A searchable, downloadable PDF of the original article appears below. Hans Kouwenberg is pastor of St Giles Church, Prince George, B.C.
The Resistance to Church Union in Canada 1904-1939, by N. Keith Clifford, U.B.C. Press, 1985, 274 pp. $24.95.
Anyone who studies for the preaching-teaching and pastoral ministry in the Presbyterian Church in Canada has to study the union in 1925 of the Methodist, Congregational, and about two-thirds of the Presbyterian Churches in Canada. It is a question of where we have come from as a church and where we are going. But it is not a question to be studied by “professionals” alone. Indeed, from a renewalist’s point of view, it is significant that much of the resistance to union came from inspired “lay people” – leaders and ordinary church folk alike.
If only this book had been written when I went to college! Although begun as a study of some recently discovered papers of the “Presbyterian Church Association” – one of three groupings of opponents of church union – this book provides an excellent overview of the events leading up to and following that hopeful or fateful (depending upon your point of view) marriage or disruption of Churches in Canada. True, the focus is on “the resistance to church union”, but it outlines this fascinating story in well-documented detail, rich with vignettes. Keith Clifford, a United Churchman, was inspired by the late Professor Allan L. Farris of Knox College to write the story. The story is written in that human, compelling, story-telling style which was so characteristic of Clifford’s guide.
The story moves from the original reaction against the proposal of union by Robert Campbell, the Senior Clerk at the Assembly in 1904. It was he “who defined the issues, exposed the irregularity of the unionists’ procedure, and proposed the alternative [federation] around which the first resistance organization crystallized” (p. 26). Clifford then records the court’s votes in 1911-12 and elaborates on the preaching, pamphleteering, and politicking that took place at that time. Books were written, debated, and often ignored. Campbell’s “The Revelations of the Christian Churches” (1913) was one such significant volume on the question, defending denominationalism and Presbyterianism, which didn’t continue to play a major role in the later stages of the controversy.
The activities of the first “loyal” opposition group, the “Church Federation Association” formed in 1910 are chronicled. It was “the first time a formal organization had been created outside the structures of the church to oppose the action of the General Assembly publicly” (p. 43). Having found no reasonable hope of having their complaints heard within the courts of the church, it was inevitable that resistance movements should be initiated outside the structures of the church. “Once this happened, the point of no return was reached, for it suddenly transformed the controversy from debate within the assembly into an organized fight within the church as a whole over the right of the General Assembly to legislate the church out of existence. By pressing the dissidents too hard, the unionists thus lost whatever chance they had of exercising institutional control over them” (p.48). Doesn’t this teach us that minority opinions within our denomination should always be heard and given some form of recognition? Isn’t the time now ripe for our denomination to allow the wise practice of ‘‘majority” and ‘‘minority” reports so that more positions may gain a full hearing?
Further “vacillating or attempting to bludgeon the opposition into conformity” by the unionists “only served to stiffen the resistance” (p. 60). Another opposition group was formed in 1913: the “Organization for the Preservation and Continuance of the Presbyterian Church in Canada”. Powerful lay leadership such as that of John Penman of Paris, Ontario, in effect, took over the resistance movement from the hands of the clergy. In “a quiet but systematic fashion” they identified their constituency. “They made no speeches and issued no statements: they simply sent out hundreds of letters and carefully filed the names and addresses of those who gave them a positive response” (pp. 67-68). Although they worked behind the scenes, acted on by such prominent protagonists for the cause as the Rev. Dr. Ephraim Scott and others, they laid the important groundwork.
After a second unsatisfactory vote in the courts of the church on the question of union in 1915-16, the resisters took up their cause again with a thorough job of “using the press, producing pamphlets, and holding public meetings” (p. 74). Apparently they were better at this than the unionists, who were virtually unprepared for public controversy. After a further frustrating vote for union at the 1916 Assembly, a convocation of resisters signed “a solemn league and covenant,” pledging themselves “to maintain and continue the Presbyterian Church in Canada” and they regrouped in a new organization called the “Presbyterian Church Association” (p. 92).
