predicted that the national body of the United Church would eventually become an association of “fairly independent congregations.” ''7

With the passing of another two decades, an organizational upheaval that transcended particular persons, boards, denominations, or even national borders brought that prediction closer to reality. The world, it seemed, was being turned upside down as lines of authority became horizontal rather than hierarchical, decision-making participatory rather than delegated to leaders, and action from the bottom-up rather than top-down. Authority was moving away from the centre, rather than toward it, and in the process, shifting more power to local congregations.''® The resulting turmoil left the national staff particularly exposed. Politicians and the general public could no longer confidently assume that United Church officials spoke for its members. Once the General Council was over, the force of its pronouncements was weakened by the disclaimer of the disaffected: “they don’t speak for me.” ''?

Church executives like Mutchmor had shown a smooth hand when they operated the machinery. “When I thought I had a good case, enjoyed my executive’s or board’s approval, and was able to fit a special endeavour into my generally crowded programme, I went to work,” he wrote in his memoirs.'*° Even when people vehemently disagreed with or criticized Mutchmor, claims John Webster Grant, they seldom accused him of misstating the church’s policy.'*? The

282 A Church with the Soul of a Nation same could not be said of national staff who served after him. Those who expected the General Council and its executive to speak as one

voice on behalf of the United Church were frustrated by officers who expressed differing opinions. Hord, for example, was often criticized by some for his impatience, while others admired his efforts to be a catalyst for social justice. Colleagues argued that all members of the United Church ought to be free to speak their minds on difficult issues — and this included its officers, who were more than its “official spokesmen” (or its “intellectual eunuchs” as someone had described them).'** “Damn fools,” a minister who studied at Emmanuel College re-

called principal Earl Lautenschlager fuming as he lambasted national executives for joining secular critics in complaining about organized religion; they were going to “break their neck kicking their asses so hard.” But he was also worried as he observed the impact of the changing times on students preparing for church leadership. His advice to those who were unsure about whether God was dead or Jesus was living was to get out of the ministry and find a job elsewhere.'*3 Some apparently did just that. The United Church had enjoyed an upsurge in candidates for ministry during the boom years

of the 1950s. However, during the 1965-66 academic year alone, nearly 15 per cent of its candidates dropped out.'*4 By 1970 there was welcome news that many ministers who had resigned from the ministry or left a church position for a secular placement were quietly returning to the pastorate. But there was no denying the devastating losses: there were 1,121 fewer congregations in 1968 than in 1960, and only 280 students studying for full-time ministry, compared with 668 eight years earlier.'*5 The numbers reflected the impact that criticism of organized religion had on professional ministry.'*° A contributor to Why the Sea Is Boiling Hot provocatively contrasted the manly figure he saw as the ideal clergyman with the typical minister, who was “paid to be good” and thus not treated as other men. As a result the typical minister had become a “ladies’ man” — his language free of obscenities, his thinking about sex more like a woman’s than a man’s, and a teadrinker at social functions where no liquor was served.'?”7 A man who had decided to leave the ministry after twenty years poignantly described his professional crisis: worship was irrelevant, the focus of church members was on preserving the building, and there was little respect for his professionalism despite long hours of work.‘*°

Reconceiving the United Church 283 A Commission on the Church’s Ministry in the Twentieth Century was formed to respond to the “growing sense of frustration amongst congregations, presbyteries, and ministers as they seek to actualize the church’s ministry in our changing society.”’*? Its meetings were described as tense, as members struggled with their conviction that the state of the church demanded radical change.'3° The report’s call for a less hierarchical model of ministry was bound to cause difficulties as it vied with the very different understanding of the church and its ministry in the Principles of Union. G. Campbell Wadsworth, retired in Montreal after many years in the ministry, was dismayed as he compared the two, so different that only with difficulty could he see them as “springing from the mind of one and the same Church.” If it truly represented the thinking of the United Church, he regret-

fully concluded, “we might as well speedily surrender all hope of further Reunion in our time.” ‘3! Surprisingly even the new paradigm for ministry proposed by the commission in its controversial set of recommendations failed to appreciate fully the revolution in church life that women were about to trigger. The new theological understanding of the church’s relationship to the world had seeped into the vocabulary of those who pre-

pared the report, but inclusive language evidently had not. The church was a place where “men are invited to grow as sons of God

rooted in a Christian community and sustained by the Christian hope”; it was “so ordered that it can fulfill its role in God’s intentions for man.” The report played down distinctions between ordained ministers and the laity by emphasizing the ministry of the whole people of God, but still presented a picture of the church’s personnel as male.'3* Women had always been active in the United Church’s congregational life, but were under-represented and less visible elsewhere in its organizational structures. Although the United Church had decided to ordain women in 1936, three decades later there were rela-

tively few female ministers. There were inklings of change after 1964, when the way was cleared for married women to be ordained.

That year the eloquence of the female commissioners to General Council caught Forrest’s attention. Even so, he opined that although

United Church women were “at least a hundred years ahead of where their sisters are in most of the great churches of Christendom,”

the General Council was “still a man’s world.”'33 That too was about to change, though slowly at first.

284 A Church with the Soul of a Nation A series of events coincided to change the face of the United Church’s administrative and pastoral leadership. The first major overhaul of its governing structures since 1925 was already underway when serious negotiations with the Anglican Church commenced. The process that

led to restructuring was set in motion in 1960, at a time when the United Church still hoped to escape the general decline that churches in the UK and continental Europe had experienced. The task of the Long Range Planning Committee was to study the planning procedures of other North American churches and to assess the adequacy

of its own structures and policies “to meet the needs of a growing Church in a changing world.”'34 By the time the plan was implemented, over a decade had passed and the United Church was facing a drastically different situation: it was no longer growing and the world had changed in ways that those preparing the report had not imagined. To improve effectiveness, the plan called for reducing the number of

boards at the national level from twelve to five (no more than could be counted on the fingers of one hand, as it was sometimes explained). An ambitious two-year experiment was proposed as the first step. A new Division of Congregational Life and Work was established to co-

ordinate the work of four boards.'35 The transition from boards to divisions coincided with changes in a number of high-profile executive positions.'3° The confusion of connecting new positions with new personnel likely reinforced suspicion in some quarters that a nameless ‘someone’ in Toronto was changing their church. Sadly, ‘divisions’ seemed an apt term to describe the lack of communication among the new units. Congregations experienced them as insular and resistant to influence, further weakening connections between them.

The gradual loss of familiar names for the functions of evangelism, social service, home missions, and Christian education was also alienating; like the names of the persons associated with them, they

seemed to vanish with the creation of the Division of Mission in Canada that was responsible for them after restructuring."37 Changing the descriptions of the divisions and their assigned responsibili-

ties was to prove far more than cosmetic. Harold Vaughan, who witnessed events as former secretary of the Board of Colleges and Secondary Schools, claimed that restructuring coincided with the “diminished role of the dominant figure and leaders.” Thereafter national church staffers were “increasingly treated as if they were civil servants rather than executive secretaries and leaders.”13°

Reconceiving the United Church 285 Before the 1960s the “dominant figure” had nearly always been male. The shortage of men preparing for ministry had been a persistent problem for the United Church from the outset, with the healthy supply of candidates for ordination in the 1950s an anomaly. A decade later, with enrolment dropping in theological colleges and discouraged clergy leaving in significant numbers, women found a more

welcome reception than in the past as they made their way to the classrooms of the United Church’s theological colleges and eventually to church pulpits."39 Women began to insist on not only visibility but

also a voice. For instance, as part of the negotiations that saw the creation of the ucw, the wMs transferred $6.5 million in a combination of funds and property holdings to the newly integrated Board of Missions in exchange for a promise of more representation on committees, especially at the national level. The first issue of the Observer for 1962 launched “The United Church Woman” as a regular section of the magazine, and the masthead soon listed names in the role of

women’s editor, including regular contributors Grace Lane and Patricia Clarke. The editorial voice of women was amplified in 1966 when the women’s editor became the associate editor, with Clarke named to the new position. But many women were left wondering whether the losses from the merger were greater than the gains.*4° Meanwhile the situation of women in the church was still far from equitable. In one of the Observer’s early pieces on the feminist move-

ment, Barbara Bagnell reported that many feminists saw the Christian church as a bastion of male superiority, and had decided therefore to leave it.'4" Feminist theology combined with the Royal Commission on the Status of Women, instituted in 1967, to galvanize women in the United Church. Their numbers at meetings of presbytery, conference, and General Council had increased substantially by 1970. In fact, Forrest surmised that presbytery might soon be comprised of women, ministers, and a few laymen. “In the headquarters establishment,” however, it was “still a man’s world,” he reported. Women served as associate secretaries only where the Manual mandated a female appointment. Although most female members of the United Church were married, it appeared to Forrest that only single women were considered for senior positions. Only one senior secretary was female, and restructuring had reduced her office in size and status.'4?

Those who later claimed that feminists had “destroyed the church” were partly right.‘43 As women assumed leadership roles,

286 A Church with the Soul of a Nation they generated further changes to the United Church’s organizational culture. Often preferring more fluid networks and coalitions, they

joined other critics of the United Church’s complex hierarchical structure; they were among those who hoped to change the United Church by helping it to “fail gracefully.” In doing so they believed that they were simply fixing machinery that had been designed and broken by men. By strengthening the church’s capacity for change, women were quarrelling with the ‘fathers’ to be sure — not only with their understanding of mission but also with the male assumptions embedded in the church’s organizational structures. But women, and especially the feminists among them, were also quarrelling with the ‘mothers’ of the church, whose sense of vocation had been rooted in Christian homes. Those most dismayed by the growing feminist influence were the men and women who remembered the United Church of 1925 and whose hearts still resided there. One of the major challenges facing those who operated the denominational machinery was how to deal with the sheer volume of busi-

ness. “A Church Court Forced into Preoccupation with Its Own Housekeeping” summed up in a subheading the Observer’s withering assessment of the 1964 General Council. The meetings had been socially overwhelming and spiritually uninspiring. People tended to

focus on and debate trivial matters; the assembly had “tinkered well”; the “machinery creaked”; and the average commissioner had been confused by the complexity and sheer volume of the business to be done. Just when it seemed as though the church was on the verge of moving forward, something negative nearly always hap-

pened: “The wrong direction was taken. The amendments were confused. Things got referred to three boards, five committees, and seven conferences.” '44

Four years later there were signs of change. To encourage wider participation, some of the business at the 1968 General Council was conducted in table groups rather than by formal debate. John Webster Grant suggests that assumptions about decision-making were changing as well: gut feeling was valued more than intellect, and relying on precedents (deemed the unwelcome influence of past elites) was rejected. There was a dismantling of traditional authority as “experts, including clergy, lost caste.” It marked for Grant an abrupt and radical change in how the United Church conducted its

Reconceiving the United Church 287 business.'+5 The gathering was variously described at the time as both “reckless” and lacking in “thorough discussion” of its decisions.'4°

Yet the 1968 General Council that some found frustrating was exciting and exhilarating to others. (One woman admitted that she had found it both infuriating and satisfying.)'47 It made significant decisions related to worship, ministry, and the role of the church in the field of social welfare. It recommended that the Canadian government reduce sales of war materials to the United States, provide a guaranteed annual income, and designate 2 per cent of GNP to foreign aid. It also called for the end of bombing in Vietnam, recog-

nition of Israel by Arab countries, resettlement of Arab refugees, population control, and sale of the church’s shares in a bank that supported apartheid in South Africa.t4® Even though there was silence on the old moral issues, the United Church was clearly not about to pull back from speaking out on major social concerns,

even when it meant breaking with the diplomatic style of past policy reports. '4?

The focus on what was new tended to obscure the ways in which the United Church managed to provide continuity and stability in key areas. The restructured machinery had familiar features — too many for some. There were still seemingly innumerable committees at all levels of church life and too much information to absorb. But, paradoxically, the United Church’s expansive administrative structure, so often blamed for the ills that beset the denomination, may have helped to safeguard its survival during a time of rapid change.

The church was still large enough and strong enough to absorb shocks. Its conciliar model of governance was in a sense like a bridge,

designed to withstand pressure and even damage in one section without collapse of the entire edifice. Its leaders were positioned to detect problems at one level and solve them before the entire system crumbled. To an extent the United Church was thus able to mediate the impact and pace of social and theological changes. At least when working effectively, the conciliar system meant that different levels experienced adaptation at varying paces, often with outcomes that differed as well. It thus operated as what ecologist C.S. Holling calls a dynamic hierarchy:'5° it provided support for innovation at some levels, while elsewhere offering stability from the impact of experiments that were shaking the system; and it mitigated the effects of “excessive exuberance.”'5' The instinct to preserve was strong in the lay leadership of congregations, especially in rural

288 A Church with the Soul of a Nation areas. Ministers provided pastoral care as before. At the national level, officials in a few key positions supplied a measure of continu-

ity as well. Long, for instance, had served as the United Church’s third general secretary for nearly two decades by the time he retired in 1972. Forrest was editor of the Observer for almost a quarter of a century when he died suddenly of a heart attack in 1978. Forrest had an ear for hearing what was being whispered in the pews about controversial stands the United Church had taken, and offered space

for both sides to air their views. His communications strategy not only boosted the magazine’s circulation figures during the 1960s but also helped its readers to anticipate and thus adapt to change.'5* No one who took the time to read the Observer during those years could legitimately complain of not knowing that change was afoot.

As those who founded the United Church could attest, major change does not come without risk. A process of change does not always end happily. While an adaptive cycle can renew a system, a maladaptive cycle can result in “cascading collapse,” says Holling. Adaptive change can be devastating to organizations, if the slow

pace makes it seem as though nothing is happening, or when the process is so complex and highly contested that no agreement on action can be reached. Some systems are prone to what he calls a rigidity trap where novelty is smothered because the system’s high resilience makes it resistant to adaptation.'53 Especially at risk are systems where past success has allowed stresses to accumulate, adds Homer-Dixon. “The longer people sustain a social, economic or ecological system in its growth phase, the sharper, harder, and more destructive its ultimate breakdown will be.”'54 It gives one pause to consider the United Church’s adaptive cycle in these terms. Did its earlier successes, the postwar revival for instance, create the conditions for its later malaise? Did its response

to the 1960s allow it to “fail gracefully,” or only to postpone the reckoning? Homer-Dixon tells of a conversation with Holling where they spoke of the threat of deep collapse: “a pan-caking implosion of the entire system as higher-level adaptive cycles collapse,

which causes progressive collapse at lower levels.” A situation where many cycles “become synchronized and peak together” is particularly prone to this danger.'55 If the higher levels of the United

Church’s conciliar system were to collapse, would a pan-caking implosion follow? Was R.C. Chalmers right when he predicted in 1970, “if you close headquarters down, I can see the whole thing breaking up” ?15®

Reconceiving the United Church 289 Still, Ernest Long, whose gloomy warnings had made headlines a few years before, seemed heartened by what he had witnessed in 1968. He commended the delegates to the General Council that year

for demonstrating “a real concept of the outward thrust of the church into the world” for the “first time.”"57 His declaration perhaps startled those who assumed that the United Church had been concerned for social redemption from the outset. Had it not always called for building the Kingdom of God and Christianizing the social order? Yet Long had caught a glimpse of something new: the machinery was more and more being driven by those whose approach to mission focused on the world outside the building that housed the congregation rather than the faith and fellowship of the people gathered in it. It was a recognition that the United Church’s social impulse was changing as much (and perhaps with a greater impact on what it meant to be United) as its methods of evangelism. Insiders and outsiders alike sensed that the United Church was reforming. The contours of the emerging church were not to everyone’s liking — but then again, neither was the United Church that had

been formed in 1925. Some were as disappointed with what they saw taking shape as the non-concurring Presbyterians had been with that earlier union. They felt as though they no longer belonged to the same church — and they hadn’t even voted to leave it. Among them were some its most committed members, who feared that the United Church was being destroyed by those trying to mend it. The underlying assumptions of the founding vision were giving way to new ways of thinking about faith and community. It was clear that adaptation would be easier said than done. Even the most optimistic conceded that, given the general decline of organized religion, a turnaround would take time.'5* Conference presidents from across Canada interviewed in 1970 expected the situation in their region to get worse before it got better. “We ain’t seen nothing yet,” predicted the president of British Columbia Conference. He warned that there would be nothing left of the United Church unless

it figured out how to do ministry in “a world without churches.” There was no such thing as “one congregation” anymore, since most were divided between groups wanting at least three different things: to be activists, to have a quiet place to remember the past, or to learn about their faith.'>°

So was there an “upside of down” to the panarchy of the 196os? It was hard to find one at the time. But given the bleak forecasts for

290 A Church with the Soul of a Nation organized religion during that period, perhaps it should be said that simply surviving was an achievement in and of itself. The United Church discovered more resilience than many had given it credit for: its congregations were not willing to die quickly or quietly. More significantly, it emerged with a sharper sense of what it stood for and what was holding it together. No longer could the United Church be counted as evangelical, in the contemporary meaning of the term —

but neither could it truthfully be called Unitarian. Though it was perhaps moving away from what Mathers had described as the “extreme centre,” its formal theological framework was still rooted in a Christocentric liberalism. ‘Being United’ still allowed a freedom to explore that was discouraged in many other faith traditions. However,

the appeal of eclectic theologies and the persistence of the UCRF were indications that the United Church was becoming more selfconsciously diverse. Moreover, at least for the time being, its machinery would not be run with episcopal parts borrowed from Anglicans.

