The United Church of Canada: A History ed. by Don Schweitzer (review)

This volume offers fourteen articles by distinguished academics and clergy on the history of The United Church of Canada. Eight chapters on chronology begin with C.T. McIntire on the formation of the United Church (1899–1930), followed by chapters on the 1930s, the Second World War, and “the Golden Age”: 1946–1960, the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990–2003. Part 2 deals with themes: worship, ministry, mission goals and First Nations peoples, Jews and Palestine, theology, and the “changing social imaginary” of the Church.

Here I can comment on only a few chapters. McIntire points out the significance of the achievement in 1925 of the Church union itself, which blended together three distinct types of evangelical Protestantism: Congregationalist, Methodist and Presbyterian, as well as local union churches, even though, after the union, a minority of Presbyterians continued as a separate Church. Inspired by Jesus’s prayer “that they all may be one … that the world might believe,” the union was motivated by the desire to avoid competition in the mission fields in Canada and abroad and to enable the Church more effectively to bring people to Christ. Regretting that Anglicans, Baptists, and some Presbyterians had not entered the union, the new Church fervently hoped that “in due time” a single, unified Protestant church would be formed in Canada, “which may fittingly be described as national” (23).

Subsequent chapters give us dramatic stories and rich descriptions of the life and work of the United Church during the Depression and the war, and at the height of its strength and influence in the postwar years.

A decade of major shifts is described by Church historian Sandra Beardsall in her account of the 1960s. In 1965 the United Church reached its highest level of membership in over 1 million people (and more than 3.5 million affiliated with the Church) (98). But in 1966 for the first time it saw a drop in membership, a decline that has never been reversed. Profound cultural change was accompanied by widespread doubt of the traditional faith. Secularization made the Church seem irrelevant, especially to many young people. With the Church’s role in public life rapidly diminishing, Church leaders still sought to engage the secular world, opposing apartheid in South Africa and the Vietnam War, advocating for disarmament and medicare. The Church sought above all to be inclusive, such as in moderating its stance on alcohol use. The global mission of the Church was re-thought, veering away from “Christianization,” emphasizing the importance of meeting practical human needs, together with a new attitude of dialogue toward other religions. A New Curriculum for the Christian education of children and adults broke decisively with biblical literalism. The role of women was revolutionized, with increasing numbers of ordained women, integrating women into all levels of Church governance. The 1960s, then, set the direction for a Church that, in the decades ahead, would anxiously seek “relevance” and be more humble and self-critical in its claims and self-image.

Joan Wyatt, in her chapter on the 1970s, describes a decade of continuing numerical decline, of the appearance in the Church of feminism, the influence of contextual and liberation theologies, a new awareness of aboriginal peoples, but also a deepening gap between Church leadership and the wider Church.

The final chapter by Don Schweitzer brings the United Church story up to the present with an insightful discussion of the Church’s “changing social imaginary”—that is, the Church’s sense of self in relation to the world around it, its identity, and its goals. The Church came into being with the ideal of creating a national Church that would decisively shape the moral ethos of English-speaking Canada and imbue the nation with the conscience of a socially progressive faith. This vision began to fall apart in the 1960s with the dramatic end of the “voluntary establishment” of Protestantism in English-speaking Canada and Roman...