New Evangelistic Frontiers

Can the Canadian Church demonstrate that its life and Gospel are relevant for the second century of Canada’s life as a nation?

A few years ago Dr. Ian Rennie, Canadian Presbyterian minister and church historian, summed up the historically church-dominated nation of Canada as “the last of the Puritan lands.” But in this centennial year of 1967, that description is very nearly a part of yesterday. New forces are at work on the Canadian scene. The Church is clearly in danger of seeming quite irrelevant to the younger generation of Canadians struggling to stand free of their past and forge a new culture with exciting, creative possibilities for tomorrow. Recent waves of immigrants have frequently brought with them both bitter disillusionment with the Church as they have known it and a much freer culture. Mix these with the heady wine of space-age achievements and the result is a generation of new Canadians whose life style is increasingly incompatible with the essentially Victorian traditions of the Canadian church.

The most pressing challenge facing the Canadian church in 1967 is, therefore, whether it can demonstrate that its life and Gospel are relevant for the second century of Canada’s life as a nation. There is no question whether Jesus Christ is relevant. But there is a considerable question whether the Church is prepared to prove him so in its own experience by dying to its past and living exposed to the future and to God. If it is not, it will be dismissed by the new Canadian generation as “phony” and “powerless,” and that will be that.

Many Canadian Christians see this challenge and are striving to meet it. The sixties, for instance, have seen an unusual emphasis on mass evangelism. Through the efforts of Crusade Evangelism, under Barry Moore, and the Leighton Ford Crusades, evangelistic campaigns have been held in more than 200 Canadian towns during the past six years.

One important by-product has been the training in personal work given to thousands of Canadians. To this has been added the influence of organizations specializing in man-to-man evangelism, such as the Navigators, Operation Mobilization, and, more recently, Campus Crusade. Personal evangelism may actually be on the increase in Canada. It will get another major boost through the Sermons from Science Pavilion at Expo ’67. Here the inquirers, expected to number more than 90,000, will be counseled by hundreds of Christians drawn from the whole spectrum of the Church across Canada and trained in special classes held from Vancouver to Halifax this past winter.

Yet in the opinion of many, this evangelistic effort, impressive though it is, simply does not meet the heart of the challenge presented to the Church in 1967, for at least two reasons. First, it is in the main not continuing evangelism. Second, it is still oriented to church buildings and programs, even if “church” moves temporarily to an auditorium.

If the new Canada is to be won for Christ, it must be won through continuing evangelism. This evangelism must be indigenous to the community—even to the segment of society—it seeks to win. It cannot be merely the work of the professional ministry, and it cannot be limited to formal programs inside church buildings. Those who wish to reach the new Canada must rethink the implications for today of the command, “Go into all the world.” Is “the world” to be understood only spatially, or must it also be understood culturally and socially?

What are the new worlds for evangelism that the Canadian church faces in 1967? Some of them still have geographical frontiers—the opening north country, for instance, with mushrooming towns such as Prince George, British Columbia. These are not the mining settlements of an earlier era. They are linked by air and TV to great cultural and political centers and are in effect, therefore, extensions of the big cities, the principal features on the changing face of Canada.

Here, in the cities, are the large immigrant populations, such as the 220,000 Italians who live in south-central Toronto. Sixty per cent of Toronto has arrived since the end of World War II. Despite valiant efforts, particularly by the older denominations, these new arrivals are largely outside the Church and indifferent to it.

Cities produce most of the modern universities, which have suddenly become very important to a nation caught in the squeeze between the curtains of the cold war. A new university is being established each year, and soon junior colleges and community colleges will be appearing at the rate of five or ten a year. The prospect appalls a church newly reawakened to the strategic urgency of this field.

The cities have also spawned the teen-age sub-culture, a world so dynamic that it affects the whole of society around it. Many churches and groups such as Youth for Christ, Young Life Clubs, and Inter-School Christian fellowship seek to penetrate this world; but for the most part they reach the church-related teenager, not the troubled youth or the swinging set. There are a few striking exceptions. Some fresh, exciting evangelistic attempts, such as coffee-house programs, are meeting the teen-agers on their own ground and-providing the informality, social acceptance, and free-wheeling discussions they want. Another bright light has been the success of camping programs, particularly week-end camping. Both Young Life and Inter-Varsity’s Pioneer Camps have led the way beyond the usual church-oriented camp.

The big metropolitan centers of Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver also house the huge apartment cities, which are almost antiseptically free of the influence of the Church. To reach them may call for modern Priscillas and Aquilas willing to have a “church in the house” ministry through their apartments. Would local churches be willing to encourage this? Almost certainly it would mean rethinking the regular church program.

A major feature of the new millionaire cities is the extensive business and cultural life developing at their heart. So far there is little to be seen in Canada of the ministry to downtown white-collar workers and members of executive business clubs that is carried on in London, through the Anglican parish of All Souls, Langham Place. Here is a significant world almost untouched. It also holds a key to the inner-city slum areas. Many in these districts are antagonistic to the Church. They see that some of their problems are created or perpetuated by business leaders in the city who sit on church boards in the suburbs but fail to bring these two worlds together.

And here at the heart of the city is the entertainment world, and the world of the arts, and the world of communications—newspaper, radio, and television. John McCandlish Phillips, an evangelical who is a noted New York Times reporter, has said, “There are virtually no Christians working as news editors and reporters on major newspapers in the United States.” Is it any different in Canada? There are a few evangelical Christians who are earning the right to be heard in the Canadian artistic world, such as Margaret Avison, leading Canadian poet and lecturer in English at Scarborough College. But no real evangelistic challenge to this world yet exists.

And how can we seize the opportunities for communication which these worlds offer? So far, for instance, there is almost no really effective evangelistic use of TV in Canada. True, money is a problem. Yet one suspects that perhaps the real question is whether Canadian Christians can be free enough and imaginative enough to do more than televise the preaching of a sermon. The absence of effective witness through the arts and the mass media is particularly serious in view of the fact that this part of Canadian life probably more than any other (even formal education) holds the shape of Canada’s spiritual and moral future.

Perhaps the most dramatic and unexpected frontier to open in Canada is French Canada. Almost overnight, barriers have started coming down between Roman Catholic French Canadians and French-speaking Protestants. Veteran observers of the French Canadian scene speak with astonishment of the new openness. But the number of French-speaking evangelicals able to meet this unprecedented opportunity is desperately small, particularly on the level of the university-educated French Canadians, who are leading the “revolution” in Quebec.

These are some of the new worlds emerging in the fast-changing Canada of 1967. Their frontiers are not distant points remote from the Church. They are just across the street. They are the thresholds to the real life of Canadians, with which the Church is largely out of contact. These worlds the Church must learn to “go into.” In doing so, it will undoubtedly suffer the loss of many cherished ways and privileges; but it must remember the parable of the man who sold all he had to buy the field that had in it the pearl of great price. How highly does the Canadian church value the men and women for whom our Lord stripped himself of privilege and glory and then died?

This question shows that the actual frontiers for evangelism in 1967 are within the Church, not outside it. They are emotional and spiritual. Do we love our neighbor? But this question implies an even more basic one: “What do we really know of God in experience?” This is the crucial question being put to us by the new Canada in its increasing unawareness of our existence.

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.