Few had done more than Donald Mathers to provide theological resources for the United Church as it began to come to grips with the demise of Christendom in Canada. His death from leukemia in 1972 at the age of fifty-one was a blow not only to Queen’s Theological College where he had served as professor and principal for nineteen years but also to a denomination that had turned to him for theological leadership.'°° The order of service for his funeral at Chalmers Church reflected his appreciation for tradition: the organ music was by J.S. Bach; the readings were from Isaiah 40 and Romans 12; the congregation sang Psalm 23 (to the tune Crimond) and “Now Thank We All Our God.” But the words of assurance were from The Word and the Way, which Mathers had written for the controversial New Curriculum a decade earlier. Characterizing the book as “almost a devotional statement of the

Christian faith” and “an intimate, deeply personal statement of Donald’s inner story,” the presiding minister drew from it to remind mourners of what Mathers had “written into our hearts and minds with his pen and his life.” Those gathered then heard him read what

Mathers had written in the chapter on “The Resurrection and the Life to Come”: “Those who believe in Christ have already passed from spiritual death into spiritual life (John 5:24). Physical death still remains but it has now been robbed of its sting. To the Christian death becomes an occasion for the exercise of faith, and an opportunity for love to transform the painful necessity of dying into a willing act of giving up and of self-surrender to God.”'*!

Reconceiving the United Church 291 The United Church was by then dealing with its own painful necessities. During the 1960s it turned a corner and gingerly made its way into a world that no longer reserved a place of prominence for organized religion. It stepped toward that future with new models of worship and fellowship, a new creed, and a new organizational design. A new mission drove its agenda. It no longer considered itself a

national church in the old sense. Instead it had a ministry in and to the world that came with a new emphasis on social action. The crisis kindled a difficult but unavoidable conversation about its identity that continues today. And in that exchange both conservers and innovators planted seeds of memory and hope, beneath the hard soil of an indifferent culture, for another generation to harvest.'°

Epilogue Time past and time future What might have been and what has been Point to one end, which is always present. T.S. Eliot, “Burnt Norton,” Four Quartets

The result of a “lamentable misunderstanding” was how Walter Bryden of Knox College described the United Church as he defended his decision to remain a Presbyterian. “The Church is and shall remain the Church of God just in so far as she is not indigenous with the soil of any country, or determined by the habits, thoughts and customs of any people ... The true Church belongs to no age and no country.”! Those who had founded the United Church disagreed. They saw ad-

aptation to time and place as a sign of vitality, and believed that they had been called to work together to build the Kingdom of God in Canada. As the fortieth anniversary of church union approached, the United

Church appeared to have made remarkable progress toward that end. Morale was so high that “outsiders often complain that we act as if we were the church in Canada,” wrote John Webster Grant in 1963.” By then most of the old wounds left by the controversy over its founding had healed. Relations between the two churches were so friendly that a local newspaper reporter had the temerity to ask the minister of St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Kitchener whether the United Church was “Presbyterian.” Answering “yes,” former moderator Findlay G. Stewart explained that those who had continued as the Presbyterian Church in Canada had resisted church union because they “were opposed to organizing the Kingdom of God.” But the United Church had since “evolved,” as he put it, and the “old Methodist traditions had not remained in the fabric.” Asked whether

Epilogue 2.93 the time had come for Presbyterians to join the United Church, Stewart retorted that it was “just as fair to ask why the United Church doesn’t return to Presbyterianism in name since it already has in fact.”

He predicted that union might happen within a generation, further evolving from present day co-operation to a “natural birth.”>

What followed was not an institutional evolution that would bring the Presbyterian and United churches together, but a cultural revolution that hit both with a speed and severity that stunned observers. Essayist Robert Fulford saw the decline of organized religion as a prime illustration of the impact of the new style of social criticism on Western societies: no consideration had been given to what would replace discarded ideas and institutions. “Under the pressure of criticism, great institutions vanish — not actually (they’re still there, in tangible form) but imaginatively.”4 Leaders of Quebec’s Quiet Revolution hadn’t burned churches or killed priests — they just

ignored them. Meanwhile, Canadian Protestant churches, and the United Church in particular, “simply crumbled under the weight of the attacks against them from within and without.” In 1960 almost everyone took them seriously, but a decade later hardly anyone did. “Once, not long ago, it mattered what the United Church said about liquor laws or Sunday closing or birth control; now nobody cares, unless he’s professionally involved.” Fulford saw it as an example of how things change “without announcement, without decision, without any clear line of demarcation.” Smaller denominations and independent congregations have the luxury of declining or even disappearing free of public scrutiny. Not so the United Church. As Canada’s largest Protestant church, it drew much media attention when its influence began to wane. Its statistical decline is often interpreted as a consequence of a faulty approach to theology or flawed assumptions about the task of the church —

the impending doom that critics had forecast at the time of union. For instance, when historian Mark Noll asks “what happened to Christian Canada?,” he links its passing to the victory of the “modernistic social gospel” at the time of church union, which “fatally compromised” the ability of the founding traditions “to make any kind of a sharp Christian impact on Canadian thought, society, politics, or spirituality.”° Was the making of the United Church a “tragic failure,” as some have claimed?7 Judged by the standard of what it hoped to become, perhaps so. Yet measured by what it accomplished in the attempt,

294 Epilogue one might offer a more charitable assessment; one could say it has been both a failure and a success. The early twentieth century was one of the few times in Canadian history when the church union experiment could have been attempted at all. The movement was

launched during the late stages of western Christendom, an era when a symbiotic relationship between religion, politics, and culture was still assumed. The United Church adapted to the ethos of the early twentieth century by presenting itself as the church best suited to meet the spiritual needs of a young nation. With religious identity tied to nationalism, ‘made in Canada’ was a feature that gave the United Church a boost in a country looking for partners in nation-building. Not so later: pluralism, the privatization of spirituality, and the church’s own failure to find consensus loosened the customary connections between faith and community. The United Church was not only sharing the public arena with other religious groups but also seeing its influence on its own members compromised by cultural competitors who vied for their attention. In the new global village, its national particularity was a liability that made it difficult to contend with ethnic or transnational denominational rivals that had better name recognition outside Canada. Immigrants who had belonged to Methodist or Reformed churches before their arrival did not always find their way to the church that had been formed to unite them in Canada. The United Church is less racially diverse today than it was before adopting a new approach to mission in the 1960s.° Channelling divided religious traditions into a united force was an exciting prospect for the founders of the United Church. However, what they saw as the obvious path to the Kingdom of God appeared less certain to spiritual pilgrims a few decades later. As time passed, the church’s call to Christianize the social order seemed arrogant and paternalistic. The heady optimism that saw the 1925 union as the first in a series of unions that would end denominational divisions in Canada was chastened by the failure of union negotiations with the Anglican Church. Its organizational structure, once ad-

vantageous in coordinating scarce resources to help struggling congregations in small towns and rural communities, was less effective in a decentralized society. Even its community spirit seemed old-fashioned, a vestige of village life that was unappealing to urban sophisticates accustomed to anonymity.

Epilogue 295 The new world order that materialized after the Second World War was a precarious place for mainstream Protestantism in Canada.

The religious neutrality espoused by the state gave an unintended advantage to religious groups that had not tried to weave their religious principles into public life or relied on the association of church attendance with good citizenship. A situation in which religion, politics, and culture were no longer mutually reinforcing was uncharted

territory for the United Church as it grappled with the realization that creating a Christian Canada was unlikely — and perhaps even undesirable — in a pluralistic and segmented world. But would an ‘un-united’ Protestantism have done more to forestall the end of Christendom? After all, neither the Presbyterian name nor the more conservative theology of the Presbyterian Church was enough to ward off a statistical decline as steep as that experienced by the United Church.? One can only speculate whether the Methodist and Congregational churches would have fared better if union had not happened; however, there is little cause for optimism if the situation of their denominational counterparts in the United States and Britain is any indication.

Then was the making of the United Church a mistake? The an-

swer to that question is not as obvious as the non-concurring Presbyterians believed. Its formation coincided with the late stages of what historian Jeffrey Cox describes as an institutional revival in Western Christianity. In his view, the attempt by churches to extend their influence was not a mistake, since they succeeded in shaping the politics, social welfare, and public values of their generation.'° It would be hard to find a more stellar illustration of that institutional revival than the United Church. Though Canada’s democratic ideals and social welfare policies have since become separated from their Christian roots, the United Church did help to lay the groundwork for them. It has also left its mark on Canadian life in more subtle ways. Surveying religious life in God’s Dominion, Ron Graham described the United Church as “the most Canadian of churches,” noting that “like Canada, its strengths may be the same as its weaknesses: diversity, tolerance, compromise, humility, practicality, and niceness. Truth gets written by committee, mystery gets lost in the negotiation,

decency gets translated into dullness, and the spirit gets hamstrung by the bureaucracy.”'' Was the United Church helping to create a new national identity for Canada or uncritically reflecting it? It is fair to say it did both.

296 Epilogue By the end of the 1960s it was evident that Canada was “rescripting” the role of religion in public life.'* The importance of faith was still acknowledged, but there was little attention paid to the particular contributions of one church or another. The new Canada wanted no church — Catholic or Protestant — as its conscience; there was little state interest in the United Church’s offer of friendly service. It was one among many religious groups in the public arena — regarded as no more or less than they, but having no special status as an aspir-

ing national church. It found itself written out of the story of Canada’s past, relieved not only of its illusions but also of many of its ambitions and cherished notions. A sightseer at Expo 67, the international exposition in Montreal that coincided with Canada’s Centennial celebrations, would have caught a glimpse of the new public place of religion in a pluralistic Canada. Gary Miedema describes in fascinating detail what went on behind the scenes as the organizers’ initial proposal for one pavilion that would display religion as a unifying force was turned into three — with two of them illustrating the growing divide within Christianity

between ecumenical and evangelical Protestants. Roman Catholics and mainstream Protestants worked together on what was called the Christian pavilion. Visitors discovered to their surprise that there was no explicit reference to churches, Jesus Christ, or even God in

an exhibit that was designed to raise questions about faith rather than provide answers.’ The growing confidence of evangelical Protestants was signalled by their refusal to support the Christian pavilion. Disappointed that Expo 67 organizers rejected their repeated attempts to set up a pavilion for Billy Graham,'+ they found

a back door into the exposition with a proposal for a “scientific” display. Their Sermons from Science pavilion was approved on the condition that there be no proselytizing (a ban that Miedema says

was completely ignored).15 Then there was the Jewish pavilion, which “offered beauty and rest, not shock and provocation,” and “announced a positive, inclusive message that fit very well with the exposition’s larger theme.”'® It was this pavilion — representing a non-Christian minority — that might well have come closest to modelling how the state preferred faith to be put on public display in the new Canada. Meanwhile the Presbyterian and United churches were rescripting

the stories of their past. In 1965, as Presbyterians celebrated the anniversary of their resistance to church union, theologian Joseph

Epilogue 2.97 McLelland complained that his church had wandered in the wilderness for forty years, using the memory of the controversy in a futile attempt to create a confessional church mystique and an evangelical ethos’? — raising doubts thereby about the United Church’s pedigree.

As for the United Church, it had insisted that the Reformed and Methodist confessional traditions had been duly blended in church union, and initially defended its own claim to have remained evangelical. Following the social revolution of the 1960s, however, not as many seemed to care about preserving past identities. In 1968 Northrop Frye noted a change in the perception of time, which was eroding old assumptions of continuity between past and present, especially among radicals influenced by the New Left. There was, he maintained, a flight from the past as people anxiously tried to keep up to date, ridding themselves of unfashionable ideas and techniques in the process. To be released from the past was considered a necessary step toward a utopian future.'® The changing times forced (or freed, some would say) the United Church to reconsider how it told its own story. The drama of casting itself as Canada’s national church was over.'? A subtle revision of

the past was soon detectable. The smallest of the three founding traditions enjoyed unaccustomed attention; both the right and left wings of the church appealed to Congregationalist ideals — radicals

claiming freedom to dissent from creedal authority and conservatives taking heart in congregational autonomy. The evangelical roots of the progressive movement were grafted to the philanthropic work of home missions to show the United Church as the flowering of the Canadian social gospel movement. Missionaries became reformers providing education and health services in small communities. Gone too were the unfashionable moral battles that the public had associated previously with the United Church. Peace, human rights, and economic justice were the battles in the new “good fight.”*° The search for a prophetic past revealed new heroes — paradoxi-

cally, most of them from the Methodist tradition that had been downplayed after the controversy over church union to showcase the Presbyterian heritage. The radical wing of the social gospel, with its Christian socialist tinges and support for the labour movement, supplied critics of the dominant culture and the institutional

church. Among them were Salem Bland, Nellie McClung, and J.S. Woodsworth, celebrated for their affinities to the utopian, feminist, and oppositional inclinations of the cultural revolution taking

298 Epilogue place.** Making more room for the radical minority tended to diminish the role of the more moderate liberal evangelical majority who too had hoped to build the Kingdom of God — George Monro

Grant, Nathanael Burwash, E.H. Oliver, even $.D. Chown and George Pidgeon.**

Those who grew up in the United Church in the 1940s and 1950s knew less about its prophetic past than one might suppose. Theo-

logian Douglas John Hall attributed his “incipient notions of the political dimensions of Christian belief” to being the son of a socialist union man who was known to drink — behaviour frowned upon in the United Church congregation in southwestern Ontario where he grew up. He later learned of J.S. Woodsworth and Salem

Bland, but thought of them as “exceptions.” The church that formed his early images of Christianity did not swim against the stream as they had. Instead it “gave every indication of supporting

to the full the fundamental structures of society, namely, of the dominant culture.”*3

Bill Phipps’s memories of growing up in the United Church in Toronto were similar. His parents observed the Lord’s Day and would not allow him to throw around a baseball or play street hock-

ey on Sunday. The man who was to advance the idea of a moral economy during his term as moderator (1997-2000) divulged that he was unaware of the “social justice dimension of the Christian faith” until he worked in Brooklyn, New York, in 1964. “No one had told me about the Social Gospel tradition of the United Church of Canada, expressed in the ministry of such people as Salem Bland, J.S. Woodsworth, R.B.Y. Scott, and their fellow travellers.” He claims

to have known “nothing of the church’s history of pursuing social justice for the poor, for immigrants, and for people of colour; nor of its requirement that we lobby governments and challenge oppressive corporate power.’ *4 By the 1960s the social gospel was apparently no better known in

Winnipeg. Despite growing up in Transcona surrounded by CcFNDP supporters, Bill Blaikie admitted that he did not know “even

loosely about the social gospel, about the connection between Christian activism and left-wing politics in Canada, about prophetic Winnipeg personalities in the United Church tradition,” such as J.S. Woodsworth and Stanley Knowles. “I didn’t know about the political dimension of the gospel because I was brought up in a Christian world view that saw itself as apolitical.” But that was changing by

Epilogue 299 the time Blaikie arrived at the University of Winnipeg (the former United College) in 1970. When American minister and civil rights activist William Stringfellow spoke to students in one of his classes, he learned about a prophetic way of dealing with the world that “was neither religious liberalism nor evangelical authoritarianism.” Studying at Emmanuel College was another turning point both theologically and politically. When he graduated in 1977, he no longer considered his call to ministry as “something that contradicted my call to public life.”*5 Having already won the NDP nomination in his riding by the time he was ordained a year later, he served as an MP for nearly three decades.

