WHAT THEY THOUGHT WAS BEST

The United Church of Canada is a young denomination. For much of our existence we have enjoyed the innocence and optimism of youth. The problems of the world around us have been ones caused by others -- others whom we have not hesitated to call to account. But now, with the emerging story of the suffering caused by our involvement in Indian Residential Schools, we no longer can point the finger elsewhere. We must learn to take responsibility for our own sin.

The people who address this matter in the following pages all reside in British Columbia. While residential schools were spread across the country, the issues raised by this phenomenon have been faced in B.C. in ways that other regions have not yet experienced. In no small part, this is due to the law suit brought against the United Church and the federal government by thirty victims of a convicted sexual predator, who was a Supervisor at the Port Alberni Residential School, one of the United Church's institutions. Suddenly questions of repentance and apology have been given very real legal and financial implications.

Looking back, the residential schools were the product of the best thinking that the Church and the State could bring to bear in trying to solve problems brought about by the rapid colonization of aboriginal lands. They were the products of minds that simply took it for granted that the faster "Indians" could be "Canadianized", the sooner they would be able to escape the poverty and disease which had befallen them. We often seem to assume that if only we -- or people like us -- had been there, the residential school system never would have been built. The truth is, the schools were the product of "progressives" in Church and government seeking to do what they thought best. After all, the most prestigious schools were expensive boarding schools to which the wealthy sent their children. This is the well-intentioned model of education that lies behind the development of the Indian Residential School system. But the comparison ends right there. The Indian Residential Schools were not elite institutions, but were consistently at the bottom of the government's priority list, chronically underfunded. Since, however, the Church saw itself as trying to do justice, as seeking to love the neighbour, all in the name of Jesus Christ, few then could see what we can see now, the devastation caused by an ill-construed social enterprise which has come to back to haunt us.

Over a million children were shaped by their experience of those boarding schools. They, their children, and their grandchildren, are testimony to the terrible wrongs that were done in the name of social reform and progress. And no wonder. Imagine for a moment that the shoe is on the other foot. Imagine a hundred years during which government policy removes our children from our homes upon their reaching elementary school age. Reports of hunger and disease surface in every decade of their existence. Even more disconcerting for us is the news that in those schools not only are our children to be instructed in the language of the dominant aboriginal group, but also are disciplined, often with a cane, if they are caught speaking English. Siblings are separated as a matter of policy, and are not allowed to talk with or comfort one another. No celebration of traditional Christian events is tolerated; there is no Sunday worship, no Bible reading, no hint of Christmas or Easter. For that matter, no celebrations of any other traditional event are marked either. Instead, all of these cultural reminders are replaced by a new set of special observances belonging to the tradition of the dominant aboriginal culture. The children are allowed home once a year, only to leave in tears as they return to school. Imagine our children spending their formative years crying themselves to sleep, far from home, taught to despise their own heritage. And when they do try to become like those of the dominant culture they discover it is not good enough, that they are not accepted as equals in a society which looks at their pink skin and assumes characteristics in them that are undesirable. Only decades later do we discover the awful secret harboured by too many of our children, that sexual predatorspreyed on the most vulnerable. Imagine. Imagine if the shoe were on the other foot. Is it any wonder that the memory of the residential schools does not go away?

Every nation, like every person, has to come to terms with its past. This is no easy task. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu says, "It's very difficult to wake up someone who is pretending to be asleep." How can we awaken the Church and Canadian society to face and take responsibility for the great harm we have done? The issue is being pressed by former students of the residential schools who, having received no response to their cries for help, are seeking legal remedies, suing the abusers, the Church and the government for abuses suffered as young children. As some sue, the First Nations people continue to ask that their suffering be heard, recognized and reverenced. They want their stories to be taken seriously, to be given credence. They want to be understood and to be given resources for healing.

In response to this cry, Port Alberni United Church undertook to listen to the painful stories of the boarding school operated in their community by the United Church. In the Spring of 1997, the congregation hosted a great banquet at which they publicly and formally apologized to those who had been hurt by residential schooling. Tears flowed. Speeches ensued. Many native elders said that they did not believe they would ever see the day. Together with B.C. Conference, the Port Alberni Church called upon General Council to confess our role in the suffering caused by residential schools, and to begin the road to reconciliation by apologizing. The Church's national staff and legal advisors believed that such an apology might enable the federal government to place all of the blame for what occurred unfairly upon the Church, thereby avoiding its own responsibility, and costing the Church hundreds of millions of dollars.

At General Council in August of 1997 it became clear that many Commissioners, like many Canadians, could see no reason to do anything more. Complicating matters, Native leadership in the Church questioned the wisdom of issuing an apology. Are such leaders tired of more words accompanied by too little action? Do they, like others, fear the loss of funds to all our Church's programs that our legal liability might cause? Do they think the Church was offering to issue an apology more for their sake than for the well-being of its own collective soul? The answers still are not clear.

In the end, the General Council did not adopt the petitions sent from B.C. that called for an apology. Instead, it spoke of entering into a "journey of repentance", repentance chosen as a more biblical word than apology. Repentance, it said, involves a wholehearted turning around in order to move in a new direction. The argument over semantics hid a significant detail, that the term repentance opens the Church to far less legal liability than does the word apology. In using the language of repentance, the Church chose the safer, less costly course.

It is true that what occurred in the schools is not all our fault. That, however, is not the point. The point is that we are called to be servants of Jesus Christ, the One who bears the burden of reconciliation on behalf of others. The Church cannot shirk the humiliation of the scapegoat. Witnessing our willingness to pay the cost, the world may yet glimpse the Gospel of God reconciling and making new.

-- E. S.

by Marion Best

In preparation for writing my reflections on residential schools, I have spent considerable time going through records of meetings, newspaper clippings, personal letters, and the journals I kept during the three years I was Moderator.  What surfaced are the perpetual feelings of sadness and frustration. During my term, this issue weighed much more heavily on my heart than any other, and the weight is still there.  There are questions that probably will never be satisfactorily answered. There is much I still do not understand, and it is still impossible for me to speak (or even write) about it without tears coming to the surface.
At the time of writing (December), there was word of an impending announcement from the federal government, about a carefully worded statement of reconciliation and a fund of at least $200 million for native healing programs.  The word apology will be avoided.  This comes more than a year after the release of the Royal Commission Report on Aboriginal Peoples with its strongly worded 125 page section describing the abuses and assimilation policies carried out in the residential school system.
I wonder how similar the wording of the government’s statement will be to the one the General Council issue last August.  I was struck by the use of the phrase “a fund for healing”, which is what we called our 1994 initiative, and like our Healing Fund, the government fund is to be administered by First Nations’ people. And like us, the government will not use the word apology.  Doing so, a spokesperson said, would leave the government open to individual law suits.

Following the announcement, I heard an interview with a woman counselor from the Alkali Reserve.  She said the reported $200 million available for healing initiatives was very little compared to the compensation the much smaller number of Japanese Canadians received from the government.  She declined to say more about the amount until she had more details, but she did say if reconciliation is ever to take place, there must be an apology.  She said the cost has to be faced.

Where does this leave us with our General Council expression of “deep regret and sorrow”, and our desire for “appropriate means to express our repentance and to take further steps along the healing path and towards reconciliation”, and having to acknowledge we are having difficulty in meeting our commitment to raise $1 million for the Healing Fund?
In May 1997 I attended B.C. Conference annual meeting, where most of the business meeting was spent working on a petition asking for an apology to First Nations related to residential schools.  The whole court was engaged in the process with mind, emotions, body, and spirit.  This was not an easy passage of the proposal which had been received from the Task Force on Residential Schools.  It included an overnight reworking of the petition having heard warnings of the possible legal implications, and yet the body wanted to retain the word apology, even though they knew it could be costly.  It passed by a considerable majority.

Later that same month, I attended another Conference annual meeting.  In my conversations there I was once more reminded that in some parts of Canada people do not know the stories of the residential schools, and if they do, they do not bear the same sense of responsibility for them.  In my travels I discovered that the people west of the Ontario/Manitoba border were most aware of the plight of the residential school survivors.  In many parts of the country there was little interest in, or concern about, our part in that residential school legacy.

While United Church people responded quickly and generously to several special appeals over the past two years (flood relief in Quebec and Manitoba, and the North Korea and Central Africa special appeal) the Healing Fund is in difficulty.  Why?  Is it because the media have given a high profile to these other situations and folk tend to respond better to what the mass media focuses on than to appeals from the national office?  Or is it a lack of knowing about, and concern for, First Nations people?  Basil Manning, a theologian from South Africa who led theological reflection at the last two meetings of General Council executive, says it is racism.  He says it is so deeply part of us that we can’t even recognize it.

My own journey in coming to terms with our part in residential schools has taken time, and also help from First Nations people, some of whom have shown patience with me, and some who have raged at me and left me terribly shaken.  The stories of sexual abuse, to which Arthur Plint plead guilty, are only one part of what haunts me.  It was seeing the place in Port Alberni where the fence separated the children from their families who lived close by, a fence they could pass through only twice a year to visit their families.

These were children as young as six years of age.  I remember what a wrench it was sending my six-year-old off to day school for less than five hours a day, and cannot imagine the misery and despair of those parents and grandparent whose children were taken away from them, and only allowed to return home twice a year.  It must have had a severe impact on whole communities to have been devoid of children for months at a time.  We know it resulted in generations who never learned how to parent.
During Walter Farquharson’s term as Moderator, a task group on residential schools was established.  As a result, a fund of $150,000, to be spent for purposes of healing, was made available by the General Council executive in 1993.  It was soon evident that this amount was inadequate, and thus in 1994 the Healing Fund was established, with an explicit educational focus and a fund-raising goal of $1 million, to be disbursed by the Native constituency to assist healing efforts initiated in Native communities.

The 1986 apology to Native congregations in the United Church acknowledged our part in the loss of their language, culture and spirituality.  It was only after that apology was made, and after the Healing fund was established, that I became aware of the physical and sexual abuse that had taken place in the schools run by the United Church.  I don’t think the vast majority of our United Church has any idea of what it was like.

I first became aware of the sexual abuse with the trial of Arthur Plint, who plead guilty to charges laid by 15 former residents of the Port Alberni school.  How could this ever have happened over such a prolonged period?  How could the Church have ever believed residential schools were in the best interest of aboriginal people?  Was it out of a belief that assimilation was the best hope for these children?  Or was it missionary zeal to Christianize them?

While I was struggling to understand our motives, I was receiving letters from people who had worked in the schools, who felt that they had committed their lives to working with First Nations’ children on the ground that they believed the schooling would provide them more opportunities for the future, and who now felt their Church, by inferring the enterprise had been aimed at assimilation and was thus a form a genocide, had betrayed them.  Many of them wrote of their love and concern for the children, and how they saw this work as an important part of the mission of the Church.  I also heard stories from First Nations people who told positive stories about their residential school experiences.

