Margaret Avison, winner of Canada’s highest literary honor, was captured by the “Light that blinded Saul”

Contemporary Christian poetry has found a new and arresting voice—that of Margaret Avison, long a free-lance writer and now an English teacher at the University of Toronto’s new Scarborough College, whose second book, The Dumbfounding, was brought out last summer by Norton (New York) and McLeod (Toronto).

There is nothing new about her remarkable ability as a poet. Her work has been acclaimed ever since she was a teen-ager, and she won the coveted Governor General’s Medal, Canada’s highest literary honor, for her first collection of poems, Winter Sun, published in 1960. What is new, however, and what gives her work much significance for the Christian student of contemporary art, is that just over four years ago Margaret Avison, then in her mid-forties, was overtaken by the

… Light that blinded Saul,

blacked out Damascus noon,

and became a Christian. Later she became an active member of the evangelical Knox Presbyterian Church in Toronto, and she still manages to keep one afternoon a week free for work at a downtown rescue mission. The Dumbfounding makes her conversion known to the literary and intellectual world, in language they can appreciate. Thinking Christians would do well to become familiar with it.

The small group of specifically Christian poems near the center of this book, far from detracting from her previous stature as a poet, actually seem to have added to it. The internationally known critic and Canadian expatriate A. J. M. Smith, professor of English at Michigan State University since 1936, now poet-in-residence there, and the dean of contemporary anthologists, wrote an article on “Margaret Avison’s New Book” for the September, 1966, issue of the Canadian Forum. In it he describes The Dumbfounding as “the richest, most original, most fully and deeply engaged, and therefore the most significant book of poetry published by a Canadian since the modern movement got under way more than a score of years ago.” To Miss Avison he ascribes the quality of “isolated superiority,” and he forthrightly states that “the superiority transcends originality and technical mystery and derives ultimately from the purity of her response to experience (all experience) and the significance of her faith.” Smith cites certain of her new poems as being “among the finest religious poems of our time” and declares that they “are explicitly acts of worship and submission, the fruits, one must surmise, of a peculiar grace.” Another reviewer has called her Canada’s “most accomplished poet” (Toronto Evening Telegram, Dec. 17, 1966).

Margaret Avison’s poetry, though difficult, holds rich rewards for the diligent student. No smooth, facile style is here; rather, one meets with abruptness, starkness, often downright ugliness—which, however, is shot through with shafts of unutterable beauty. She has a most delicately tuned ear that finds beauty in off-beats and half-rhyme, and word music in internal syllables rather than in the more conventional word endings or initial consonants. To me, what most makes her style distinctive and enjoyable is her use—always unexpected, though it recurs often—of sudden flights of startlingly beautiful, half-coined words of great loveliness and vivid imagery, often in a poem where much bleakness is found, so that the reader is continually being—to use Wordsworth’s phrase—“surprised by joy.”

Thus when in the title poem, which tells of her discovery of Christ, she begins,

When you walked here,

took skin, muscle, hair,

eyes, larynx …

we may be slightly repelled at her expression of the Incarnation; her blunt

Dust wet with your spittle

cleared mortal trouble

may seem a rather bald way of describing Christ’s miracles; while her words about the Resurrection,

we hoped so despairingly for such report

we closed their windpipes for it,

may strike a jarring note on our sensitivities. Yet in the same poem we find her soaring:

Yet you are

constant and sure,

the all-lovely, all-men’s way

to that far country.

Winning one, you again

all ways would begin

life: to make new

flesh, to empower

the weak in nature

to restore

or stay the sufferer;

lead through the garden to

trash, rubble, hill,

where, the outcast’s outcast, you

sound dark’s uttermost, strangely light-brimming, until

time be full.

In Searching and Sounding, she writes of her all-too-human flight from some of the Gethsemane-like experiences into which God led her as a new Christian:

I run from you to

the blinding blue of the

loveliness of this wasting

morning, and know

it is only with you

I can find the fields of brilliance

And as I run I cry

“But I need something human,

somebody now, here, with me.”

Running from you.

The sunlight is sundered by cloud-mass.

My heart is sore, as its

bricked-in ovens smoulder,

for I know whose hand at my elbow

I fling from me as I run.

But you have come and sounded

a music around me, newly,

Dwarf that I am, and spent,

touch my wet face with

the little light I can bear now, to mirror,

and keep me

close, into sleeping.

In The Christian’s Year in Miniature, she speaks of Christ in Gethsemane:

Unsullied one, though midnight

is lucid to your heart,

here, in God’s unspeaking

you are set apart.

Of his burial, she goes on:

The garden, awaking

to a terrible day-swell

knows the rock-sweet, the pulse-set

of Emmanuel.

Then, in an act of committal, she concludes:

Only in your possession

can such Life go on.

The crux of Margaret Avison’s conversion was reached when she realized for the first time, and finally and forever, that, as she later put it, “Jesus Christ is alive.” This theme runs through many of her religious poems, such as First and Person, the first two poems she wrote after her rebirth (following several puzzling months of silence). In Person she describes herself as being in a sealed tomb, “beneath steel tiers, all walled,” “barred in every way.” Then comes the realization of the living Christ.

“I am.” The door

was flesh; was there.

No hinges swing, no latch

lifts. Nothing moves. But such

is love, the captive may

in blindness find the way:

In all his heaviness, he passes through.

Again, in The Word, where she examines the implications of our forsaking all for Christ and of his being forsaken of the Father, we find the person of the living Christ coming to the fore:

But to make it head over heels

yielding, all the way,

you had to die for us.

The line we drew, you crossed,

and cross out, wholly forget,

at the faintest stirring of what

you know is love, is One

whose name has been, and is

and will be, the

I AM.

Another Person very real to the new believer is the Holy Spirit. In … Person, or A Hymn on and to the Holy Ghost, she voices her dependence upon him. In closing, I quote this poem in full.

How should I find speech

to you, the self-effacing

whose other self was seen

alone by the only one,

to you, whose self-knowing

is perfect, known to him,

seeing him only, loving

with him, yourself unseen?

Let the one you show me

ask you, for me,

you, all but lost in

the one in three,

to lead my self, effaced

in the known Light,

to be in him released

from facelessness,

so that where you

(unseen, unguessed, liable

to grievous hurt) would go

I may show him visible.

In these days when it is so imperative and yet so difficult to communicate the Gospel effectively to our contemporaries, we could learn much from a close study of the poetry of Margaret Avison.

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.

When Jacques Cartier landed on the Gaspé coast in July, 1534, he hurried to erect a thirty-foot cross, while bewildered Indians watched. This significant act by Cartier presaged things to come, for Canada’s growth since that time has been inextricably connected with the lifting up of the Cross of Jesus Christ—first in Canada, as the nation took root, and then abroad as Canadians rallied in an expanding missionary outreach.