The United Church’s response to the revolution of the 1960s did not

reverse its statistical decline. Perhaps that was not its intention. Proponents of a more this-worldly Christianity saw preoccupation with membership and buildings as symptomatic of the malaise of religion. The radicals among them dared to loosen ties to the salvation establishment of the institutional church, and echoed Bonhoeffer

in calling for a religionless Christianity. They were willing to risk theological anonymity and denominational invisibility when they took their faith into the wider community. Yet thousands of United Church congregations across Canada still believed themselves “called to be the Church,” as the New Creed put it, “to celebrate God’s presence.” Here too the changing times forced (or freed) the United Church to reconsider how faith was formed when its people gathered for fellowship as a Christian community. Variety in worship practices was more evident after the 1960s. Some congregations saw their release from the past as an opportunity to explore contemporary styles of worship,*® while others turned to earlier Christian traditions to broaden their Protestant roots. The liturgical renewal sparked by Vatican II was a reminder of the unity in worship in the Western church before the Reformation.

Making the United Church in 1925 was possible because its founders refused to be tied to a fixed view of the church or the world.

Its remaking grew out of a similar conviction: the church is not called to escape time and place, but to engage them more faithfully. If there are to be more chapters added to its story in the twenty-first century, the United Church will undoubtedly undergo another such metamorphosis.*7 In a culture that has lost much of its Christian memory, re-Christianizing those affiliated with it may require as

300 Epilogue bold a venture as church union once seemed, with even more uncertainty about the outcome. Will its commitment to inclusion leave it with enough distinctiveness to thrive in a culture of diversity? Will the connections of its conciliar system be strong enough to hold its congregations together? Will there be enough people on a spiritual quest for meaning, guidance, and consolation who want to belong to an organized community of faith? Will sufficient memory of its past survive to sustain its renewal in either a post-Christian or postsecular future? Time will tell.

Acknowledgments

This book is dedicated to the memory of two scholars who were outstanding historians of religion in Canada and ordained ministers of the United Church of Canada. Both, in different ways, influenced the course of my professional life.

All who teach Canadian religious history are indebted to John Webster Grant, but perhaps none more than I. When he retired, I followed him in the position he held at Emmanuel College. (For a time I was reminded of him each day when I opened my office door and sniffed a faint trace of his pipe tobacco!) Yet, in a way, everyone who explores the history of Christianity in Canada has ‘followed’ him. He continues to lead us in our study of the past with his wise words preserved in print.

Writing a book about the United Church is not something I imagined myself doing when | started teaching at Emmanuel. That changed in the months following the death of N.K. Clifford. I had first heard of him at the University of Chicago, where he did postdoctoral research before accepting a position at the University of British Columbia. My teachers Jerald C. Brauer and Martin E. Marty were excited about the book on the United Church that he was planning, and occasionally remarked that I “must meet Keith.” When I finally did meet Keith, in the spring of 1984, he was putting

the finishing touches on a different book, which was published the

following year: The Resistance to Church Union in Canada. In the preface he tells of his decision to accept a collection of papers that Knox College principal Allan Farris had discovered in a vault. After suffering a series of heart attacks, Farris had feared he would be unable to complete the project and had persuaded Keith to work with

302 Acknowledgments the documents. The book that resulted took longer to finish than expected, but after more than a decade spent examining the opposition to church union, Keith resumed working on a history of the denomination that had supported it. Keith died of a heart attack as I was wrapping up work on Serving the Present Age. In the years since then, I am still grateful (70st days!) to Brian Fraser, his friend and literary executor, for convincing me that

Keith would have wished me to continue what he had started. My proximity to the United Church archives, at that time located in the adjacent building, made the decision seem less an opportunity than an obligation. With the blessing of Keith’s wife, Sabine, I became the

beneficiary of several boxes of his papers — and thus indirectly, the recipient of support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada: most of the articles and archival documents had been photocopied for Keith by his researcher, Neil Semple, whose work was funded by a SSHRC research grant. From casual conversations with Keith and familiarity with his published work, I know a bit about what he had in mind for his project. This is not the book he would have written — nor is it the one I ex-

pected to write when I started. The manuscript seemed to have a mind of its own, first pulling me back to the nineteenth century (the spirit of John Grant at work perhaps), and then plunging me further into the twentieth century than I initially wanted to go. In the end, it has come to reflect the issues that have been woven into my own teaching and research over the years: the practice of piety, faith and public life, and comparative themes in Canadian and American religious history. I have no idea what Keith might have called his book, but I’d like to think he would have appreciated the title of mine. We had in com-

mon the influence of Brauer and Marty. It was in their classes that I

was introduced to the work of Sidney Mead, whose use of G.K. Chesterton’s description of the United States as “a nation with the soul of a church” made me wonder, as a graduate student, whether the same could be said of Canada. A Church with the Soul of a Nation is in part an answer to a question that I scribbled on a page many years ago.

This book has been slow in the writing. Along the way, I have compiled a far longer list of persons and institutions to thank than I can name in a few paragraphs, but the following were involved at key points. Along with Brian Fraser and Sabine Clifford, the late

Acknowledgments 303 Bob Smith, then Bc Conference archivist, sifted through the materials that eventually came to me. I was well served by librarians (especially those who work in Emmanuel’s library) and the staff at the archives of BC Conference, Queen’s University, Victoria

University, the Presbyterian Church in Canada, and the United Church of Canada. I have been privileged to work with wonderful colleagues over the years. Co-teaching courses at the Toronto School of Theology with Brian Clarke, Alan Hayes, Brian Hogan, Stuart Macdonald, and Mark Toulouse has created occasions for a lively exchange of ideas about religion in Canada. Special thanks goes to Roger Hutchinson, who has been a constant source of support and encouragement, as well as a perceptive reader of the manuscript. His research on the social policies of the United Church was a happy match for my work on its history. Together we directed a project on the United Church, generously supported by a grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. that provided funding for several conferences, graduate student stipends, and research assistants. I received a grant from the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada, and occasional funding from Victoria University through Emmanuel College.

This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Among the students funded by the Lilly grant was Ian Manson, who has worked with me in various roles for more years than I care to calculate: as M.Div. and doctoral student, teaching assistant, research assistant, Lilly project coordinator, minister of my congregation for a number of years, and most recently reader of various drafts of the manuscript. Allison Barrett and Kate Crawford helped to organize the Clifford papers, retrieve and reproduce sources, and gather statistical data. Over the years, other student assistants, including Peg Allin, Chris Dowdeswell, Stephanie Klaassen, Ross Lockhart, Jonathan Seiling, and Jeralyn Towne, handled similar tasks. Teaching assistant Philip Gardner added the task of proofreading endnotes to his other responsibilities. In a class by herself as first reader of drafts is my friend Heather Gamester, whose candid suggestions immeasurably improved the

narrative flow of the manuscript. The making of this book also

304 Acknowledgments involved many people whom I came to know only through email

exchanges or telephone conversations. An example is Patricia Ingold, editorial administrator for The United Church Observer, who scanned images of magazine covers for some of the illustrations. One was a particular challenge because her only copy was in a bound volume, so she suggested that I try to find a loose copy. Eventually, that led me to phone Joanne Lucyk, Ray Hord’s sisterin-law, who took time to find the issue with a cover story about him in some family papers, at a time when she was grieving the recent death of her son.

I am grateful for the practical support of managing editor Ryan Van Huijstee and the editorial staff of McGill-Queen’s University Press. They selected two superb readers, later identified in the prepublication material as Duncan McDowell and Mark Noll, who provided very different perspectives on the manuscript (including advice from one to shorten it and from the other to lengthen it). I took their suggestions seriously (even when it was difficult to please

both!). The managing editor assigned my manuscript to Eleanor Gasparik, a copy editor who manages to be both exacting and delightful to work with, and recommended Lee Frew, an indexer who works with remarkable skill and speed. Finally, I want to thank Don Akenson, editor of the series in which this book appears, for assurances that, like George Rawlyk before him, he would be interested in considering my manuscript whenever I was ready to submit it. And as always, my gratitude to Matthew, who has been with me even longer than this book, and who continues to give me love, joy, and harmony.

Notes

PROLOGUE t John Wesley, Journals and Diaries II, vol. 19 of The Works of John Wesley, ed. W. Reginald Ward and Richard P. Heitzenrater (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990), 67 (emphasis in the original). 2 E.H. Oliver, “The Place and Work of the United Church in the Life of Canada,” New Outlook, 10 June 1925, 19-20. 3 Sidney Mead, “The ‘Nation with the Soul of a Church,” Church History 36, no. 3 (1967): 262. 4 John Porter, The Vertical Mosaic: An Analysis of Social Class and Power in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965), 519. 5 Doug Owram, Born at the Right Time: A History of the Baby-Boom Generation (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996).

CHAPTER ONE 1 Mary Rubio and Elizabeth Waterson, eds., The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1992), 3:23 5; for her antipathy to church union (and Methodism), see 3:196-236. 2 John Webster Grant, The Canadian Experience of Church Union (London: Lutterworth Press, 1967), 21. C.T. McIntire, “Unity among Many: The Formation of the United Church of Canada, 1899-1930,” in Don Schweitzer, ed., The United Church of Canada: A History (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2012), 13-4, counters the United Church’s claim to be the first union across confessional lines in the West with the formation of the Protestant Church in Prussia in 1817. The United Church’s founders no doubt agreed with church historian John T.

306 Notes to page 4 McNeill (who had witnessed union as a Presbyterian) that the Prussian union had “produced a church without a general polity, a common worship, or a common statement of belief, and without any adequate sense of religious unity”; it could be called a union “only with reservations”; cited in Ruth Rouse and Stephen Neill, A History of the Ecumenical Movement, 1517-1948, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1967), 288. 3. Claris Edwin Silcox, Church Union in Canada: Its Causes and Consequences (New York: Institute of Social and Religious Research, 1933), 127, and repeated, for example, in Randolph Carleton Chalmers, See the Christ Stand! A Study in Doctrine in the United Church of Canada (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1945), 117. During the church union controversy, a few Presbyterian opponents insisted that the proposed doctrinal basis was not modern enough; see E. Lloyd Morrow, Church Union in Canada: Its History, Motives, Doctrine and Government (Toronto: Thomas Allen, 1923), 215, who concluded that “there is scarcely anything in it of the truly modern point of view”; also see 155-6, 292. 4 Kenneth McRoberts, Misconceiving Canada: The Struggle for National Unity (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1997), 5-24, describes the political dualism that allowed for Quebec and the rest of Canada to view nationality in different ways even after Confederation. Interestingly, Quebec in a sense was treated by the British as a distinct “confessional state,” to borrow the terminology that evolved after the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia that ended the devastating wars between Catholics and Protestants in Europe. Whereas in the seventeenth century the religion of the ruler determined the religion of the land, in democratic societies the religion of the majority of the population has since become the decisive factor.

5 “I’m a Unionist Because I’m Canadian — Ralph Connor,” St Thomas Times-Journal, 22 December 1924, United Church of Canada Church Union Collection, Series I (hereafter cited as Church Union Collection), United Church of Canada Archives (hereafter cited as UCA) 83.063C, box 38 (scrapbook). 6 §.D. Chown, “Church Union,” Christian Guardian, 28 June 1922, 13. This is from Chown’s infamous speech that was widely reported as referring to the new church as a “religio-political machine.” Chown did on occasion use the word “machine” to describe the church; for an example, see “That They All May Be One,” January 1912, 9, Samuel Dwight Chown Papers, UCA, box 3-67, a sermon preached prior to the Methodist vote in 1912 that referred to building “a machine of the highest efficiency for doing [Christ’s] work.”

Notes to pages 4—6 307 7 For example, in “That They All May Be One,” 7, Chown’s economic case for union was followed by a theological rationale that described the doctrinal statement as both “quite conservative in spirit” and “liberal.” For an analysis of the theological vs. the ‘non-theological’ factors, see George M. Morrison, “The United Church of Canada: Ecumenical or Economic Necessity?” (Bachelor of Divinity thesis, Emmanuel College of Victoria University, 1956); Edgar File, “A Sociological Analysis of Church Union in Canada” (PhD diss., Boston University, 1961); and W.E. Mann, “The Canadian Church Union,” in Religion in Canadian Society, ed. Stewart Crysdale and Les Wheatcroft (Toronto: Macmillan, 1976), 385-97. 8 “The Church and the Spirit,” [1924?], 4, Church Union Collection, box 29-653, one of many pamphlets issued by the Bureau of Literature and Information. 9 On revisions to the Basis of Union, amended in December 1914 and voted on the following year at the Presbyterian General Assembly, see Silcox, 170-2.

ro “Report of Home Missions and Social Service,” The United Church of Canada Year Book (1926), 330. tr John Strachan, “Upper Canada: The National Church” in John Strachan: Documents and Opinion, ed. J.L.H. Henderson (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1969), 91-2. 12 For a summary of the events leading up to disestablishment, see Terrance Murphy, “The English-Speaking Colonies to 1854,” in A Concise History of Christianity in Canada, ed. Terrence Murphy and Roberto Perin (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1996), 134-7, 184-8. For an analysis of disestablishment, see John S. Moir, Church and State in Canada West: Three Studies in the Relation of Denominationalism and Nationalism, 1841-1867 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1959), and John S. Moir, “‘Who Pays the Piper ...’: Canadian Presbyterianism and ChurchState Relations,” in The Burning Bush and a Few Acres of Snow: The Presbyterian Contribution to Canadian Life and Culture, ed. William Klempa (Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1994), 70-3. 13 John Webster Grant, A Profusion of Spires: Religion in NineteenthCentury Ontario (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988), 153. 14 André Siegfried, The Race Question in Canada (Paris: Librairie Armand Colin, 1906; ET 1907; 2nd ed. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1966), 55. On ultramontane Catholicism in Quebec, see Susan Mann, The Dream of Nation: A Social and Intellectual History of Quebec (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002), 115-31. Her opening sentence sums up well her assessment of its importance: “In the last third

308 Notes to pages 6-8 of the nineteenth century the clergy was as much a means of national unity as the railroad.” When quotations are not indicated with an endnote number, it is because the same source will be quoted again shortly following the first quotation. The last quotation from the same source will be marked with a note number. 15 Siegfried, 56. 16 Fora perceptive analysis of the social utility of religion before and after disestablishment, see William Westfall, Two Worlds: The Protestant Culture of Nineteenth-Century Ontario (Montreal and Kingston: McGillQueen’s University Press, 1989), especially chapter 4. 17 W. Stewart Wallace, The Growth of Canadian National Feeling (Toronto: Macmillan Company of Canada, 1927), 2-3. 18 On the ‘quasi-federalism’ in the constitutional settlement of 1867, with particular attention to the persistence of support for provincial autonomy in Ontario, see Robert C. Vipond, Liberty and Community: Canadian Federalism and the Failure of the Constitution (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1991). 19 R. Douglas Francis, Richard Jones, and Donald B. Smith, Journeys: A History of Canada, 2nd ed. (Toronto: Nelson, 2010), 303. The fragility of Confederation and the continuing tendency toward regionalism is discussed in chapter 14. 20 Carl Berger, The Sense of Power: Studies in the Ideas of Canadian Imperialism, 1867-1914 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1970), 3-5, sees appeal of British imperialism as a way to dodge the threat of American expansion and thus an attempt to promote Canadian nationalism. 21 John Ralston Saul, A Fair Country: Telling Truths about Canada (Toronto: Viking, 2008), 312-13. He highlights the role of Irish Protestants who “saw Canada through British blinkers”; he also notes that a “new school of historians emerged from 1867 determined to treat Confederation as a brand-new beginning” and thereby emphasizing its “Britishness.” Other cultures, including indigenous peoples and francophone, were marginal to this telling of the story (158-9). 12° Apids lide 176

71 Ibid., 17-18.

Notes to pages 239-40 391 72 Kenneth Bagnell, “The View from the Firing Line,” UCO, 1 September 1967, 15, 40. He described St Andrew’s College in Saskatoon as “among the most avant-garde theological colleges” in Canada, noting that it had recently awarded an honorary degree to Hord. Saskatchewan Conference registered its support by passing a resolution that affirmed Hord’s leadership at E&SS. 73 Ken Bagnell, “Ray Hord — The United Church’s Great Dissenter,” 27. 74 Accessed 7 August 2012, www.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/GUIDES/o14. htm#3. The timing suggests that the Congress was organized as a theological alternative to both the wcc and Vatican II, and to signal a geographical shift in emphasis: from Europe and North America to Africa, Asia, and Latin America. 75 James Somerville, “The World’s Evangelicals Look at Themselves — and Their Future,” UCO, 1 January 1967, 14-15. For all the talk of appealing to the New Age, the United Church was slow to make the transition to the new technology; it continued to rely heavily on print materials. “World Mission,” ROP (1966), 349, suggests one explanation for this more cautious attitude toward the use of technology: the fear that it could weaken the church’s witness by leaving it vulnerable to “mass indoctrination.” 76 Somerville, 15. The article mentioned that at the time, Reynolds was the Canadian representative for Christianity Today, a magazine that Graham had helped to found in 1956 as an alternative to the Christian Century. 77 Reynolds, a native of Newfoundland, was to become a controversial figure in the United Church. Forty per cent of the members of West Ellesmere United in Scarborough, Ontario, voted against calling him in 1968 after he had served as the congregation’s interim minister. See the story on Reynolds by James Taylor, “Sharing the Faith: A Visitation Evangelism Program that Works,” UCO, July 1979, 10-13. “Gimme That Prime-time Religion,” Maclean’s, April 28, 1980, 48-9, is one of many accounts of his highly publicized battles with the United Church. He was placed on the discontinued list after a three-year dispute — not for his conservative theology per se, but for refusing to bow to pressure when he tried to move his congregation to a larger building against the wishes of the presbytery. His name is last listed in the Yearbook in 1980. 78 J. Berkley Reynolds, “Long Live the Old Evangelism,” UCO, 1 May 1967, 14-15. Reynolds singled out Crysdale and Dolan for reproof. 79 Ben Smillie, “Why the Fundamentalists Are Wrong,” UCO, 15 May 1967, 21. His reference to the Plymouth Brethren is interesting, since Smillie was born in India, where his parents served for a time as United Church missionaries.