I had hoped that the 36th General Council would have issued an apology.  I know there are many reasons why that did not happen at this time, but I know we will never be truly reconciled until we can do so.  B.C. Conference is in a unique position for coming to terms with the legacy of the schools: the sexual abuse took place in Port Alberni; there is a Division of Native Ministries active in the life and the Conference, and it responded fully a few years ago to the challenge to raise $1 million to assist with Land Claims.  There is a partnership with First Nations people in B.C. Conference that is different than exists in most parts of the Church.  It is understandable that the only petitions asking for an apology came from B.C.
For some, the statement made by the 36th General Council was a great disappointment.  It was seen as a small step forward by some, and seen by others as too risky.  It was a reflection of where the gathering community was at that time.  Given the climate, I was personally relieved that at least this step was taken.  To speak of deep regret and sorrow is not a small thing, and while it is fair criticism to say the word apology was not used out of fear of the legal consequences, I want to trust that other parts of the Church will come to empathize with those who have experienced the pain of the residential school abuses.  That will only happen if we keep listening to the stories.  They can’t be ignored.

At one point in our discussions, former Moderator Bob Smith reminded us of the prayer that was used at the opening of each day at the WCC Faith and Order Conference in Santiago de Compostela, and reflect on it in the light of our participation in residential schools.  I pray we will listen for a response with our hearts as well as our minds.

THE BITTER TEARDROPS FALL

by Jessie Oliver

At the time of writing it is almost a year since I heard first-hand of the sexual abuse that occurred at the Alberni Residence. My feelings are mixed: anger, shame, resentment, guilt -- for I was there at the time, but didn't realize such things were happening. I thought Arthur Plint was lazy, sloppy, and a bully, but I was too naive to see beyond those things.

There is anger at the perpetrator, and at those who really didn't hear when told such things were going on. There is shame that I myself, and the Church I represented, could be involved in an institution where such actions could occur. There is resentment for those who refused to listen when I tried to talk about some of the things about the Residence that were not all they should and could be. And there is guilt that, when I realized the Residence was not what it should be, rather than be a part of it I left, instead of staying to try to make changes.

The local Board -- comprised of the ministers from the two neighbouring United Churches, lay representatives from those Churches, and a Presbytery appointee -- was merely an Advisory Board, and had no authority over the Administrator. Meetings were held several times a year, but nothing happened as a result.

Over the years many fine, dedicated folk have worked at that Residence, people who cared for the children, who looked after their food, clothes, accommodation, etc. These people also cared about the loneliness, problems, and unhappiness of the students. There were others for whom it was merely a job, and who really were not interested in the students personally. A number of them were there at the same time that I was.

I worked with the Rev. Ed Kempling and the Rev. David Hoops, both of whom have since died. We were also responsible for service to the two Reserves in the area. Mr. Kempling was most involvedin helping to establish an Indian Friendship Centre in the town area, so wasn't around the Residence as much. But Mr. Hoops was there frequently, and we shared many concerns about the atmosphere. We talked to the Board about those concerns, and also to the Presbytery.

Except for a small class of Kindergarten children from the nearby Reserves, there were no classes in the Residence. All the students were bussed to various schools in the Alberni School District. Some of them adjusted to this quite well; for others it was a very distressing experience. Sometimes there were runaways, and in one instance that I remember, a young girl was strapped when she returned to the Residence.

In some cases the parents, such as those from the Nitinat, were able to see their children frequently on weekends. Some students were able to get home for holidays at Christmas and Easter. But others were at the Residence from September to June, and some for the whole year. Attempts were made to place those students in private homes for the holidays, with reasonable success.

Church services were held in the Residence auditorium each Sunday. In the beginning attendance was compulsory, but later it was made optional. At that time classes were held for the younger children with assistance from some of the older students. While this was a happier plan for the young children it was not always easy to arrange. Some of the staff came to the services regularly, while others did not. The Administrator came infrequently.

During the week some of the students went to groups at the local United Churches, such as Cubs, Scouts, Explorers and C.G.I.T. Transportation was arranged for these events. Again this was not compulsory, and in most cases those who attended seemed to enjoy it, especially the younger ones. Co-operation from the local Churches was great. Time and space were also arranged for the children to learn and develop crafts. During the time spent at these things there was much opportunity to hear the children's concerns and to share the knowledge of Christ's love and care for them. It was always a happy sharing time when I got closer to the children.

Another opportunity for close sharing was in the evenings at bedtime, when I would visit the dormitories, have a story and prayer time with the younger ones, both girls and boys, and hear their experiences. With the older elementary girls it meant more a sharing time and helping them to handle their problems. It was difficult for me to get time with the older elementary boys, but Mr. Hoops did get some time with them.

Arranging time with the high school students was harder since they had to make the lunches for about 300 people, and they also had a study hour each evening. So time with them was mostly just before the supper hour.

It is now thirty years since I left there. During the past year I have talked with many groups about what happened in the Alberni Residence. More and more I have become convinced that in spite of the good the Church thought it was doing, the concept was wrong. Yes, there were good things that happened; young people have told me they are making their living from things learned there; others received an education that has made it possible for them to go on to university, or other special training. But the damage done to a number of students that we know about, and perhaps to others who are still silent, is something for which we as a Church have to accept responsibility. To say we didn't know is not a justification.

The abuse in residential schools run by various denominations across Canada is just the tip of the iceberg regarding our attitude to the First Nations people as a whole, and our feeling of superiority regarding their culture and spirituality. The tragedy is that so many of us still are not listening to them, or acknowledging their hurts. We have a lot to be accountable for, to ask forgiveness for, and we need to take a large share in the healing that must happen. An apology is only helpful if we follow it with understanding, love, and healing for both them and us.

When in February, 1997, I first heard of the abuse at the Alberni Residence I spent a night of shame, agony, and tears. Out of those hours came these words with which I would like to close.

You gave to us a world of light,
Of laughter, love and seas,
Of music, and of singing birds,
And pleasant summer breeze.
 

And o'er it all you shed your love
In healing and in grace;
You gave yourself in gentleness
To all the human race.
 

You named us friends, and honoured us,
You called us sister, brother;
We crucified not only you,
We crucify each other.
 

The flavour of our bitterness
Is in our mouths like gall,
Our hearts are aching with the pain,
The bitter teardrops fall.
 

When we can honestly accept
That sin and know it's ours,
Forgiveness then can come to us
In blessed healing showers.
 

WERE YOU THERE?

by Keith Howard and Gaye Sharpe

To say that residential schools are important to the United Church of Canada is like saying icebergs were significant in the story of the Titanic. Even if the moral, spiritual and theological questions are bracketed, the implications remain immense.

The effect of the residential school system upon First Nations individuals and communities has gained increasing visibility in recent years, as larger numbers of Aboriginal people disclose physical and sexual abuse suffered at the schools. Insight into the devastating impact of the system upon family and culture followed from more penetrating analysis.

For The United Church of Canada, the suit brought by thirty First Nations people against the Government of Canada, the Church, and against Mr. John Andrews, a former principal at the Alberni Indian Residential School, has demanded our attention. Henry Arthur Plint, a dorm supervisor at the school in the late forties to the early sixties, was sentenced in March 1995 to 11 years in prison for 18 sexual-abuse-related convictions. The current legal proceedings being held in Nanaimo are to determine the extent of vicarious liability which the Church and the federal government bear for the actions of Mr. Plint.

Standing on the steps of the courthouse in Nanaimo, Peter Grant, lead lawyer for the plaintiffs, responds to a question from the gathered media scrum concerning a monetary figure for compensation. (Matters of compensation will comprise the next phase of the proceedings after vicarious liability becomes determined.) Grant avoids a specific figure but indicates that in such cases the minimum expected would be approximately $250,000 per person. Rough calculations of a minimum settlement for the Nanaimo trial come in around $7.5 million. The Nanaimo case is only the first. Another has already been filed concerning our school in Edmonton; others gather just below the horizon.

Insurance companies will determine how severely the financial hull of the grand ship The United Church of Canada becomes pierced. Judgment calls made on the General Council bridge, in response to various political and other agendas, have significantly affected the manner in which the Church has approached this issue. And, as with the infamous iceberg and the Titanic, residential schools may reveal acute flaws in the design and structure of the United Church. At the very least, fundamental beliefs have been exposed. The story of those who suffered the abuse of the residential school system and the involvement of the Church in that system prompts us to rethink again basic Christian doctrines -- sin, repentance, hope.

For each session of the trial representatives of the Church were present. Virginia Coleman represented the General Council for all but a few days, and a number of people regularly shouldered the responsibility for British Columbia Conference -- Gwen Boyd, Jim and Eva Manly, Charlotte Sullivan, Brian Thorpe and ourselves.

As the stories of abuse were recounted to an overflowing courtroom, and the pain was felt again, there remained little doubt who in that courtroom incarnated the Church. As the lawyer for the Church indicated in his opening statement that the Church would accept no liability, the outrage exploded with public denunciations of "the Church" in the hallways during breaks. There was no doubt who was the Church. We were.

John Siebert, a Division of Mission in Canada staff person, who been the prime researcher for the Church on residential schools. A pre-trial discovery was read wherein Siebert's testimony denied the accuracy of the 1962 agreement between the Church and the state naming the Church as being responsible for the management of the school. The sense of bitter betrayal quickly found focus on those who were there as "the Church." We were.

Sitting in the courtroom day after day, we gained a new and profoundly painful insight into what it means to be the Body of Christ. It mattered little that we were not present nor directly involved during the late forties and early sixties when Arthur Plint had committed his abuses. It mattered little that our names were notdirectly associated with the Church stonewalling complaints. It mattered little that, by and large, we are nice people who were there because we want the Church to accept responsibility for our role in residential schools. We were known to be "Church people" and so bore the shame.

To bear shame as those in solidarity with Christ scourged might be hard but perhaps it could be borne with honour. To bear shame as those associated with the ones inflicting pain, like Pilate, is an entirely different matter. During the first few days the temptation to disassociate ourselves from the lawyers representing the Church was almost irresistible. When "The United Church of Canada" challenged the story of one First Nations man who seemed particularly vulnerable, raising the specter of a false memory, the distaste was powerful. "Not us, not us!" we wanted to cry. "We were promised by the General Council Executive that this would not happen!" Yet we were the ones there; we were the Church.

When the stories were told of brutal rape, on a regular basis, of eight- and nine-year-old boys; when the stories were told of boys being forced into the bed of a supervisor to perform sexual acts and then, afterwards, being compelled to kneel and pray for forgiveness -- we could with some justification say "Not us!" We are not those moral monsters. When the stories were told of a former Secretary of Home Missions responding to concerns with, "Stop right there. I don't hear complaints about my administrators," we wanted to say, "Not us!" When the protests ran through the hallways like electricity that the Church should be ashamed of forcing this trial by its unwillingness to negotiate, the temptation was to point to the General Council, and say "Not us!" And yet it was. The abuse experienced by many First Nations people at this trial was not just in memories of the past but in the reality of the trial in the present.

