For some, religion is a divisive influence excluding the rest of life from what they hold sacred. But Anglican theology has been a uniting one that brings the whole of life together. As a result, Anglicans found no problem with their king or queen being the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and in the new 'colonies of British North America, they had no difficulty integrating their old faith with their new life. Sometimes this got them into trouble as it did when the Reverend John Strachan, first rector of York and much later first bishop of Toronto, too easily assumed Ontario (or Upper Canada as it was called) could function as if it were England. His attempts to establish the Anglican Church through the Clergy Reserves (a crown lands arrangement that was a kind of equivalent to today's public funding) were aborted. So were his efforts to make the colony's first university an Anglican preserve. But no matter. The Church won its place in the hearts of the English who settled there, and grew in numbers as they did. This growth was not by state initiative, the Church always funding itself, but it so paralleled the growth of the country that the one seemed part of the other. As waves of English immigrants rolled ashore before and after World War I, their Church (called "the Church of England in Canada" from 1893 to 1955) followed them wherever they settled.

      

The town of Lloydminster, straddling the Saskatchewan-Alberta border, tells that story. It bears one man's name to this day as a tribute to the enterprising leadership that made the community possible. After a productive ministry as a chaplain in Penetanguishene, Ontario, and as a rector in Rothesay, New Brunswick, where he founded its highly respected school in 1891, Rev. George Exton Lloyd became chaplain to the English settlers recruited by the Reverend I.M. Barr. When Barr deserted them in Saskatchewan, they might have been chaff before the wind but for Lloyd. At once he assumed full charge, commanded the cooperation of officials and led his anxious colonists to the land they had travelled so far to settle. It did not occur to Lloyd that as a man of the cloth he should not undertake secular responsibilities. He saw a need to fill and he filled it without drawing a line between the spiritual and the worldly.

Like most Canadian religious communions, the Church, of which he would later become a bishop, has contributed to the whole of this country's life. Its clergy and laity have founded universities and colleges—like King's in Halifax, Bishop's in Lennoxville, Trinity in Toronto, Huron in London, and St. John's in Winnipeg. Anglicans often built the first schools and hospitals for entire regions, such as Inuvik near the mouth of the Mackenzie, or Moose Factory on the shores of James Bay.

      

Their clergy and laity have taken their place in public offices, seeing them as opportunities to serve equally to those in the pulpit or at the altar. The Reverend Henry Cody, for example, had not long presided over the building of this country's largest parish Church when the then premier of Ontario asked him to become Minister of Education. He did, also winning a seat in the legislature, without resigning his parish. In his eyes and his congregation's there was no gap between one ministry and another. Significantly, the longest tenure of anyone ever to sit in the Ontario legislature was that of another Anglican cleric, the Reverend A.W. Downer. He held a seat there from 1937 to 1981, all those years serving as a rector of Duntroon, a rural parish whose people were so devoted to their priest they often delayed funerals until he could return from his other ministry at Queen's Park.

Anglican identification with Canadian society has not exceeded that of other communions, but is an example of how church people, clerical and lay alike, have been part of the warp and woof of their country's structure. Missionaries thus created the written form of some Indian languages, these native people having had no need of anything other than an oral tradition until, having become Christian, they wanted to study the Bible, read the liturgy and sing the hymns of their new faith. A missionary bishop, such as John Hordern, thus had to create a kind of alphabet to do his translation work. The native language, into which he had to translate, simply had no written symbols. So he created them in the form of syllabics and thus made an incomparable contribution to the native culture's development.

United Church

Our largest Protestant communion, the United Church of Canada, made history when it was formed in 1925, by merging the Methodist and Congregational Churches of Canada with about 70 percent of the Presbyterians. This merger was one of the first of its kind in the world, and the United Church's growth to 2,201,925 laity in 4,246 Churches, served by 3,962 clergy, shows how firm that pioneering commitment was.

      

It also made history as the first major "homegrown" Church. All the other large communions of this country have come from other lands, usually with immigrants from those lands. Its antecedents, of course, were not of Canadian origin, Methodism and Congregationalism both having been started in England, Canada's Presbyterians tracing their history mostly to Scotland and Ireland. But the United Church of Canada was truly "of Canada", its development resulting from efforts so characteristic of this country.

This merger of three Churches did not just spring itself on people, but emerged from years of working together. The prairies, with their small and scattered populations, had known years of active cooperation, with congregations often sharing facilities and ministries. The idea of a merger required years of conferencing before the final decision in 1925, and involved the promises and accommodations that alone could make the union real and lasting. But Canadians have always had a genius for that kind of reciprocity. The Quebec Act of 1774, for example, laid the foundation for a country whose survival would always depend on differences being mutually accepted. Since that time Canada's religious life has been singularly free from major or lasting controversy, the Canadian capacity for comprehending differences making it possible for our people to worship distinctively without coming apart. This is a country where Roman Catholic musicians have played in the Orange parade on many a July 12, just because their Protestant friends and neighbours needed the help. It was not surprising, therefore, that Canada's first major Church should be such an ecumenical achievement as the United Church of Canada.

      

Coming out of the West as it did to such an extent, it was only to be expected that the United Church of Canada should be a voice of social conscience. Political dissent has always found a ready response in the West, especially on the prairies, and it should not surprise anyone that among Canada's memorable voices for social protest have been several United Church ministers.

The Reverend James S. Woodsworth pastored the All People's Mission, of the Methodist Church, in North Winnipeg, until he so ran afoul of approved values during World War 1, that he had to resign his pastorate and finally his ministry. One of the heroes of the Winnipeg general strike of 1919, he soon carried his protest into parliament where he sat from 1921 until his death in 1942, having founded and led the C.C.F. from 1934 until 1939. His successor, as the Member for Winnipeg North Centre, was a United Church minister, the Reverend Stanley Knowles, who would become one of his parliament's leading authorities on rules of procedure and a champion of pensioners' rights.

From 1921 until 1984, with the exception of four years, that constituency was represented by two ministers of the character so often found in the United Church. Perhaps more than anyone else, Woodsworth deserves credit for persuading Prime Minister Mackenzie King to introduce the old age pension system in 1926, and his successor, Knowles, never ceased trying to improve it. The two of them are among the "greats" of our parliamentary history, both men exemplifying how much impact religion has had on our national life, significantly both belonging to the same tradition so identified with the United Church.

Presbyterians

Other churches, historically connected with the Protestant Reformation, have made the same kind of contribution. That so-called "continuing Presbyterians" (about 30 percent of their pre-1925 membership) could not only endure, but two generations later, still command respect as a national institution, shows how profound their commitment to their tradition was. It also shows the historic importance of the Scottish and Northern Irish communities with which Presbyterianism is so identified. So many leaders of Canada's government, judiciary, business, education and culture have been nurtured on "oatmeal porridge and the shorter catechism" that one might think Presbyterians had a formula for success. They have included many prime ministers, Supreme Court justices, corporation heads, university presidents, symphony conductors, that their fellow Canadians should ask just what it is their tradition can share with the rest of us.

      

But let us not make the mistake of thinking you have to roll your "R's" or speak with a brogue to be a Presbyterian. Too many Canadians have come from Korea, Taiwan and other countries, evangelized by Presbyterian missionaries, to justify that error.

The impact of the Reformed Churches in more recent years also demonstrates how Presbyterianism is not confined to any national community, but can be found wherever the teaching of the 16th century French theologian, John Calvin, has been dominant. Part of that Calvinist influence has always been a stress on education and the Reformed Churches have been extraordinarily active in supporting schools for their own children. In Ontario, for example, they have the largest number of elementary schools of any Protestant group.