392 Notes to pages 240-1 80 John Burbidge and Patricia Clarke, “He Came; He Preached, and Here’s What Happened,” UCO, 15 October 1967, 17. They described the event in carnival, marketing, and Hollywood terms as well. 81 Norman Wesley Oake, “Evangelism Today,” Small Voice (Winter 1968): 8. Evidence of that confusion was supplied by a survey that Crysdale had conducted with participants at his Planning Fellowships, who were asked to identify the church’s “chief purpose.” A surprisingly small percentage of laity (3 per cent) and clergy (2 per cent) thought its purpose was “to guide and minister to believers.” A higher percentage of laity (16 per cent) than clergy (3 per cent) identified as its main purpose “to establish a more Christian social order.” The most favoured response by far was “to make Christ and his gospel known in the world” (67 per cent of laity and 73 per cent of clergy). Stewart Crysdale, Churches Where the Action Is!, 162. At first glance it would seem to show support for the New Evangelism. However, when asked directly about evangelism (166), most respondents still preferred that there be an equal emphasis on proclamation and the witness of Christ-like action (laity 46 per cent, clergy 52 per cent). One wonders how representative the Planning Fellowships were, but their association with the New Evangelism makes the strong support for “proclamation” all the more striking. 82 See Katherine Hockin, “The Changing Face of Mission,” Mandate, October 1985, 17-20, and Katherine B. Hockin, “My Pilgrimage in Mission,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 12 (January 1988): 23-8, 30, for accounts of her life that place her experience alongside the major shifts in missionary thought and her own changing understanding of “world mission.” 83 Katharine Hockin, “Revolutionary Changes in the Twentieth Century Challenging Conventional Approaches to Missions,” n.d., 11, Commission on World Mission, UCA 82.124C, box 1-10. The paper was presented at a consultation, possibly at a special meeting held 12-13 February 1965. 84 The prestigious group of missionaries, church executives, and scholars included Wilfred Cantwell Smith, a Canadian with connections to the United Church who was then teaching World Religions at Harvard, and whose approach to world religions featured the implicit pluralist position of the 1966 report. 85 “The Crisis in the United Church,” UCO, 1 March 1960, 7 (captioned “An Editorial Repetition”). 86 The entire report was printed as “World Mission,” ROP (1966), 299-493. For statistics on the number of missionaries, see Appendixes D and E, 462-3. It is interesting to note that the numbers of new appointments

Notes to pages 241-3 393 between 1961 and 1964 indicated in the table in Appendix E were among the highest in forty years. 87 “Radical Change in Mission,” UCO, 15 October 1966, Io.

88 Ibid., ro. 89 Letter from Donald Fleming to A.C. Forrest, 21 October 1966, 3-5, Alfred Clinton Forrest Papers, UCA, box 8-7. I have wondered at the vehemence of Fleming’s response. Was the quarrel set off because of a misunderstanding between the two men over the word “commissioners” in the editorial? I assume Forrest had in mind the commissioners (delegates) to General Council; Fleming’s first letter obviously thought Forrest was referring to the members of the commission he had chaired (e.g., his reference to their two and a half years of work). Fleming was defending those who had worked with him on the report, whom Forrest seemingly had portrayed as daft - “unaware” of the shift. However, Fleming himself seems not to have appreciated fully the implications of the lengthy report his group had produced. 90 Letter from A.C. Forrest to Donald Fleming, 3 November 1966, Forrest Papers, box 8-7. One of the difficulties was that the two men could not agree on the wording of the question that Forrest had asked on the floor. Forrest claimed that he had explicitly referred to the understanding of mission in 1925 as “making disciples of all nations,” and whether the report represented a shift in that emphasis. Fleming, he protested, had distorted his meaning by rephrasing his question. 91 Letter from Donald Fleming to A.C. Forrest, ro November 1966, 4, Forrest Papers, box 8-7. The exchange of letters gives a fascinating glimpse of the commission’s work and the response to it, as well as Forrest’s role as editor. Fleming mentioned more than once that he had the support of the new moderator (Wilfred Lockhart), but Forrest refused to give in to pressure once he was convinced that he was right. 92 “Win Souls to Christ” [undated draft], 2-3, Forrest Papers, box 8-7. Forrest circulated this draft among some of the national staff. A memo from the associate secretary of the Board of World Mission suggested that Forrest emphasize “secularity and servanthood as the marks of Christ’s people” as “the theological emphasis today”; see Garth Legge to A.C. Forrest, 16 November 1966, Forrest Papers, box 8-7. Forrest’s reply to Legge (17 November 1966) and the draft statement indicate that he took his advice. Legge summed up what he saw as Forrest’s main point: a “rejection of a false evangelicalism which contends that the goal is ‘to win souls for Christ’ and society will take care of itself.” This, said Legge, “is for the birds — the vultures, that is — and the sooner it is disposed of, the better.”

394 Notes to pages 243-5 93 C. Douglas Jay, World Mission and World Civilization (Toronto: Board of World Mission, United Church of Canada, [1967?]), 2-4. For the definition of proselytism, see “World Mission,” ROP (1966), 303. 94 Jay, World Mission and World Civilization, 3-4, 11-12. 95 George Johnston, “The Future of Ecumenism in Canada,” in One Church, Two Nations?, 186. He noted in particular an active evangelical group within the Presbyterian Church. 96 Ernest E. Long, “The Truth about the Crisis in the Church,” UCO, t5 November 1967, 30. 97 Martin E. Marty, Under God, Indivisible, 1941-1960, vol. 3 of Modern American Religion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 434-55, analyzes the theological and cultural divisions within Protestantism in the 1950s. David Bebbington, “Evangelicalism in Its Settings: The British and American Movements since 1940,” in Evangelicalism: Comparative Studies of Popular Protestantism in North America, the British Isles, and Beyond, 1700-1990 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1994), 367, sees the time around 1940 as the nadir of the evangelical movement; it was “crushed between the upper and nether millstones of fundamentalism and modernism.” On the resurgence of conservative evangelicalism in the postwar period, see George M. Marsden, Reforming Fundamentalism: Fuller Seminary and the New Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids, M1: Eerdmans, 1987); Joel A. Carpenter, Revive Us Again: The Reawakening of American Fundamentalism (New York: Oxtord University Press, 1997); and Garth M. Rosell, The Surprising Work of God: Harold John Ockenga, Billy Graham, and the Rebirth of Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids, M1: Baker Academic, 2008). 98 See Phyllis D. Airhart, “Condensation and Heart Religion: Canadian Methodists as Evangelicals, 1884-1925,” in Aspects of the Canadian Evangelical Experience, ed. G.A. Rawlyk (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1997), 90-105, for early indications of different organizational assumptions. 99 Whereas the Anglican, Lutheran, and Presbyterian churches and the Canadian Council of Churches have since sought observer status in the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, the United Church is represented only indirectly through the Canadian Council of Churches. 100 J. Berkley Reynolds, “Evangelical Renaissance,” Small Voice 1, no. 1 (1967): 2. He also drew attention to the Canadian Anglican Evangelical Fellowship and the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (comparing the latter to the U.S. National Association of Evangelicals) as signs of the evangelical revival. He credited the Berlin Congress along with the

Notes to pages 245-8 395 Graham and Ford crusades for bringing evangelicals from different denominations together (10). tor The sea change was evident in the Observer. Compare the skeptical tone of the Observer’s coverage of the Second Vatican Council in October 1962 to the hopeful tone of R.H.N. Davidson, “What Vatican IIT Can Mean for Protestants,” UCO, January 1966, 17-18, 30. Davidson described the closing service as “the end of the most important event in modern church history” and “the beginning of a new era.” For other indications of the shift, see A.C. Forrest, “A Protestant at Vatican II,” UCO, 15 November 1962, 14-15, 17; A.C. Forrest, “The New Mood in Catholicism,” t February 1964, UCO, 10-12, 40; and Patricia Clarke, “The RomanCatholic Protestant Thaw: How It Is Changing Your Church,” 1 May 1965, UCO, 13-15. For other illustrations of the impact, see John H. Young, “Reaction to Vatican II in the United Church of Canada,” in Vatican II: Canadian Experiences, ed. Michael Attridge, Catherine E. Clifford, and Gilles Routhier (Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2011), 106-23. 102 “Inter-church and Inter-faith Relations,” ROP (1972), 267. I have been unable to find evidence that the recommendation for preparing new materials was followed. 103 Claude de Mestral, A New Dawn in Canada? A Bilingual Minister Looks at Critical National Issues in the Light of the Cross (Toronto: Board of Evangelism and Social Service and Board of Christian Education, 1965),

27 104 George Johnston, “The Future of Ecumenism in Canada,” 186. 105 Brydon, 11. 106 Lois Wilson, “Town Talk,” The Cutting Edge, 230-3. 107 Wilson, Turning the World Upside Down: A Memoir (Toronto: Doubleday, 1989), 47-9. 108 Ibid., 50. tog “The Church on the Urban Frontier,” ROP (1964), 275-7. 110 “The Church on the Urban Frontier” ROP (1966), 193-7. r11 Harold Bailey, “Rural,” UCO, 1 August 1966, 9. 112 “Is It a National Church?” UCO, August 1957, 6. 113 Jiwu Wang, “His Dominion” and the “Yellow Peril” (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2006), 85. 114 Ibid., 85. He notes Protestant missions to Chinese immigrants were abandoned in the 1960s after the collapse of the vision of “His Dominion.” 115 George Johnston, “The Strategy of the Church in the Space Age,” Listen to the World, 76-80.

396 Notes to pages 248-51 116 Doug Owram, Born at the Right Time: A History of the Baby-Boom Generation (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), 79. Chapter 3 discusses the impact of this new approach to housing, which made the upbringing of the baby boomers different from their grandparents or even their parents. 117 Wesley Morris, “The Suburban Church,” Telstar — Tell Peace! (E& SS

Annual Report, 1963), 153. 118 “Suburbia,” UCO, 1 May 1964, 7. LEO. Dido 7:

120 Forrest put his finger on an important dimension of the criticism. James Hudnut-Beumler, Looking for God in the Suburbs: The Religion of the American Dream and Its Critics, 1945-1965 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1994), discusses the critique of suburban religion and links the “jeremiads” of secular and religious critics (notably Will Herberg, Gibson Winter, Peter Berger, and Harvey Cox among the latter) to the views of the youth culture of the 1960s. E&SS’s staff reports and articles indicate familiarity with this sociological research, and the names of Talbot Parsons, Peter Berger, and Gibson Winter crop up frequently. For instance, Crysdale’s essay on “The Church’s Functions in Contemporary Society,” Listen to the World, 48-50, listed several sociologists of religion, but no theologians. 121 “The Suburban Church: A Symposium,” UCO, 15 October 1965, 12. 122 Ibid., 12. Douglas John Hall, The Future of the Church (Toronto: United Church Publishing House, 1989), 5-19, gives a poignant description of growing up in a United Church congregation that I suspect was quite typical for someone born in 1928. He confirms Forrest’s hunch about suburban congregations: “The village church! it is the dream church of every suburbia I know!” (17). 123 “The Suburban Church: A Symposium,” 13-16. 124 Ibid., 13. 125 Ibid., 13-14. 126 Ibid., 17. 127 The section on “The Congregation in Mission” in “The Church on the Urban Frontier,” ROP (1966), 196-200 is a good summary of the application of the new approach to mission at the congregational level, e.g., study-action projects. The ambivalence about identifying the mission of the church with a building — often “a decaying monument to the prosperity of the institutional church of a previous generation” (199) — is evident.

Notes to pages 251-4 397 128 “Evangelism,” UCO, 15 November 1967, It. 129 “Evangelicals,” UCO, 15 May 1970, 8. 130 Cf. “Centenary Committee,” ROP (1964), 187-8; “Centenary Committee,” ROP (1966), 190. 131 “Final Report of the National Project of Evangelism and Social Action,” Life for the Choosing, 378-9. 132 Robert Christie, “Man of the Sixties — Scientific Genius and Social HalfWit,” It’s A Big Responsibility, 491-2.

133 Ibid., 495. 134 Robert Christie, “Where the End Is the Beginning,” Man Fully Alive (Exss Annual Report, 1971), 3. 135 William Berry, “Evangelism — Retrospect and Prospect,” Man Fully Alive,

23-4, 27. 136 J.R. Hord, “Journey into the Future,” Canada and Its Future, iv (insert). 137 J.R. Hord, “Finding Life’s Meaning,” Man Fully Alive, 55, stanzas from a poem published posthumously in E&S$s’s last report. 138 Arch McCurdy, another E&ss staffer phased out by restructuring, saw the creation of a new Division of Mission in Canada as the end of the old two-pronged thrust of evangelism and social service. He makes the interesting observation that social action had “emerged” in the 1960s as a third facet of the old board’s work; see Arch McCurdy, “Transition,” Man Fully Alive, 19.

139 While some claimed that restructuring was a convenient way to rid the United Church of the term “evangelism,” there was also speculation that it was designed “to muffle the prophetic but sometimes embarrassing voice” of E& Ss by replacing it with a church in society department within the new Division of Mission in Canada; see Patricia Clarke, “Clarke MacDonald: An Ear for Evangelism at the Top,” UCO, February 1971, 16. On Clarke MacDonald’s understanding of his responsibilities as head of the new department, see “The Department of Church in Society,” xix—xxi, which includes a reference to committing his life to Christ at the age of fourteen, and “Some Aspects of Our Task — At this Point in Time,” 272-5, an account of his impressions of the church’s work since the 1940s, both in You Have a Right to Be Here (Division of Mission in Canada Report, 1972-73). 140 “The Church in the Field of Social Welfare,” ROP (1968), 297. 141 Ibid., 295. 142 Hockin, “Revolutionary Changes in the Twentieth Century Challenging Conventional Approaches to Missions,” 1.

398 Notes to pages 255-8 CHAPTER NINE 1 “Change Ways or Suffer Defeat Warns United Church Minister” [clipping], Napanee Beaver, 1 September 1965, Ernest Edgar Long Papers, UCA, box 11-173 (scrapbook). 2 “Mr United Church Warns of the Coming Crisis” [clipping], Toronto Daily Star, 18 November 1967, Long Papers, box 11-173 (scrapbook). 3 Ernest E. Long, “The Truth about the Crisis in the Church,” UCO, 15 November 1967, 12-15, 30, 40. 4 “An Editorial Measurement: Of the United Church’s Amazing Growth,” UCO, 1 May 1959, 7, 29.