Virginia Coleman, as General Secretary of the General Council, gave assurances that overtures had been made to settle. It was only late in the proceedings that we learned the offers made by "our lawyers" had only been to the federal government and not to the plaintiffs. So, we wanted to cry, "It was not our fault that the offersto settle were not communicated to every party involved. Not us!" But who then, if we were not and are not the Body of Christ? Our urge to flee the designation as Church was rooted in the same belief that fuels so much outrage from First Nations people on the Pacific Coast: we expected better of the Church.

The deepest pain and sense of betrayal by many First Nations people centers on the Church and not the government. The government may be sued for money, but the emotional and spiritual intensity differs. The mood seems to be "Who could expect better of the government? But is not the Church held to a higher code?"

In no small part, in the early days, First Nations parents and communities entrusted their children to the Church because the Church came bearing the message of the Prince of Peace, the Great Healer and Teacher, the Giver of New Life. The Body of Christ was unfaithful even to its own proclamation. So much of the defense of the Church seemed to indicate it was not so much malicious as simply incompetent. What then do these statements mean to the sacrificial work of the many hundreds of good people who worked in and for the Indian residential schools because they wanted to do the best for the Indian children?

In the beginning the Church came with a message about the importance of a relationship with God. That was primary we said -- not cultural traditions, not cultural institutions, not even European success and certainly not money. Even today we agree when those who survived horrible acts of abuse stand and say that, ultimately, this case is not about money but about healing. "Amen," our spirits say. We want to point to the Healing Fund, though do not mention its dismal lack of support by ordinary Church people. Relationships are key - with God, with one another, certainly that we affirm!

The bitter irony now is that many First Nations, and even many of us seated in the courtroom, feel that the Church has made this an issue about money. In our fear that we might say something that would jeopardize our position in court - or with the insurance companies - we acknowledge the power, if not primacy, of money. Inour willingness, often quoted in Church hallways, to participate in such processes "in order to get at the federal government because they have the deep pockets" we acknowledge the primacy of money. In the questions, often valid, about what will happen to the institution if we are ever forced to pay real cash there seems to lurk for many the conviction that really what is important, after all, is ensuring the viability of the institution. (This at a time the institution is hardly thriving on its own.)

Mirroring one of those curious biblical phrases that haunt: those who have sought to save our life may have lost it. At the very least, those First Nations present in the court, and the hundreds on the coast who will hear the stories of the court case, no longer believe that the Church is more concerned about healing than it is about money or its own survival. Perhaps in the beginning those of us who attended the trial did so with varying degrees of naïve hope that we could witness to our support for justice for First Nations people. By the end of the first week, the entire question of what it means to bear witness as the Body of Christ needed to be reopened.

In this case, to witness meant not simply being a passive presence, nor did it mean, as those of us succoured on the prophets and prompted by various liberation theologies might have wished, a bold statement on behalf of the poor and oppressed. It did not even mean standing with the abused because, by and large, our physical presence was distasteful and our words judged to be hypocritical. To bear witness as the Body of Christ in Nanaimo meant primarily to hear the stories, receive the rage, bear the shame. There remains an abundance of all. In many ways, the early Christians' temptation to Gnosticism and the elevation of "the spirit" becomes understandable.

In almost every place we speak of residential schools and urge Christians to ponder a faithful response, the question is always raised about "all the good" the Church did, and the "good intentions" that spawned and supported the work. There can be no doubt that many First Nations children learned how to navigate not only the European educational system but also the political and legal system as aresult of their experience at residential schools. The sheer number of pies baked by women across the Church in support of "our Indian work" also bear testimony to the good will of Church people. But the life and presence of the Church has not just been about our spiritual or moral intentions. Those of us seated in the court could not disassociate ourselves from the actions of our lawyers, or the lack of action by the General Council, and plead British Columbia Conference's "good intentions". We could not disassociate ourselves from the terrible social costs that the system of residential schools inflicted upon First Nations families and communities. It would have been ludicrous to claim that in spite of the actions of our lawyers, or the inaction by the General Council, our spirits are with you.

We are not Gnostics; we are Christians who strive to follow the incarnate Christ and to incarnate Christ. To accept the possibilities of salvation of this Christ means also to confess the sins of the body, soul and spirit. For those of us called to witness as the Body of Christ during this trial the time still feels like Good Friday. No inspirational ending can be drawn from the fire so all can leave feeling uplifted.

If there are signs of hope emerging it remains with those individuals and congregations who are willing to bear the pain for the sake of relationships. In British Columbia the Body of Christ has been blessed with many who are receiving the rage, daring to listen, willing to be servant. Over time their work may endure. If so, it will be yet another testimony to the amazing resurrection power of a God who will not give the last word to crosses, tombstones or the gavel of judges.

LESSONS FROM THE RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS: SOME BEGINNING REFLECTIONS

by Terry Anderson

The United Church of Canada has been involved in serious wrong-doing in regard to the Indian Residential Schools. Our Church took a mistaken turn and went down a path that has led to destruction -- to use Jeremiah's vivid image. We have offended God and neighbour. What can we learn from these wrong-doings, and the events surrounding them, that might help us not to repeat the same mistakes, but rather help to set us on a different path, the ancient one that leads to life? Answering such a questions requires careful thought and probing. I would like to contribute to this process by suggesting four lessons that we might learn from this tragedy. They do not involve us in drawing upon truths new to the Christian tradition, but upon aspects of our faith that need to be rediscovered.

I  The Church

The first lesson has to do with why I speak of "we". Why should those of us who had nothing to do with residential schools, perhaps were not even alive at the time of their functioning -- let alone their founding -- feel any guilt or responsibility? Is this whole apology fiasco not just one more example of an emerging fashion in which nations, churches, and other groups, apologize all over the place for what people did in the past? As one writer correctly observes, many of these apologies are bogus. They are frequently made "by people who had nothing to do with the events deplored and lose nothing by saying they were wrong. They are attempts to gain moral kudos at the expense of the long dead." We should leave the dead alone.

In addition, the concept of collective guilt is morally questionable and dangerous. An entire group is blamed for the past misdeeds of a few members. Collective guilt has been a vicious weaponused against Jews, for example, blaming contemporary Jews for Jesus' crucifixion. We know from bitter experience that such blanket condemnations link people to deeds with which they had no proximate and/or volitional connection. It brings innocent people and moral monsters under a common judgment, and erases the faces and histories of unique individuals. Further, when all members of a collective are assessed as equally culpable simply by virtue of being part of that collective, the important distinctions between minor transgressions and major crimes are dissolved. Despair, indifference, and cynicism follow, since individuals of the accused collective perceive that responsible choice is not possible.

Is this the case when the Church today is blamed for the Residential Schools of the past? Not only the dead are involved, but also the living -- some of the victims and some who actually worked in the schools. We are thus dealing with present-day relationships and not simply deeds performed in a distant past. In addition, any apologies are not likely to be cheap, since they have the possibility of bankrupting the Church.

However, there is a different point I wish to lift up. The real lesson to be learned here, the truth to be remembered, has, I believe, to do with the very nature of the Church. The Church is the body of Christ, and as its members we are bound together "in the same holy fellowship", as one of our old post-communion prayers put it, "the multitude of every name who are joined with us throughout the world" (i.e. the living) and those "servants who have finished their course" (i.e. the dead). Hence the use of "we" when speaking of the Church's past actions. As one theologian puts it, "Christianity is a corporate thing. In the Church, the dead are not the dead.... The Christian cannot say 'I' without saying 'we'." "If one member suffers, all suffer together" (I Cor. 12:26).

One of the gifts of being bound in holy communion with the great company of Christians from the past is that we can rejoice in, and benefit from, their wisdom and inspiring witness. But such bondedness means we also share in the shame, sorrow, stigma, and pain of past Christian wrong-doing and mistakes. It doesn't mean that we now become personally culpable, but that we acknowledgethe wrong done and mournfully own that these perpetrators are part of our community, the Church, and that we take responsibility for rectifying as much as we can the harms done. We try to ascertain why "our people" went astray, and in what ways we might still be exhibiting in different ways the same underlying problem. Such a free sharing of the burdens and shame, as well as the glory, of various past members is different from the ascription of collective guilt.

II Sins of Omission

The heart-rending stories of abuse recounted by victims under oath in court lead one to ask again and again, how could this have happened? Such behaviour violated standards that we share with our ancestors. The former principal of the Port Alberni school (now in his nineties and almost totally blind) was asked in his testimony in court: How could he not have known that he had hired a pedophile to supervise children's dorms? Why did he not do a background check? Why were the children not believed when they reported "irregularities" but instead were strapped? No answers were forthcoming.

In another testimony a former Christian educator at the school told of her worry about the suspicious behaviour of a dorm supervisor (later convicted). She arranged a time to report this to the Church's supervisor visiting from Toronto. But he dismissed her concerns by saying that he did not want to hear complaints about personnel. Why? And where were the rest of us who were active in the Church during at least part of this period?

There seem to be no satisfactory answers to these questions. In contrast to the high drama of the horror stories of the victims, listening to the testimony of one of the former principals, filled with the dreary details of running a school on a limited budget, one was overwhelmed by the "banality of evil" -- mistaken judgments here, neglect there, callousness in some, naiveté in others. The old prayer of confession puts it well: "We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done...." For those given responsibility for thenative children, they were at the very least guilty of sins of omission.

How important it is to remember that "sin crouches at the door" of every person and institution! None of us is exempt from either the limitations of finitude or the distortions of sin, though we believe that in Christ sin's ultimate determinative power has been broken. One aspect of sin is omission, neglect, flight from responsibility, indifference, laziness, failure to do that which we ought to do. But another is a tendency to forget the limitations of human finitude, to overestimate our human capacities and competencies. Having power tends to heighten the propensity to forget limitations, and to think more highly of ourselves than we ought. Therefore, when we are entrusted with authority over others, or when we grant it to others, because we see our own goals and motives to be benign it is easy to assume the authority will be used well, and fail to maintain scrutiny against the misuse and abuse of power.

I am haunted by the memory of a discussion with a fairly large number of our clergy during the very period in which these atrocities at residential schools were talking place, unbeknown to us, of course. The prevailing opinion of the group was that we should not have a prayer of general confession in Sunday services; the notion of sin was dated, and simply displayed unhealthy negative thinking; what people need is a positive self-image so that we can build a new social order, the commonwealth of God.

III Sins of Commission: Equating Culture and Gospel

We would all agree that the abuses that took place in the residential schools were a terrible thing. But what about the schools at their best? The churches were attempting to give what they considered to be a great good, namely education in modern western thought, which seemed clearly the wave of the future for the whole world. In addition, they supplemented it with Christian education. Civilizing and Christianizing were the twin goals. It is important to note that many graduates of the schools appreciate what they gained. These stories are lost in the present focus on victims, and it has becomepolitically incorrect to tell or to hear them. Some native leaders speak positively, for example, concerning useful insights into the nature of the dominant society, including the ability to speak its language, English. This has been important in honing the protest actions that wrung concessions from various levels of government, and for the beginnings of intertribal political networks formed with classmates.