For the first three hundred years of its development, Canada was a receiving country for missionary enterprise. It was a mission field into which a stream of dedicated men and money emptied from abroad. As the young country grew in awareness of its resource potential in agriculture, forests, fisheries, and mines, and as new communities took shape, expanding into towns and cities, so the Church grew throughout the land.

The Years Of Outreach

Not until the middle of the nineteenth century did the Canadian church begin to enlarge its vision and take up the challenging task of outreach. In these years the Canadian church became a sending church. Although there were still vast territories of the Canadian Northwest where the Indians and the Eskimos had never heard the Gospel, and although for many years the Canadian church continued to receive aid from the great British missionary societies, nevertheless the days of sending had begun. It was as if the new responsibilities assumed by Canada in becoming an independent nation were adopted by the Church also as it took on new stature and began to initiate constructive work abroad. The ensuing story bristles with dramatic accounts of vision, determination, courage, and sacrifice. It reflects a growing conviction that there could be no real participation in Christ without participation in his mission to the world.

• The year 1844 marks the formation of the first foreign mission board in Canada. This action was taken by the Presbyterian Church in Nova Scotia, and two years later the same church sent out the first missionary to the New Hebrides. On the eve of Confederation in 1867, the Presbyterian Church sent out eleven new missionaries to the New Hebrides, Trinidad, and Formosa.

• The Baptists of the Maritime Provinces sponsored missions as early as 1845, offering their missionaries to the American Baptist Mission Board. In 1867 the Baptists of Ontario and Quebec began sending missionaries to India with full Canadian support. The Maritime Baptists now launched their own mission work with full approval of the American board, and both groups worked independently for some years on the southeast coast of the Bay of Bengal, India. In these early days, many Canadians continued to serve in overseas fields under American mission boards. Even today some Canadian denominations operate their missions this way.

• By 1873, the Methodist Church in Canada had established a mission field in Japan and was equipping it with personnel and funds. Both the Presbyterian and Methodist denominations accelerated their overseas missionary activity, the Presbyterians in China, Formosa, and Japan. About 1881 the Congregational Church in Canada appointed a missionary to serve in Angola.

• For fifty years after Confederation, the major thrust of Anglican missionary work was directed toward the vast Northwest and the inaccessible British Columbia coast. Indeed, the tremendous part played by Anglican missionaries in carrying the Gospel to the frontiers of the new dominion can hardly be overestimated. The complete absorption of the Anglicans with the needs of the Indians, the Eskimos, and the early settlers of those untouched areas tended to delay any overseas missionary program. But the first fully Canadian-supported overseas missionary was an Anglican, a graduate of Wycliffe College, University of Toronto, who went out to Japan in 1888 under the auspices of the Wycliffe College Missionary Society. And he was soon joined by others. Several years later the first official missionary of the Canadian church was sent out under the newly formed Board of Domestic and Foreign Missions.

In these early days of missionary activity, a great deal of support came from youth movements and from those within church colleges. Two Presbyterian institutions, Knox in Toronto and Queen’s in Kingston, Ontario, sent men to open a work in northern China. Wycliffe College did the same for the Anglican mission in Japan. Similarly, in the Methodist Church the establishment of Christian Endeavour Societies and the founding of the Epworth League in 1890 stimulated remarkable enthusiasm among young people for overseas missions. This resulted in the formation in 1896 of the Young People’s Forward Movement, a group that within a few years had recruited and was supporting a great number of missionaries in Szechwan, China.

In the last decade of the nineteenth century, a number of smaller denominational groups launched out into overseas missionary activity, offering their personnel mainly to American boards.

• The Lutheran Church in Canada began sending missionaries through its affiliations with the Lutheran churches in the United States. Today twenty-eight ordained and thirty-five lay missionaries serve in more than a dozen fields.

• In 1899 the Evangelical United Brethren (the name that since 1946 has been in use for the older body known in Canada since 1867 as the Canada Conference of the Evangelical Association) sent the first Canadian missionary overseas to Japan. In the years that followed, a number began service in China, Sierra Leone, Brazil, and Nigeria, working under the American mission board.

• The Church of Christ (Disciples), a small but keen church in Canada, offered a medical missionary to China as early as 1886. This early effort was followed by many others—in China, India, Africa, Tibet, and the Philippines.

• The Canadian Salvation Army was aroused to overseas missionary activity at the close of the last century and focused its attention on India. Today sixty-six Canadian officers serve in a number of mission fields.

• The Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada, a corporate body since 1919, can present an impressive picture of missionary outreach overseas. Missionaries have been sent to more than a dozen countries in three continents: Africa, Asia, and South America. Today this comparatively small religious body has 140 missionaries in the field.

The courage and resolution of these early missionaries compels admiration. Volunteers who went to areas where the Gospel had never been preached often walked into the face of countless dangers and possible death. Just recently, I stood at a grave in the garden of the Anglican Cathedral in Kampalla, Uganda. The simple headstone told the story of James Hannington, the first Bishop of East Equatorial Africa, who was murdered at Busoga in 1885. Just before they speared him to death he declared, “Tell the Kabaka [King], I die for Uganda.” When the Baptists of Ontario and Quebec first opened up their work in Bolivia at the close of the last century, they were fully aware of the law which read: “Anyone who attempts to preach the Gospel in Bolivia will certainly be arrested and put to death.” Many of Christ’s messengers have found graves on foreign shores.

Shifting Concerns

As missionary activity increased in the first quarter of the twentieth century, several marked trends appeared. It became necessary to form some new mission boards and to consolidate others. In 1902, at the General Synod of the Anglican Church, a missionary society for the whole Dominion was formed, known as the Missionary Society of the Church of England in Canada. In 1912 the Canadian Baptist Foreign Mission Board succeeded various regional boards. Many mission boards, convinced that money and personnel should be released for untouched areas, began to confer and cooperate in an attempt to avoid costly duplication of efforts. Many of the denominations began to develop national leadership on the mission field. And as converts were won for Christ, missionaries sought to establish indigenous churches. This policy reached its high point in the Anglican communion when native Christians were elected bishops of Mid-Japan and Honan, China.

At the quarter mark of this century, two events began to color the life of the Canadian church. In 1925 the Methodist, Presbyterian, and Congregational denominations united to form the United Church of Canada. In 1927 the Baptists divided, mainly on theological issues, and formed the Canadian Baptist Federation and the Fellowship of Evangelical Baptists.

The United Church of Canada, the largest Protestant body, moved forward with an accelerated program of missionary outreach. In the second quarter of the century, great efforts were made to elevate ecumenical cooperation into a prime object of missionary policy. Everything was done to establish autonomous church courts in all areas of missionary activity. The United Church withdrew from Formosa, British Guiana, and part of central India. These areas became the exclusive fields of the continuing Presbyterian Church. The former Presbyterian Korean work was handed over to the United Church while the Presbyterians turned their attention to a Korean minority in Japan. In 1954 an excellent work was undertaken in Eastern Nigeria, and the Presbyterians soon had twenty-five workers in that field.