5 “Disappointment,” UCO, 1 June 1967, II. 6 J.R. Hord, “Where Is the Church in Canada Going?” Canada and Its Future (E&SS Annual Report, 1967), 11. 7 E.E. Long, “The State of the Church,” address delivered 26 January 1971, t, Long Papers, box 9-file 128, which cited recently published surveys of church attendance. 8 Hugh McLeod, The Religious Crisis of the 1960s (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 15. His book explores each of these contributory streams separately. Although much of his analysis focuses on Britain, Europe, and the United States, he includes Canada (with specific attention to Quebec), Australia, and New Zealand as examples of the geographical extent of the crisis. For a critique of theories of secularization, see Jeffrey Cox, “Master Narratives of Long-term Religious Change,” in The Decline of Christendom in Western Europe, 1750-2000, ed. Hugh McLeod and Werner Ustorf (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 201-17. Cox does not deny religious decline, but focuses on different categories, such as religious toleration and the impact of state and legal power. 9 McLeod, The Religious Crisis of the 1960s, 243. to Thomas Homer-Dixon, The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization (Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), 20734. He makes use of the work of ecologist C.S. Holling, “Understanding the Complexity of Economic, Ecological, and Social Systems,” Ecosystems 4 (2001): 396, who pictures panarchy as “a nested set of adaptive cycles” operating in a hierarchy.

tr Homer-Dixon, 228. 12 For a description of the phases see Holling, 396-404. 13) Homer-Dixon, 308. 14 Holling, 398-9. 15 Homer-Dixon, 289-90.

Notes to pages 259-62 399 16 Holling, 397-8, 402. 17 See Daniéle Hervieu-Léger, “Individualism Religious and Modern: Continuities and Discontinuities,” in Rethinking Church, State, and Modernity: Canada between Europe and America, ed. David Lyon and Marguerite Van Die (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), 52-7, for a discussion of the connections between mysticism and modern individualism. 18 J.R. Hord, “It’s Later than We Think,” The Cutting Edge (E&ss Annual Report, 1968), 11-12. Hord expressed similar thoughts in undated handwritten notes marked “Future Sermon” and titled “The Church of the Dispersion.” The original copies of Hord’s sermons are in my possession, given to me by his brother-in-law Stan Lucyk. Lucyk adds a comment: “IT believe Ray was writing this just before his death.” 19 Donald Mathers, “The Concept of Secularization,” paper presented to the Saturday Club at Queen’s University, 12 April 1969, in Not by Sight (published privately by his friends, 1974), 36-8. An earlier sermon had described secularization as “a religious achievement,” though it warned of a “false secularism that slides back into pagan religiosity”; see “Secularization: A Sermon,” preached at Chalmers United Church in Kingston, 26 May 1968, in Not by Sight, 41-3. 20 Daphne J. Anderson and Terence R. Anderson, “United Church of Canada: Kingdom Symbol or Lifestyle Choice,” in Faith Traditions and the Family, ed. Phyllis D. Airhart and Margaret J. Bendroth (Louisville, ky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996), 135. 21 “What the Council Did!” UCO, 15 October 1964, 39. 22 A.C. Forrest, “The Churches’ Role in the Alcohol Problem,” address to young people in Toc Alpha, Niagara Fall, 29 December 1965, ro, Alfred Clinton Forrest Papers, UCA, box 4-45. 23 McLeod, The Religious Crisis of the 1960s, 29. 24 Hilda Benson Powicke, Coffee House: A One-Act Play (Toronto: Board of Evangelism and Social Service of the United Church of Canada and the Department of Christian Social Service of the Anglican Church of Canada, [1965?)). 25 Doug Owram, Born at the Right Time: A History of the Baby-Boom Generation (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), 272. Anderson and Anderson, 129, identify Marriage Today: An Exploration of Man-Woman Relationship and Marriage (1978) as pivotal in separating sexuality and marriage, on the one hand, from procreation and family formation, on the other. They see this as a crucial step toward acceptance of gay and lesbian relationships, which had been thought of as “unnatural” because they did

400 Notes to pages 262-4 not involve reproduction. In the 1960s, the United Church was not ready to accept homosexuals as ministers. For example, when asked what would happen if a candidate for the ministry was suspected of having a “homosexual problem,” Hord said he knew of no committee in the church that would recommend “a man with this aberration.” He was in favour of amending the Criminal Code to remove legal penalties for homosexual relationships between consenting adults, but felt that ministry was a different matter: a minister had an “unusual opportunity to mix” with boys and young men, and “confidence in him would be fatally undermined” if his homosexuality were known; see Toronto Daily Star [clipping], 20 January 1968, J. Raymond Hord biographical file, uca. 26 “The Lord’s Day,” ROP (1962), 338-40. The report noted the impact of television and other media, weekend travel, rootless communities, and competition from leisure activities. 29: ADICs 3A:

28 Ibid., 347. 29 “The Lord’s Day Act,” ROP (1971), 161-2. 30 J.R. Mutchmor’s report in Close the Chasm (E&ss Annual Report, 1962), 43.

31 For two perspectives on the “why go to church” question, see W. Clarke MacDonald, “Sunday 11:00 a.m.: What’s It All About?” UCO, 1 September 1969, 24-5, and N. Bruce McLeod, “Why Won’t They Go to Church,”

UCO, 1 November 1969, 20-2, 40. MacDonald warned that neglecting worship was “suicidal to the Christian life”; the “generation yet unborn” would be handed “cold ashes and not the flame of faith” (24). While not a direct response to MacDonald, McLeod’s article counters the assumption that people who neglect worship will eventually end up neglecting God. 32 Kenneth Bagnell, “Are Prayer Meetings Passé?” UCO, 1 January 1966, 15, found that prayer meetings were a thing of the past but noted that Bible study was enjoying a renaissance, with groups taking “a more sophisticated approach to the scriptures.” 33 “Guilty? Faith Crisis? Cultural Revolution? Golf? Me?” UCO, 15 October

1969, Il. 34 Address by scM general secretary Roy G. DeMarsh, “Campus Religion Slumps,” Command the Morning (E&ss Annual Report, 1961), 124-5. Owram, 179-83, describes the dramatic changes in higher education that corresponded to the surging number of students. For $CM’s postwar challenges and changes in this context, see Catherine Gidney, “Poisoning the Student Mind? The Christian Student Movement at the University of

Notes to pages 264-6 401 Toronto, 1920-1965,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association, New Series, 8 (1997): 157-63. 35 John W. Berry, “The Student Christian Movement — A Study in Creative Tension,” Breaking the Barriers (E&SS Annual Report, 1964), 53-4 (emphasis in the original). Bruce Michael Douville, “The Uncomfortable Pew: Christianity, the New Left, and the Hip Counterculture in Toronto, 1965-1975” (PhD diss., York University, 2011), 199-200, 203, indicates that the scM was having discussions about dropping “Christian” from its name; the loss of church funding that might result from the change was a consideration in retaining it. Douville sees connections between the youth counterculture (especially the scM) and the United Church’s shift to the left in the late-1960s (171-205), as well as its support for feminism and GLBT persons decades later (520-4). 36 Peter Gordon White, “Magnifying Voices, Sharing Visions,” in Voices and Visions: Sixty-five Years of the United Church of Canada, ed. John Webster Grant, et al. (Toronto: United Church Publishing House, 1990), 110. Even one of the New Curriculum’s harshest critics admitted that there had been “no loud protests” against it in the United Church; see J. Berkley Reynolds, “The Hot New Fight for the Good Old Faith,” UCO, 15 February 1968, 12, 14. ag: “Crises. UCGO-1 5. Jule 1964;'7. 38 Joanne Strong, “Rx for the Sunday School,” UCO, 1 August 1968, 13. 39 Jean Doern, et al., All Things Are Possible: A History of Westworth United Church, 1950-1990 (n.p.: 1993), 31. 4o Robert Dobbie, et al., The Junior Teacher’s Guide (Toronto: United Church Publishing House, 1964). 41 “Comments on the New Curriculum,” Small Voice (Winter 1968): 4-5 (a letter from Wilber Sutherland to an unnamed friend).

42 Ibid., 7, 16-17. 43 J.R. Mutchmor, “Forty Years,” UCO, 1 June 1965, II.

44 White, 107-9. 45 Judging from demographic patterns in other denominations, a decline may well have happened regardless of the controversy over curriculum. For a study that sees a more direct link between the New Curriculum and the decline in attendance, see Kevin Neil Flatt, “The Survival and Decline of the Evangelical Identity of the United Church, 1930-1971” (PhD diss., McMaster University, 2008), especially chapter 3.

46 Strong, Io.

402 Notes to pages 267-9 47 James Taylor, “What’s Happening to Our Sunday Schools?” UCO, September 1970, 13, I5.

48 Ibid., 13, 14-15. 49 Owram, 103. 50 Harvey L. Shepherd, “Is There Room in Kairos for You2” UCO, 1 March 1969, 26. This group should not be confused with the ecumenical organization KAIROS that was formed later. 51 Ibid., 27. For instance, in contrast to the yPpu’s nationally designed programs of the past, Kairos was based on locally defined goals and actions. The article conveys the author’s skepticism about Kairos’s organizational! effectiveness. Although impressed by the intelligence of those he had met, he was uncertain about what it meant for the United Church: “Kairos looks like the vanguard of the church and Kairos looks a mess” (30). 52 “Ecumenical Affairs,” ROP (1968), 366-7. Some of the projects underway included setting up recreational facilities, working on Indian reservations, organizing multi-denominational and multiracial church services, providing folk music for worship, and developing activities for action in Latin America. 53 onepherds 27. 54 “Report of the Commission on the Gainful Employment of Married Women,” ROP (1962), 275. The decision to merge the two organizations came after nearly a decade of study. “The Work of Women in the Church,” ROP (1958), 214-18, relates the background and findings that led to the recommendations in “The Commission on the Work of Women in the Church,” ROP (1960), 301-17, which took two years to implement. 55 Patricia Clarke, “What’s Keeping Women in the Church Kitchen?” UCO, t September 1965, 12.

56. Ibid.,13; 14, 57. “Laymen: Okay. We Say It Again. Let’s Give Them What They Want,”

UCO, 1 May 1970, II. 58 S.J.D. Green, Religion in the Age of Decline: Organization and Experience in Industrial Yorkshire, 1870-1920 raises this question about the correlation between belonging and believing as he considers what happens when people stop attending church; cited in Cox, “Master Narratives of Longterm Religious Change,” 213. 59 William G. Berry, “Secrets of a Successful Evangelist,” UCO, 15 January 1968, 23. 60 See Kenneth Bagnell, “What’s Happening in the Church? A Stirring ... New Styles ... Search for Meaning, A New Reformation, Perhaps?”

Notes to pages 269-72 403 Excerpt from Globe and Mail Magazine, 28 March 1970, It’s A Big Responsibility (E&ss Annual Report, 1970), 42-3. 61 A number of such projects were connected to the Canadian Urban Training project funded by E&ss and the Board of Home Missions; see Ted Reeve, “Walking the Talk,” in Action Training in Canada: Reflections on Church-Based Education for Social Transformation, ed. Ted Reeve and Roger Hutchinson (Toronto: Emmanuel College Centre for Research in Religion, 1997), 13-58. Other “experimental projects” were funded by the Stabilization Fund, including a seminar on “Secularization and Christian Education,” family counselling services, chaplaincies to industry, and social ministries in the downtown cores of Toronto, Hamilton, and Vancouver; see “Experimental Projects Financed from the Stabilization Fund Income,” ROP (1968), 260-5. Douville, 173-7, finds that the New Left radicals influenced by CUT’s approach were more confrontational and increasingly critical of organized religion. 62 Stewart Crysdale, Churches Where the Action Is! (Toronto: Board of Evangelism and Social Service, United Church of Canada, 1966). 63 E. Westhues and E. Burrill, “Summary Report Presented to Rowntree Memorial United Church,” November 1974, 2-3, Office of the Moderator, Series 2, UCA 83.069C, Wilbur Howard Papers, box 2 [unnumbered file].

64 Ibid., 4-5, 8-10.

65 Ibid., rr. 66 Fora study of the transition from missions to international development, see Ruth Compton Brouwer, “When Missions Became Development: Ironies of ‘NGOization’ in Mainstream Canadian Churches in the 1960s,” Canadian Historical Review 91 no. 4 (2010): 661-93. 67 Association with the institutional church is not included, for instance, in David Bebbington’s popular quadrilateral for defining evangelicalism: conversionism, biblicism, crucicentrism, and activism. 68 Owram, 206-8. The appeal of the Jesus movement is perhaps not surprising, given its embrace of popular music. 69 Kyle Haselden, “Christianity’s Subtlest Foe,” Close the Chasm, 11-13. 70 McLeod, The Religious Crisis of the 1960s, 243-4, notes the popularity in the 1960s of charismatic forms of Christianity, mysticism, and other esoteric alternatives (e.g., neo-paganism, ecology, goddess, yoga). Leigh Schmidt, Restless Souls: The Making of American Spirituality (New York: HarperCollins, 2005), sees the roots of New Age mysticism and seeker spirituality in nineteenth-century Transcendental liberalism. 71 “The 7os: Will They Be Sad, Soaring, Sordid, Sinful or Violent?” UCO,

January 1970, IT.

404 Notes to pages 272-4 72 Mary Rubio and Elizabeth Waterson, eds., The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1992), 3:133. 73 D.M. Mathers, “The Mission of the Church and the Rule of God over History,” [1965?], 1, Commission on World Mission 82.124C, box 2-13. 74 “Church Worship and Ritual,” ROP (1968), 357. 75 Ibid., ROP (1968), 357-8. One member of the committee who supported that “revolution” was Ronald Atkinson. For his views on liturgy as an expression of the “new worldliness and secularity,” see Ronald Atkinson, “Factors in the Preparation of a ‘Contemporary’ Liturgy,” in Ordered Liberty: Readings in the History of United Church Worship, ed. William S. Kervin (Toronto: United Church of Canada, 2011), 224-6, a reprint of an article published in 1965. 76 N.K. Clifford, “The United Church and Doctrinal Confession,” Touchstone 2, no. 2 (May 1984), 18. He contends that the Committee on Faith knowingly departed from the ancient creeds, the Reformed confessions, and its own traditions by beginning with a statement of the human condition rather than God. 77 Its reception differed from other materials prepared around the same time, including the Service Book (1969) for which the creed had been prepared and the Hymn Book published in co-operation with the Anglican Church of Canada (1971) that was long in use but much criticized. 78 Although the committee that worked on the new creed included two women (Katharine Hockin and Dorothy Wyman), feminist concern about sexist language was apparently not an issue. When the New Creed was revised in 1980, its striking opening affirmation was changed from “Man is not alone” to “We are not alone,” and “the true man Jesus” was replaced by “Jesus, the Word made flesh.” 79 For the presentation of the case for the New Creed, see “Christian Faith,” ROP (1968), 311-43, which includes the original version of the creed that was sent to the General Council. The creed was redrafted by the Committee on Faith and approved for congregational use and inclusion in the new service book by the General Council Executive on 5 November 1968; see Creeds: A Report of the Committee on Faith (Toronto: Board of Evangelism and Social Service of the United Church of Canada, 1969), 3. 80 John Burbidge, “A Creed Is a Short, Memorable and Accurate Summary of the Important Parts of the Christian Faith,” UCO, 1 February 1969, 18. 81 Ibid., 30. 82 Berkley Reynolds, “A Creed Is a Short, Memorable and Accurate Summary of the Important Parts of the Christian Faith,” UCO, 1 February 1969, 40. 83 Ibid., 19.