This brings us to a truth of the faith that is particularly unpalatable to modern liberal thought, namely, that our best efforts may contain destructive distortions, or be harnessed for wrong ends. It is not easy to acknowledge that the best intent and effort of the Church (not merely its neglect and shortcomings) proved destructive. The residential schools at their finest played a significant role in shredding the culture of First Nations. The United Church of Canada (and its predecessors) endorsed, and thereby religiously sanctioned, these schools together with the government policy of assimilation that lay behind them. This led to children being taken from their families for extended periods of time, and "for their own good" deliberately alienating them from their language and culture. It is hard to imagine a strategy more devastating to the very fabric of kinship-centered societies, the essence of First Nations. Thus those we helped recruit as principals, teachers and Christian education workers, and others that we sent to participate in training programs, all contributed to this assimilation model.

Here we are faced with a complicated moral problem. The policy of assimilation seemed to most, including some native leaders at that period, a right and honourable one. Are we unfairly judging our ancestors, unrealistically expecting them to have been able to transcend the prevailing enculturated beliefs and concepts of the time? Was the Church sufficiently enmeshed in the contemporary cultural perception (which contained the vision of a new nation consisting of equal individuals embracing the worldview of modernity), that it was blocked from an understanding of the peoplehood of First Nations, and thus prompted to see native peoples as a vanishing species? Were there alternate views or protesting voices? Didthe Church lack some morally relevant information that with the benefit of hindsight we now have?

Regardless of the answers to such questions, a truth to be remembered here concerns the relation of Gospel and Church to culture -- including its most "progressive" forces. We forget at our peril the enduring gap, on the one hand, between the way of the Gospel, the promise of Christ's commonwealth, and on the other the actuality of any human society, its culture and institutions, including its reforming movements. Our United Church was formed partly around a vision of a new country, and took pride in its ability to make the Gospel palatable to liberal modernity (at its best, of course), so that the two were seen as mutually supportive. Are we still caught in this tendency to see a simple harmony between the Gospel and the most "progressive" forces in our contemporary culture? Do we exhibit the same confidence that we still know what is best, most just, most humane, for the poor and marginalized of the world? Or to put it differently, are we now ready to recall that sin is found not only in our weaknesses but also in our strengths? Sin, in the form of pride and self-interest, may still distort even our finest efforts, or redirect them to wrong ends.

IV Confession, Repentance, Forgiveness

The tragedy of the residential schools helps us to recall yet another motif of the Christian Gospel: what we should do when we discover that "we", the body of Christ, have offended against God and neighbours. Of course we must first become aware of, and recognize the wrong-doing before we even think to ask that question. One of the ways of doing this is by listening to those who have experienced the betrayal and violations. As one of the native victims put it, "at least the court case gives a chance to be heard". Is our Church willing to listen?

Whenever we become aware of wrong-doing, of violating relationships, what are we then to do? The answer is central to the Gospel, and forms the basic rhythm of the Christian liturgy, which includes prayers of general confession and the declaration of pardon. The pattern of response to our own wrong-doing should be second nature to Christians. In our response to the wrongs of the residential schools we should be able to model for the world a readiness to confess our sins of omission and commission. One of the most distressing features of the fallout resulting from residential school disclosures has been a failure to do that. Instead we seem confused, stumbling, waffling, arguing, and consulting even the victims about what is the appropriate response.

Recalling the central truth of the Faith, we should confess to God and to those violated, acknowledging what "we" as a body have done. This should include, following the classic pattern of Christian confession, sorrow, remorse, and perhaps lamentation. I am not suggesting that we wallow in guilt and self-abrogation, but that we repent -- that is, turn in a new direction and seek the ancient Way of God. Repentance, therefore, entails what we have been attempting to begin in this issue of Touchstone: seeking to discover in what ways and why we took a wrong path that led to such a terrible result, and raising the awareness so that we might see if any of same fault lines exist among us today.

A tangible sign of the genuinene nature of our repentance will be an effort to provide, as much as possible, restitution for the harm inflicted. And we can only hope that the broken relationships that exist between us and our aboriginal neighbours can be healed by their forgiveness of us, which humanly speaking is, admittedly, well nigh impossible. The crucifixion of Jesus gives us a glimpse of what forgiveness costs God. Our hope for mercy from both neighbour and God lies finally in the grace of Jesus Christ, expressed in our liturgy through the declaration of pardon:

Here is good news for you:

Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. If we confess our sins, God is just, and may be trusted to forgive our sins and cleanse us from every kind of wrong.

So it is that you may be assured that your sins are forgiven. Amen.

by John H. Young
 
The doctrine section1of the Basis of union occupies a unique place in the United Church’s
expression of its theology.  Though the United Church has made other faith statements,2 this one
represents its “official” theological position.  Indeed, a 1959 study guide produced under the
auspices of the Anglican and United churches as part of their union discussions, described the
doctrine section as “the official formulary of faith of The United Church of Canada”.3  Further, it
stated that the 1940 Statement of Faith “is not a formulary of the [United] Church but is important
as an interpretive footnote to the Basis of Union articles”.4 Also, any individual with “permanent”
status as ministry personnel in the United Church, as a condition of receiving that status, must
declare that he or she “is in essential agreement” with the doctrine section and “accepts the
statement as being in substance agreeable to the teaching of the Holy Scriptures”.5
Differing views as to how well this doctrinal statement fulfilled its role as a declaration of the
United Church’s fundamental convictions have existed since its creation. The past fifteen years,
however, have seen an increased polarization of attitude toward the doctrine section, albeit with a
large number of members somewhere between the two poles.

For some, this section has become a sacred cow.  In various debates and discussions, they
appeal to one article or another in a fashion that suggests only one legitimate interpretation.  They
sit in anxious vigilance to counter the suggestion of any qualification of a doctrinal article, either in
language or theology. Such a move would indicate a sellout of the Church’s heritage. At times,
such individuals appear to want to use the doctrine section as a test for a narrowly defined
orthodoxy.

Others clearly view the doctrine section as a white elephant.6  At the mention of the Twenty
Articles eyes roll and muttering such as “can’t we just write some new ones” is audible.  Clearly,
they are impatient with this early 20th century creation; to them the doctrine section is an
embarrassment in both theology and language, a document that keeps us shackled to an unusable
past.  Some in this group would assert that the document is so dated that no thinking person in
good conscience could, let alone would, say they were in “essential agreement” with it.
My own contention is that the doctrine section is neither a sacred cow nor a white elephant.  I
think an examination of how those who shaped it saw their task, and how it was understood by
their contemporaries, both in the first decade of the century and at the time of union, provides
guidance in our time for a fruitful and faithful approach to this document.

Development of the Basis of Union

Following an unauthorized overture by a Presbyterian “fraternal delegate” to the 1902 General
Conference of the Methodist Church, the Methodists and Presbyterians — and a little later the
Congregationalists — established committees to consider the possibility of the three denominations
uniting.  An initial meeting by some of these denominational representatives in April, 1904,
concluded that there were sufficient grounds to believe union was possible.  A Joint Committee of
representatives of the three denominations then met five times between 1904 and 1908, by which
time they had a Basis of Union ready to present to their respective churches.  Some minor changes,
primarily to try to meet the concerns of Presbyterians opposed to the union, were made to the
document after 1908.  However, the Basis of Union7 upon which the denominations united in
1925 was substantially the same as the document completed in 1908.
In doing its work, the Joint Committee divided itself into five subcommittees.  Each one, like
the Joint Committee itself, had a ratio of two Methodists, two Presbyterians, and one
Congregation-alist.  The subcommittees were Doctrine, the Ministry, Polity, Administration, and
Law.  For this essay, the relevant material is the doctrine section, and the question of a minister’s
relation to the doctrinal statement, a matter debated by the Ministry subcommittee for over a year
before a Congregationalist minister persuaded the members of the Joint Committee to abandon the
idea of requiring a formal subscription to the doctrinal statement on the part of ministerial
candidates.8

The subcommittee on Doctrine did its work quickly and harmoniously.  Indeed, historians
generally agree that it had the easiest task of the five.9  Several factors contributed to the relative
ease with which it did its work.  First, the church union movement was driven by practical matters
rather than by theological issues.  While members of the Joint Committee were not unconcerned
about theological questions, the rhetoric focused on the practical.  Listen to this excerpt from a
1912 sermon by Samuel Dwight Chown, Methodist General Superintendent from 1910 to 1925.

At the very first meeting of the Church Union Committee I suggested that we should set down first and
decide what the Church of Christ was in the world for and do this to the satisfaction of all parties.  Next,
we should decide what is necessary to be believed to enable the Church to do its God-appointed work.
After that we should permit all other questions to be viewed by the brethren as they might choose in the
full exercise of personal liberty.... The theology of the basis of union never cause the members of the
[Joint] Committee very serious concern.  Matters of administration were much more difficult to handle.10

The importance of “practicality” rather than theology extended beyond simply a concern for
the effective use of resources.  The latter part of the 19th century and the early part of this century
was an era when theology was discounted, and the value of theological discourse questioned.
Doctrinal statements generally fell into disuse, if not disrepute.  Chown expressed a view widely
held amongst mainline Protestants when he stated: “I have long felt that we could do without
much dogmatic theology.  After all, theology is only the bill of fare while religion is the good
square meal.”13  This contrast between “theology” and “religion” embodied the common
evangelical view of this era, “that religion was in the first place a matter of experience, not
doctrine”.14  Nathanael Burwash, Chancellor of Victoria University and the leading Canadian
Methodist theologian of the day, chaired the Doctrine subcommittee. He defended church union by
defining “the Christian faith, not as a matter of doctrine, but as the ‘essentials’ of New Testament
spirituality”.15  In such an environment, the members of the subcommittee would not have
experienced the pressure concerning a confessional statement that has marked ecumenical
endeavours during the past half century. They would not have felt the burden of being the
subcommittee whose work would make or break the potential union.

A second factor greatly simplifying the work of the Doctrine subcommittee was the
theological congruence that had taken place during the nineteenth century amongst mainstream
Protestants.  Indeed, in the English-speaking world, the classic distinctives separating Calvinism
and Arminianism gradually had been eroded.  The change in Calvinism had been particularly
striking.  Some Presbyterian advocates of union made it clear that they no longer could accept the
Westminster standards in the way they had traditionally been understood, and they believed they
spoke for many Canadian Presbyterians.16  S.D. Chown may not have been guilty of great
exaggeration when he commented: “Calvinism is a creed outworn in many respects and many of
our Presbyterian friends were glad to drop its more uncouth aspects and place their present views
in the genial garb of Methodist phraseology.”17  In his study of church union, John Webster Grant
has pointed out that the theology emerging “from the eclectic working of the document [i.e. the
doctrine section of the Basis of Union] is a moderate Arminianism tinctured with a strong
Calvinistic emphasis on the divine sovereignty, and indeed this is where all three Churches stood in
the early years of the century.”18  A narrowly confessional theology that stressed denominational
distinctives was seen as passé by many ministers, and most of the key leaders in these
denominations.

