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Sermon: Three Founding Traditions: The Congregationalists - June 12, 2016
Rev. Steve Clifton Rideau Park United Church, Ottawa ON
This weekend the United Church of Canada celebrates its 91st Anniversary. On June 10, 1925,
the inaugural service of our denomination was celebrated at the Mutual Street Arena in
Toronto. As the 20th century began Canada was a frontier nation. As we expanded west into the
prairies it was a challenge to bring the gospel and church community to our expanding nation.
To help meet that challenge, in spite of doctrinal disagreements, significantly different ecclesial
structures and profoundly dissimilar histories 3 of Canada’s largest protestant denominations
merged into one in 1925 to create the UCC.
Three churches merged into one. (And there were the Union Churches of the West. And later,
the Evangelical Brethren Churches joined too.) Each of the 3 big partners in the United Church
brought gifts into this new denomination. The Crest of the United Church bears symbols that
tell us of the 3 principle founding churches. The dove reminds us of the Methodist tradition. On
the right, we have a burning bush – the symbol of Presbyterianism. And the open Bible on the
left represents the Congregational Church.
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In 1925 the United Church was about the same size as it is today- but with fewer resources. And
yet, while we seem to want to grieve our past they looked with expectation to their future.
They were filled with zeal, hope and purpose – they strived to make their country better, more
just…to make the Kingdom of God visible and tangible here and now, to be the soul of the
nation.
So over 3 Sundays I thought we might look at the gifts we have received from the founding
traditions of our United Church. Perhaps we can capture some of their hope for the future,
something of their sense of purpose.
Two weeks ago we looked at the Methodist; their story began in the mid-1700s. Then we
looked at the Presbyterian with its rich history going back 500 years. Today as we celebrate the
91st anniversary of the creation of our denomination we consider the Congregationalists. Or as
they are sometimes called – the Puritans.
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In sharing the Presbyterian story we began in the Swiss city of Geneva in the mid-1500s. We
began with a man named John Calvin, a French scholar who is, alongside Martin Luther, one of
the two most prominent figures in the Reformation, the social, political and religious movement
that precipitated the separation of the “Protestant” churches from the Church of Rome.
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Calvin was a great scholar, who wrote biblical commentaries and wrote extensively in theology.
His thought had great influence on religion, politics and Western society. Calvin’s thought is one
of the pillars in Protestantism’s theological foundation.
In the Presbyterian story that we recalled last week, Calvin’s thinking came to Scotland where it
provided the intellectual underpinnings of a movement to reform the Church –
Presbyterianism. In Scotland the community in need of reform was the Church of Rome.
In the Congregationalist story, Calvin’s ideas come to England, and give birth to a movement to
purify the English Church. Remember that Henry the VIII had pushed Rome and the Pope out of
England. The Calvinists in England wanted to reform the Church that Henry had forged from the
ruins of the Roman Church: the Church of England, the Anglican Church, the Church of King and
Country.
These English Calvinists were called by a number of names. Separatists. Nonconformists.
Dissenters. Puritans. And they were themselves a diverse group, broken into parties and school
and sects. And later their tradition had offshoots too… the Quakers, the Shakers…
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Puritans were called Puritans that because they wanted to purify the church, take it back to its
New Testament origins, at least as they understood them. When we think of the Puritans, we
probably think of American history. Puritans settled in New England in the mid-1600s. We know
of Puritans from the stories told around American Thanksgiving. We think of the writings of
Nathaniel Hawthorne, or maybe of the Salem witch trials. We think of how Puritans are
portrayed in popular culture, as repressed, dark and dour people. The critic H. L. Mencken once
said, “Puritanism is the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”
But …the Puritans have gotten some bad press. They are portrayed as superstitious and fearful.
They were in fact very educated. The Massachusetts colony that gave birth to our Maritime
Puritan communities that then became the Congregationalists of Church Union… it was once
called the best educated community that the world has ever known. Oxford and Cambridge
alumni were abundant. The Puritans valued education, founding institutions like Harvard in
Boston. Harvard opened its doors in just the 6th year of the Puritan colony being established, a
sign of the value the colonists put on learning.
Puritans weren’t all dour either. Yes, they felt Sundays were sufficient for religious celebrations,
forgoing Easter and Christmas as days of particular celebration. And yes, they liked things plain
and simple. But Puritans read good books and enjoyed music. They drank beer with meals and
rum at weddings. They kept art out of their churches seeing it as a distraction from God, but
they hung paintings in their homes. Puritans swam and skated, hunted and fished, and played
at archery and bowling- just not on Sundays and not in the vicinity of a tavern.
