The history of the United Church of Canada begins in the early 20th century and followed the establishment of national organizations for several Christian denominations in Canada. Three major denominations supported a national church for Protestants in Canada: Presbyterians, Methodists, and Congregationalists. Negotiations between these denominations culminated in the formation of the United Church of Canada in 1925. Though the union included nearly all Methodist congregations in Canada, a minority of Presbyterians voted against union and remained separate from the other denominations as the Presbyterian Church in Canada.
At the time of formation, the United Church was the largest Protestant denomination in Canada. Its early activities included the establishment of the Woman's Missionary Society, the running of hospitals, international missions, and residential schools for the assimilation of Indigenous children. The church also supported the establishment of a Canadian welfare state and ordained its first female minister in 1936. During the Second World War, the church was embroiled in a debate over pacifism; church leadership generally supported the war effort but resisted the implementation of conscription in Canada. After reaching its peak membership in the 1960s, the United Church and other Protestant churches in Canada began to lose affiliates. The church introduced the theologically liberal New Curriculum in 1962 and sponsored draft evaders from the United States during the Vietnam War. The last residential school run by the United Church closed in 1973; after the abuse of Indigenous students at residential schools was brought to public attention, the church apologized for the schools in 1998.
After failed merger negotiations with the Anglican Church of Canada, the church experienced further losses in membership. These losses were compounded after the ordination of gays and lesbians was permitted within the church. The United Church continued to endorse progressive campaigns into the 21st century: it supported the legalization of same-sex marriage in Canada and was against the criminalization of abortion. In the 2010s, the church boycotted goods from Israeli settlements and investigated Gretta Vosper, an atheist minister; the boycott and ultimate decision to allow Vosper to minister was the source of controversy within and outside the church. Due to a continued decline in membership, several United Church buildings were sold or redeveloped to carry housing.
Beginnings
After the formation of national organizations for Canadian Presbyterians in 1875, Methodists in 1884, and Congregationalists in 1906, several conferences were held between these denominations to discuss a united Protestant church within the country. These discussions coincided with the establishment of local churches in the Prairies that served Methodists and Presbyterians alike, many of whom came together to form the General Council of Local Union Churches in 1912. Motivated by a de facto union in the western provinces and the desire to have a national church for English-speaking Canadians, a committee of Congregationalists, Methodists, and Presbyterians produced a document called the Basis of Union in 1908. The document, which outlined the Protestant doctrines and governance structure of the proposed united church, was soon ratified by the national Methodist and Congregationalist organizations. The Basis of Union de-emphasized theological differences between the uniting denominations; neither the doctrine of predestination characteristic of Presbyterian faith nor Methodist concept of entire sanctification were named. As a condition for their entry into the union, Congregationalists stipulated that ministers could be in "essential agreement" with the church's doctrines instead of literally subscribing to the tenets, as their denomination historically eschewed creeds in favor of personal declarations of faith.
In 1921, the General Council of Local Union Churches entered the church merger process in 1921, leaving the uniting church with four denominations in total. However, not all elements of the churches involved were happy with the idea of uniting under one roof; a substantial number of Presbyterians remained unconvinced of the virtues of church union. The Presbyterian Church held several votes at the congregation level regarding merger with the Methodists and Congregationalists, concluding in a final vote in 1925 in which a third of Presbyterian congregations chose to remain separate from the other denominations as a continuing church.
To finalize the process of church union, church leaders approached individual provinces and the government of Canada to pass legislation on the transfer of property rights. The resultant bill passed swiftly in Manitoba, but faced a period of opposition in Prince Edward Island and Ontario. With the provision that individual churches could vote to remain outside the union, the federal United Church of Canada Act passed, June 27, 1924, and was effective June 10, 1925. On the same day, the United Church of Canada was inaugurated at a large worship service at Toronto's Mutual Street Arena, becoming the first major interdenominational union in the English-speaking world. Hymns from its major denominations were printed on a 38-page order of service and sung: "All people that on earth do dwell" from the Presbyterians; "O for a thousand tongues to sing" by the Methodist leader Charles Wesley; "O God of Bethel" from the Congregationalists; and "When I survey the wondrous cross" by the nonconformist hymn-writer Isaac Watts.
