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The Interpreters of the United Church of Canada

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

N. K. Clifford
N. K. Clifford
Affiliation:
associate professor of religious studies in the University of British Columbia.The author wishes to acknowledge the financial assistance of the Canada Council in the preparation of this article.
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Extract

Shortly after the formation of the United Church of Canada, Charles Clayton Morrison told readers of the Christian Century to “put down a new monumental date in ecclesiastical history—Wednesday, June 10, 1925.” “On that day,” he continued, “took place the first large scale achievement of organic union of separate denominational families since the Protestant Reformation.” Aware that the full significance of this venture would not be evident for some time, he predicted it would be “the object of continued study and exposition for months and perhaps years to come.”1 Since Morrison's enthusiastic pronouncement, a considerable body of literature has accumulated on the church union movement and the United Church of Canada. No critical evaluation, however, has been made of it and little is known about its authors or their understanding of the formation and development of this Canadian institution.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 46 , Issue 2 , June 1977 , pp. 203 - 214
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1977

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References

1. Christian Century (06 25, 1925), 819.Google Scholar

2. See the A. S. Morton Papers, P.C.A., Knox College, Toronto. For biographical information, see Henney, James F., “Arthur Silver Morton (1870–1945),” Royal Society of Canada Proceedings, 1945: 99–102.Google Scholar

3. Morton, Arthur S., The Way To Union (Toronto: William Briggs, 1912).Google Scholar For reviews of Morton's book see Gandier, Alfred, “The Way To Union,” The Presbyterian, 12 5, 1912, pp. 635–36;Google ScholarMacKinnon, Clarence, “The Way to Union,” The Presbyterian Witness, 12 28, 1912, p. 5.,Google Scholar and Baird, Frank, “Mr Morton's Book on Union,” The Presbyterian, 01 16, 1913 pp. 87–90.Google Scholar For Morton's reply to Baird's attack see Morton, A. S., “The Way To Union,” The Presbyterian, 02 20, 1913, pp. 232–234.Google Scholar

4. Harnack, Adolf, “The Relation Between Ecclesiastical and General History,” trans. Thomas Bailey Saunders, Contemporary Review 86 (12 1904): 846–859.Google Scholar Cf. Falconer, Robert A., “My Memory of Harnack,” Canadian Journal of Religious Thought 7 (1930): 376–380.Google Scholar

5. Oliver, E. H., The Winning of The Frontier (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1930), p. 252.Google Scholar For a discussion of Oliver's book see Clifford, N. K., “Religion and the Development of Canadian Society: An Historiographical Analysis,” Church History 38 (1969): 506–523.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6. See C. E. Silcox's articles on his uncle John B. Silcox, D.D. (1849–1933), New Outlook, 02 1, 1933, pp. 112 and 115Google Scholar and New Outlook, 02 8, 1933, p. 135.Google Scholar Also for details on his father Rev. E. D. Silcox, see New Outlook, 02 26, 1930, p. 213.Google Scholar

7. Silcox, C. E., Church Union in Canada: Its Causes and Consequences (New York: Institute of Social and Religious Research, 1933).Google Scholar

8. McNeill, John T., “Review of Church Union in Canada,” New Outlook, 09 13, 1933, p. 663.Google Scholar

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10. Cf. Shippey, F. A., “H. Paul Douglass and American Protestantism,” Religion in Life Review of Religious Research I (1959): 3–16 and 63–75.Google ScholarDouglass, ,” Review of Religious Research (1962–1963): 155–169Google Scholar and Brunner, Edmund de S., “Harlan Paul Douglass: Pioneer Research in the Sociology of Religion,” “Review of Religious Research 1 (1959): 3–16 and 63–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11. Clark, S. D., Church and Sect in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1948), p. 431.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12. Mann, W. E., “The Canadian Church Union 1925,” in Institulionalism and Church Unity, eds. Ehrenstrom, Nils and Muelder, Walter S. (New York: Association Press, 1963), pp. 171–193.Google Scholar

13. See May's, Henry F. introduction to the Harper Torchbook edition of his Protestant Churches and Industrial America (New York: Harper Bros., 1949)Google Scholar and May, H. F., “The Recovery of American Religious History,” American Historical Review 90 (1964–1965): 79–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14. Handy, Robert T. and Mead, Sidney, “Review of Protestant Churches and Industrial America,” The Journal of Religion 30 (1950): 67–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Handy, R. T., “The Protestant Quest for a Christian America 1830–1930,” Church History 22 (1953): 8–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15. Bowden, H. W., Church History in the Age of Science: Historiographical Patterns in the United States 1876–1918 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1971).Google Scholar

16. Grant, John W., The Canadian Experience of Church Union (Richmond, Virginia: John Knox Press, 1967), pp. 21–22.Google Scholar For biographical information on John Webster Grant (1919- ) M.A., D. Phil., D.D., see Who's Who in Canada 1971–1972 (Toronto: International Press, 1971), p. 865Google Scholar and The Canadian Who's Who 1970–1972 (Toronto, 1972), p. 430.Google Scholar

17. Grant, John W., The Church in the Canadian Era (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson Ltd., 1972).Google Scholar

18. Blumer, H., “Collective Behavior,” in Review of Sociology: Analysis of a Decade, ed. Sittler, J. B. (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1957), p. 147.Google Scholar

19. Tilly, Charles, “The Analysis of a Counter-Revolution,” History and Theory 3 (1963–1964): 30–37; 45–58:CrossRefGoogle Scholar reprinted in Protest, Reform and Revolt: A Reader in Social Movements, ed. J. R. Gusfield (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1970), pp. 47–67.Google Scholar

20. Professor Alan Farris of Knox College, Toronto, was the first to challenge the unionists’ designation of the dissidents as “anti-unionists.” He divided the dissidents into four groups and through the analysis of representative figures showed that only one group was opposed to union under any circumstances. See Farris, Alan, “The Fathers of 1925,” in Enkindled by the Word, ed. Smith, Neil G. (Toronto: Presbyterian Publications 1966).Google Scholar More recently Moir, John S. in Enduring Witness: A History of the Presbyterian Church in Canada (Toronto: Presbyterian Publications, 1975)Google Scholar has followed Farris’ distinctions and further elaborated on them in his chapter on “The Long Crisis of Church Union.”

21. This information was drawn from a career-line study of unionist and dissident leadership between 1904 and 1925 and a representative sample of 100 Presbyterian ministers who entered the United Church of Canada and 100 ministers who remained in the Presbyterian Church in Canada. Similar studies have been conducted on Presbyterian unionist and dissident congregations and laymen by my research assistant Mr. Brian Fraser. We do not claim any scientific accuracy for these representative samples. The difficulty in discovering biographical information on ministers and especially laymen, not to mention the mediocre quality of most congregational histories in Canada, made truly random sampling impossible. The patterns which emerged from these studies, however, have established clear differences between the unionists and dissidents that merit further investigation by the more conventional techniques of historical research, especially now that the papers of the Presbyterian Church Association have become available.

22. Loetscher, Lefferts A., The Broadening Church (Philadelphia, Pa.: U. of Pennsylvania Press, 1957).Google Scholar

23. See Russell, C. Allyn, “J. Gresham Machen, Scholarly Fundamentalist,” Journal of Presbyterian History 51 (1973): 4–69Google Scholar and Roark, Dallas M., “J. Gresham Machen: The Doctrinally True Presbyterian Church,” Journal of Presbyterian History 43 (1965): 124–138 and 174–181.Google Scholar

24. Cf. Papers of the Presbyterian Church Association, Case 3 file 55, Knox College, Toronto and Acts and Proceedings of the General Assembly 1925, 128.