Notes to page 275 405 84 G.A.D. Scott, “The New Creed of ’68,” Small Voice [32], no. 2 (1969): 24-5. The article was a response to a question that had been broached in an editorial in the previous issue of Small Voice: how much diversity “on the very truths which constitute its identity” could go unchecked without threatening the existence of the United Church? 85 Reynolds, “The Hot New Fight for the Good Old Faith,” 14, used the term “new creed” to describe the UCRF’s statement of faith in an article published a few months before what eventually became known the New Creed was presented at the General Council. 86 “The Editorial,” Small Voice 1, no. 1 (1967): 1. The somewhat awkward wording and punctuation are in the original; the statement appears in later versions in a slightly modified form. 87 “Christian Faith,” ROP (1966), 5o9—11. Michael Bourgeois, “Awash in Theology: Issues in Theology in the United Church of Canada,” in The United Church of Canada: A History, ed. Don Schweitzer (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2012), 266-70, astutely notes the shift in the understanding of revelation from the Statement of Faith, which had affirmed “God’s self-revelation only in Scripture and the events to which it witnesses, especially in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.” 88 Reynolds, “The Hot New Fight for the Good Old Faith,” 13-14. The explanation is similar to the editorial in Small Voice that introduced the redrafted statement on biblical authority, suggesting that Reynolds wrote, or at least had a hand in writing, the editorial. The new language echoed the neo-evangelical defence of inerrancy described in Harold Lindsell, The Battle for the Bible (Grand Rapids, M1: Zondervan, 1976), written by one of the most prominent champions of the inerrantist approach to biblical interpretation. Reynolds would have been familiar with the debate that was heating up through his connection to Christianity Today, where Lindsell was editor. 89 J. Berkley Reynolds, “Evangelical Renaissance,” Small Voice 1, no. 1 (1967): 2, 10. He was pleased that principal Lautenschlager supported the Emmanuel College students who were perturbed by former moderator Ernest Howse’s beliefs about the resurrection and deity of Christ. Kenneth Hamilton, a professor at the United Church’s theological college in Winnipeg, had criticized Paul Tillich and the “God is dead” theologians in his writings. While Hamilton described himself as a liberal evangelical, Reynolds claimed he was becoming more conservative. For an assessment of Hamilton’s theological evolution, see John McTavish, “Kenneth Hamilton: Canada’s Kierkegaard,” Touchstone 28, no. 3 (2010): 51-68. 90 Alan T. Davies, [letter to the editor], UCO, 1 April 1968, 2.

406 Notes to pages 275-7 91 John McTavish, [letter to the editor], UCO, 15 March 1968, 2. 92 W. Clarke MacDonald, “The King Has No Clothes,” The Cutting Edge, 6-7. 93 For asummary of the tasks undertaken at the various stages of the negotiations, see Neil Semple, “Introduction,” Anglican Church, United Church, Christian Church (Disciples) Union Negotiations (Finding Aid 197), 1981, UCA.

94 For the response to the invitation and early negotiations, see the first report of the “Commission on Re-Union,” ROP (1946), 180-2. 95 See Forrest’s editorial “To Anglicans “Time Is Not Yet,” UCO, 1 February 1959, 5, a reply to the lead editorial in the first issue of the new Canadian Churchman magazine that had suggested union would not be happening anytime soon. A letter from United Church moderator Angus MacQueen and a statement from Anglican acting primate Phillip Carrington followed in the UCO, 1 March 1959, 11, 24. MacQueen pointed out that the invitation in 1943 had come from the Anglican bishops, not “zealous and ambitious Unionists” from the United Church, and regarded the advice to continue discussing union in good faith as “tantamount to saying “Let’s Pretend’” (11). A later editorial, “Anglicans and Union,” UCO, 15 March 1959, 6, informed readers that little had been done to prepare for union by either side over the past thirteen years. 96 “What the Council Did!” UCO, 15 October 1964, 4o. 97 The document was widely circulated, including publication in full in the UCO,15 June 1965, 8-11, 26. 98 “Union,” UCO August 1965, 9. The editorial credited Vatican II and an Anglican Congress held in Toronto two years earlier for the “new reformation” that was underway. 99 For an astute analysis of the failure of negotiations from the perspective of one of the United Church’s representatives, see John Webster Grant, “Leading a Horse to Water: Reflections on Church Union Conversations in Canada,” in Studies of the Church in History, ed. Horton Davies (Allison Park, pa: Pickwick Publications, 1983), 165-81. 100 The United Church continued to discuss union with the Disciples of Christ, but they withdrew from negotiations in 1985. ror John Gywnne-Timothy, “The Evolution of Protestant Nationalism,” in One Church, Two Nations?, ed. Philip LeBlanc and Arnold Edinborough (Don Mills, oN: Longmans, 1968), 48. 102 William A. Collins, “The Catholic Nature of Anglicanism,” UCO, 1 September 1962, IO-II, 40. 103 “Blunt Talk,” UCO, 1 September 1962, 9. George Johnston took up the challenge of defending church union in the next issue.

Notes to pages 278-81 407 104 “Union with the Anglicans? Here Come the Dissenters!” UCO, 1 April 1966, 19, 21. tog “Union with the Anglicans?” 20-1, 22. 106 “Ecumenical Affairs,” ROP (1968), 362. The report rightly anticipated that the “new radicalism and activism” would drive a wedge between conservative evangelicals and churches within the ecumenical mainstream. 107 George Johnston, “The Future of Ecumenism in Canada,” in One Church, Two Nations?, 185-6. 108 Patricia Clarke, “Some Impolite Fears about Church Union,” UCO, 15 March 1969, 8. 109 “Let’s Get a Perspective on Union!” UCO, November 1970, Io. 110 Patricia Clarke and Jerry Hames, “Union: What Church Members Really Think about Church Union,” UCO, November 1970, 18. 111 Ibid., 19-20. 112 On the Evangelical United Brethren union, see “From the Church Union Front,” UCO, 1 June 1959, 7; “The Other Church Union,” UCO, 1 May 1966, 14-15; and John Burbidge, “Gentle Shepherd of 10,000 Brethren,” UCO, I January 1968, 10-12, 29 (a story on Emerson Hallman’s leadership in the negotiations as superintendent of the Canada Conference of the EUB).

113 Stewart Crysdale, “Social Change and the Re-Formation of the Church,” Dead or Alive (E&ss Annual Report, 1966), 77-81. 114 Stewart Crysdale, “Upheaval and Integration,” in One Church, Two Nations?, 139. 115 Some theologians saw the de-institutionalization accompanying urbanization as a positive development. Among them was Harvey Cox, who popularized Bonhoeffer’s “religionless” Christianity in his best-selling book The Secular City. 116 See J.R.P. Sclater, “A Conciliar Church,” Right Relations among Men (E&ss Annual Report, 1943), 85. 117 Church, Nation and World Order: A Report of the Commission on Church, Nation and World Order (Toronto: Board of Evangelism and Social Service, [1944?]), 35.

118 Martin E. Marty, “From the Centripetal to the Centrifugal in Culture and Religion,” Theology Today 51, no. 1 (1994): 7-8, claims that the world changed in 1968 in its organizational assumptions: from the centripetal, convergent, universalizing, and unitive inclinations of the postwar period to what he describes as the centrifugal, divergent, particularizing, mutually exclusive, and disruptive forces that reshaped the world after 1968. The restructuring process coincides with the declining significance of

408 Notes to pages 281-2 denominations described by Robert Wuthnow, The Restructuring of American Religion: Society and Faith since World War II (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988), 71-99. For an analysis of this paradigm shift on the national structures of denominations (and the concomitant shift of energy to the congregational level), see David Roozen, “National Denominational Structures’ Engagement with Postmodernity: An Integrative Summary from an Organizational Perspective,” in Church, Identity, and Change: Theology and Denominational Structures in Unsettled Times, ed. David A. Roozen and James R. Nieman (Grand Rapids, M1: William B. Eerdmans, 2005), 596-8. 119 John Webster Grant, ““They Don’t Speak for Me’: The United Church’s Crisis of Confidence,” Touchstone 6, no. 3 (September 1988): 9-17, assesses this distrust of ecclesial authority in the United Church. 120 J.R. Mutchmor, Mutchmor: The Memoirs of James Ralph Mutchmor (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1965), 141-2. 121 John Webster Grant, “What’s Past Is Prologue,” in Voices and Visions, C32.

122 G.B. Mather, “Debt of Love,” The Cutting Edge, 299-300, his final report as associate secretary. 123 John McTavish, “‘An Honest Bar of Soap’: Earl Lautenschlager Affectionately Remembered,” Touchstone 6, no. 3 (1988): 45. 124 Roy DeMarsh, “The Crisis in the Ministry Today,” The Cutting Edge, 204. 125 “Dropbacks,” UCO, 15 May 1970, 9. 126 E. Brooks Holifield, God’s Ambassadors: A History of the Christian Clergy in America (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007), 23 5-74, describes the challenges to ministry as a profession in the United States from 1940-70, which are strikingly similar to what the United Church was facing. Bernard Ennals, Telling the Story: The Memoirs of Bernard Ennals (Sackville, NB: Hitcham Press, 1995), recounts how the rapidly changing context shaped his thinking about his own work as a minister in rural, small town, and suburban congregations in British Columbia and Ontario. The second section of his memoirs, titled “Changed Country! Changed Church!,” looks at the impact of urbanization, immigration, fundamentalism, and the sexual revolution. 127 Arnold Edinborough, “The Minister and the Twentieth Century,” in Why the Sea Is Boiling Hot: A Symposium on the Church and the World (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1965), 15. 128 R.S. Lederman, “Why I Am Leaving Parish Ministry,” The Cutting Edge, 208-13. Others seem to thrive on the challenges; see N. Bruce McLeod, “Why I Am Staying in Pastoral Ministry,” The Cutting Edge, 213-16.

Notes to pages 283-4 409 129 “The Ministry in the Twentieth Century,” ROP (1968), 220, quoting the resolution that formed the commission in 1964. 130-1bid:, 227%,

131 G. Campbell Wadsworth, “The Ministry in the Twentieth Century: A Critical Appraisal,” 1, 7, in “Report of the Commission on the Ministry in the Twentieth Century to the General Council: Three Appraisals,” Committee to Implement Decisions of the Twenty-third General Council relating to the Commission on Ministry in the Twentieth Century Recommendations, UCA 82.148C, box 1-2. Wadsworth had solicited assessments of the report from two well-known scholars in 1969, and submitted them to the implementation committee along with his own appraisal. George B. Caird of Mansfield College, Oxford, was disturbed that the report portrayed the church as “one of the social services.” TLE Torrence of Edinburgh University linked the report’s questionable elements to what had been “learned from the World Council of Churches.” He warned that the shift of the centre of gravity from God and Christ toward “the human-technical realm” would imprison the United Church in sociological structures. By “trying to gear its message into the sociological patterns of contemporary living,” the United Church was “building obsolescence into itself.” 132 “The Ministry in the Twentieth Century,” 222-5. 133 “Council,” UCO, 15 October 1964, 36-7. An article after the previous General Council had hinted at the changes that were to come, with seventy-four women voting as commissioners (15 per cent), up from only four women commissioners in 1925. See Grace Lane, “As Women See the Church,” UCO, 1 November 1962, 25-6, for an assessment of the General Council from the point of view of several women who attended that year. 134 “Long Range Planning Committee, ROP (1962), 312. 135 Ibid., 323. The new division brought together the boards of Christian Education, Evangelism and Social Service, Men, and Women. (One wonders if most people noticed the change since the boards continued to operate and report under their old names.) 136 After serving as editor of the New Curriculum, Peter Gordon White became secretary of Christian Education in 1965. Floyd Honey’s short stint as secretary of the Board of World Missions ended in 1964 when he accepted a position with the wcc that took him to New York. Harold Bailey became the new secretary of Home Missions in 1968 after Malcolm Macdonald’s retirement. E& $$ was rocked by the sudden loss of three leaders in a short period of time. Stuart Crysdale headed off to pursue a

410 Notes to pages 284-6 doctoral degree in 1966; Bert Mathers’s decision to return to pastoral ministry was announced at E&Ss’s annual meeting in February 1968; a few weeks later, Ray Hord died. 137 Harold Bailey became the secretary of the Division of Mission in Canada, with former board secretaries Harriet Christie (Women) and Clarke MacDonald (E& ss) as deputy secretaries responsible for Christian Development and Church in Society respectively. 138 H.W. Vaughan, “Memoirs,” Appendix, i-iv, Harold W. Vaughan Papers, UCA, box 3. Henry Gordon MacLeod, “The Transformation of the United Church of Canada, 1946-1977: A Study in the Sociology of the Denomination” (PhD diss., University of Toronto, 1980), 183-8, analyzes this shift from the more formal autocratic style of the 1950s and ’6o0s to the delegated power of national staff after restructuring. His conclusion corroborates Vaughan’s observation: “The work of the United Church is carried out by a group of executives, an oligarchy with rational authority, so that their control is not identified and not recognized as power. Their activities, policy-making decisions and published materials may appear to be anonymous” (190-1). 139 Phyllis D. Airhart, “Ecumenical Theological Education and Denominational Relationships: The Emmanuel College Case, 1960-85,” in Theological Education in Canada, ed. Graham Brown (Toronto: United Church Publishing House, 1998), 21, 26n31. 140 Donna Sinclair, Crossing Worlds: The Story of the Woman’s Missionary Society of the United Church of Canada (Toronto: United Church Publishing House, 2001), 111-29. 141 Barbara Bagnell, “The Feminists,” UCO, 1 May 1970, 12-13. 142 “What’s Wrong with Church Women? UCO, August 1970, Io. 143 See Joan Wyatt, “‘We’ve Feminists Like You to Blame for this Mess,” Touchstone 24, no. 2 (2006): 6-16, discusses the connections between the General Council’s decision on the ordination of gays and lesbians in 1988 and the feminists’ earlier fight for inclusion. 144 “Council,” UCO, 15 October 1964, 11. MacLeod, “The Transformation of the United Church of Canada,” 13 8ff., confirms that reports were increasing in number and taking longer to prepare. He supports his assessment with charts of General Council commissions (144-6) and major issues tackled by E&ss (155-6) during the period covered in his study. At a time when membership was declining, the ratio of executives per membership actually increased significantly from 3.4 per 100,000 members in 1946 to 9.5 iN 1977 (196).

Notes to page 287 AII 145 John Webster Grant, “Unauthoritative Reflections on the United Church’s Story,” Touchstone 12, no. I (1994): 7. His article is a critical assessment of the departure from established practices and processes. 146 Taylor, “The Twenty-third General Council,” 12-13. A case in point was “The Ministry in the Twentieth Century” report, which church union supporters in particular thought should be sent back to the commission for reconsideration. Instead the General Council set up a committee to implement its more than seventy recommendations. Among them were recommendations to broaden the understanding of ministry by no longer identifying it exclusively with a pastoral charge, and expanding the order of ministry to include the work of non-ordained employees of the church, notably deaconesses. It also was an indication of a shift in theological education that emphasized a professional ministry, rather than a learned ministry. For the impact of that transition in the United Church, see Nathan H. Mair, Education for Ministry in the United Church of Canada: An Historical Probe (Toronto: Division of Ministry Personnel and Education of the United Church of Canada, 1983), 11-72. 147 Taylor, “The 23rd General Council,” 12. 148 “What General Council Did,” UCO, 15 October 1968, 14. 149 Its Middle East policy is an example of the United Church’s shift to clearcut positions on issues, in contrast to the more tactful approach of the 19508. The plight of the Palestinian refugees had been a repeated concern in reports from the International Affairs committee and the Observer; cf. E.L. Homewood, “Palestine’s Refugees — Scar of the Near East,” UCO, 1 January 1959, 8-10, 24, 30, and E.L. Homewood, “The Divided Holy Land,” UCO, 15 February 1959, 12-14, 20. In “The Holy Land Today,” UCO,15 December 1964, 14-15, Forrest reported that hatred was being nurtured among Palestinian children in the refugee camps, whose ambition was to go to Israel to “kill Jews.” However, after the Six-Day War in 1967, Forrest’s writing became more stridently pro-Palestinian; see A.C Forrest, “Back to the Tents,” UCO, 1 October 1967, 10-14, 26. In an effort to publicize the Arab side of the conflict, he took a ten-month leave of absence in 1968 to report on the Middle East; his editorials, articles, and The Unholy Land (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1971) certainly accomplished that aim. The Observer continued to present perspectives that differed from its editor’s; see, for example, Alan T. Davies, “Was the Editorial Anti-Semitic?” UCO, March 1972, 11. For analysis of the fraught relationships, see Alan Davies, “Jews and Palestinians: An Unresolved Conflict in the United Church Mind,” in The United Church of Canada:

412 Notes to pages 287-90 A History, ed. Don Schweitzer (Waterloo, on: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2012), 239-57. 150 Holling, 393. 151 For instance, two days after Hord’s board approved his proposal to welcome U.S. draft dodgers with a gift of $1,000, the executive of General Council overturned the decision and set up a committee to investigate how E&SS made decisions. 152 Holling, 401, states that communication is essential to adaptation, by allowing ideas to be tested before they become part of “slower parts of the panarchy” (myths, constitutions, policies, etc.). I suspect that the Observer played a critical role in this regard. With a circulation of 281,623 in 1960, it outsold Time (223,073), Saturday Night (77,249), and the Presbyterian Record (86,214); see “Observations,” Observer, 15 December 1960, 5. The circulation, proudly published on the masthead of each issue, continued to increase during the 1960s, despite the decline in church membership. Subscriptions peaked at over 300,000 in February 1970, perhaps reflecting the impact on renewals of the change from a twice-monthly to monthly issue due to an increase in postal rates around that time.