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And the Puritans were not that repressed. They were in fact all about freedom. As with the
Presbyterians in Scotland, Calvinism in England led to a desire for political reform. It’s the
political consequences of Calvinism that led to the Puritan exodus to the new World.
In England, the head of the Church was the King or Queen. To be loyal and obedient to the
church and its bishops was to be loyal to the state. Religious practice was enforced by the
Crown. William Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury under Charles I worked to make the
Anglican Book of Common prayer the only legal form of worship in the land. King James I
declared that all dissenters must conform to England’s worship and submit to England’s
bishops, or “I will harry them out of the land, or else worse.” “Worse” clearly meant “death,”
for failure to conform to and obey the Church of England was a capital crime.
So the Puritans sought freedom: religious, liturgical and political freedom. At the time of
Independence 75% of Americans were of Puritan stock, so you can see why the America’s
founders were so big on the separation of church and state.
Congregationalists in Nova Scotia-c1920
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So now we turn to Canada. The Congregationalist Church that came into our denomination in
1925 was quite small. The Congregationalists were an Eastern Church, of American Puritan
origin, being started in the 17th C by Puritans from America. Canadian Congregationalists were
foremost a Maritime community, with almost no presence in the West. In 1925 the UCC began
with 600,000 members. Only 13,000 were Congregationalists. But though small in number they
had a big influence on our new denomination.
Here are some of the gifts that the Congregationalists passed on to us:
1) Independence of thought and belief
The United Church is known as a big tent community. We allow for a broad spectrum of
beliefs. We have a reputation for theological openness. When a United Church minister
is ordained, we have to declare, not that we agree with every jot and tittle of a
particular statement of belief or catechism, or every word of a particular creed, but
rather we have to be able to say that we are “in essential agreement” with the Faith
Statements of our church. This theological flexibility is a direct legacy of the
Congregationalist tradition. Congregationalist did not like being told to conform. So now
we don’t have to…
2) A discomfort with hierarchy:
Is there a more horizontal culture than our denominational culture? No bishops, no
popes, no patriarchs… our decision making processes are all conciliar and communal. A
few years ago our then Moderator made some faith statements in the press that
created controversy. Personally I found his theological expression to be wanting. But it
was also difficult to explain to people outside the church that when our Moderator, the
head of our denomination, speaks on a matter of faith and creed, it`s just his or her
opinion. The Moderator`s understanding of Jesus carries little more weight than yours
or mine. The Pope is infallible in matters of doctrine. Our Moderator only has one
opinion among many.
In many traditions clergy have to pledge obedience to their bishop. Anglicans must do
this, for instance. How would a pledge of obedience go over among UC minister? I can’t
imagine. I once was in a group of about 40 United Church ministers who had to form a
straight line across a church hall. It took forever for us to get ourselves in a line. We are
not good at conforming or being orderly together. Our disdain for hierarchy and
imposed order is deeply imbedded in us and is a very Congregationalist trait.
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3) Worship and sacraments
In early Puritan worship, a prayer could last an hour or more; a sermon, two hours… or
four if the preacher was strong enough. In a lifetime, a Puritan might hear 15,000 hours
of preaching. So when I go a bit long you can blame the Congregationalists.
Why don’t United Churches follow a prayer book like the Anglicans or a Missal or Mass
Book like in a Catholic community? Maybe it`s because our Congregationalist forebears
escaped a prescripted liturgy, one sometimes imposed on them by law. Maybe, we
inherited their desire for the freedom to pray in the form that we choose.
The Catholic Church has 7 sacraments. The Anglicans differentiate and name 2
sacraments and a further 5. The Lutherans have 3 sacraments and a further 4 or maybe
2 and a further 5, depending…The Orthodox name 7 sacraments with an openness to
other sacramental acts. We name 2 sacraments – baptism and communion. That’s all.
In the Calvinist tradition, the only sacraments mandated by Christ are these two:
baptism and communion. In three of four gospels Jesus took bread, took the cup and
said “do this in remembrance of me” Jesus in Matthew 28 says “go forth and baptize all
nations….” Our sacramental understanding has roots in Calvinist thought. The two
sacraments that our tradition recognizes are only the sacramental actions that Jesus
explicitly told us to do.
At the time of Union the Congregationalists accounted for a mere .35 % of the Canadian
population. But this tiny group had a big impact on who we are as a denomination. They
influenced our culture, our openness, our decision making, our worship style…
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They impacted our singing too. We close with a hymn written by the great Congregationalist
hymn writer, Isaac Watts. He is called the “Father of English hymnody” All the hymns we sing
today are his compositions: When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, Jesus Shall reign, O God Our
help in Ages Past, Joy to the World. We are going to sing Joy to the World in June? When you
really look at the hymn`s words you’ll notice it’s not just a Christmas song.
59VU Joy to the World