Clifford details some of the “devastating pressure of propaganda” resistance group (the papers of which were the original impetus for this book). Apparently, they were able to have the moderate unionists re-evaluate their position and reconsider negotiating. But in the end, after a “truce” from 1917-20, the unionists’ cause was pressed again, hostilities were resumed, and in 1923 “the churches decided to proceed with the consummation of union” (p. 142). The strategy of this Association in the conflict over legislation, division of property and finances, and finally, the 14 years of controversy from 1925 over the use of the name “The Presbyterian Church in Canada,” which was allowed, grudgingly, by amendment to The United Church of Canada Act, is all chronicled by Clifford step by step. For some, it may be tedious, but for me it is a story well told. True, one wishes with another reviewer, Dr. George Johnston of McGill, that more had been told of what else besides “fighting” took up the interests of the Presbyterian Church during this time; however, then I suppose the story would have lost its bite and adventure. Above all, it is a readable account, insightful for those who’ve heard it once or twice or never at all.
One wishes that Clifford had drawn a few more conclusions, both within the body and at the end of his book, although his 12 page introduction is a helpful reflection on the whole work. One’s conclusions would differ, of course, depending on whether one thought the resistance was a good thing or not; on whether the Presbyterian Church was worth preserving. Clearly, I think it was and is. Because of Clifford’s book more precise conclusions may now be drawn about the reasons of many for staying out of the United Church and about the distinctives which would govern the continuing Presbyterian Church for the next couple of generations. Certainly there were poor reasons for staying out: an intransigent ethnicism, a conservative traditionalism, and a sheer stubborn wish to perpetuate an institution in which one’s fathers and mothers had worshipped are not admirable, biblical Christian concepts. But weren’t certain idealistic reasons for going into union equally ill-founded? Had the moderates on either side been fully heard the outcome might have been different and more productive. But as is usual in “church fights” such was not to be. A major disruption occurred. And on the whole, as Clifford points out in his introductory reflections, “those Presbyterians who opposed church union made a significant decision which has withstood the test of time” (p. 5).
I want to make a couple of concluding observations. First, as one interested in the cause of renewal I am intrigued by the fact that it was “a conservative lay movement”, but “not as some have suggested, a reactionary movement” that carried the flag and preserved the church “from what it perceived to be an unwarranted attack upon its continued existence” (pp. 2- 3). Cannot this be a clue to the native wit and wisdom of the ordinary person in the pew who will only be pushed so far as far as new theologies and expressions of worship are concerned? Recently, I have observed how many of the rank and file of a sister denomination have reacted against an overradicalization and politicization of the gospel, especially in the area of homosexual “rights”. Many in that church were prepared to and indeed did vote with their feet. Perhaps the clergy should lead in the issues of the day, but isn’t there some “folk wisdom”, as Allan Farris used to say, among the common, lay people too? Part of the genius of the Presbyterian Church in Canada is that, neither narrowly “fundamental” nor modernistically “liberal”, it will not abandon the basics of the gospel, that it still takes the Bible seriously, and that it will not experiment indiscriminately. Isn’t this so?
Second, I observe in Clifford’s book that then, even as now, when church politics get “hot”, some leave the fray. I am intrigued to know more about the Rev. John Mackay, the principal of Westminster Hall in Vancouver, who left the fight in 1912 to turn “his attention to the development of the Corpus Christi Movement in Canada, which concentrated on the spiritual renewal of the church through small groups (p. 59); and, the Rev. R.A. MacBeth, who, although not entirely out of the battle, had left Ontario in 1914 “to become an itinerant evangelist on the west coast” (p. 77). Although one can understand and even be empathetic to such retreat or redirection, thank God for those who stayed the course! These and other stories are worth following up.
Third, and finally, especially in this day and age of the unfortunate blurring of denominational lines yet helpful lowering of denominational barriers, this book may serve as an impetus to renewed appreciation of our confessional heritage. Indeed, in the spirit of a healthier ecumenism which values the particular identity and heritage of Christian partners in dialogue, this book will aid in helping others as well as ourselves to understand where we have come from and where we must yet struggle to go.