153 Ibid., 399-401. 154 Homer-Dixon, 232.

155 Aid 230. 156 R.C. Chalmers, president of Maritime Conference, quoted in A.C. Forrest, “Your Church Today: Where It Is and Where It Is Going,” Observer, September 1970, 29. 157 Taylor, “The Twenty-third General Council,” 4o. 158 Chalmers quoted in “Your Church Today,” 27. 159 Ivan Cumming, president of British Columbia Conference, quoted in “Your Church Today,” 26-7. 160 Mathers’s personal papers in the Queen’s University archives provide a glimpse of his service to the United Church. In addition to a demanding schedule at the theological school, he authored The Word and the Way, oversaw the preparation of a number of significant publications as chair of the Committee on Christian Faith (and provided background papers for other commissions), was involved in union negotiations with the Anglican Church, travelled across Canada to speak at workshops and retreats for the laity, and represented the United Church at international ecumenical gatherings (including the seminal meeting of the wcc at Uppsala in 1968). On his contributions as principal, see George Rawlyk and Kevin Quinn, The Redeemed of the Lord Say So: A History of Queen’s Theological College, 1912-1972 (Kingston: Queen’s Theological College, 1980), 223-41.

Notes to pages 290-3 413 161 “The Service of Worship,” Chalmers Church, Kingston, oN, 15 September 1972, Queen’s University Archives, Donald M. Mathers Papers, box 8-45. The selection comes from The Word and the Way, 168. 162 Some of the seeds of memory have grown in interesting places. It was amusing to read the June 2011 issue of the Observer as I was working on this chapter. It featured a cover story on the pastoral importance of funeral rituals by Kenneth Bagnell (who had written sympathetically about the prophetic role of the United Church in 1960s); see “Give Grief a Chance,” UCO, June 2011, 21-3. In the same issue, Connie denBok, the minister of one of the few United Church congregations affiliated with the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, called for “fresh expressions of church for those not part of any Christian ministry,” new partnerships with other denominations, more flexible church structures, and less cumbersome procedures — not unlike what the “radicals” had called for in the 1960s. She quoted with approval missiologist David Bosch: “It is not the church of God that has a mission in the world, but the God of mission who has a church in the world”; see “At Issue,” UCO, June 2011, 32. Ray Hord would have agreed!

EPILOGUE rt W.W. Bryden, Why I Am a Presbyterian (Toronto: Presbyterian Publications, 1934), 74-5. His book makes it clear that he considered the nonconcurring Presbyterians as prone to the same faulty thinking. 2 John Webster Grant, “Blending Traditions: The United Church of Canada,” in The Churches and the Canadian Experience, ed. John Webster Grant (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1963), 141. The pessimistic tone of the chapter added to the 1972 edition of The Church in the Canadian Era (Burlington, ON: Welch, rev. ed. 1988) was a reflection on how his mind was to change. 3 “United Church Is Now Presbyterian: Dr Stewart,” Kitchener- Waterloo Record, 4 May 1963. Ernest Edgar Long Papers, UCA, box 11-173 (scrapbook). 4 Robert Fulford, “So the Old Ways Die but Where Are the New?” Saturday Night, February 1972, 9-10.

5 Ibid., 9-10. 6 Mark Noll, “What Happened to Christian Canada?” Church History 75,n0. 2 (2006): 267. Noll carefully states that he begins “with an assumption that there was once a Christian Canada which is now gone” (245).

414 Notes to pages 293-6 7 For instance Noll, 267, says that Barry Mack has “very precisely labeled” church union as a “tragic failure.” For a typical illustration of Mack’s critical assessment of Presbyterian progressives, see “From Preaching to Propaganda to Marginalization: The Lost Centre of Twentieth-Century Presbyterianism,” in Aspects of the Canadian Evangelical Experience, ed. George Rawlyk (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1997), 138-9, 143-8. 8 A table in Paul Bramadat and David Seljak, eds., Christianity and Ethnicity in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008), 440, compares the percentage of Christian immigrants before and after 1971 (based on the 2001 census) in the major churches. At 5.38 per cent, the United Church has the smallest percentage of immigrants among the denominations listed; the Presbyterian Church, for instance, has 17.85 per cent. Greer Anne Wenh-In Ng, “The United Church of Canada: A Church Fittingly National,” in Christianity and Ethnicity in Canada, 221-3, discusses the implications of “transnational identities” for the United Church. g Analyzing the dramatic drop in membership in the Presbyterian Church since the 1960s, historian Stuart Macdonald suggests that it demonstrates “the extent to which Presbyterian is no longer a brand that many in Canada identify with or possibly even recognize”; see Stuart Macdonald, “Presbyterian and Reformed Christians and Ethnicity,” in Christianity and Ethnicity in Canada, 198n13. The dramatic decline in its membership occurred despite the arrival of large numbers of immigrants who brought with them a more conservative theology and a robust approach to evangelism. He notes that Korean immigrants do not identify with the “ethnically Canadian culture of the denomination”; not being in Canada to witness the boom years, they see a more accommodating approach as “a path to ruin” (186-7). 10 Jeffrey Cox, “Master Narratives of Long-term Religious Change,” in The Decline of Christendom in Western Europe, 1750-2000, ed. Hugh McLeod and Werner Ustorf (New York: Cambridge University Press, ZOO2) 273.

tr Ron Graham, God’s Dominion: A Skeptic’s Quest (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1990), 222. 12 The term “rescription” is used by Nick Nissley and Stedman Graham, “The Narrative Lens and Organizational Change,” LIA [Leadership in Action| 28 (January/February 2009): 14-17, to describe a process they use in working with executives who find themselves “stuck in dysfunctional story lines” when an organization fails to met its objectives (15).

Notes to pages 296-7 415 They encourage leaders to consider “an alternative script” to find “a future narrative that will identify what’s needed to become unstuck.” 13 Gary Miedema, For Canada’s Sake: Public Religion, Centennial Celebrations, and the Re-making of Canada in the 1960s (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005), 162-77, provides an excellent description of the layout of the pavilion, and discusses the mixed responses to it from members of the churches that had sponsored it. Even A.C. Forrest admitted that the message in one zone of the pavilion had to be explained to him before he understood it (176).

14 Ibid., 146-50. 15 Ibid., 156. Ironically, evangelicals committed to the old ideal of a Christian Canada turned to the United States for content when constructing their pavilion, which featured a scientist from the Moody Institute of Science. For a description of the pavilion, which showcased a film of Graham’s Canadian-born colleague Leighton Ford, see Miedema, 178-92. 16 Ibid., 194. He notes that Canadian Jews had been quietly working for greater acceptance of diversity for over 200 years, and “had in recent years more actively campaigned for its [Christendom’s| fall” (195). 17 Joseph McLelland, “Why Our Pond Is Lukewarm, or Forty Years in the Wilderness,” addresses to the Toronto and Kingston Synod, October 1965. His title linked his theme to similar concerns in the United Church by playing off the publicity generated by the latter’s Why the Sea Is Boiling Hot. His warnings in years to come about his church’s insularity from the world and its coming obsolescence echoed United Church concerns, and his call for a new blueprint for mission triggered similar disagreements; see J.C. McLelland, “Blueprint for a New Model,” Presbyterian Record, September 1967, 10-17. Stanford Reid, historian and leader of a renewal movement in the Presbyterian Church, agreed with McLelland’s bleak picture of the spiritual health of the Presbyterian Church, but offered a different diagnosis. “We must now face the issue of whether we wish to continue as Presbyterians,” Reid retorted, “or whether we are prepared to accept a revolutionary position which will largely eliminate our specifically reformed witness in favour of something much more general, in preparation for the next big church union movement”; see “McLelland’s Blueprint” [letters to the editor], Presbyterian Record, November 1967, 9. 18 Northrop Frye, “The University and Personal Life: Student Anarchism and the Educational Contract,” in Northrop Frye’s Writings on Education, ed. Jean O’Grady and Goldwin French, vol. 7 of Collected Works of Northrop Frye (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000), 366-7. The

416 Notes to pages 297-8 “crisis of spirit” was a predicament that Frye saw as political, artistic, and intellectual, but above all religious. 19 After the early 1960s, the term national church is used infrequently and in a narrower sense — akin to its earlier usage as a reference to the United Church’s geographical expanse. 20 The essays in Fire and Grace: Stories of History and Vision, ed. Jim Taylor (Toronto: United Church Publishing House, 1999), published to commemorate the 75th anniversary, illustrate the rescripting of the United Church’s past. For example, the caption for the overview of the 1930s (12-13) reads “The Socialist Movement Flowers in the Thirties,” but only the first sentence refers to socialism, noting the involvement of J.S. Woodsworth and Stanley Knowles in the ccF party. (The second sentence describes support for the Missionary and Maintenance Fund during the Depression; the implication that giving was motivated by socialist sentiments is questionable.) Christopher Levan commends the United Church for its openness to difference that he claims was typical from its inception, and characterizes it as “the patron church of doubters” (61). Ted Reeve describes social activism as “the heart and soul” of the United Church, (105). It is interesting to compare this work to the commemorative volume prepared twenty-five years earlier, which highlights missions at home and overseas, but does not mention the social gospel movement or those associated with it. See Grace Lane, Brief Halt at Mile “50”: A Half Century of Church Union (Toronto: United Church Publishing House, 1974). The omission is striking since Lane was living in Saskatchewan, the province that has come to be most closely associated with the social gospel. For the way the telling of the past shapes the United Church’s current self-understanding, see “Dare to Be.” Accessed 7 August 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=66WctH5kE-M. 21 I suspect that the fine Canadian historian Richard Allen deserves considerable credit for drawing attention to the significance of the social gospel. In addition to his own study of the movement in The Social Passion: Religion and Social Reform in Canada, 1914-28, published in 1973, he edited a reprint of J.S. Woodsworth’s My Neighbor in 1972. He also organized a conference in 1973 that brought together those who represented the social gospel’s “Living History” (including his father Harold T. Allen, a United Church minister) with “Contemporary Scholarship.” The proceedings were published as The Social Gospel in Canada: Papers of the Interdisciplinary Conference on the Social Gospel in Canada, ed. Richard Allen (Ottawa: National Museums of Canada, 1975). More recently, the first volume of

Notes to pages 298-9 417 his biography of Salem Bland was published in 2008 as The View from Murney Tower: Salem Bland, the Late Victorian Controversies, and the Search for a New Christianity; it deals primarily with the period before Bland moved to Winnipeg in 1903 (pivotal to his identification with the ideals of the social gospel movement). Oscar L. Cole-Arnal, “The Prairie Labour Churches: The Methodist Input,” Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 34, no. 1 (2005), raises questions about Allen’s portrayal of the Methodist Church’s dealings with the radicals, arguing that there was less institutional support for them than Allen implies when it came to putting principles into practice. 22 Bland and McClung remained involved in the United Church, although Bland (born in 1859) was retirement age by 1925. Woodsworth’s inclusion among the pantheon of heroes is fascinating since he had severed his formal ties to organized religion by 1925. He is erroneously given a position as the E&SS board secretary in one study; see Ng, 229. 23 Douglas John Hall, The Future of the Church: Where Are We Headed? (Toronto: United Church Publishing House, 1989), 13. 24 Bill Phipps, Cause for Hope: Humanity at the Crossroads (Kelowna, BC: CopperHouse, 2007), 138, 143-5. 25 Bill Blaikie, The Blaikie Report: An Insider’s Look at Faith and Politics (Toronto: United Church Publishing House, 2011), 39, 51-6. The professors and ecumenical leaders whom Blaikie credits with this reorientation are an indication of the discovery of the Canadian prophetic past that was underway during the 1970s. For instance, in Winnipeg he was deeply influenced by John Badertscher, who had been a Methodist minister and civil rights activist in the United States before moving to Canada to teach religious studies. Blaikie described himself as “inspired by the work of United Church theologian Douglas John Hall,” by then teaching at McGill after studies at Union Theological Seminary. When he attended Trinity United Church in Toronto, Bill Phipps was his minister. Blaikie considered regular lunches with Roman Catholic theologian Gregory Baum and United Church social ethicist Roger Hutchinson as his “most important theo-political education” while studying at Emmanuel and the Toronto School of Theology. 26 Barbara Bagnell, “Would You Call This Worship?” in Ordered Liberty: Readings in the History of United Church Worship, ed. William S. Kervin (Toronto: United Church of Canada, 2011), 229-35, conveys something of the flavour of Celebration Project, a short-lived experiment in contemporary worship that was launched in 1968.

418 Notes to page 299 27 David Roozen, “National Denominational Structures’ Engagement with Postmodernity: An Integrative Summary from an Organizational Perspective,” in Church, Identity, and Change: Theology and Denominational Structures in Unsettled Times, ed. David A. Roozen and James R. Nieman (Grand Rapids, M1: William B. Eerdmans, 2005), 617, wonders whether mainstream Protestant denominations are currently in the midst of a significant shift from “doing” to “experiencing.” He suggests this would entail “a related change from asking how we best structure ourselves for doing mission to how we best structure ourselves for providing experiences of God.”

Index

Aboriginals. See indigenous peoples assimilation. See cultural

Alinsky, Saul, 23 4-5 assimilation

Allen, Ralph, 154-5 Atkinson, Joseph, 105 Allen, Richard, 85, 336n50, Atkinson, R.D., photograph,193

416n21 Austin, Mary. See Endicott, Mary

Anglican Church of Canada: union

with United Church, 276-80, B&B Commission. See Royal 294, 406n9g5. See also Church Commission on Bilingualism and

of England; church union Biculturalism

movement Bagnell, Barbara, 285 Anglican-United Church union, Bagnell, Kenneth, 217-18, 238-9,

276-80, 294, 406n95. See also 413n162

Principles of Union Bailey, A.G., 8 anti-unionists. See church union Bailey, Harold, 247

movement Baillie, John, 114-15 apartheid, 152 Barr, Wayne, 268

Arminianism, 21, 47 Barth, Karl. See Barthianism Armstrong, A.E., 82 Barthianism: doctrine, 121-2,

Arnold, Thomas, 15 351n87; influence, 103, III,

Arnup, Jesse: and foreign missions, 120, I7I, 346N3 5 82, 86-8, 99, 100, 150; and Basis of Union: “common faith,” home missions, 84; on popular 50-1; congregational goverentertainment, 158; on residen- nance, 74; conservatism of, 4; tial schools, 84. See also missions Critics, 40, 49-52, 273, 2753 As One That Serves (AOTS), 76-7, doctrinal statement, 25, 41, 49,

146-7 57-8, 120; formulation, 14-15,

420 Index 2I-2, 37, 503; misinterpretation 230-1. See also missions; New of, 56-7; ordination, 184; pre- Evangelism; United Church amble, 5, 22, 58; Presbyterian of Canada; United Church of support, 40; sections, 34-5; theo- Canada, administrative bodies logical articles, 37; theological and major committees; Woman’s foundations, 49. See also church Missionary Society union movement; Statement of Board of Women, 194, 268, 278 Faith; United Church of Canada — Brown, Margaret H., photograph,

Bennett, John, 111-12 69

Bennett, R.B., 93 Brown, Walter, 110 Berger, Carl, 16, 308n20 Bryce, George, 35, 36 Bernier, Thomas-Alfred, 10-11 Bryden, Walter, 292

Berry, John, 264 Buchman, Frank, 117 Berry, William G., 164, 165, 174, Burbidge, John, 274 178, 252-3, 269; photograph, Burbidge, Katherine, 250-1

187 Burke, Stanley, 162

Berton, Pierre, 233-4, 248-9, Burwash, Nathanael, 20, 21-2, 39,

388—-9n46, 389n47 298

Bible and tract societies, 20

Billings, Josh, 44-5 Calling Canada to Christ, 163, 235,

Birks, William M., 30, 44 253

Blaikie, Bill, 298-9, 417n25 Callwood, June, 234 Blake, Eugene Carson, 23 1-2 Calvin, John, 23, 24, 53, 104, 162 Bland, Salem, 17, 96, 297-8, Calvinism, 21, 26, 47, 351n87