The division of the Baptist Church also called for a re-allocation of mission fields. The Baptist Federation retained Bolivia and India and later opened up an important work in Angola. The Fellowship of Evangelical Baptist Churches assumed the responsibility for working in Japan and India and also for directing its missionaries into faith missions operating in many parts of the world. For example, the Evangelical Baptists have eighty-nine Canadians serving with the Sudan Interior Mission, twenty-nine with the Sudan United Mission, twenty-two with the South Africa General Mission, and great numbers with other mission boards. The Fellowship of Evangelical Baptists has 450 Canadians serving overseas, and 145 are in the field from the Baptist Federation. These churches have made the most impressive Canadian contribution to the outreach of world missions.

Some prominence must be given to the tremendous involvement in overseas work of the thirty-five faith or interdenominational missions that have established Canadian offices. The largest is the Sudan Interior Mission, with 335 Canadians in the field. The Christian and Missionary Alliance, which received its charter in 1925, has been sending Canadian missionaries into the major areas of its mission work. Viet Nam is the largest field of activity. Today 100 Canadians are serving overseas with the Alliance.

The telling fact is that nearly 80 per cent of the total Canadian missionary force overseas is serving with these faith missions. This is a powerful vindication of the view that religious groups that emphasize the Scriptures as the inspired Word of God and the Gospel as the power of God unto salvation are apparently led to offer many more missionary volunteers than those that adopt a more liberal view of the Bible and the Gospel. If a person believes that the world needs the Gospel more than anything else—indeed, is lost without it—he is much more likely to offer himself for missionary service than if he believes that one religion is just about as good as another. If Christians are to move forward in our day they must take as their goal the conversion of the nations to Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour.

The Current Malaise

Today Canadian missions have entered upon a third stage of their development in which the distinctions of sending and receiving are transcended by a new awareness of sharing in full partnership of the Gospel with the Church in other lands. All praise should be given for all that has been done in overseas work in the past; still, it has obviously been inadequate even to keep pace with the world’s exploding population. We have passed through days of revolution in every aspect of life and society. On the mission field, change has been so rapid that it has caused considerable bewilderment. Once missionaries went out to areas where there was no church. Today they go out and become servants of the indigenous church. Once a Western missionary was the sole representative of Christianity in many parts of the world. Today a Christian missionary may be almost unnoticed among a great number of Westerners serving abroad in government, voluntary agencies, or business.

In a world passing through social revolution, resentment of Western imperialism has inspired hostility to Christian missions and has raised barriers. The phenomenal explosion of nationalism, especially in Africa, and the resurgence of non-Christian religions, completely revitalized, have done much to demand a new look at our methods and approach in missionary activity. The missionaries themselves have been among the first to recognize these changes and urge modifications of policy to meet them.

In the midst of all this, one thing has not changed. The Gospel of Jesus Christ proclaimed in the power of the Holy Spirit is still the answer to the world’s need. It does not have to be altered to make it true for modern man. The Church must always adjust its methods as it stays alert to the changing world scene. But its problem today is not so much its failure to find new missionary strategy as it is a breakdown of conviction that the Gospel is God’s truth to man and a lack of inspiration to declare it with boldness and compassion. Deep within the Church itself there is a widespread, deep-seated malaise. It has infected the clergy and laity alike and has produced a loss of nerve for the Gospel. This sickness is paralyzing the Church’s total effort for global mission.

There is only one answer. The whole Church must recapture the conviction that the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation to all who believe. It must become aware that proclaiming Jesus Christ and his Gospel to all the world is not a human option but a divine imperative. If the Canadian church can recover this imperative, evangelism may yet revitalize its very being so that its declaration of the Gospel with courage and conviction will ring forth and the exalted Christ will draw many to himself.

To describe in meteorological terms the climate of so vast and varied a land as Canada is, even for the weather expert, a matter of some complexity. But the task of describing the theological climate is vastly more complex. The variables are infinitely more subtle, and often the tools for research do not exist. Such a description, therefore, can only be partial and will be influenced by the writer’s own vantage point within the church.

I

At the time of this writing, many parts of Canada are experiencing record cold spells for the winter. Theologically speaking, however, the freezing gusts of winter are giving way to summer heat. Publication in early February of E. Harrison’s controversial book The Church Without God has again brought to the fore the unresolved issues arising out of the Honest to God debate. Once again the Canadian church is being rocked by the more radical aspects of the so-called new theology. And the handmaid of this theology, the new morality, is prominent also. Latent in the debate is a theological cynicism, or indeed nihilism, that threatens the very foundations of belief. And the danger is increased a hundredfold, compared to previous times of unrest and doubt, by the fact that it comes not from outside but from inside the ranks of the clergy—from within the Church itself.

The new-theology movement holds under its umbrella widely differing points of view and is difficult to define. Like the Gnosticism of the early Christian era, it is an amalgam of religious thinking, a polarity of trends rather than any firmly fixed point of view. As in Gnosticism, however, certain common features emerge. One significant aspect is the eclectic nature of its approach both to the works of such modern theologians as Bultmann, Tillich, and Bonhoeffer, on which it chiefly relies, and to the biblical record. This is very apparent in Robinson’s Honest to God, to mention the most obvious example. Another characteristic is the denial of the supernatural elements of the faith, climaxing in the paradoxical lament of the radical “God is dead” theologians. Many who may not wish to go this far nevertheless concur in a virtual repudiation of the historic creeds and of the truths to which they bear witness, and adopt a corresponding universalism that cuts the nerve of evangelistic concern.

It is distressing that in all this ferment, hardly any appeal is made to the Scriptures as a unique authority. Generally the Bible is quoted only to make a point already established by an appeal to reason or to some aspect of contemporary culture. Of the authors mentioned above, Bonhoeffer comes off worst. His name is constantly used to bolster arguments leading to conclusions entirely foreign both to his actual thought, as expressed in his theological treatises, and to the spirit of the man himself.

The result of the furor is confusion on many sides. If those outside the Church are bewildered when they hear responsible churchmen like the former moderator of the United Church of Canada saying they do not believe the creeds or the doctrine of the Trinity, those inside are often even more bewildered. Many clergy and laity give the impression of being in a state of shock, uncertain where to turn. Leaders continue to talk about “mission,” but among many there is less and less certainty about what that mission is. The word “evangelism,” though much discussed in recent years, is being quietly dropped in some of the larger denominations, and slogans like “dialogue” and “men for others” are beginning to take its place.

The confusion caused by the new theology is being intensified, somewhat paradoxically, by the current quest for renewal of many in the Canadian church. In itself this quest is not a bad thing, of course; obviously renewal is God’s will for his Church in every generation. But much of what passes for renewal in the Church today falls short of this high aim. With few or no fixed points of reference, no theological principles, renewal becomes renewal for renewal’s sake alone and tends either toward sensationalism or toward a “sell-out” to the cultural environment. (The recent experiment in psychedelic worship carried on at a university campus in British Columbia seems to many to be an example of both.)

