Canadian Religious Innovations

While Americans have abounded in new religions over the past two centuries, it can be argued that Canadians did not invent a single new religious denomination in the same period.

There has been nothing like Mormons streaming northward, or Jehovah's Witnesses building Kingdom Halls and going door to door. (These may happen in Canada, but they're not of Canada.) There's no equivalent of the New Thought wave that spreads out from California, and pulls its affiliates back to conferences there.

However, there has been significant religious and spiritual innovation grow out of Canada's historical experience. This was rooted in the milestone we looked at last posting: the 1774 Quebec Act with its protection of Roman Catholics' rights, and the 1791 Constitutional Act that continued this protection when Quebec was divided into Upper and Lower Canada.

This accommodation was not originally about benevolence but keeping factions from each other's throats, to ensure the "peace, welfare and good governance" of the Province(s). It has led to a political culture where religious zeal did not have the backing of the authorities. As extremism declined over the next century, this laid the basis of a tolerant and pluralistic society.

On a day-to-day level, this tolerance was first applied in Upper Canada (Ontario) where a number of protestant denominations were in competition for the privileges enjoyed by the Roman Catholic Church in Quebec. After a time, they ceased competing for the same turf and began to develop specialties and niches.

The Church of England and the Church of Scotland (Anglican/ Episcopal and Presbyterian) were dominant in built up communities with a social hierarchy and Anglo-Saxon majority. But in the rural hinterland, Methodists made strong inroads as their circuit riders were prepared to go where the establishment clergy would not, to conduct weddings and funerals.

This complementary work in social and geographic ministries eventually led to other examples of reduced sectarianism in the two centuries that followed. Examples of this spirit include:

The United Church of Canada resulted from a 1925 union of Congregationalists, Methodists and two thirds of Canada's Presbyterian churches. Today there are practically no independent Congregationalists in Canada and very few "Free Methodist" churches. Canadian Presbyterian churches are those that chose not to join the UCC, and others descended from them.

The UCC gained a large membership and infrastructure that made it Canada's largest protestant denomination. A downside was a reticence to discuss theology for a generation after the Union, in fear of opening old rifts. As a result of this avoidance, the Church's stand on some issues has been seen to be vapid and vacuous.

Canadian Baptists was invited to joined the 1925 Union and declined. Yet they have been non-sectarian, and contributed to the national spirit out of proportion to their size in numbers.

Canada's mainstream Baptists are non-conformers in the British tradition: non-hierarchical and non-credal: they believe in freedom of conscience and refuse to adopt a binding statement of faith. This parallels their country: the person who can define Canada has not been born and both parents are deceased!

This type of innovative freedom underlay the first democratically elected socialist regime in the New World: Saskatchewan's Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) , led by Baptist Minister T. C. ("Tommy") Douglas.

It was the tradition in which McMaster, Acadia and Brandon universities were founded (now non-denominational). It was the position of the Baptist Leadership Training School (BLTS), a broadly based, committed lay leadership institution described by American Baptist officials as "unmatched in our experience."

Another pioneer in this tradition is Reginald Bibby, premier church sociologist in North America. A graduate of BLTS, ordained minister and man of faith as well as a scholar, Dr. Bibby has helped those of many denominations understand the world they live in and their own place in it.

The Edmonton City Centre Church Corporation is a current (40 yr old) local model of a joint ministry comprising all the major denominations in a downtown core. Asked to speak on "Cooperation in the City Centre," one of its founding pastors retorted, "The name of the game isn't 'cooperation,' it's 'witness' and churches competing with each other is a lousy witness."

The ecumenical spirit is evident at the Yasodhara Ashram , Kootenay Lake BC, where the Temple of Divine light encompasses and honors all the world's major religious traditions. Ashram founder Swami Sivananda Radha was born and married in Germany, trained in India, and established a series of yoga training centres throughout North America.

Swami Radha's mission was universal. Her citizenship was global, yet it was in Canada she chose to base her work. A vision of her calling first came to her in Montreal, the "island at the meeting of two great rivers" seen in the visions of Canada's Pilgrim Mothers who came to build that city.

One of these mothers of Montreal was Marguerite d'Youville, founder of the Sisters of Charity or Grey Nuns. A widow with two young sons, she opened her home to the poor. Her movement has established shelters, hospitals, residences and centres for those with disabilities across Canada and beyond.

These are examples of a type of religious expression that has emerged in Canada: compassionate and inclusive, nurturing and non-credal, committed and non-judgmental. It is the type of experience that comes from different people who are learning to live together in wholeness.