313n69, 417Nn22 Campbell, Robert, 47 Bloor Street Presbyterian Church Canada: assimilation, 11-14, 54-5,

(Toronto), 43 77-8, 84-5, 143-4, 221-2; bicul-

Bloor Street United Church turalism, 209-10; Britishness, 7,

(Toronto), 77, 146, 278 144-5, 198-9, 209, 248, 308n2I, Board of Evangelism and Social 313n69; British North America Service (E& SS): agenda, 83; Act, 37-8, 93; and Christian so-

Depression, 97; evangelism, cial order, 4-5, 14, 53-4, 59-60, 106, 107, 123-4, 229-31, 236; 94, 101; church/state relations, influence of reports, 330n3; A, 23, 84-5, 87-93, 129-34, non-partisanship, 89; outreach, 220-1, 222-4; Cold War, 145-8,

230-5; postwar period, 160; 150-2; cultural pluralism of, and Quebec, 137; social re- 7-14, 199-200, 210-11, 216-18, form, 83, 92, 100-1; “whole 221-3, 262-3, 295; demise of gospel” of, 352n99; and WMS, Christianity in, 153, 197, 201-3,

78, 143; work of, 79, 101, 222-3, 290; education, 214-21;

Index 421 immigrants, 7-14, 32,37, 16-27, | Canadian Society of Christian

138-42, 210; indigenous peoples Unity, 21, 34 of, 8, 78, 84, 199, 211, 231-2; Carman, Albert, 36 linguistic differences, 7-9, 134-5; | Catholic Bishops’ Committee on

national identity, 7-9, 11-14, Education, 219 134-6, 144-6, 153, 206-10, Catholicism. See Roman Catholic

221-3; postwar religiosity, Church 154-5, 215; religious plural- Caven, William, 19, 32-4, 35, 36,

ism, 198-200, 202, 220-1, 248, 319N7 262-3, 294-5; religious tensions cBc. See Canadian Broadcasting

In, LO-II, 134-42, 198, 213-14; Corporation role of churches in, 11-14, 28-9, | Chalmers, Randolph Carleton:

83-93, IOI, 126-31, 157, 204-8, career, 351n88; Commission 214-21; secularism, xix, xx, 114, on Culture, 159, 183, 214-15;

159, 197, 202, 204-6, 213-14, on culture, 157-8, 365n13; on 221-3, 295-6; separatism, 209- Graham, 236-7; on liberalism, 10, 211-13, 220; social services, 121-3, 157-8, 169-70; on 87-8, 93-4, IOI, 204-6, 295; Presbyterianism, 23; on United state funding of churches, 5-6, Church administration, 288 28; urbanization, 141, 160, 204. Chalmers Presbyterian Church

See also Confederation; indige- (Kingston), 44 nous peoples; Maritimes; national Chalmers United Church

church; Quebec; United Church (Kingston), 290 of Canada; Western Canada Chalmers United Church (Ottawa),

Canadian Broadcasting 163

Corporation, 207, 208 Chown, Samuel Dwight: as “archiCanadian Citizenship Act, 145 tect” of church union, 21, 73, Canadian Conference of Christians 306Nn6, 307N7; criticism of, 55,

and Jews, 149 56; Joint Committee on Church

Canadian Council of Churches, Union, 46; Methodist superinten-

152, 186 dent, 4; as moderate liberal evan-

Canadian Girls in Training (CG1T), gelical, 298; photograph, 65

75.76.99. 167 Christendom: demise of, 153, 197, Canadian Intervarsity Christian 2OI—-3, 223, 259-60, 290, 294-5;

Fellowship, 265 differences within, 17-18, 28, Canadian Jewish Congress, 216 147, 202-3; and Jews in Canada, Canadian National Committee on AI §n16; reuniting of, xvili—xix, Refugees, 143. See also refugees 4, 28, 35, 36, 198, 245, 276-7,

Canadian School of Missions 279, 280, 283; Western, 197,

(Toronto), 81-2 255, 259-60, 294-5. See also

AZ Index Christian civilization; Christian 220, 276-80, 294, 406n95; and internationalism; ecumenism church union movement, 15-16, Christian citizenship, 74, 78, 128, 35, 55-6; membership, ro. See 141-2. See also Canada; United also Anglican Church of Canada

Church of Canada church union movement: ante-

Christian civilization: Christian cedents, 20, 36-7, 305-6n2, re-union, 198, 276, 280; church 320n13; British North America union movement, 59-60; Cold Act, 37-8; “common faith,” 18, War, 145-8; First World War, 21-2, 29, 41, 50-3; as contro-

59-60; nation-building, 153; versy, 30-2, 35-64, 297; creed Nazi Germany, 128, 136; Second revision, 223 critics, 21-2, 5 I-7,

World War, 128, 136; World 59; Dominion Commission on Missionary Conference, 80. Church Property, 318n4; fedSee also Christendom; Christian eration proposal, 37-8, 47, 54, internationalism; ecumenism; 61, 323-4n57; First World War,

missions 43, 59-60, 322-343; histori-

Christian Endeavor, 20 cal context, 294; legality, 37-8, Christian internationalism, 79-87, 318n4; legislation, 31, 34, 44,

LOI, 146-7, 150-3, 203, 37-8, 535 575 63, 319N53 lo336n50. See also Christendom, cal union congregations, 27,

Christianization, missions 39, 64; nationalism, 5, 15-16,

Christian realists, 103 22, 40-2, 55-7, 294, 297; neChristian Research Seminar, 265 gotiations, 32-40, 46-7; nonChristian reunion, 198, 276, 280. theological considerations, 4-5, See also Christendom; ecumenism LI-I2, 32, 37, 40-1, 307N7;

Christian Social Council of opponents, 3, 30-2, 41-3, 60;

Canada, 160 pragmatism of, 15; progressive

Christian socialism, 15, 90-2, element, 3-4, 153; propaganda, 96, 118-20, 122-3. See also AI, 44, 46-7, 57-9; religious Co-operative Commonwealth identity, 14; as response to imFederation; Depression; United migration, 11-12, 32, 37,45,

Church of Canada 54-5; and Roman Catholicism, Christie, Harriet, 410n137; photo- 315n88; Round Table, 17-19;

graph, 194 social reform, 16, 20; support-

Christie, Robert, 252 ers, 4-5, 14-23, 28-39, 43-7, Church Federation Association, 40 57-61; theological colleges,

Churchill, Winston, 146 19-20, 63; in United Kingdom, Church of All Nations, 85 36, 37, 342n1; in United Church of England, 5-6, 24, 25-6; States, 50, 51, 54-5, 325n68, Anglican-United Church union, 326n71, 342n1; vote results,

Index 423 61-63. See also Anglican-United history, 7; and migration, 9;

Church union; Canada; con- pragmatism of, 15; Quebec, 7, tinuing Presbyterians; Joint 209-10, 217, 222, 306n4. See Committee on Church Union; also Canada national church; non-concurring | Conference on Church Unity, 33

Presbyterians; United Church Conference on World Mission and

of Canada; United Church of Evangelism (Jerusalem), 80-3, Canada Act; Western Canada 99, 113-14, 336N49, 336n51,

Clark, S.D., 156-7, 203 347n48

Clarke, ER.C., photograph, 193 Congregationalists, 10, 20-21,

Clarke, Patricia, 268, 285 24-5, 38-9, 48-9, 61-4, 297

Clarke, Peter, 144 Congregational Union of Clifford, N.K., 19, 35, 36, 274 Canada, 27, 39. See also

Coburn, John, 128 Congregationalists

Coburn, Mary, 278 Conner, Ralph. See C.W. Gordon

Cochrane, R.B., 85 conscription crisis, 136 Coe, George, 76 continuing Presbyterians, 3 1-2, Coke, Thomas, 26 34, 41, 61-3, 292-3, 321-2n31, Cold War, 145-8, 150-2 324-5né6r. See also non-concurCollege Jean-de-Brébeuf ring Presbyterians; Presbyterian

(Montreal), 135 Church in Canada

Colley, Linda, 145 Cook, Ramsay, 210

Columbia University (New York), Cooke, Alfred E., 170

161 Co-operative Commonwealth

Commission on Christian Marriage Federation (CCF), 89-90, and Christian Home, 175, 181, 339n94. See also Christian

27 4ntT 22 socialism, Depression, United

Commission on Church, Nation Church of Canada and World Order, 131-4, 158-9, | Cormie, John, 139 281; report of, 354n25,355n29, Cornell University, 122

355N33, 355-6N34, 356N37 Council for the Faith, 279 “common faith.” See Basis of Cox, Jeffrey, 204, 295 Union; church union movement; Cragg, G.R., 100

United Church of Canada Creighton, W.B., 12, 100 Communism. See Cold War Crusade for Christ and His Community Friendship, 77-8. See Kingdom, 163 also Woman’s Missionary Society Crysdale, Stewart, 230, 232-3, 236,

Confederation: and Britishness, 280, 388n43, 409NnI36 7,145, 308n21, 313n69; and cultural assimilation: in Canada, church union movement, 15; LI-14, 54-5, 77-8, 84-5, 143-4,

424 Index 221-2; consumerism as, 13-14; union movement; continuing

cultural mosaic model, 139, Presbyterians; non-concurring 358-9n65, 359N66; melting pot Presbyterians model, 7-8, 139; Paris Peace Dobson, Hugh, 174-5 Conference (1919), 80; racism, Dodds, Doris, 216, 217-18 8, 11-14, 142; as threat, 54-5; Dolan, Rex, 231, 387n34 and United Church, 138-43, Dominion Parliament. See United 199-200, 231-2. See also church Church of Canada Act union movement; cultural plural- Duffield, Allen, 215-16

ism; indigenous peoples; mis- Duke University, 114 sions; United Church of Canada Dulles, John Foster, 147-8 cultural pluralism: post-Confed-

eration, 7-14, 294; postwar, Ecumenical Conference 134-5, 138-40, 210-11, 216-18, (Methodist), 20 221-3, 262-3, 294-5; wartime, Ecumenical Study Commission,

134-7, 139-44. See also Canada; 219 cultural assimilation; Quebec; re- ecumenism: and church union

ligious pluralism; United Church movement, 16, 20-3, 26-9; and

of Canada mission work, 79-82, 85-7,

LO1, 247-8; modern, 3-4; net-

Dalhousie University, 19, 132 works, 14, 19-20, 79-80, 239,

Daniel, Mrs J.W., 43 333-4n28; and New Evangelism,

Daniels, Elda, 144 226, 228-9, 241, 243-4; postDavidson, R.H.N., photograph, War, 127-31, 137-8, 144-8,

193 I 52-3; radical, 278-9, 280; rift

Davidson, Richard, 156, 175-6, with neo-evangelicals, 228-9,

350-1n84 239,244, 251-3, 271, 296-7,

Davies, Alan T., 275 390Nn63, 405n88, 403n68; and decolonization, 144-5, 152 Roman Catholic Church, 137-8, democracy, 42, 131, 136-7, 142, 244-2, 248; suburban congrega-

145-7, 153, 196-7, 221 tions, 248-51. See also Christian Department of Temperance and internationalism; church union Moral Reform (Methodists), 21 movement; cultural assimilation; Depression, 89-93, 97, 100, I16— missions; United Church of

iy 2 Canada

Dewey, John, 114 Eddington, A.S., 113 Diefenbaker, John G., 241, 378n34; Eddy, Sherwood, 124

photograph, 187 Edinborough, Arnold, 220-1 dissenters, 6, 31, 42, §7, 272, Edinburgh conference. See World

318n3. See also church Missionary Conference

Index 425 Emmanuel College (Toronto), 19, Falconer, Robert: address to

82, 171-2, 176, 299; faculty, Religious Education Association, 68; TIAS1 $5 123.156.102.243. 113; Canadian National

2501252: Committee on Refugees, 143; empiricism, 113-14, 119-20 career, 19; on church union

Endicott, James, 82 movement, 14-15, 39-40;

Endicott, James G., 151-2, Commission on Christianizing

364n132 the Social Order, 90-2; criti-

Endicott, Mary, 151-2, 364n132 cism of 44; Joint Committee on

Ethical Education Association Church Union, 39-40; Round

(EEA), 216 Table, 17

Evangelical Alliance, 15, 20 Faulkner, Tom, 136 Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, — Federal Council of Churches, 79,

244, 394N99 347-8n54

evangelical identity, xvili, xix, xx, Fellowship for a Christian Social LO, 21 ,22,25,.26, 50-1, 5.7355 os Order (FCSO), 99, 118, 133

63, 83, 102-7, I10, III, 115, Fey, Harold E., 157

118, 121, 124, 169-70 Finlay, Karen, 207 evangelical Protestants, 10, 140, First Nations. See indigenous

163, I7I, 229, 239-40, 248, 265, peoples 2715 2795,.2906, 24201, 390N6%. First United Church (Fort William),

See also New Evangelism; 246 Presbyterianism; United Church First United Church (Vancouver),

of Canada 68, 192

Evangelical United Brethren First United Church (Victoria), 64

Church, 280 First World War, 43, 59-60, 80, 87, evangelism, 14, 81-3, 86, 106-7, 93, II5-16 115, 117-8, 123, 124, 162-6, Flavelle, Joseph, 19, 95, 96 226, 228-30, 240, 244, 253-4. Fleming, Daniel, 81, 86 See also Board of Evangelism Fleming, Donald, 241-4, and Social Service; ecumenism; 393n89-91 fundamentalism; Graham; mis- Ford, Leighton, 236 sions; National Project; New foreign missions. See missions Evangelism; United Church of Forrest, Alfred Clinton: on

Canada Anglican-United Church union,

evangelization. See missions 276-7; on biculturalism, 217; on Expo 67 (Montreal), 296, 415n13 cultural revolution, 263; death, 288; on evangelism, 164-5, 251,

Fairbairn, R. Edis, 110, 130, 368n51; and Fleming, 393n89— 254017; 321024; 34Ans2 92; on foreign missions, 241-3;

426 Index on Graham, 164-5, 171-2, 235-6, resurgence, 124-5, 235-7, 237,251, 368n49, 390Nn63; on 240, 244; and United Church,

Middle East, 411n149; on na- 102-7, 169-70, 299, 273; United tional church, 347-8; photo- Church Renewal Fellowship, graph, 188; on postwar growth 275. See also church union moveof United Church, 255; on ment; United Church of Canada postwar immigration, 198-8;

on postwar worship practices, Gallagher, W.J., 160, 186 177-8; on staff shortages, 168-9, gambling, 57, 88, 200 241; on suburban congregations, Gandier, Alfred, 17-18, 19, 20, 22, 249; on temperance, 261-2; and 63, 215, 314n76 Trudeau, 223-4; on women’s General Assembly (Presbyterian

role in United Church, 283, Church), 19, 31, 33-41, 285; work, 288. See also United A3, 46, 51, 53-4. See also

Church Observer Presbyterian Church in Canada; Forsey, Eugene, 99, 118, 119, 122, Presbyterianism

2IO-I1, 212-13 General Commission on Union,

Forster, Harvey, 170 279

Fort Massey Presbyterian Church General Conference (Methodist

(Halifax), 18 Church), 34, 47. See also

Foster, J. Arnold, photograph, 70 Methodism; Methodist Church Fox, Paul W., 220, 383nI05 General Council (United Church): Fraser, Daniel J., 47, 53, 324n58 agenda, 82, 131-4; Depression, Fraser, J.P.C., photograph, 190 124; housekeeping, 96-7, 285; Fred Victor Mission, 69. See also liberalization of, 200; New

missions Creed, 273-5, 404n77—-8; New

Free Church of Scotland, 33, 37 Curriculum, 171, 266; over-

Freeman, E.G.D., 130-1 seas missions, I 51, 241-3; role, Freeman, Lois. See Wilson, Lois M. 56-7, 74, 157, 281-2, 286-7, Fremantle, William H., 15, 312n58 412n151; Second World War, French Canada, 9, 10-11, 137-8, 127-8; and Statement of Faith,

209-13. See also Quebec 120-1; and women, 183-4, 283, Frye, Northrop, 159, 196, 297, 285. See also missions; Statement

AI5-16n18 of Faith; United Church of

Fulford, Robert, 293 Canada; United Church of fundamentalism: and church Canada, administrative bodies union movement, 47, 50, 54-5, and major committees 63, 102-3; and evangelism, General Council of Local Union

81, 107, 163; interwar period, Churches, 33-4 102-3; popularity, 163; postwar Gigney. RD .