Ii

Yet the current situation does have positive aspects.

1. In the first place, religion is news. In the press, on radio, and television, the Christian faith is under continuing discussion. In clubs, restaurants, and casual social gatherings—almost everywhere, in fact—it is now possible to raise the central issues of the Gospel with a freedom formerly unknown. Never, since the days when St. Paul first set the marketplace at Athens buzzing with his preaching, has public attention been so focused on the Christian Church and its message. The Church must not ignore the great evangelistic opportunity this attention affords.

2. A radical re-examination of all our structures and all our presuppositions is being forced upon us, whether we wish it or not. A great shaking is taking place; only the things that cannot be shaken will remain. We are being challenged to stand and deliver. There is no room for complacency, coziness, or retreat. Everywhere the call has gone out for committed Christians of every denomination to stand and be counted for Christ’s sake and the Gospel’s. This means that we can no longer simply wave the old banners or trot out the old slogans. We must be willing to submit ourselves, our worship, our methods of proclamation and of witness to the Evangel—everything—to the Word of God afresh, in order to hear what the Spirit of God is saying to the churches in this new situation. Only in this way can true revival and true communication of the Gospel take place.

3. A divergence—also radical—is beginning to reveal itself in all the major denominations in the face of the radical trend in theology. Theological conservatives of the main Protestant groupings are finding a new fellowship with one another regardless of denominational allegiances. On matters of creedal belief or of belief in the physical resurrection of Christ, for example, evangelical Anglicans are discovering that they have closer ties with their Anglo-Catholic brethren (or indeed with the Orthodox) than with neo-liberals. Similarly, conservative United Church members feel a closer bond with their Baptist or Presbyterian counterparts than with the extreme wing of their own communion. And so the story goes. What this may mean for the future, especially where schemes for reunion are already under discussion, only time will tell. On the Canadian scene at the present moment, the relevant question is not “What denomination do you belong to?” but rather “Are you a believer, in the New Testament sense?” New lines of communication are being opened up and a new kind of challenge to old isolations felt.

Iii

Some of the negative aspects of the situation have already been mentioned. There are these also:

1. The new theology in its more extreme forms can be seen to lead either to that hardiest of all perennials in the theological garden, pantheism (or “cosmic religion”), or to an extreme theological nihilism—“God is dead,” “The Church is dead.” For neither of these does evangelism, mission, or outreach have any importance. To be sure, not many will go this far. But those who do, and who yet insist on remaining within the Church, are already exerting an influence on many who are impressed by the often repeated claim to honesty and the show of intellectualism. And at the very moment when the deep issues of the faith are matters of public debate, departments of evangelism and missions seem to be suffering from inertia, perhaps even a failure of nerve or vision. A recent survey of the activities of the committees on evangelism of one large national church has revealed that an alarming vacuum exists in this area.

2. Through lack of imagination and at times through sheer default, conservative evangelicals generally ignore the mass-communications media. Groups that do take the twentieth century seriously in this regard often stick to stereotyped and largely outmoded techniques and to a “hard sell” that fails to communicate to the outsider. Ironically, those in the major denominations who are the most eager to use radio and television and the most skilled at doing so—those who form the communications avant-garde—generally have little to communicate.

3. For the evangelical perhaps the most serious temptation is simply to dig in and sit tight. Some point to the Bible’s prophecies of unbelief in the end times and of the deception of those who have called themselves Christians (e.g. Matt. 24:24). Others seem to think that if the present crisis is only ignored long enough, it will go away. And others give the impression that all we need do is keep on saying the same old words in the customary way—only louder than ever—and our obedience will be complete. That they may be saying this to fewer and fewer people does not seem to worry them at all. As one very conservative acquaintance of mine put it, when speaking of the writings of Bonhoeffer, “I just put a blind eye to the telescope like Nelson of old and keep on as I have always done!” Nothing could be more surely fatal.

Iv

Who speaks for the conservative evangelical position in Canada?

This is not easy to answer. Besides the easily identifiable groups, there are evangelicals in all denominations. But they can scarcely be said to speak with a clear or unanimous voice on key issues. In fact, despite various efforts to establish a fully representative Canadian Evangelical Fellowship, there is as yet no fully indigenous, united evangelicalism in this country. Individual voices can be heard throughout the land, some of them increasingly effective in scholarship, in the pulpit, in teen-age and adult evangelism, and in lay witness. But the overall picture is hardly reassuring.

Geography is a hindering factor. Evangelicals are often denied the fellowship and mutual consultation that could weld them into a unit. Moreover, many committed Christians are reluctant to identify themselves with a “party,” especially when the label seems to carry with it memories of someone else’s battles in another time and place. Theological colleges, apart from Toronto Bible College and the various Baptist seminaries, appear reluctant to be clearly identified as conservative evangelical. Besides Wycliffe College, it would be hard to name an Anglican or United Church college that would be happy to be described that way.

V

Nevertheless, in spite of all this, a strong evangelical witness remains. What is more, there are signs of new life in many areas.

In the Anglican communion the newly organized Canadian Anglican Evangelical Fellowship (CAEF) is already national in scope. The Koinonia Youth Fellowship is closely allied to it and seeks to present the claims of Christ effectively to Anglican young people. In the United Church, the Renewal Fellowship is a similar development that involves increasing numbers of clergy and laymen. In addition to the fine work already being done in the high schools by the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship, the “Young Life” work is making a remarkable impact on teen-agers, particularly in metropolitan Toronto, where hundreds of youngsters meet weekly for prayer, Bible study, and recreation.

In the universities IVCF seems to be showing a greater willingness to experiment with new approaches as it seeks to reach beyond the group structure to the campus outside. This is paralleled by the growth of new graduate and faculty Christian fellowships in many colleges. Besides all this, of course, there is the continuing faithful preaching Sunday by Sunday from hundreds of pulpits and the daily witness of thousands of believers in every denomination and in every walk of life.

Vi

If the dangers are great, the opportunities are even greater. If, however, there is to be a true moving forward in the cause of Christ, a true witness to the unchanging truths of the Gospel, a real renewal in our time, certain conditions must be met.

First, there must be a willingness on all sides to admit past failures, to renounce old suspicions, and to confess that there has often been uncharitableness towards those of other schools of thought. There must be metanoia (“repentance”). The times are too grave for the luxury of the many past divisions over secondary matters.

Second, there must be a greater willingness than ever before to move outside the camp—the camp of old labels and stereotyped ways of thinking, of regard for secondary things as if they were of primary importance, of smug denominationalism (or, even worse, of smug non-denominationalism). Unless we are prepared to hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches now, we will continue to seem irrelevant to the uncommitted masses and to fumble weakly while the world walks by. The words of Bishop Newbigin, “Hold fast to Christ and for all the rest be uncommitted,” speak to our need. Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever; but at the same time, our God is a God who moves. We must be willing to travel light, to lay aside outmoded attitudes and all other unnecessary barriers.

