The Covenanters in Canada: Reformed Presbyterianism from 1820 to 2012 by Eldon Hay (review)

The Covenanters, also known as Reformed Presbyterians, have been a small Christian denomination on the Canadian scene since the early nineteenth century. Firmly wedded to the Westminster Confession and other undertakings of the Solemn League and Covenant adopted by the Westminster Assembly in 1643, the Covenanters’ roots lie in the refusal of its members to accept changes to those terms following the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy in 1660, changes agreed to by most members of the Church of Scotland in a settlement in 1690 under William of Orange. Immigrants from Scotland and Ireland formed the basis for early Covenanter or Reformed Presbyterian congregations in Canada. Until well into the twentieth century, three practices set its members off as a distinctive, countercultural religious group – they refused to vote, swear an oath, or hold public office. While these three positions have now been abandoned, Reformed Presbyterians in Canada still retain unchanged one other feature of their past that sets them apart from most other Christian denominations – sung Psalms represent the only form of music permitted within a worship service.

Hay’s book is a thorough examination of the history of the Covenanters, or the Reformed Presbyterians, in Canada. It is, in some ways, a natural successor to his earlier study, The Chignecto Covenanters, a monograph that explored the history of this denomination in the region around the New Brunswick–Nova Scotia border.

Hay did extensive and thorough research for the current volume. In addition to consulting hard-to-find printed sources and scattered archival holdings, he contacted individuals with current or past associations with the Reformed Presbyterians in Canada to obtain additional details on some matters or to confirm for himself conclusions he was drawing. The resulting work provides a reader with a good understanding of the history of this religious group in Canada – its key players, its small triumphs, and its significant vicissitudes. Hay explores this history region by region, a wise approach given that the history and strength of the Covenanters vary quite dramatically from one region to another and from one period of time to another. The book is a mixture of narrative and of analysis. Hay’s assessment of why the Reformed Presbyterians have struggled in Canada, an analysis he provides at the end of each regional examination, is well reasoned and thoughtful.

Two things would have improved this very fine book. First, apparently for reasons of length, McGill-Queen’s University Press decided not to include the twenty-eight-page appendices section in the printed text but to make the appendices available online only. Appendix C is a very well-laid-out chronological summary of the formation and current status of each Covenanter congregation and mission station in Canada, including a list of the key lay leaders and clergy in each place down through the years. Such a resource is particularly useful to a reader who wants to check on some such detail quickly without rereading a chapter. It is, therefore, annoying to have to either reread a section or turn on a computer rather than simply flipping to the back of the text to consult such an appendix.

Second, in a number of instances, Hay compares the struggle and decline of the Reformed Presbyterians in a geographical area with the history of the Quakers in that same region. These comparisons are instructive, but providing a more explicit explanation of the rationale for making such comparisons in the first place would have been a good inclusion.

These criticisms notwithstanding, this study of a highly countercultural religious group in Canada is a sensitive, well-written account. It should be of particular interest to students of Canada’s social and cultural history as well as to the practitioners of any formal religious tradition at a time when the increasing secularity of Canadian society makes the explicit practice of any religious tradition more and more a countercultural activity.