Burwash, in reflecting upon the work of the Joint Committee, illustrated another way that
theological congruence had developed.  He observed that in the Presbyterian and Methodist
churches “the hymn book is our liturgy, and, more powerfully than either articles of religion or
confessions of faith, fashions our religious thinking as well as feeling.”19  After noting that both
these denominations had been singing the same hymns for nearly a generation, a reality that had
brought about a sense of oneness, he went on:

It was this inner oneness of spirit which made it easy to find a common doctrinal basis and a common form
of church organization. We had been learning and absorbing each from the other, all that was truest and
best in our neighbour’s ways and thoughts, until we found that in every essential we were one, and that
there was little or no difficulty in finding a common expression for that unity.20

If it did its work with dispatch, it nevertheless did not take its assignment lightly, and it was
aware of what was happening elsewhere in the wider Church.  It used as bases for its work a “Brief
Statement of the Reformed Faith (Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., 1905) and “The Articles of the
Faith of the Presbyterian Church of England” (1890).21 One article was drawn almost directly from
an 1886 Canada Congregationalist document.22  Methodist concerns were reflected in various
places throughout the document.

While the subcommittee achieved relatively easy agreement about the wording of most
articles, the minutes of the Joint Committee reveal that at times they struggled with wording and
nuance. The foremost example is Article II, “Of Revelation”, which underwent some change at
most meetings of the subcommittee.  The phrasing of the final sentence appears to have occasioned
lengthy discussion at the September, 1907, meeting of the Joint Committee23 before agreement was
reached on revised wording.  In the report of the Doctrine subcommittee, which was adopted with
amendments in December, 1906,24 the last sentence read: “We receive as the word of God, the
only infallible rule of faith and life, the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament and the New
Testament, given by inspiration, to be the faithful record of God’s gracious revelations and the sure
witness to Christ.”25  At the September, 1907, meeting of the Joint Committee, as one of a number
of changes to the article, that final sentence was amended to read: “We receive the Holy Scriptures
of the Old Testament and of the New Testament, given by inspiration of God, as containing the
only infallible rule of faith and life, a faithful record of God’s gracious revelations, and as the sure
witness to Christ.”26 There was another minor change to this article in 1915.  While E. Lloyd
Morrow saw the eight changes in this article during the years as “principally verbal”,27 the
amendments to its final sentence seems quite substantial.  There is a difference between identifying
the Scriptures as “the only infallible rule of faith and life”, and understanding the Scriptures “as
containing the only infallible rule of faith and life”.  The wrestling over the wording of this article
in particular should scuttle suggestions that the framers of the doctrine section were cavalier about
their task, unconcerned for how the essentials of the faith would be expressed.
But how did they view the document they had created?  The opening and closing sentences of
the Preamble provide a good indication.  It begins, “We... do hereby set forth the substance of the
Christian faith, as commonly held among us.”  It concludes by declaring the conviction of the
committee that the doctrinal statement was “in substance agreeable to the teaching of the Holy
Scriptures”.  They were trying to make clear what they saw as the essential aspects of the Christian
faith, essential aspects they believed were shared by all three denominations.  Further, they
endeavoured to do so in as simple a form as possible.  Burwash, in an article defending the
statement, described the committee’s intent as follows: “The guiding principle of the Committee
was this — to make our new statement embrace every important topic of our several creeds or
standards which we found clearly and explicitly set forth in Scripture, and which forms a part of
the evangelical way of salvation and religious faith.”28

T.B. Kilpatrick, a theologian who represented the Presbyterian Church on the Joint
Committee, also spoke of intent:

Let it be well understood that it [the doctrine statement] does not contain, and does not profess to furnish a
system of theology.  It contains, indeed, the essential Christian verities, and does desire to give them
sufficient expression.  But it is not drawn up after the fashion of a treatise on systematic theology; and it
avoids the elaboration of those Confessions, which belong to what we may call the Scholastic Period of
Protestantism.29

We believe that any summary of Christian doctrine of the United Church should be simpler than the
proposed statement, and should lay greater emphasis on Christian experience and conduct.  At the same
time we rejoice that so Catholic a statement should have been agreed upon, and welcome it as an important
step towards the statement of faith to be incorporated in the Basis of Union.30

The Congregationalists were not alone, however, in wanting a simpler statement.  Burwash
was of a similar mind,35 as were a number of others who urged as short a statement as possible.  In
the end, though, the only substantial change after 1908 lengthened the statement by adding an
article on prayer.

As strong as was the conviction of the committee that they had expressed the essentials of the
faith, they recognized that the language in which such essentials were expressed was certainly not
eternal. They believed that in each period of history the Church had to restate the faith in the
context of the age.  A number of commentators made this point explicitly.  Burwash, in defending
the Basis, commented that the “Scriptural elements of the faith we held to be essential, the theories
human and at best imperfect, and changing with the progress of human science and philosophy”.36
Samuel P. Rose, who taught at Wesleyan Theological College, Montreal, averred that doctrinal
statements needed always to be interpreted through the spirit prevailing in the Church at any given
time in its history.37

Kilpatrick gave considerable attention to this very point:

Let it be further noted that this doctrinal statement makes no claim to infallibility or finality.  The
substance or essence of the Christian faith is here, communicated... by the Word and Spirit of God, and
received by them [believers] in loyalty and humility.  But the form of human speech in which they convey
their message to the church and the world has the imperfection which must belong to all efforts to express
in forms of human thought, and language, meanings that are eternal, and divine.  Creed revision is the
inherent right, and the continual duty, of a living Church.  This is our “Confession of Faith.”  We are
conscious of limitations and inadequacies in the intellectual form of our statement.  It will be the duty of
those who come after us to find a more fitting intellectual expression for the unchanging and inexhaustible
truth of the Gospel. We have sought, humbly and earnestly, to serve our own generation; and now we hand
on the result of our toil, with prayer and hope, to the generation following.38

Given the circumstances, it is not surprising that the resulting document had a rather
conservative cast.  John Webster Grant has argued that the general approach was one of three
denominations sharing their inheritance, their treasures,41 and this certainly applies to the doctrine
section. Grant noted that the committee, given this approach, did not concern itself with trying to
draw up a statement that wrestled with the particular problems of the early 20th century.42 Such
non-specificity initially seems contrary to the conviction of people like Kilpatrick, that the Church
must be prepared to state its faith afresh in terms of the tenor of each age.  However, the overriding
reality of the age for the Doctrine subcommittee was union itself, a union conceived of as a coming
together of three traditions not nearly so dissimilar as often supposed.

While a number of Presbyterians who refused to enter the union gave as a reason the fact that
the doctrinal statement was something other than the Westminster Confession, others gave as their
reason the fact that the doctrinal section was too archaic.  And the view of the latter group was
shared by some supporters of the union.  Richard Roberts, a Presbyterian who later became a
moderator of the United Church, delivered a scathing critique of it.  In a letter to Lloyd Morrow he
wrote:

The new doctrinal point of view in the basis of union is in my judgment a rehashing of all the antique
theology that was ever heard of, with here and there a slight bow to the liberal spirit.  My first reading of it
nearly plunged me in despair, and I should have found it entirely impossible to accept it, were it not for the
fact that the formula for subscription for ministers leaves considerable elbow room for interpretation.43

Two aspects of the production of this document — which was widely used during the 40s and
50s — are relevant for this study.  First, committee members who produced the Statement of Faith
saw themselves as continuing the tradition in which the doctrine section of the Basis of Union
stood, setting out “briefly and simply the substance of the Church’s faith”,45 which they defined as
“the unchanging Gospel of God’s holy, redeeming love revealed in Jesus Christ”.46 A part of that
tradition was stating the “substance of the faith” in terms of the needs and circumstances of each
generation.47 They also noted that the doctrinal statement in the Basis of Union had been
“formulated for a specific purpose”.48 Second, in the production of the Statement of Faith, Ralph
Chalmers noted “that no cry was raised that the Doctrinal Basis of Union was good enough for our
day so any new formulation of the Church’s faith was unnecessary, not to say heretical.  This
shows that our Church believes that its faith is neither static nor fixed.”49 In others words, the
Church was open to a reformulation of the substance of the faith.

Essential Agreement or Creedal Subscription?

The question of the relation ministers ought to have to the doctrine section was almost a “deal
breaker” in the church union negotiations.  Both the Methodist and the Presbyterian churches
required subscription to their denominational doctrinal statements as a condition of ordination.
While some Presbyterian and Methodist members of the Joint Committee might have a different
view, these two denominations pushed for some form of subscription to be part of the United
Church, and in the initial draft of the Basis of Union that view prevailed.  The Congregationalists
raised strenuous objections.  They had no difficulty with the idea of an examining body testing
ordinands concerning their understanding of the faith.  Indeed they believed such an examination
necessary.  What troubled them was the idea of literal subscription to any particular creed or
doctrinal statement. They believed that the Spirit of God could come to a person and, through the
leading of the Spirit, new expressions and understandings of the faith could arise.  Creeds were
useful as summaries of the faith, but they thought it wrong to require literal assent to them.
After making clear their agreement with inquiring into candidates’ doctrinal beliefs, the
Congregationalists urged that questions concerning the doctrinal statement be so structured as to
make the candidates’ “soundness in the faith rest as closely as possible with the living Church”.50 A
resolution from the 1907 meeting of the Congregational Union of Canada captured not only the
values that lay at the heart of the Congregational tradition, but also the views of an increasing
number of Presbyterians and Methodists:

“... That in the matter of ordination to the Christian ministry, we consider that it will best safeguard the
intellectual integrity of ministers, and at the same time preserve the Church from formalism, if at the
ordination of candidates to the ministry they shall not be compelled to give an absolute subscription to a
creed, but, having before them the Doctrinal Statement of the Church, may frankly and in their own
language, indicate their relation thereto.  It shall then remain with the ordaining body to decide as to the
acceptance of a candidate, great importance always being attached to his general spirit and character.51

Since 1925, the move away from literal subscription has been viewed with almost universal
approval.  Ralph Chalmers, in his 1945 study of United Church doctrine, wrote that “Many an
Ordinand in the United Church has since [1925], in his secret thoughts, thanked the
Congregational members of the Joint Union Committee for their faithful witness on this important
matter”.60  Grant has asserted that United Church members “have come to regard this procedure,
which recognizes both the importance of orthodox belief and the competence of the Church to
judge it, and which provides safeguards against undue scrupulosity and hypocritical subscription
alike, as a solution to the problem rather than a mere compromise.61

If Neither Sacred Cow Nor
White Elephant, Then What?