In the final analysis, our case rests with God’s witness to himself in Holy Scripture. Renewal, revival, and the communication of the Good News depend upon this—not on better stewardship programs, not on more committees or on more skillful evangelistic techniques, but on the activity of the Holy Spirit through God’s Word in our midst. This is our great need and our greatest hope in this hour of unparalleled opportunity. The mass media may be as yet virtually untouched by the churches; yet they seethe daily with the evidence of mankind’s need for God. May all of us v/ho love the Lord and look for his appearing pray for a fresh endowment from God as we serve him in this mighty land.

Canada’s Centennial is more than a year of celebration; 1967 marks an era of crisis remarkably parallel to that of one hundred years ago. Confederation came in a time of general crisis—political, military, and economic. Were Canada and the Maritimes to walk together or separately? Could the young shoulders of the colonies take over from Britain the burden of defense? Would union with the United States be the only solution to torturing economic pressures?

Now, a century later, Canada faces similar problems. The military situation is fairly stable, but political and economic crises loom before the nation. There is deep and complex tension between French Canadians and those of English descent. Canada faces economic readjustment if Britain joins the Common Market. Will it be forced into economic union with the United States?

The vast social upheavals that have helped to bring about the national crisis have contributed to a moral and personal crisis as well. Canada is no longer a nation of farmers and shopkeepers. Most Canadians now live in big cities and work for large companies. Traditional ethical codes are being challenged. Marijuana and barbiturate addiction is on the increase. The growth of crime is outstripping the growth in population, and alcoholism and suicide are increasing also.

The exploding student generation dramatically reflects personal emptiness. While many idealistic students have joined social-action groups, far too many are aimless and cynical. Radio and TV personality Gordon Sinclair, a self-professed skeptic, has said, “I disagree with Billy Graham on almost everything. But on one thing we agree: The basic trouble with our young people is that they have no sense of purpose.”

Sensitive Canadians are concerned that for one of the world’s most affluent countries, Canada’s record of social justice is inadequate. For example, most Indians in Canada die before they are thirty-five, and only forty-four of every one hundred Indian homes have electricity. Only a tiny percentage (1.05 per cent) of Canada’s total budget this year will go for foreign aid. And while many Canadian students have demonstrated against the racial trouble of the United States, Negro families have been refused apartments in cities from British Columbia to Nova Scotia.

The Canadian religious community is not exempt from crisis. Of 120 Ottawa high school students interviewed not long ago, more than half said that institutional religion held little or no place in their lives. The Premier of Newfoundland, Joseph R. Smallwood, bluntly lays partial blame for his province’s increase in juvenile delinquency at the doors of the churches. “The Church,” he says, “doesn’t seize hold of people anymore—it doesn’t possess their lives.”

Many of these problems Canada shares with other societies struggling in the birth of a new age. But perceptive writers have pointed out the distinctly spiritual dimension of Canada’s crisis. A prominent editor, Robert Fulford, has said, “The plainest fact of our national life is that Canada suffers from a profound sickness of the spirit.” And Peter Newman of the Toronto Star charges, “We act as though we were all aboard a national gravy train that will roll itself into the golden future, but we only occasionally seem to realize that the train needs a track and a driver.”

When the Prophet Amos came to the sanctuary of the northern kingdom at Bethel, Israel was riding on a crest of prosperity and peace not unlike that which superficially is found in Canada. The idea of approaching doom seemed absurd. But Amos had heard the sound of judgment.

To most Israelites, the drought, plagues, and earthquakes that had fallen on their land were natural calamities. To Amos they were the voice of God calling Israel to repentance. Fearlessly he denounced Israel’s sins—the strong for crushing the weak; the wealthy for living in orgies of self-indulgence and ignoring the misery of the slaves; the religious for making their church attendance a cover-up for immorality and a substitute for social justice. He saw visions of devouring locusts, the sweep of consuming fire, and the descent of a bloody sword. Prepare to meet your God, O Israel! This was the burden of Amos’s message and the heart of national crisis. Today he would say, “Seek good, and not evil, that you may live; and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you, as you have said. Prepare to meet your God, O Canada!”

Historical crisis always provides a dress rehearsal for the final judgment. As Bishop Fulton Sheen has pointed out, “The limit of all experience is to be either for or against God; therefore, in a crisis man will either confront God or he will affront him.” Will Canadians meet the God of Amos in repentance, faith, and obedience, or will we meet him in judgment?

In 1967 the crux of Canada’s crisis is Jesus Christ himself, the greater than Amos who with equal fearlessness denounced the hypocrisy of his day, but who with mercy, love, and suffering also embodied the grace and forgiveness of God.

Will Canada leave Christ as a dull memory of the past century, or make him and his cause the passion of its tomorrow? Think what it would mean if tens of thousands of Canadians in all walks of life would commit themselves for the first time, or in a new, total way, to Jesus Christ this year. In him French and English Canadians could find a common basis to work out their problems, and Canada could become a laboratory of love demonstrating what the family of man can be in Christ. In him families could find new strength. In him national leaders could find the pattern and power for a new leadership of rugged realism and shining integrity. In him our students could find a cure for cynicism and a cause for commitment. In him Canada could find new direction and destiny as a nation, the humility and courage to face the crisis of a new day.

Sir Wilfred Laurier once said, “The twentieth century belongs to Canada.” In terms of trade, political prestige, and military power alone, that is absurd. But in terms of spiritual quality, it could be true. If Canada will belong to Jesus Christ, then the twentieth century could belong to Canada.

What lies ahead for Canadian Christians?

The Christian Pavilion that will be a part of Montreal’s Expo ’67 is perhaps the best indication of Canadian reaction to the ecumenical drive within the Christian churches today. Supported by most of the large denominations, including the Roman Catholic Church, and a number of the smaller bodies, the pavilion will be an attempt to give an “ecumenical witness” to the common Christian faith. To many Canadian ecumenists this is the greatest breakthrough so far toward Christian unity.

Canada, however, is no stranger to ecumenism in its most thoroughgoing church-unionist form. After Confederation, many of the denominational groups that had been divided into numerous sub-denominational varieties came together to form large, single, national communions: Presbyterians, Methodists, Anglicans, and the like. The first interdenominational union took place on June 10, 1925, when the Methodists, Congregationalists, and over 60 per cent of the Presbyterians joined to form The United Church of Canada. The new church immediately became the largest and wealthiest Protestant denomination and has from that day wielded a very powerful influence, particularly in the direction of church union. With little professed interest in doctrine, it has laid its stress upon social action and further amalgamations.

