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The previous post on the United Church of Canada reminded me of a paper I wrote in 1986 while studying at Regent College. The subject line of this post shows the paper topic. The history professor assigned a short paper on a topic of the student's choosing based on research in primary sources. (This was not the main research paper for the course.) In hopes that someone may find it interesting, I've scanned it for posting. Except for a few grammar and spelling corrections, the content is unchanged. It's relatively short, as college papers go, maybe seven type-written, double-spaced pages. To save space here, endnotes and bibliography have been omitted. If anyone wants them, I'll be happy to send them by e-mail.
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The movement to join the Methodist, Congregational, and Presbyterian Churches in Canada together into the United Church of Canada began in 1902 and did not culminate until 1925. The process of union engendered great controversy across the country because of strong, well-organized, and vocal opposition by a substantial number of Presbyterians. Legislative bodies in Ottawa and in all the provinces became embroiled in the debate in 1924 because laws had to be passed to incorporate the new church and provide for an orderly transfer of church properties. In the end, the Presbyterian Church in Canada split into two bitterly opposed factions, and slightly more than one-third of Canadian Presbyterians did not join the United Church.
The church union movement came to fruition in 1924-1925, when the enabling legislation was introduced and passed in the various legislatures. This paper will focus on the Ontario legislation for two reasons. First, two-thirds of Canada's Presbyterians lived in Ontario at that time. Second, the anti-unionist party of the Presbyterian Church was strongest in the big cities of eastern Canada, and especially so in Toronto.
On 26 March 1924, the Private Bills Committee of the Ontario legislature took up the church union bill presented by the proponents of union. Many committee members objected to the bill's stipulation that the three uniting denominations would cease legally to exist following union. This provision struck many as an encroachment on freedom of religion and a violation of the dissenters' civil rights because it had long been evident that a large minority of Presbyterians were unalterably opposed to union. Consequently, a majority of the committee voted to instruct its law clerk to amend the bill to provide "for the preservation of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, the Methodist Church or the Congregational Church as separate entities" and to give "to any congregation the right by vote of its members to remain in its mother church and to keep therein any property owned by it." Following passage of this amendment, the unionists decided to withdraw the bill from the Ontario legislature until after the federal government acted on it.
This paper will look at the editorial reactions of Toronto's two leading newspapers to the deliberations of the Private Bills Committee of the provincial government on the matter of church union. The newspapers in question were the pro-Conservative Toronto Telegram and the pro-Liberal Toronto Daily Star. The next part of the paper will focus on the Church Union Bill as it was considered and amended by the committee in early April of 1924. The third part of the paper will look at the editorial statements of the two newspapers upon the actual founding of the United Church of Canada on 10 June 1925. As we shall see, these papers consistently adopted partisan positions on church union: the Star was strongly in favour, the Telegram was opposed.
2. Church Union Legislation in Ontario, April 1924
A heated battle on the editorial pages of the Star and the Telegram began immediately after the Private Bills Committee passed its contentious amendment to the church union bill on 1 April 1924. The first volley was fired in the lead editorial in the Star of 2 April 1924, which denounced the amendment as "an impertinence," "meddling with the affairs of religious denominations," and "unwarrantable interference." The Star, ignoring the substantial internal dissension within the Presbyterian Church, blandly stated that the three churches "have resolved to unite." The government had "no right to change a church union movement into church secession."
The next day, the Telegram editorially denounced the arrogance of the unionists because they were, in effect, demanding that the province pass the legislation as they had presented it. The churches came to the legislature as private citizens, not as sovereigns, and the government was obligated "to deal justly with the civil rights of all citizens." In the opinion of the Telegram, the doctrine of the unionists "represents the principles of clericalism gone mad"; it "belongs in a theocracy, if anywhere. That doctrine is out of place in a free state."
The Telegram's entire editorial column of 4 April was devoted to the church union question. The Telegram asserted that it was taking neither the "anti side" nor the "pro side" of the issue, but rather the "country's side." The country had become involved in church union when the proponents of union appealed to the civil authority. By taking that step, the unionists had placed the fate of their cause in the hands of the government. The editorialist cited Scripture, "Thou hast appealed to Caesar and unto Caesar shalt thou go" [Acts 25:12], and applied it to the issue at hand: "A free church in a free state has no right to go to the Caesar of Parliamentary sovereignty with the demand that Caesar had nothing to do but put in legislative form the substance of decisions dictated by the church courts." Furthermore, minorities have a "birthright . . . to continue their church life" within their original denominations. Correctly observing that church union had deeply and bitterly divided Ontario Presbyterians, the Telegram said that the legislature is powerless to make the two parties live in peace "in a denomination chosen for them by the rulers of their church or of their country". The best that can be accomplished is to facilitate their parting in peace, and the newspaper suggested that the legislature mediate negotiations to that end.
The Star's lead editorial of the same day was entitled "A Church and State War." According to the Star, the amendment passed by the Private Bills Committee amounted to "[a] declaration of war by the legislature of Ontario against the Presbyterian and Methodist denominations." While acknowledging that the unionists had requested the province to pass the required legislation, the Star averred that the government "has no reason for not acquiescing." Moreover, the government was setting an improper precedent by perverting the intention of the proposed legislation. The amendment placed the state in the "impossible position" of saying that "once a denomination is formed it cannot cease to exist and that two or more denominations cannot unite on any terms."