The story of how both those who drew up the doctrine section and their contemporaries
understood the function of the statement speaks to its appropriate use in our time. First, they made
it clear that their “brief summary of our common faith” was not a comprehensive treatise.  They
didn’t cover all possible areas theology could address.  As Alfred Gandier, Principal of Knox
College and later of Emmanuel, put it: “this ‘brief summary of our common faith’ is not set forth
as exhaustive of the faith of any, or with a view to restricting thought”.62  We need to avoid any
appeal to it either as a comprehensive system or as a prohibition against honest wrestling with the
faith tradition.  We need especially to recognize that our time and context raises questions and
requires response to situations not anticipated a generation ago.

Second, in that brief summary they were setting out “the substance of the Christian faith, as
commonly held among us”. This reminds us that there is a substance to the tradition in which we
stand and that not all things are “up for grabs”.  The river of the faith tradition does have banks.
This document identifies the banks, its writers struggling for the best wording to convey their
understanding. But it is a faith tradition; the theology in the doctrine section did not originate in
the minds of the committee.  The Preamble makes clear the connection with, and responsibility to,
earlier formulations in the wider Church.  The committee drew upon a concrete lively tradition as
they faced their questions, and so their doctrine section can inform us, as we ask new questions
and face new situations, keeping us from being “tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind
of doctrine”.

Third, this frequent reference to “the substance of the Christian faith, as commonly held
among us”, and the articles themselves, remind us of our raison d’être: to tell the good news.
While all sorts of “practical” issues motivated the unionists, the chief practical issue was “the more
effective penetration of national life by the gospel”.63  That effective penetration included both
instruction in the faith, and a resulting effect in terms of how the nation shaped its life.  The latter
was seen as connected to the former, the product of its impact, not primary to it.

The United Church has tended to gravitate toward issues of “life and work”, and we have had
to struggle to keep the “faith and order” side in an appropriate balance. The doctrinal statement
provides us the prompt to remember that we serve others from a particular faith base, out of our
response to experiencing the good news in our being.  And it reminds us that we have a particular
story to tell.  Those who would serve the Church as ministry personnel, have a primary
responsibility to educate and nurture in such a way that others are enlivened by that faith story to
exercise their ministry in the wider world.

Recognition of the particular nature of the ministerial task provides the rationale for a
theological testing of those who would serve as ministry personnel.  The purpose is not to search
out heretics, but to ensure that those who would serve the Church in this way stand within the faith
tradition and are able to discuss it intelligibly.  To be cavalier about such expectations, and thus to
treat as insignificant the question to those seeking admittance to ministerial office about being in
essential agreement with the doctrine section of the Basis of Union, is to misunderstand the
purpose of the Church and the particular role ministry personnel play in the fulfilment of that
purpose.

Fourth, both the doctrine subcommittee and the Joint Committee were aware that modes of
expressing the essentials of the faith were time-bound.  That’s why their successors felt free to
compile the 1940 Statement of Faith, expressing the faith for a new generation. Doctrinal
understandings do develop and language changes.  At the same time, listening to the way they
spoke both about the essentials of the faith and about the contextual language in which the faith is
expressed, should keep us from jettisoning the statement on the grounds of being hopelessly
archaic. The preamble to the 1940 Statement is helpful:

The Church’s faith is the unchanging Gospel of God’s holy, redeeming love revealed in Jesus Christ. It is
declared in Scripture; it is witnessed to both in the creeds of the Universal Church and in the Confessions
of the Reformed Churches; and it is formulated for a specific purpose in our Basis of Union.  But
Christians of each new generation are called to state it afresh in terms of the though of their own age and
with the emphasis their age needs.  This we have attempted to do for the people of The United Church of
Canada — seeking always to be faithful to Scripture and to the testimony of the Universal Church, and
always aware that no statement of ours can express the whole truth of God.

1 While the doctrine section of the Basis of Union is often referred to as “the Twenty Articles”, I have intentionally used
the former designation — except when quoting someone.  I use the former term because the doctrine section consists of a
Preamble and Twenty Articles, and I judge the Preamble to be a critical part of the statement.
2 Most notable are The Statement of Faith (1940) and the “New Creed” (1968, revised in 1980 and again in 1994).
3 Growth in Understanding (The Anglican Church of Canada and The United Church of Canada, 1959) p. 59.
4 Ibid.
5 “The Basis of Union, 11.2,” The Manual, The United Church of Canada, 30th rev. ed, p. 29.
________
6 The idea for the sacred cow versus white elephant typology comes from Victor Paul Furnish, The Moral Teaching of
Paul, 2nd ed., (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1985), pp 11-27.
________
 7 Since I have space to sketch only a few salient points of the development of the Basis of Union, I recommend to
readers who seek more detailed treatmentsof the story that they look up E. Lloyd Morrow, Church Union in Canada
(Toronto: Thomas Allen, 1923); Claris E. Silcox, Church Union in Canada: Its Causes and Consequences (New York:
Institute of Social and Religious Research, 1933); John Webster Grant, The Canadian Experience of Church Union
(London: Lutterworth Press, 1967); and N. Keith Clifford, The Resistance to Church Union in Canada, 1904-1939
(Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1985).
8 C.E. Silcox, Op cit, p. 144.
9 See, for example, John Webster Grant, Op cit, p. 36.
________
10 Samuel Dwight Chown, “That They May be One”, January 1912. The United Church of Canada/Victoria University
Archives, Samuel Dwight Chown Papers, Box 3, File 67, pp. 6-7.
11 Samuel Dwight Chown, “The Contribution of Methodism to Christian Unity”, November 1916.  Archives:
Addresses, Box 11, File 307, pp. 6-7.
12 Grant, Op cit, p. 34.
________
13 Chown, “That They May Be One”, p. 6
14 Marguerite Van Die, An Evangelical Mind: Nathanael Burwash and the Methodist Tradition in Canada, 1839-1918
(Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1989) p. 193.
15 Ibid., p. 179.
16 See, for example, W.J. Clark, “Letter”, The Presbyterian, 16 December, 1909, p. 692.
_______
17 Chown, “That They May Be One”, p. 7
18 Grant, p. 36.
19 Nathanael Burwash, “Church Union — Questions for the Methodist People. II. When?”, The Christian Guardian,
31 January, 1912, p. 14.
20 Ibid.
________
21 A full text of both these documents can be found in E. Lloyd Morrow, Church Union in Canada, pp. 305-314.
22 Silcox, p. 137.
23 “Proceedings of the Fourth Conference of the Presbyterian, Methodist and Congregational Committees on Church
Union”, in “Report of the Committee on Union with Other Churches”, in The Acts and Proceedings of the Thirty-Fourth
General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada [1908], Appendices, p. 292.
24 “Proceedings of the Third Conference of the Presbyterian, Methodist and Congregational Committees on Church
Union”, in “Report of the Committee on Union with Other Churches”, in Acts and Proceedings of the Thirty-Third
General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada [1907], Appendices, p. 292.
25 Ibid., p. 294.
_______
26 “Proceedings of the Fourth Conference... on Church Union”, p. 335.
27 Morrow, p. 128.
28 Nathanael Burwash, “Church Union — Objections to the Basis”, The Christian Guardian, 7 February,
1912.
________
29 Thomas B. Kilpatrick, Our Common Faith (Toronto: Ryerson Press,1928) p. 60.
30 “Proceedings of the third Conference... On Church Union”, p. 288.
31 Ibid., p. 289.
________
32 “Proceedings of the Fourth Conference... On Church Union”, p. 327.
33 “Proceedings the Fifth Conference of the Joint Committee on Church Union Representing the Presbyterian,
Methodist and Congregational Churches Together With the Reports of the Sub-Committees as Adopted by the Joint
Committee” (Toronto: n.p. 1908) p. 5.
34 Ibid., p. 16
35 Van Die, p. 158.
36 Burwash, “Church Union — Objections to the Basis”, p. 14.
37 Samuel P. Rose, The Things That Remain: A Confession of Faith, The Ryerson Essays, no. 20 (Toronto:
Ryerson Press, 1923) p. 5-6.
________
38 Kilpatrick, pp. 63-64.
39 Ibid., p. 67.
40 Ibid., pp. 67-68.
41 Grant, pp. 33-42.
42 John Webster Grant, “Blending Traditions: The United Church of Canada”, Canadian Journal of Theology,
Vol. 9, No. 1 (1963) p. 54.
________
43 Morrow, p. 153.
44 Record of Proceedings, Seventh General Council of The United Church of Canada, 1936, p. 85.
________
45 The United Church of Canada, Statement of Faith, p.1.
46 Ibid.
47 Ibid.
48 Ibid.
49 Chalmers, See the Christ Stand!,p. 228.
________
50 “Proceedings of the Third Conference... on Church Union”, p. 288.
51 “Proceedings of the Fourth Conference... on Church Union”, p. 327.
52 “Report of the Committee on Union with Other Churches”, in The Acts and Proceedings of the Thirty-Fifth
General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada [1909], appendices, p. 280.
________
53 Clark, “Letter”, p. 692.
54 Kilpatrick, p. 64.
55 Van Die, p. 173.
56 Ibid., p. 158.
57 Clifford, p. 28.
_______
58 N. Keith Clifford, “The United Church of Canada and Doctrinal Confession”, Touchstone, May,1984, p. 9.
59 Ibid.
60 Chalmers, p. 121.
61 Grant, The Canadian Experience of Church Union, p. 38.
________
62 Alfred Gandier, The Doctrinal Basis of Union and Its Relation to the Historic Creeds, The Ryerson Essays, No. 34
(Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1926) p. 4.
63 Grant, The Canadian Experience of Church Union, p. 34.
 
 
 
 

OLIVER JACKSON: PIONEER AND APOSTLE

by David G. Pitt

An Outline of His Life

The Rev. Oliver Jackson -- preacher, teacher, social activist, idealist, humanitarian, was born on July 12, 1887 in Abergavenny, Wales. In 1903, at the age of sixteen, he became a lay preacher in the local Methodist church, and eight years later, having satisfied himself and the elders of his church that he was well suited to the work, he volunteered for overseas service in the cause of Methodist Christianity. Posted to the Newfoundland Conference, which was perennially in need of personnel for its pulpits, he was shortly (July, 1912) accepted as a candidate for the min-

istry and settled on his first probationary circuit at Cambellton in Notre Dame Bay. After a year at that station -- which included a number of outlying island communities, to which he travelled by a small, primitive mission boat in open season and by dog-team over hazardous sea-ice in winter -- he was moved to the less arduous circuit at Clarkes Beach in Conception Bay. Here he remained until he had completed his required three-year probation. It was here also that he met Rosalie Noseworthy, who was to become his wife. Together, they had a daughter and three sons.