The 35–40 per cent of the Presbyterians who refused to enter the 1925 union did so for a variety of reasons. Tradition, personal preference, doctrine, and even just plain Presbyterian stubbornness kept them from accepting the new church. In the forty years that have followed the “disruption,” however, a new generation has arisen, and a considerable number of Presbyterians now favor union. Some even feel that the 1925 refusal was a mistake. Influenced by such thinking, which is particularly strong in official circles, the Presbyterian Church is cooperating with others in all kinds of ecumenical ventures; one presbytery, for example, raised $30,000 for the Christian Pavilion. At the same time, a considerable number are very suspicious of the ecumenical movement, for they feel that its aim is to bring about union on a minimal doctrinal basis. The church is divided on the issue of union, and it is difficult to estimate the relative strength of the two groups.

Standing apart from the United and Presbyterian churches, the Anglican Church (episcopal) for many years adopted a somewhat lofty attitude towards all others, largely because it seemed to feel it should be the national established church. Over the past two or three decades, however, its attitude has changed, and since 1945 it has carried on union talks with the United Church. During the past two years, the two bodies produced a working paper which they plan to use as a starting point for arrangements leading eventually to organic union. Not all the Anglicans, however, are happy about the idea. Both high-church Anglo-Catholics and low-church evangelicals have grave doubts about the move, though for different reasons.

The other Protestant denominations hold varying views of the ecumenical movement. The convention Baptists seem to support the ecumenical approach, while the smaller, more evangelical Baptist churches ignore or oppose it. This dislike of ecumenism also pervades many other bodies, such as the Pentecostals, while the Evangelical United Brethren have recently become part of the United Church. For this reason, one cannot place the smaller groups in any particular classification.

The principal organ of the ecumenical movement in Canada is the Canadian Council of Churches, brought into existence in 1944 by the main Protestant denominations. It has all the characteristics of the World Council of Churches, and its influence is widespread and all-pervasive in the denominations that are members of it. Although the council would disclaim any desire to pose as a “super church,” nevertheless it has all the machinery set up and ready for the time when the major Protestant denominations come together.

In the light of these developments and of the decisions of Vatican II, what is the attitude of the Roman Catholic Church, which claims the allegiance of over 45 per cent of the population? Formerly it was one of suspicion and hostility to the Protestant bodies. Indeed, the French Roman Catholics often translated this into an anti-English attitude, which is partly responsible for contemporary “separatism” in Quebec. In recent years, however, particularly since Paul-Emile Cardinal Leger has been in charge of the Archdiocese of Montreal, the situation has changed considerably. A new “ecumenical attitude” has appeared with the cardinal’s establishment of a Commission on Ecumenism and, even more important, an Ecumenical Center where Protestants and Roman Catholics may carry on dialogue.

The new Roman Catholic frame of mind becomes clear almost immediately to anyone who visits the Ecumenical Center and talks to the director, Father Irenée Beaubien, S. J. The center seeks to do everything it can to bring together various groups for discussion and common worship. Indeed, some attempts have been made to go beyond the Christian boundaries to interest Jews and others. Father Beaubien, at the invitation of the United Church, attended its last General Council. One cannot help feeling, however, that Cardinal Leger, Father Beaubien, and other Roman Catholics are interested not so much in a general union as in the return of their ecumenically minded “separated brethren” to Rome.

In examining the ecumenical scene in Canada, however, one must probe deeper than the denominational epidermis. Few denominations, if any, are completely agreed on the subject of ecumenism, and the differences of opinion seem to arise out of conflicting theological views.

In general, those who hold to the so-called liberal theology, along with a considerable number who are inclined to neo-orthodoxy, support ecumenism and church unionism. For the Anglican Church of Canada, however, there is a significant qualification to be made. Most of the pro-union clergy insist that any new united church must be episcopal in organization, according to the Lambeth Quadrilateral. Usually they also reject the idea of the ordination of women.

On the other side of the fence stand those who hold that agreement on matters of belief is primary. This group is made up of those who are Reformed or generally evangelical in doctrine and who believe that doctrinal agreement is more important than organizational unity. While this element includes a number of whole denominations, ranging from the Christian Reformed Church to the Associated Gospel Assemblies, there are also many persons of the same mind within the churches committed to an ecumenical program. This complicates any attempt to analyze the Canadian situation.

The outcome of the intra-denominational divisions is hard to foretell. Undoubtedly the bodies constituting the Canadian Council of Churches are—at least as far as their administrators are concerned—drawing closer together. Already some of the ecumenists have spoken of one great Church of Canada that would include even the Roman Catholics. True, it is always specified that such a coming together would not be at the expense of true faith. When one looks at the unions that have taken place or are now being contemplated, however, one cannot but feel that doctrine really occupies a rather minor place in the ecumenical hierarchy of values.

While this trend towards togetherness manifests itself in the larger denominations, the doubters and opponents of ecumenism within the denominations find life a little difficult. Because of their views, they have little say on denominational boards or committees, and few ever become denominational secretaries. Consequently they tend to seek fellowship and support outside their own churches, with those who are “evangelical” though perhaps not in agreement with them on every point. Because of this situation, two organizations have recently come into existence: the Evangelical Theological Fellowship and the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada. Regrettably, evangelicals in the larger denominations often use their participation in these organizations as a substitute for fulfilling duties in their own church courts.

What lies ahead in the Canadian Christian community? It is hard to say. But it looks as though the ecumenical juggernaut will roll on, gradually bringing more and more of the larger denominations into one big super-church. From this movement may well come, also, small splinter groups denuded of land, buildings, and endowments that will have to start from the very ground up, if they wish to rebuild an evangelical church. This could cause the evangelicals as a whole to reassess their ecclesiastical relations, and no one can now foretell what the result would be if this should happen. Here the historian must stop, lest he seek to become a prophet.

New voices and new tendencies

One does not have to be a skeptic to question the thesis that the dominant element in the founding of the American Republic was the Puritan tradition. By the time of the Declaration of Independence and the Continental Congress, under the impact of latitudinarianism, deism, and the Enlightenment, let alone the laws of spiritual atrophy, the witness of biblical Protestantism was on a pretty shaky footing among the articulate class of the new nation. The picture changed very greatly in the early decades of the nineteenth century, but this did not alter the spirit of ’76. And it is here, at the point of origin, that the contrast with Canada is great.

In 1867, when the four British North American provinces of Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia came together in a federal union, evangelical Protestantism was everywhere very much in evidence. The Methodists, since the turn of the century the dominant form of evangelicalism in British America, still retained this position. The impact of idealism, scientism, and biblical criticism had scarcely been felt, although the emergence of a fashionable and popular evangelicalism, which testified to the Church’s attempt to accommodate to growing urbanization, already disturbed the discerning. In Canadian Presbyterianism, as in Scotland and Ireland, the long reign of Moderatism was a thing of the past, and the churches associated with the dynamic evangelicalism of Chalmers and the Free Church were forging ahead. A similar situation prevailed among the Baptists. And, although evangelicalism had been fairly slow in gaining an effective Anglican foothold in the new world, by the 1860s the evangelicals were a force to be reckoned with in many key Anglican dioceses.

