The United Church of Canada: A History

Chapter One - Unity among Many: The Formation of The United Church of Canada, 1899–1930

3 Chapter One Unity among Many: The Formation of The United Church of Canada,1899–1930 C.T. McIntire Moderators 1925–26 George C. Pidgeon (former Presbyterian) 1926–28 James Endicott (former Methodist) 1928–30 William T. Gunn (former Congregationalist) Secretary of The United Church of Canada 1925–32 T. Albert Moore (former Methodist) Presidents of The Woman’s Missionary Society 1925–26 Mrs. H.A. Lavell (former Methodist) 1926–30 Mrs. John MacGillivray (former Presbyterian) 1930–32 Annie Orchard Rutherford (former Methodist) General Secretary of the Woman’s Missionary Society 1925–32 Effie A. Jamieson (former Congregationalist) Key Reports, Statements, and Actions 1899 Formal union process begins with Methodists, Congregation6alists, and Presbyterians 1904 Joint Union Committee starts formal negotiations 1906 Anglicans and Baptists decline to join the union process 1908 Basis of Union sent to the churches; first congregation of Local Union Churches 4 C . T . M C I N T I R E 1916 Presbyterians approve union after Congregationalists in 1910, and Methodists in 1912 1924 July 19, Parliament of Canada adopts The United Church of Canada Act 1925 June 10, Inaugural Service in Toronto launches The United Church of Canada 1925 October 25, Inaugural Service in Toronto launches Woman’s Missionary Society 1926 The Manual is authorized, with the first Constitution; first published in 1928 1926 Forms of Service for the Offices of the Church, first book of common order published 1927 Songs from the Psalter, first music collection; The Hymnary is published in 1930 1928 Committee on Christianization of Industry 1928 The Ordination of Women, first report presented favouring women in ordered ministry 1928 Five new orders of worship circulated, forming the basis for the Book of Common Order, published 1932 1930 Wesleyan Methodist Church of Bermuda joins union as a denomination Demography 1921 Methodist, Presbyterian, and Congregational adherents (census): 2,599,595 1921 Population of Canada: 8,788,488 1931 UCC membership (census): 2,016,8971 1931 Population of Canada: 10,376,786 Inauguration of The United Church of Canada A rousing worship service in downtown Toronto on the morning of Wednesday , June 10, 1925, formally inaugurated The United Church of Canada.2 In a flash, nearly all the Methodists and Congregationalists of Canada, as well as most Presbyterians and many independents, blended into one vast new nationwide body. The heat wave of previous days broke during the night of the ninth, just in time to help make the event “an hour of palpitating joy.” Eight thousand people filed inside The Arena, a wrestling palace and profes- Commissioners and Delegates attending the Inaugural Service of The United Church of Canada, held in Mutual Street Arena, Toronto, Ontario, June 10, 1925. United Church Archives, Toronto. Denominational Group Photo Collection, 92. 185P/330N; W. James Sr., Photographer, Toronto Telegram, 1925. sional ice hockey venue, transformed for the occasion into sacred space. Thousands of others in Toronto and across the country attended parallel services, and thousands more listened to the proceedings broadcasted live on the radio. Still more saw exhaustive reports in the newspapers the next day. The venue and the numbers spoke volumes. The United Church of Canada aspired to be Canada’s church, the church of the people.3 Organizers designed the event to emphasize the colossal scale of the achievement. It was an organic church union that crossed historical, confessional , and denominational boundaries. On inauguration day, at the critical moment, the Canadian Methodists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Independents in the Arena shed their historic identities. No adjective was used to name their new estate. They became simply “United Church.” The United Church emerged almost twice the size of the Church of England in Canada, the nearest Protestant option. Only the Roman Catholic Church was larger. The hope had been to gather the Protestants of Canada into one U N I T Y A M O N G M A N Y 5 6 C . T . M C I N T I R E body and transcend the clutter of denominations that defined Protestantism . But Anglicans and Baptists, as well as others, kept their distance, and French Canada was noticeably uninvolved. The formal union process leading to this defining moment began in 1899, and took a generation to come to fruition. More than half of the original members of the Joint Union Committee that was established in 1904 to negotiate union died before its completion in 1925. It took until 1930 to consolidate the new...