Having concluded his probation in 1915, he proceeded to Wesleyan Theological College at McGill University in Montreal for studies in Arts and Theology. Completing these in 1918, he returned to Newfoundland where he was ordained that June. During the next thirteen years he served the circuits at Brigus (1918-23), Freshwater (1913-27), and Bell Island (1927-31). In 1931 he was chosen by the Newfoundland Conference of what was now the United Church to succeed the Rev. Dr. Mark Fenwick as Superintendent of Missions in Newfoundland, to which appointment was added Field Secretary of Christian Education. The dual appointment being very much a full-time job, Jackson found it necessary to abandon his regular pastoral work. He made his headquarters in St. John's, but most of his time was spent carrying out his multifarious duties by traveling up and down the coasts, visiting again and again the many circuits and mission-fields of the United Church. It was on one of those journeys to the southwest coast that he drowned -- along with a young student minister, Wallace Harris -- when the mission boat in which they were traveling was wrecked in a storm on November 3, 1937.

A Most Unusual Man

I count myself fortunate to have known Oliver Jackson, if only fleetingly, and only through the eyes of a teenager. My earliest recollections of him date back to the early 1930s, when he visited my parents' home soon after the dual appointments mentioned above. I had already heard much about him from my father, who was also a minister, but who had also been a classmate of Jackson's in Montreal. My father may well indeed have saved Jackson's life in 1918 when the latter was stricken by the deadly Spanish influenza that swept through the world -- and the College residences -- at that time. My father, having trained as a pharmacist in England before volunteering for overseas service in the Methodist Church, and having himself an apparent immunity to the virus, was able, in the absence of sufficient medical staff, to take on much of the work of succouring the sick and nursing them back to health. Jackson was one of his special charges, a circumstance that helped them establish a firm bond that was broken only by Jackson's untimely death.

Having known him so well, my father had a profound respect and admiration for him, and throughout Jackson's brief career Dad remained his ally and partner in his many community projects, church-related and otherwise. His visits to our home were always very welcome and much enjoyed. I remember with pleasure his boyish camaraderie, his great sense of humour, and the harmless amusements he created for us younger members of the family. Having known him thus, I well understand the easy rapport he had with the young people with whom, and for whom, he worked so diligently, and the deep affection they felt for him.

A brief memorial published by the United Church shortly after his death described him as "an incredible man, who combined strength of body and keenness of intellect with invincible faith and belief in the real worth of human personality... [who] gave himself in unstinted measure to the task of translating high ideals into glorious realities" (The Apostle of the Outports p. 16). Early attracted by the social aims and methods propounded by the British Fabians, he believed social reform was achieved by gradual steps through education and enlightenment, and moral persuasion. He also believed that the people of Newfoundland in the 1930s, in the depths of the Great Depression, were victims of political and economic overlords, condemned to live in poverty and privation, isolation and ignorance. Newfoundland society, he maintained, could be transformed into one closer to his vision of the Kingdom of God on earth. For him this vision was no preacher's figment of some distant utopia, but a very practical possibility that could be realized through turning Christian ideals of love, brotherhood, and co-operation into social action. The form that this action should take, which he advocated fearlessly and persuasively wherever he went, as well as the reasoning by which he supported his case, are best expressed in his own words:

The people must be educated to think and act intelligently. Christian education must be linked up with co-operative education so that through sound economic planning the people may at last be able to stand on their own feet.... Can the people rule? They haveproved over and over again that they are doing many other things but they must be taught that the control of finance, industry, and education must come into their hands, if their political system is to work in the interests of democracy. The ultimate democracy is the co-operative action of intelligent folk. It should be the reasoned progressive action of the people of Newfoundland. But it seems to some of us that the idea that poverty and ignorance are the two basic evils of democracy, has never entered the heads of many to whom we attribute intelligence and judgment. In Newfoundland we have never had a really democratic government. Either the merchants, lawyers, or the sectarians controlled the political machinery and the people. (The Apostle of the Outports, p.12)

Leadership Training and Summer Schools

Expounding his social gospel was only one phase of Jackson's crusade. A man of action, he set out while a minister in the outport pastorate to lay the groundwork for the new social order he envisaged. Believing in the importance of what he called "Christian education... linked up with co-operative education", he founded the Summer School movement in Religious Education by organizing and supervising at Brigus in 1922 the first such endeavour in Newfoundland. Within a few years, church summer schools had become annual events on many of the circuits throughout the Island. At Brigus, too, he organized the first midweek groups for youth in the Conference: Trail Rangers and Tuxis. These also soon became regular features of church life in many congregations in Newfoundland. A member of one of his youth groups later described the practical results of such organizations: "When he came to my home village, we were fast becoming a bunch of hoodlums, organized in gangs and fit for anything. Mr. Jackson took us off the street and set us thinking, studying and playing along different lines" (Apostle of the Outports). After his appointment as Secretary of Religious Education, all of these activities were greatly expanded, and others were added to his program: Girls' clubs, Young Peoples' societies, leadership training classes, and others. At the time of his death more than 5,000 young people were registered in the youth groups he had organized or sponsored, more than 500 were in his leadership classes and summer schools. And for the first time, despite the Depression, a multifaceted Religious Education program, particularly among the young, was thriving throughout the Island and in a few communities in Labrador.

But his plan of action was by no means church-related alone. Religious education was important to him, but education in its broadest sense was vital. The whole system of public education as it existed in Newfoundland in the 30s appalled him -- in particular the "denominational rivalry and overlapping... which put two or three small schools under church auspices in every little hamlet" (The Apostle of the Outports, p.12). (He would have greatly rejoiced at the recent legislation that finally abolished the iniquitous denominational system of education in the province.) Jackson argued there was a need for universal, compulsory, and free education for the young, and an Island-wide system of night schools for adults. A necessary complement to any education program, he argued, was a good public-library system. As early as the mid-20s, when library services in Newfoundland were pitifully few, he was advocating the establishment of a substantial public library in St. John's, regional libraries in the larger outports, and a travelling library network to serve the smaller towns and villages. His influence played no small part in prompting the passage of the Public Libraries Act in January, 1935, and the opening a year later of the first free public library in Newfoundland. His educational ideal is best summed up in his own words: "To give youth the opportunity to take lessons on building a Christian world out of the classroom into the market place and the state."

Like his horticulturist-clergyman friend, the Rev. Ezra Broughton (sometimes called the "Heinz of Newfoundland", having grown fifty-seven varieties of fruits and vegetables in his garden at Brigus), Jackson was convinced that the Newfoundland soil and climate were far more congenial to agricultural productivity, and the raising of livestock, than they were usually portrayed. Wherever he went he encouraged people to makes gardens and grow their own vegetables, as he himself did in the usually hitherto untilled parsonage grounds where he lived. He gave his congregations information on good agricultural methods, including the use of fertilizers and kitchen compost. He encouraged them to raise poultry and pigs, and showed them how to cure the products of the latter. Indeed, he wrote, published, and widely circulated a small information packet entitled "Our Friend the Pig". He talked to the men in the fishingboats about improving methods of curing and processing their fish, encouraging them to be less dependent on the whims and wiles of the St. John's fish merchants -- the "cod-ocracy" as they were sometimes called -- who generally monopolized all aspects of the fishing industry.

Community organizations of self-help and self-improvement were high on his list of desiderata. He strongly supported and encouraged the Jubilee Guild, an organization of women's groups whose purpose was to enhance the quality of life through education, crafts and service, and which was later absorbed by the Women's Institute. At the time of his death, Jackson was planning a modest system of folk and craft schools, which he had already set up in a few communities. But one of the projects dearest to his heart was the co-operative movement. Co-operatives were not entirely new toNewfoundland in the 20s and 30s, but could hardly be described as constituting a "movement". In Jackson's view they offered one of the most promising means by which Newfoundland workers might acquire a measure of control over their economic destinies. Equally important, they would be a means to learn the art and values of united, concerted action in a common cause, the welfare of the ordinary individual, in which the State as such seemed to show little genuine interest. For him, the "co-operative way" was the only truly Christian way for an enlightened society to follow.

There are many who fear the idea of Co-operation. The fact is that it is the most hopeful Christian idea arising out of the welter of economic greed and failure today. We can find, through Co-operative Societies, the way by which there can be a release of the motive power of the spirit of our people such as can rejuvenate and reconstruct our producers and our country.... The Co-operative Way [is] the way of social and economic salvation. (The Apostle of the Outports, p. 12)

Comparing Jackson with these great international figures is not, I think, inappropriate. His passionate dedication to the task he had undertaken at great personal sacrifice -- so often and so long was he away from home that he was a virtual stranger to his own children -- as well as the indefatigable energy he exerted in pursuing his goals, and the traits of character he exhibited, make such comparisons singularly apt. Ironically, his untimely death occurred only a day or so after he had attended the first Co-operative conference on the West Coast of Newfoundland. Fortunately, his humanitarian work and reforming zeal had already been recognized and publicly affirmed. In the preceding year, 1936, on the recommendation of the Governor of Newfoundland, Sir Humphrey Walwyn, Jackson had been named an Officer of the British Empire (OBE, Civil Division) by King Edward VIII. His funeral service was conducted in Gower Street Church in St. John's before an overflow congregation, while thousands more listened to the radio broadcast. Appropriately, in view of his educational work, two schools were subsequently named "Jackson Memorial", one at Bell Island and the other at Western Bay. But as a fellow minister observed during a service of remembrance for him during the annual United Church Conference in June, 1938:

His monument will be erected according as projects for the betterment of his fellows have issued to their fruition in the equality of opportunity for education...and the inalienable right of all men to independent and adequate means of livelihood made the accepted standards of every thinking soul ("Conference Minutes", 1938).
 

SHINGWAUK'S VISION: A HISTORY OF NATIVE RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS

University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1996.

By J.R. Miller

For many years, Residential Schools for children of First Nations and other aboriginal peoples operated on the margins of Canadian consciousness. Sometimes travelers driving by a town like Kamloops would see a large red brick structure in the distance and be vaguely aware that this was a Residential School. Promotional material for mission funds let Church people know that these schools were operated by their denomination, and sometimes told modest success stories of young people who had graduated and gone on to better things in the larger society.

Since the early 1990s this vague consciousness has been replaced by headline stories in which First Nations people have brought forth long buried stories of abuse. Simultaneously, a spirit of denial has taken hold of many Church folk. At first, such denial is understandable: decent people find it hard to believe stories of the kind of atrocities claimed to have been practised against small children, their families and their culture. The denial cannot persist, however, in face of the mounting evidence; if it does it begins to partake in the evil it refuses to recognize. A friend who is a survivor of the Alberni Residential school compared it to the denial that for a time surrounded the holocaust reports.

For that reason this book by J.R. Miller is an important and timely one. Anyone reading it with an open mind must realize not only that there were abusive individuals within the schools, but also that the system was itself abusive. The presence of many caring and helpful people within the schools could moderate, but not change, their fundamental nature.