The geographic problems facing Canadians were great. For a great many citizens, all energy was absorbed in making a living and attempting to maintain a state that defied so many of the basic geographic laws of nationhood. As a result, ideas were largely imported, and theology suffered along with the other fields of thought. So Canadian Christians, clerical and lay, have never been distinguished as a theologically minded lot. The tradition of self-conscious loyalty to Britain has undoubtedly encouraged our well-known qualities of moderation and unimaginativeness, while the “French fact”—one-third of the population, centered in Quebec, maintaining French law, language, religion, and culture—has exerted its own pressure on Canadian Protestantism.

Another distinctive of the Canadian religious situation was the tendency to treat the fourth of the population that came from Central and Eastern Europe as pieces of a mosaic rather than ingredients for the melting pot. As a result, Canadian Protestantism has largely been deprived of the great benefits conferred upon its southern neighbor by the active participation of those of European background in the mainstream of evangelical life.

Theologically, the changes, though predictable, have been amazingly pervasive. There were able champions of biblical Christianity, such as Principal Caven of the Presbyterians’ Knox College and that remarkable group of men at the Anglicans’ Wycliffe: Sheraton, O’Meara, Dyson Hague, and Griffith Thomas. But they were bypassed. Late nineteenth-century Canadian clerical biography shows that many men looked to F. W. Robertson of Brighton, Channing, and Bucher as their popular theological mentors, and one does not need much imagination to know where this would end.

Methodism moved most quickly in this direction, and after the church union in 1925 the United Church appeared to many to be entirely dominated by this approach. Accordingly, it has had difficulty in keeping its evangelical people from running off to the smaller denominations. And it has the reputation, at least, of a liberal theological intolerance. Responsible leaders in the church have often said, for example, that you can’t have both its New Curriculum and Billy Graham.

Canadian Anglicanism, sometimes described as possessing glacial mobility, may not have moved very fast but has generally moved along the lines laid down by Gore in Lux Mundi, which might be described as a synthesis of high-churchmanship and liberalism. The 40 per cent or so of the Presbyterians who remained out of the church union in 1925 have often been accorded evangelical accolades from around the world, which are not altogether in order. Remaining Presbyterian did not necessarily make one a true-blue Reformed theologian, although often it did most certainly imply this. Many lay people remained Presbyterian through inertia or a dislike of the enthusiastic Methodists. Among the ministers, there was at least one—and he the principal of one of the theological colleges after 1925—who stayed Presbyterian because he feared the doctrine of the United Church might not be modern enough. A kind of liberal evangelicalism prevailed in the Baptist colleges; but this, of course, was not necessarily reflected widely in the pulpits, and certainly not in the pews.

Barthianism had considerable influence in Canadian theological circles after World War II, but it is questionable how far these views have penetrated even that often mentioned intangible “the intelligent layman,” let alone the average church member. And, of course, under the modem movements, academic theology is marching leftward once again.

As for worship, it is probably enough to say that almost every Canadian congregation has been influenced to some degree by the liturgical revival. Prayer meetings or midweek services have largely disappeared, except among the staunchly evangelical. Cell groups are supposed to have taken their place, and one can only hope this is so. But in the absence of evidence in Canada for the mushrooming of home Bible studies that is reported in parts of the States, one is uncertain. A statement once heard in a church in Cambridge may hold true for Canada as well as England: “The only people who really know how to pray are the Roman Catholics and the conservative evangelicals.” Evening services are absent in most suburban congregations, but many city churches hold on to them. Increasingly, however, the Board of Managers is debating whether it pays to heat up the church for just a handful.

If evangelicalism was present in Canada’s early days, then surely evangelism was there as well. In the 1770s and ’80s Henry Alline engaged in a peripatetic ministry among the expatriate New Englanders of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and his ministry did much to establish what is still the pattern of Baptist witness in that area. The early Methodists, many of them sent northward by Asbury, used all the revivalistic methods, such as camp meetings, protracted services, and the mourner’s bench. Presbyterian moderates were naturally skeptical of special evangelistic efforts, but so were the evangelicals when they looked across the border and saw what evangelism had apparently done to Finney’s theology. Among them, however, Calvinistic, parochial evangelism flourished. Many of the Scottish immigrants of the 1830s and ’40s had come under the influence of such great evangelists in the old land as “The Apostle of the North,” Dr. Macdonald of Ferintosh, and their new communities in the backwoods of Canada often throbbed with evangelistic activity.

One of the most famous seasons of evangelism took place in the congregation at Kirkhill in Glengarry in eastern Ontario in 1862; it was recorded in The Man from Glengarry by one of Canada’s premier story-tellers, Ralph Connor, a son of the Kirkhill manse. The minister used by God at this time was Daniel McVicar, and in 1867 he became the principal of Montreal’s newly founded Presbyterian College, which was a direct outgrowth of the evangelistic effectiveness of those days. The outstanding evangelistic venture among the Anglicans occurred in 1877 when the Rev. W. H. Rainsford of England conducted a preaching mission in St. James’ Cathedral, Toronto. Thousands were won to Christ, and Wycliffe College was founded to train converts offering themselves for the ministry.

To meet the challenge of the cities, the professional evangelists appeared on the scene. D. L. Moody came to Toronto in 1884. Soon after, the various Methodist conferences were appointing full-time evangelists, the best known of whom were the team of Crossley and Hunter. This movement continued until about the First World War but then lost its impetus among the major denominations. Evangelism was by no means dead, however; it was pressed forward in strategic independent congregations in the major cities. The story has yet to be written of The Metropolitan Tabernacle of Ottawa, The People’s Church of Toronto, The Philpott Tabernacle of Hamilton, Elim Chapel of Winnipeg, and the Metropolitan Tabernacle of Vancouver. When it is, their evangelistic ministry during the 1920s and ’30s will be seen to have had a significant effect upon Canadian Christianity. The surge of evangelism that covered much of Alberta and western Saskatchewan in the mid-thirties, at the height of drought and depression, and that threw up the remarkable phenomena of the prairie Bible schools, best exemplified by those at Three Hills and Briarcrest, sent hundreds and even thousands of young people to the mission field. These missionaries naturally carried the torch of evangelism with them. This prairie movement may yet be seen to be one of the most significant Canadian contributions to the world church.

In the post World War era, Youth for Christ again made evangelism a live option. Many who were repelled by this organization nonetheless began to rethink the question of evangelism. And soon preaching evangelism, visitation evangelism, friendship evangelism, and so on were fully in vogue. Often this was a pragmatic movement in which any form of evangelism was used as long as it could get people related to the church.

