The United Church of Canada: A History

Introduction

xi Introduction The United Church of Canada has had a significant presence in Englishspeaking Canada for over eighty years. Its formation occasioned debate in Parliament and required the passing of The United Church Act in 1924. Its inaugural service on June 10,1925,received extensive coverage in the national press. This kind of attention has continued throughout its history. When sixty-eight members, many of them clergy, issued a pacifist declaration in October 1939, a national public controversy erupted. The publication of the New Curriculum in the 1960s and the 1988 decision regarding sexual orientation and ordination also received extensive coverage from national news media outlets. Statements made by United Church courts and leaders on public issues like same-sex marriage or the Middle East conflict continue to attract widespread media attention. Since its formation up until the late 1950s, when roughly 20 percent of Canada’s population belonged to it, the United Church has been present in most English-speaking Canadian communities. Though its membership and influence have diminished greatly since the end of the 1960s, it continues to have a presence in most parts of English-speaking Canada. This reality has been in keeping with the vision that helped inspire the church’s creation. In the minds of those who laboured to form the United Church, it was intended to play a decisive role in shaping the moral ethos of Canadian society by infusing the values of Evangelical British Protestantism into Canadian citizens and society through evangelism, Christian education , social service, public activism, and advocacy. This intention was reflected in its chosen name: The United Church of Canada. It was intended to become“the”church,the“national”church of Canada.1 Its name expressed the belief that union would consolidate and increase the already considerable influence of Evangelical Protestantism on the social structures, practices , and moral ethos of English-speaking Canada. For the Methodist and Presbyterian churches, this meant moving from being denominations xii I N T R O D U C T I O N existing nationwide to becoming part of a church that would hopefully grow to encompass a greater share of the Canadian population in its membership and wield an even greater influence on the morals and social practices of Canadian society. Though the United Church never achieved this goal to the extent that proponents of union hoped it would, it has figured prominently in Canadian history during the twentieth century, influencing foreign and domestic policy, provoking public debate, and shaping the moral character of many Canadian citizens.While its influence on Canadian society has greatly decreased in recent decades, it remains the largest Protestant denomination in Canada, and Christianity continues to exert a significant influence on the Canadian imagination.2 Histories focused on particular aspects of Canadian society or Canadian church life have recounted the history of the United Church in relation to Canadian foreign policy,3 higher education,4 Christian–Jewish relations in Canada,5 and Canadian multiculturalism,6 to give only a few examples. Histories focusing on the changing roles of women within Canadian churches7 and society, changing social values within Canadian society, or the history of the Christian church in Canada8 inevitably discuss the United Church to some extent. Yet there exists no academic history of The United Church of Canada itself. This book attempts to fill this gap in Canadian historiography. Several popular histories of the United Church containing some excellent work already exist. Brief Halt at Mile “50” by Grace Lane was published in 1974.9 Featuring many photographs and totalling 119 printed pages, it offered an upbeat, popular account of the United Church’s first fifty years. Voices and Visions came out in 1990, marking the sixty-fifth anniversary of the United Church.10 Edited by Peter Gordon White, then editor-in-chief of The United Church Publishing House, and featuring a chapter by noted Canadian church historian John Webster Grant, it offered various perspectives on the United Church’s history, amply illustrated with photographs in a coffee table book format. The most recent effort is Fire and Grace: Stories of History and Vision.11 This project was initiated in 1996 by the Executive of the United Church General Council “in response to requests from the United Church constituency.”12 It contains pieces averaging about six pages in length by thirty-four contributors from the United Church and beyond. It was produced to commemorate the seventy-fifth anniversary of Church Union and was intended to be “a ‘popular...