The Canadian Churches

What strength and weaknesses has Christianity in the provinces?

Canada is a land of churches. They are spread through cities big and small. They cluster in her towns and adorn her countryside. Anglican and Roman Catholic churches are located chiefly in cities and larger towns; the evangelical and free churches are far more widely dispersed.

Although it is the centennial of Canada’s confederation (July 1, 1867) that is being celebrated this year, something also should be said in this survey of Canadian churches of the two centuries that preceded this birthday.

John Cabot and son Sebastian, sailing from England just five years after Columbus’s discovery of America, probably made at least two landings: Newfoundland and Cape Breton Island. Jacques Cartier, explorer and bearer of the Christian Cross, entered the St. Lawrence as early as 1534. Champlain, heavily supported from his home base in France by that prince of the Roman Catholic Church Cardinal Richelieu, founded Quebec in 1608. Later he moved into the Great Lakes areas. His work was early paralleled in Quebec by the Ursuline Order and in what is now Ontario by intrepid Jesuits, many of whom, like Brébeuf, were martyrs for the Christian faith.

Today’s Quebec, home of most of the approximately 5.5 million French Canadians, is Canada’s Roman Catholic bastion. Here also is the challenge of bilingualism and biculturalism—indeed, the challenge to the very unity of Canada. The Roman Catholic Church favors unity, but her Jean Baptiste Society, partly religious and partly secular, throws monkey wrenches into both ecclesiastical and political machinery.

Canada’s first religious service probably was conducted by a Lutheran church pastor, Rasmus Jansen, a member of a ship’s crew in search of the Northwest Passage. The service was held at Fort Churchill in 1619, only a dozen years after the “First Families of Virginia” landed at Jamestown and a year before the arrival of the Pilgrim Fathers of Plymouth fame.

Canada has long been divided into five regions: the Atlantic provinces, Quebec, Ontario, the Prairies, and British Columbia. Let us look briefly at the beginning and growth of the churches in these areas.

St. John’s, Newfoundland, was visited in 1583 by Sir Humphrey Gilbert, who claimed what is now Canada’s tenth province for Queen Elizabeth I. Roman Catholic Archbishop Howley believed there was a settlement at St. John’s, whose Water Street is one of the oldest in North America. If so, this city and probably the Roman Catholic Church may fairly claim a priority. In addition, Newfoundland welcomed the Methodists. These islanders have always been warmly evangelical. Scottish Calvinism found its natural Canadian home in Nova Scotia. Although rivalry existed between Roman Catholics and Protestants, there was always a deep friendship.

Quebec has been almost solidly French Canadian Roman Catholic. This strong majority group has been fair to the Protestant communions that have been there a long time but resentful of evangelical Baptists and definitely hostile to Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Ontario is the main home of Canada’s Protestant churches. The newer communions, such as the Pentecostal Assemblies, and the older alike have their Canadian headquarters in Ontario’s capital city, Toronto.

In the three Prairie provinces, the free, Reformed, and evangelical churches early established and later strongly supported the Christian faith. Roman Catholicism has roots in sections explored by French Canadians, such as St. Boniface, Manitoba. On the whole, however, the early thrusts were made by Methodists and Presbyterians, who vied with each other to be the first in scores of Prairie villages and towns. One story tells of a Presbyterian riding the baggage car to be ahead of his Methodist competitor only to find to his dismay that the Methodist was perched on the locomotive’s cow-catcher.

From the beginning, British Columbia was a secular area. First came the fur-traders, under such leaders as the Astors of New York. These men did not have the same feeling of the mysteries of God as did the fishermen on Canada’s Eastern shores. Then there followed the gold-seekers, swept in on the rush to the Klondike and the Fraser. Even today, British Columbia suffers from this earlier secular spirit.

The Churches’ Achievements

The Christian faith was proclaimed and nourished right from the start of Canadian life. A strongly biblical, traditional message was preached from the pulpits and taught in prayer meetings, Sunday school classes, and camp revivals. Though a stolid folk and generally not demonstrative, the Canadian Christians proved to be true followers of Jesus Christ. They often volunteered to go to foreign mission fields, served on Indian reservations, and gave their time and talents to downtown rescue missions.

The Christian churches early enjoyed the support of government, business, and industry. Part of this assistance came through the Anglican communion, with its attachment to the Royal Throne. Part was the result of a pioneer quality, as in the case of the Hudson’s Bay Company, whose factors, like a captain of a ship, would conduct religious services with the use of the Anglican Common Book of Prayer. As organized labor grew in power and influence, it gave support to the Christian churches. Some of the denominations, in turn, helped labor obtain legal authority to organize and bargain collectively.

The preaching in Protestant churches provided the main thrust in church life and community influence. Sermons were generally simple and direct, but often interlaced with the doctrines of Calvinism or Arminianism. Sometimes, Jonathan Edwards’s New England “sinners-in-the-hands-of-an-angry-God” theme was too heavily proclaimed. Always there was a clear-cut word about sin, often about original sin. And always there came the warm evangelical call to be reconciled to God by accepting Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord.

The laity had a large share in building Canada’s churches, particularly in the first half of the 1867–1967 century. The Presbyterian catechist, the itinerant Methodist saddle-backer, the Anglican lay-reader, the Baptist preacher-farmer, and, more recently, the Pentecostal lay evangelist rendered good service. They were aided by the Bible Society colporteurs.