But popular evangelism seems to have had its day in non-evangelical circles, and now men with theologically non-evangelical convictions and sociological expertise are charting the course. Interestingly, however, it is the Pentecostals, with their kerygmatic evangelism, who are increasing fastest in Canada, even though they have had almost no help from the thing that has contributed greatly to the growth of other communions: immigration. A sign that the older evangelism still has a wide appeal is the entrance into the ranks of the evangelists of three greatly gifted young ministers: Leighton Ford, a Presbyterian; Meryle Dolan, a Baptist; and Marwood Patterson, an Anglican.

A word should be said about social and political issues. Canadians generally do not share the pietistic fear of their evangelical brethren in the United States about a positive relation between the churches and the government. Separation of church and state has never been a widely held Canadian dogma, at least within the churches; rather, cooperation has been the motto. With the increasing complexities of bureaucratic society, this essential Canadian tradition naturally turns to the problem of the social and economic structures themselves. Where biblical moorings are well-nigh lost, this, of course, is considered to be evangelism, or at least a satisfactory substitute. But where the faith is strong, evangelism and social responsibility go hand in hand.

Finally, a word about the picture of Protestant church life in Canada today. Among the smaller denominations, which are usually strongly evangelical, there seems to be some moderation in the spirit of separatistic exclusiveness. Among the ethnic churches, which again often have a strong evangelical testimony, there is a movement to have increased contact with his fellow Christians of other backgrounds. This is particularly true of sections of the Lutheran Church, the Mennonites, and the Baptist groups of European origin.

And what of the non-evangelical sections of the churches? The continual comment that one seems to here is: “Where are their young people?” This inability of a culturally accommodating Christian to challenge the young is borne out by the theological college statistics, which have shown a drastic slump in recent years. In contrast is the crowded conditions of Toronto Bible College and other similar institutions. It is easy to dismiss the drawing power of such schools by speaking of their simplex approach to complex issues, but this by no means deals with the whole matter. And the inadequacy of this answer is substantiated by the number of well-trained university graduates who are heading to the United States for an academically respectable and consistently evangelical theological training, which they do not feel they can get at home.

Then there are the evangelicals in the major denominations. In the Maritime provinces, Baptists—the great bulk of whom are evangelical—are seeking to exert pressure to bring their educational institutions into more sympathetic alignment with the church as a whole. In the Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec, the same spirit was at work when a proposal to endorse the United Church’s New Curriculum was thrown out by an overwhelming majority. Among the Presbyterians, it is interesting to see that the evangelicals have their strength among the younger men, a situation that can in considerable measure be attributed to the work of Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship. A national branch of the Evangelical Fellowship in the Anglican Communion has been gaining encouraging support. And in the United Church there are younger evangelicals who are making their voices heard.

Evangelicals in the larger denominations are subject to pressures that are often intense and will in all probability increase. Yet they hold fast to their desire to walk the razor’s edge of faithfulness to the Lord and obedience to his word, while avoiding the pitfalls of a sub-biblical gospel and an introverted sectarianism.

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.

Religious aspects of Canada’s lavish centennial celebration will leap over ecclesiastical and theological lines. Top clergy of virtually all denominations share the patriotic spirit, and even some United States clergymen plan to lend their presence to the observance. The list of special events ranges from evangelistic campaigns to new interfaith programs. Note:

♦ Billy Graham and his Canadian associate, Leighton Ford, will crusade in several centennial evangelistic campaigns during 1967. Dr. Carl F. H. Henry, editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, has been invited to conduct an extensive lecture tour across the nation.

♦ A centennial hymn or anthem is being created by poet-diplomat Robert Choquette and Dr. Healey Willan, dean of Canadian composers.

♦ An Interfaith Anthology of Prayers will be edited by Dr. Ramsay Armitage, former principal of Wycliffe College, Toronto. It is to draw on Christian, Hebrew, Muslim, and Buddhist doxologies and present “both traditional and modern viewpoints,” according to the Centennial Commission.

♦ A number of other centennial ecumenical experiments are being conducted. As an example, the commission reported that Mennonites in Edmonton plan to spend a day touring a mosque and meeting Muslims.

As its gift to Canadian Christians on the nation’s 100th birthday, CHRISTIANITY TODAY attempts an evangelical assessment of the religious situation. This is the first time that an entire issue of the magazine has been centered on one country.

Whatever one thinks of Canada’s tradition against the printing and sale of Sunday newspapers, it indicates the tenacity with which she can cling to a principle with its roots in Christian precepts. The ongoing role of Canadian churches is examined by the dean of the nation’s Protestant clergymen, Dr. James R. Mutchmor (see page 5).

Canada has also held on to the principle of promoting population growth—when most countries are trying to curb it. Underpopulated Canada welcomed 200,000 immigrants last year. The federal government bestows a monthly subsidy upon every child in the land. Contraceptives are still illegal, partly because of religious influence, partly because of a general resistance to change. Within the churches themselves, however, a vast array of changes can be documented, as Ian Rennie does (page 8).

A Toronto theologian, Dr. C. E. Feilding, recently completed a three-year study of ministerial training in Canada for the accrediting agency of North America. He charged that major Canadian denominations are lowering educational standards to retain students, and that some candidates who fail are ordained. Meanwhile, churches go from one theological controversy to another. Dr. Thomas Harpur examines the theological climate, beginning on page 14. Discussions of other important aspects of Canada’s present religious situation will be found on pages 11, 12, 16, and 19.

Overall, perhaps the most thought-provoking thing to be said about Canada concerns her staggering potential. This potential is very obvious on the physical level as one scans the vastness of her border. But Canada’s greatest opportunities may well be ideological or even spiritual. Her future can well be the envy of many a nation.

Canada’S Religions

Chart compiled from government census figures. The population of most Canadian churches is usually given on the basis of what people say they are, rather than in terms of actually counting members in full communion. Census enumerators in 1961 were instructed to “record the specific religious body, denomination, sect or community reported in answer to the question ‘What is your religion?’ ”

This special issue is dedicated to the evangelical witness in our great neighbor-land to the north. CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S news editor is securely married to a Canadian (Pat Kucharsky comes from Hamilton, Ontario); hence this is an appropriate time to salute this colleague’s fine journalistic contribution. David Eugene Kucharsky (“Gene,” as he is called) joined us on January 1, 1958, coming from the Pittsburgh bureau of United Press International. In the years since then he has shaped the most effective and widely read religious news section in Christian journalism. Mrs. Kucharsky—along with the three young Kucharsky daughters—will be glad to read here of our tenth-year recognition of her husband’s conscientious labors: with the next issue he will hold, along with Dr. Harold Lindsell, the rank of associate editor. Gene Kucharsky’s new role will include supervisory direction of the news operation but will also give him the chance to project and prepare periodic interpretative news features for the main essay section.

At the same time, Richard Ostling becomes news editor, a post in which he will maintain close liaison with CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S religious journalism fellows under the Washington Journalism Center.