The Star continued to press the pro-union position the next day. An editorial appearing on Saturday, 5 April, reiterated "the private bills committee has set itself to defeat the decision of three great churches to widen their fellowship so as to bring all within one communion." The amendment approved by the committee was contrary to the polities of the Methodist and Presbyterian Churches because it established "the local congregations as sovereign powers". The Star accused the legislature of refusing "to accept the voice of the church in its courts as the voice of the church", and said that the actions of the government amounted to a violation of the "separation of church and state."
Around that time, it became known that the unionists were considering withdrawing church union from the Ontario legislature until after the federal government had acted on the measure. The Telegram was vehemently opposed to this possibility and declared that the provincial government "should not permit the Church Union bill to be withdrawn." Political considerations seemed to be the Telegram's primary motivation, not a desire to further the anti-unionist cause. If the bill was withdrawn, "'Ontario blocks the way' will be the battle cry of clerical and lay politicians who seek to pervert enthusiasm for church union into a means of stirring up prejudice against a Conservative province and of making votes against the Conservative party."
In spite of the Telegram's editorial efforts, the church union bill was withdrawn from the Ontario legislature on 8 April 1924. The battle then shifted to Ottawa.
3. The United Church of Canada, 10 June 1925
The United Church of Canada Act, the federal law incorporating the church formed by the union of the Methodist, Congregational, and Presbyterian churches, received royal assent on 14 July 1924, and came into effect on 10 June 1925. Both of the leading Toronto newspapers gave extensive coverage to the ceremonies marking this event, including lengthy editorials.
On the front page of its 10 June edition, the Star ran a short editorial entitled "The Christian Convocation". This editorial was signed by R. E. Knowles, who attended the week-long meeting leading up to the official establishment of the United Church. The tone of Knowles's editorial was one of unrestrained jubilation and optimism. "A quarter of a century of waiting, hoping, struggling, has become to-day [sic] an hour of palpitating joy. . . . It is an hour for national pride and hope. In the highest things of life Canada has led the world." According to the no-less-enthusiastic comment on the Star's editorial page, the birth of the United Church "is an event of national importance that must have a profound impact on the life of this country. . . . a wonderful opportunity for molding the character of this country . . ."
The most remarkable editorial in that day's Star was entitled "The General Council of Nicaea, June 325 and the General Council of Toronto, June 1925". It also appeared on the editorial page, and was signed by S. G. Bland. Bland compared the two councils, arguing that the results of the Toronto council were likely to be more positive than those of Nicaea. After eulogizing the Nicaean Creed as "the sublimest philosophic construction of the human intellect", he opined that "the tragedy of the Council was that this wise and noble creed was forthwith imposed upon the whole church . . ." Thus, "the Council of Nicaea inaugurated the era of intolerance, compulsory uniformity of thinking, strife and persecution . . ." By contrast, "the Council of Toronto is the greatest attempt yet made to secure unity with the utmost healthy and natural diversity of thought." The United Church of Canada was not founded on "uniformity of thinking," but on "love and devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ as the divinest thing known to men and loyalty to that Kingdom of God on earth which He proclaimed and for which He died."
The Telegram's somber and circumspect attitude was a stark contrast to the Star. The Telegram said nothing about the possible future of the United Church, but rather devoted its entire editorial space to a look back with regret at the union controversy. Recalling (and quoting) the acrimonious insults that passed between John Wesley and Augustus Toplady in the course of their doctrinal disputes, the editorialist stated as a general rule of history that "the utterances of good men whose principles are in jeopardy always did and always will approximate closely, save for the absence of loud profanity, to the utterances of bad men whose appetites or prejudices are in danger." Following this pessimistic but apparently even-handed introduction, the Telegram went on to focus almost exclusively on abuses by the pro-union side. Four unionist leaders were named and accused of promoting "methods of hard dealing with the opponents of Church Union." The speeches of Rev. Dr. Pidgeon, a Presbyterian minister and leading unionist, did "not seem to be entirely drawn from . . . a noble spirit and a fair mind."
The Telegram editorialist quoted Scripture, "The children's teeth are set on edge" [Jeremiah 31:29], and said that the controversy over church union "has renewed the ancient and eternal mystery of how really good men can cease to be good in speech or fair in action . . ." The Telegram's fatalistic conclusion was: "As it was, so shall it be/Now and forever and amen."
4. Conclusion
It is plain that neither of the two leading Toronto newspapers adopted a neutral position on church union. The popular press of the day did not even pretend to be an impartial observer and reporter. It is hard for us in 1986 to comprehend how closely newspapers of only sixty years ago were allied with partisan politics. In most large North American cities, there were many more newspapers than today; that diversity apparently enabled them to assume and maintain obvious political allegiances to a degree that many today find surprising. The pretense of a politically independent press is a recent innovation, one that our grandparents would find puzzling and perhaps suspect.
The vehemently pro-union Toronto Daily Star supported the leaders of the unionist movement in their battle for the necessary provincial legislation. The Star essentially ignored the large minority of Presbyterians who opposed union, maintaining the unionists' claim that the Presbyterian Church had legally and properly decided to unite, as a body, with the Methodist and Congregational churches.
The Toronto Telegram took the opposite side. It opposed the actions of the unionists, and portrayed them as running roughshod over the legitimate desires of the large anti-union faction within the Presbyterian Church in Canada.
Due to space limitations, I have not been able to convey the full impact of the church union controversy on these newspapers. That controversy was front-page news in Canada throughout the first three decades of the twentieth century, especially after World War I. The partisan positions assumed by mass-circulation newspapers coloured not only their editorials on church union, but also their reporting of related news. The newspapers often slanted their presentation of events to favour their respective causes.
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Comments and questions welcome, as always.