The major contribution of both laymen and laywomen was made in the Sunday schools. These were often too large for the church buildings and met in a larger house—sometimes a hall, not infrequently a theater or pool-room.

The intangibles in this record are significant. Directly and indirectly, the Christian faith was lived out and loved in to the benefit both of believers and of the rest of society. “In sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer”—the Gospel of Jesus Christ was spelled out in good deeds to those inside and outside the Christian fellowship.

For three-quarters of the 1867–1967 century, Canadian church life was fairly clear of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy that raged in many sections of the United States. But Canadian church life had other areas of conflict. The Protestant–Roman Catholic differences were often magnified. Fear of papal power was stressed.

The most serious difference—and a continuing one in Canadian church life—was between the free, evangelical believers and Anglicans and Roman Catholics who supported authoritarianism and establishment. This century-old conflict of freedom and authority has had its effects in Canada, and the end is not in sight.

On the whole, the Canadian churches have tried, with a fair measure of success, to have the best of both worlds. The Anglicans and Roman Catholics have a decentralized strength in their dioceses. The United and Presbyterian churches parallel this system in part in their conferences and synods but are more highly centralized. The Baptists, Church of Christ (Disciples), and Pentecostal Assemblies stress local autonomy. Alfred J. Sloan, Jr., in his book My Years with General Motors, describes in much detail the intricate task of trying to combine a high degree of coordination and central control with the equally needed incentive that only a large measure of decentralization can produce.

The story of the churches in Canadian life may well be capped by a brief statistical summary. Canada, unlike the United States, includes religious questions in its census-taking. The decennial census returns are quite complete in regard to the growth or decline of church membership and adherence, by denominations. In addition, some five-year studies are made.

From 1921 to 1961—almost half of the century under review and far more than half in terms of achievement—the Roman Catholic Church and United Church of Canada, among the larger communions, showed growth equal to the population increase. The Anglican proportion of all Canadians in 1921 was 16.2 per cent; by 1961 it had dropped to 13.2 per cent, despite the immigration of a million people from the United Kingdom after World War II. The Baptist proportion was 4.8 per cent in 1921 and fell to 3.3 per cent in 1961. The Jewish percentage of 1.4 was steady as was the Lutherans’ 3.5. The Pentecostals, with a smaller initial base, have recorded a phenomenal growth.

Challenges—Today And Tomorrow

The box score of attacks and threats that face the Canadian churches includes: The cocky predictions that the old is finished; the glamour of rapid technological change and scientific achievement, which outshines the Christian beacons of faith and hope; the increasing secularization of life fostered by the community-deprived urban sprawls; the revolt of modern youth with its new “protestant” sit-in and other techniques; and the frustrations of all who want peace when there is no peace.

Will the Canadian churches see, meet, and overcome these threats? Have they wisdom to understand and courage to tackle these new problems?

The Church in Canada is determined to be the Church. She will experiment with jazz worship but knows that Christian worship as shaped by the centuries will hardly be simulated. This does not mean unwillingness or inability to use the most effective means of communication, including press, radio, and TV. But adjustments will not be made through any faddism or smart Madison Avenue or Hollywood gimmicks.

The Church in Canada knows she has many duties. She believes, and will continue to believe, that the chief ones are to proclaim the Word of God, make disciples for Jesus Christ, and order her life by the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in her. She will major on the four gospel verbs: repent, believe, go, and give.

Among current and future Canadian church trends are these:

First: There will be less stress on the Church as institution, as an organization within four walls, and more outreach. The Church will listen more to the world. Such problems as homosexuality, abortion, pre-marital sex, and divorce will be tackled along with drives for such goals as peace, better housing, and free higher education. One area of church organization, however, has and will continue to have high priority: church union.

Second: Canadian churches will move further away from all forms of hierarchy. Efforts to give the male members a superior status over the female will fail. The ordination of women will increase. The historic episcopate will become largely a thing of the past. Prelacy will be heavily discounted.

Third: More heed will be paid to sociologist, social worker, and psychiatrist. More place will be found for politics as a vehicle of evangelism. The teaching of Jesus that the strong should bear the burdens of the weak will be heavily supported through a more integrated and extended social security program. There will be more counselors and researchers in full-time church service.

Fourth: The Christian churches with new curricula heavily oriented to liberal theology will enlist youth. Although they will battle current permissiveness, the churches’ message will be more positive than negative. The move from the “thou-shalt-nots” of the primitive society to the “thou shalts” of the pluralistic society will be made, but with difficulty.

Fifth: Awareness of the challenge of the space age will continue to increase. The population explosion will put an ever-greater pressure upon Canada to open its empty spaces for settlement. The churches must teach the full meaning of God’s fatherhood and love and demand entrance to Canada of far more of the world’s poor and hungry.

And, of course, the space age is also a thermonuclear one. Canada knows this. With a heavily armed United States to the south and an equally armed Russia just over the hill to the north, Canada could become the meat in a very badly assembled sandwich!

The churches know that Jonathan Edwards’s sinners-in-the-hands-of-an-angry-God teaching is archaic. But there could be power-hungry atomic-equipped angry men.

The way ahead could be a via dolorosa. The Cross of Christ remains. It will continue to triumph over the wrecks even of today and tomorrow. Love, not hate, will continue to be the chief word of the Canadian churches in their service in and beyond our nation.

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