United Church of Canada: Ecumenicity at Work in Northern Setting

The Canadians headed north. From the Strait of Georgia in the West to Newfoundland’s Conception Bay in the East, from the distant Maritimes, Cartier’s French-accented St. Lawrence country, Ontario’s southward-jutting industrial wedge, the banks of the Assiniboine, from the measureless prairies and towering Rockies they came, some 400 of them. They were commissioners of the United Church of Canada, their nation’s largest Protestant communion—more than 1,000,000 adult communicants—and for the first time their General Council meeting brought them to the fast-growing northern city of Edmonton, Alberta. Site of the nineteenth meeting of their highest court was the red brick McDougall United Church overlooking the wooded banks of the North Saskatchewan River which, like some northern Danube, winds through prairie country where nineteenth-century Methodist missionary George McDougall labored so well among Blackfeet, Crees, and Stonys as to be largely credited with the absence of Indian wars in the area.

After sending an “Address of Loyalty” to the Queen, in which the Council pledged “allegiance to the Throne and Your Person,” the commissioners sought fulfillment of their appointed task “to enact such legislation and adopt such measures as may tend to promote true godliness, repress immorality, preserve the unity and well-being of the Church, and advance the Kingdom of Christ throughout the world.”

Commission reports produced only a moderate amount of debate, carried on in accents somehow reminiscent of a distant skirl of bagpipes. These were among the major issues:

Alcohol. The United Church has a strong tradition favoring total abstinence, unsuccessful efforts having been made in the past to condition church membership upon abstention. But some have complained of loss of members to the Anglican Church over this issue. A lengthy report slightly softening the church’s stand was adopted with few changes and surprisingly little opposition. While recommending voluntary total abstinence as the “wisest and safest course,” it also urged avoidance of excess by those “who exercise their right to use alcoholic beverages” and asserted the obligation of those of both opinions to maintain Christian fellowship with each other in tolerant spirit. Said one churchman, “I’m sorry to see us losing our crusading spirit on this issue.”

Birth Control. The Council approved a frank 66-page report by its Commission on Christian Marriage and Divorce, which declared the sexual act to be “for the perfecting of husband and wife, quite apart from its relation to procreation.” Ministers are to help those contemplating marriage consider factors relating to their decisions as to number and spacing of children, as well as urge them to get medical advice “concerning means of conception control that are both medically approved and aesthetically acceptable to both of them and in accord with their Christian conscience.” Traditionally strong for birth control, the Council withheld approval of abortion except when pregnancy seriously endangers the mother’s health. Artificial insemination by husband was sanctioned, while artificial insemination by donor was rejected as leading to “grave genetic, emotional, social and legal problems.”

International Affairs. The Council adopted substantially a report of its committee on the Church and International Affairs which asked the Canadian government to “reassess” its defense policy. The report advocated surrender of Canadian sovereignty “to the extent necessary to establish world order,” but questioned the wisdom of surrendering “decision making to such organizations as NORAD” and providing sites for U. S. missiles. Declaring Canada to be “faced with the urgent task of revising” her defense policy and her international posture, the report spoke optimistically of the possibility of Canadian alignment with the world’s neutralist nations and unilateral renunciation of nuclear warfare.

There is strong pacifist sentiment within the United Church. One highly placed churchman estimated that 25 per cent of her ministers would like to see Canada disarm unilaterally. Economic and moral reasons are set forth, among others. Trumpeted one commissioner: “I don’t want to die in nuclear war.”

This particular brand of pacifism, it is said, is to be distinguished from the classical type espoused by the historic “peace churches” which claim a thoroughgoing biblically-based pacifism. For exponents of the former favor a United Nations police force. Indeed, the Council voted that Canada should “provide as the chief task of its armed forces” her full share of an “enlarged and more effective U. N. police force.”

A motion favoring withdrawal from present military alliances, including NATO, was defeated.

The council voted for Canadian pressure toward an “international agreement (subject to international inspection and control) halting all nuclear tests etc. for destructive purposes.” It also reaffirmed its opinion of 1952, 1956, and 1958 that Canada “should give de facto recognition” to Red China and support its admission to the U. N. Principal E. J. Thompson of Edmonton’s St. Stephen’s College urged the United Church to hold conversations with the leaders of Red China and U.S.S.R.

Capital Punishment. Abolition of the death sentence was urged, to be replaced by a statutory life term with treatment and “the possibility of remission and parole.” Prisons are to be looked on as hospitals. Parole is to be withheld as long as retention is required by the well-being of society and the prisoner.

The United Church of Canada was formed in 1925 through merger of the nation’s Methodists, Congregationalists, and some 70 per cent of its Presbyterians. The resultant polity has been described as “pretty Presbyterian,” though little hope is seen at present for union with the “continuing Presbyterians.” But the United Church wishes to be known as a “uniting church” and has been carrying on conversations with the All-Canada Conference of the Church of Christ (Disciples) and the Canada Conference of the Evangelical United Brethren Church. However, greatest interest is in conversations with the Anglican Church of Canada, which have had their ups and downs for some 15 years, the issue of Episcopal ordination providing a formidable barrier to the desired “organic union.” A study guide outlining relationships between the two communions is now to be sent United Church congregations, the Council decided. The climate of the current conversations is described as “cordial” but actual cooperation as “spotty.”

On “Ecumenical Night,” along with eminent American Presbyterian Eugene Carson Blake, the Council heard the primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, the Most Rev. Dr. Howard H. Clark, advocate unity but at the same time point to the “great distance” between segments of the two churches—e.g. Anglo-Catholics and liberal United churchmen, “whose Chistology is difficult to distinguish from … Unitarian.”

“Continuing Presbyterians” tend to look upon the United Chuch as lacking a theology—hotly denied by some United churchmen, who point to the statement of faith contained in the original Basis of Union. It is said that modernism in the church is fading. On the other hand, one leader claimed there is “practically no fundamentalism per se in the United Church’ ” identifying this with “literalism,” though he claimed there is considerable “orthodoxy.”

Elected moderator for the two years until next General Council, was Dr. Hugh A. McLeod, 66, minister of Winnipeg’s Knox United Church. Reared in modernist thought, he is becoming more fundamental as the years pass, he said.

Retiring moderator Dr. Angus J. MacQueen pointed to United Church weaknesses which are reflected in need for renewed zeal for missions and church reunion, as well as a revitalized spiritual life. Following church union in 1925 there was a surplus of ministers, but now a severe shortage of ministerial candidates has reached emergency proportions, according to one educator, and not only among French Canadians. Church growth is lagging well behind the nation’s population increase. Every conference showed a drop in new members by profession of faith. Four-fifths of all money raised remains within the congregational treasury—“a shocking proof of self-centeredness,” charges Dr. MacQueen. Remarked one minister who had transferred from another church five years earlier: “This is a fascinating church to work in but it’s a sleeping giant.”

But signs of hope were seen in Council action to enlarge industrial chaplaincy work and enter a new mission field—South America. It also voted merger of the church’s two women’s groups, hoping for greater effectiveness in missions support particularly.

Friends of the United Church would be encouraged by the Board of Overseas Missions’ call for faithful prayer, stressing the imperative of reliance upon the Holy Spirit. Heartening too are Dr. MacQueen’s words: “Christianity is not just one more among the world’s religions. It is unique. God came in all the fullness of His truth and grace in Jesus Christ for the whole world. This is the story we have to tell to the nations.”

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