The ecumenical tone of the new church was set at its first General Council, which was held at the formerly Methodist Metropolitan United Church. The former Methodist General Superintendent, Samuel Dwight Chown, was considered by the General Council to be the leading candidate to become the United Church's first Moderator because of his denomination's overwhelming support for union. However, in a surprise move, Chown stepped aside in favour of George C. Pidgeon, the moderator of the Presbyterian Church and principal spokesperson for the uniting Presbyterians, in hopes of preventing partisanship from emerging between the union's two largest denominations. The United Church became Canada's largest Protestant denomination after its 1925 incorporation, and was joined by the Synod of the Wesleyan Methodist Church of Bermuda in 1930. The Canadian church's early activities included the establishment of the Woman's Missionary Society, the running of hospitals, international missions, and residential schools for the assimilation of Indigenous children.
Early 20th Century
The church's finances were devastated by the Great Depression, leading to the closure of several pastoral charges. Competing social movements within the church advocated for different responses to the era's crises. This ranged from the Fellowship for a Christian Social Order, which championed radical Christian socialist ideals, to the conservative Oxford Group, which emphasized personal morality. Church leadership occupied a middle position; they were invited to the Royal Commission on Dominion–Provincial Relations and supported measures that would lead to the Canadian welfare state, such as the federal funding of pensions. Along with supporting the legalization of divorce on grounds of adultery in 1932, the United Church began to ordain women during the 1930s. Though some Methodists had been ordaining women from 1880 in the United States, it was not until 1936 that the Reverend Lydia Emelie Gruchy of the Saskatchewan Conference became the first woman in the United Church to be ordained and, in 1953, she became the first Canadian woman to receive an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree. However, the church maintained its predominantly male clergy for decades afterwards; only 4% of the clergy was female by 1978.
The church's response to the Second World War was divided between pacifists and those who supported the war effort. 65 clergy members signed the pacifist declaration A Witness Against War in 1939, and the General Council declined to support the national implementation of conscription. At the same time, the church provided chaplaincy services to the military and saw to profit from members purchasing war bonds in its name. Responding to the forced relocation of Japanese Canadians, the General Council announced in 1942 that it "recognizes the need of such action" and that it planned "to follow them with its ministry and to assure them of sympathy." Local church leaders in British Columbia directly opposed the government's measure by establishing an Emergency Japanese Committee to advocate for those who were relocated, while the Woman's Missionary Society provided education to interred teenagers in lieu of the provincial government. With the goal of furthering ecumenical dialogue, the United Church was one of the founding bodies of the Canadian Council of Churches in 1944 and the World Council of Churches in 1946.
Late 20th Century The period between 1945 and the early 1960s was marked by a surge in active members, brought on by the baby boom and evangelistic campaigns in Canada. In 1962, two women's auxiliary organizations, Woman's Association and Woman's Missionary Society, joined to form the United Church Women. The high tide mark of membership was reached in 1965 when the church recorded 1,064,000 members; it was followed by the addition of new congregations after the eastern Canada Conference of the Evangelical United Brethren merged with the United Church in 1968.
However, there were already rumblings of discontent in the church: the theologically liberal New Curriculum, unveiled in 1962 by the church's educational ministries, was met with both internal and external criticism and was followed by the loss of 100,000 children from its Sunday school services, exacerbating a downward trend that had begun years prior. These trends were accompanied the release of Pierre Berton's book The Comfortable Pew, a bestseller which castigated Canadian Protestant churches for their "outdated theological and ethical positions." In 1966, the United Church lost 2,027 members, marking the first time since amalgamation that membership had fallen. The loss was concurrent with similar drops in affiliation within the major Protestant denominations in Canada. During the late 1960s, the United Church moved away from traditional evangelism with its National Project, an outreach campaign that prioritized social concerns such as poverty and war.
The church continued to develop its official agenda on domestic issues: in the 1950s, the General Council softened its position of total abstinence towards alcohol use and called for the adoption of universal health care. The church relinquished its rural hospitals as a response to an increasing number of rural Canadians who were able to access government-funded municipal hospitals. In 1962, delegates from the General Council affirmed their support for remarriage after divorce, contraception for married couples, and the legitimacy of employing women in the workforce. The last United Church residential school closed in 1973, but the abuse that occurred during the school's operation was not revealed to the public until two decades after.