Miller concentrates on throwing light on the three players behind the Residential School history: the federal government, the churches, and the First Nations. In addition to government and Church records he makes extensive use of First Nations oral history. At a time when oral history is slowly being accepted by Canadian courts, after it had been completely rejected, Miller says, "I consider data collected by oral history research inherently no better and no worse than conventional archival sources. Such evidence must be subject to the same process of verification" (p. 543). He points out that many government records have been pruned and "sanitized" before being placed in archives; missionary reports were often "circumspect about negative aspects of residential schooling" (p. 542).

The book's title, Shingwauk's Vision refers to Chief Augustine Shingwauk of the Garden River Ojibway, who in 1872 asked Anglican missionaries to restore a relationship which had begun in 1832. In his plea, Shingwauk spoke of his hope for a "big teaching wigwam" where Ojibway children would be taught and cared for in such a way that "they might go back and teach their own people" (p. 6). Time after time, First Nation leaders repeated this theme in their dealing with Church and government officials. They wanted the type of education for their children which would prepare them for leadership among their own people so that they could live with dignity in a complex and changing world. Thus, for example, many of the treaties concluded with First Nations on the prairies included provisions for schools and teachers. Residential Schools, while claiming to meet these goals, never did except in a small minority of cases. As Miller shows, the primary goal of the government was to meet its constitutional obligations with as little expenditure of money as possible, while the primary goal of churches was to proselytize.

Miller begins by telling of a 1991 reunion of former students and staff of Shingwauk Residential School, which had been run by the Anglican Church at Sault Ste. Marie. Along with renewal of friendships and reminiscence of some happy times, there was a growing awareness of the darker side of the experience. Many students complained of the rigidity, the harshness, and the coldness of life ina boarding institution operated by people who frequently did not appreciate or respect Indian ways. They bitterly recalled enforced attendance, non-Indian staff who denigrated Aboriginal culture and mistreated them, inadequate food and excessive chores, runaways and beatings, and, perhaps most persistently, the way in which their residential schooling experience at Shingwauk had failed to prepare them to be successful after they left the school. Many of the returned students spoke of wasting years and decades in alcohol, drugs, and violence before they managed to put their lives back together, confront the pain that had driven them to harm themselves, and get on with the business of living. Unspoken was the knowledge that people attending the reunion were the "success stories"; among the absent were the thousands who never overcame the pain and self-destruction (pp.7-8).

A former missionary teacher heard these accounts but insisted upon the positive contribution of the schools as a way of introducing Christianity. She tried to dominate the discussion, although the chairman indicated that it "would not be appropriate for her to speak a second time". Even after the session was adjourned she continued to protest the value of Residential Schools, and loudly proclaimed that she would "take on anyone in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ" (p.8).

The story illustrates much "yes, but" Church reaction to the accounts of pain and abuse that former students are only now beginning to share, first with one another and then with the wider society. Zeal for their own understanding of the Christian mission makes too many people blind to the misery of their former students and deaf to the cries of pain that come from their communities. Unfortunately, only court cases and law suits have the power to make some folk in the Church hear and take seriously complaints which should have been a source of deep pastoral concern.

The value of Miller's book lies in its comprehensive account of a history that goes back to the first Residential School opened in 1620 by the Recollets in New France, continuing through to the phasing out of the Schools in the 1960s, and concluding with thedelayed aftermath in which former students began to confront those who had abused them. As Miller acknowledges, this sweep of history means that his work is "unavoidably superficial" in some areas (p. 542). It contains extensive footnotes and bibliography for those who want more detail, or wish to check the evidence -- though Miller reminds us that there are frequent blank spots in the records.

The roots go back to New France, and in the case of Protestant schools to 1787 when the New England Company opened a Residential School in New Brunswick, but it was not until Canada became a nation, and the federal government assumed responsibility for Indians, that such schools became widespread. In 1879, Sir John A. Macdonald appointed Nicholas Flood Davin to investigate the system established a decade earlier in the United States as part of their policy of "aggressive civilization" (p. 101). Among other things, Davin recommended the use of denominations and missionary societies because this would enable the hiring of committed people with less cost to the government.

Early in the history of these schools certain persistent themes began to emerge: education was subordinated to conversion. Deliberate attempts were made to cut children off from what was considered the negative influence of their homes and their culture. Indigenous languages were forbidden, and the government reprimanded those few missionaries who used or allowed them.

From the beginning the schools were victims of government cost cutting. Because the denominations were paid minimal amounts per student, it became imperative for them to keep their schools filled to capacity; this led not only to denominational rivalry in seeking students, but also to the admission of students who were ill with tuberculosis or other contagious diseases, which spread to the other children. "Overcrowded dormitories, windows sealed to conserve heat, poor diet and inadequate clothing" all contributed to serious and often fatal illness (p. 305). In 1914 Duncan Campbell Scott, Deputy Superintendent of Indian Affairs, said in a matter of fact way, "It is quite within the mark to say that fifty per cent of the children who passed through these schools did not live to benefit from the education which they had received therein" (p. 133).

Farming, workshop, and kitchen programs, initially supposed to train the students in skills that would help them in later life, deteriorated into cost cutting, and sometimes revenue producing, free labour on the part of the children. The children frequently suffered from harsh discipline and emotional starvation, as well as from poor living and learning conditions. Many of the missionary workers had repressed their own sexuality, and sought to impose this repression on their students. Miller tells of young women who had been given no preparation for the onset of menstruation. At one school girls had to wear tight binders so that their breasts would not show, and were even required to wear flannelette gowns when showering! Widespread belief that "Native people were more overtly sexual in their behaviour" (p. 234) led to rigid segregation of the sexes so that even brothers and sisters were not allowed to see one another.

As early as 1856 a commission of inquiry concluded that the Residential Schools in Upper Canada were "to a great extent a failure" (p. 85). An 1897 Indian Affairs study of the schools found serious problems: with missionary boards appointing teachers who were "not as a rule well fitted for the work of teaching", with lack of inspection, with buildings which were often without any consideration "for ordinary sanitary laws", and with the poor quality of food. In 1903 Hugh McKay, a Presbyterian missionary, claimed that the schools were failing in every respect, spiritually, academically, and vocationally, because they were trying to "educate and colonize a people against their will" (p. 136). In 1907, Dr. P.H. Bryce, medical inspector for Indian Affairs, reported that health conditions in the schools were so bad that they threatened the health of all western Indians. When successive governments ignored his recommendations, he published The Story of a National Crime in 1922 after he retired. If official reports were ignored, how much more so were complaints from parents and First Nations communities. A Church committee investigating a school in Saskatchewan dismissed complaints because they seemed stereotyped and repetitive.

As the failures and abuses of the schools became more blatant and obvious to First Nations people, there was growing resistance to sending their children. Attendance became compulsory in 1894, but this had little immediate effect. A 1920 amendment to the Indian Act imposed penalties on parents who did not send their children to school, and in 1933 RCMP officers were given responsibility as truant officers. The Family Allowance Act of 1945 provided a powerful lever, as it withheld the allowances from families whose children did not attend school. Over time, increased use was made of the Residential Schools as a place for orphans or children from troubled homes.

Following the Second World War there was an obvious need to revise the obsolete Indian Act. A Special Joint Parliamentary Committee, formed in 1946, began to hear for the first time the concerted voice of First Nations leaders from across Canada. Although education was not high on the Committee's initial agenda, it became a major item because of briefs from First Nations. Miller points out that 121 of the 137 briefs they submitted called for changes in the school system. They particularly rejected the assimilationist assumptions that lay behind government policy.

Many of the briefs objected to denominational schools, with the heavy emphasis on religion, but others supported this practice. Some criticized system by which children worked half a day on the farm, kitchen, or laundry, and went to school for half a day; they rightly saw this as a form of child labour which seriously interfered with education. Many briefs spoke of the separation of children from their families and communities, and their inability to fit into life on the reserve when they returned. At the same time, these young people were not equipped to move into the larger society. A number called for less direction by government and Church, and more control by their own communities. They recognized under-funding as a basic problem.

Among the churches, Miller says, the United Church called for the end of denominational schools, while the Catholic, Anglican and Presbyterian churches favoured their retention along with the half-day system.

As these hearings were taking place, the Indian Affairs Branch itself was looking towards a policy of "integration" into provincial education systems, both as a way of cost-cutting and also to furtherits never relinquished goal of assimilating First Nations people. The government began to place more students, particularly those in high school, in private homes. Growing dissatisfaction with Residential Schools by First Nations people, churches and government led to the phasing out of the system in the 1960s.

Shingwauk's Vision does not downplay the problems of physical and sexual abuse, but these are not the central focus of the book. Miller claims that "emotional abuse probably did the most harm because it was the most pervasive and enduring damage done to the students" (p. 337). Many former students, even those who defend the schools, speak of the terrible loneliness they experienced; one man remembers little boys crying themselves to sleep night after night when the lights had gone out. The book presents evidence about the vicious cycle of abuse in which former victims become perpetrators of abuse against others.

Canadian Christians need to reevaluate the nature of their Christian mission in relation to First Nations and other aboriginal peoples. Undoubtedly, in addition to incompetents, misfits, sadists, and pedophiles, there were many dedicated people who worked in Residential Schools. Some, in the name of Christ, were committed to their students; they saw them as people with real needs, possibilities, challenges, hopes and fears. They tried to help them, and in many cases the help they gave lasted a lifetime. Others, however, were dedicated to an abstract ideal of Christian conversion of all peoples. But instead of First Nations children being an easy means for achieving this, as they had hoped, the children proved to be difficult. In their frustration, these people projected all sorts of evil characteristics upon the children: they were seen to be stubborn and willful in a way peculiar to "Indians", and some teachers made a determined effort to root out those characteristics. The most sadistic treatment often took place at the hands of such dedicated teachers.

Miller's concluding assessment speaks to all Canadians, those outside as well as inside the churches:

The root of the problem... was not religious instruction, inadequate teaching, insufficient vocational training, or any other specific feature... The essence of the problem was the assumption of Canadians -- churches, governments, people -- that they, because of their racial superiority to Aboriginal people, knew better than the Native communities and their leaders what was in the best interests of these dependent groups. Is that attitude dead? Or has it been transmuted into something apparently different though fundamentally the same? (p. 436)

GREAT CHRISTIAN THINKERS

Series Editor: Peter Vardy Triumph, Missouri, 1997. $16.50 each

The titles so far published in this series are Kierkegaard by Peter Vardy, Augustine by Richard Price, Francis and Bonaventure by Paul Rout, John of the Cross by Wilfrid McGreal, Thomas More by Anne Murphy, Simone Weil, by Stephen Plant. A series on Christian thinkers without Luther, Calvin, Barth, Bonhöffer...? The editor must be an Anglican with a penchant for the mystical (John of the Cross), the platonic (Simone Weil), the ascetic (Francis), the catholic (Thomas More), the foundational (Augustine). Oh well, Kierkegaard is included, and it's obviously a good thing to learn about these others.

Richard Price is especially helpful in sketching the historical context in which Christendom's doctor of grace hammered out his hugely influential doctrines. We see how Augustine comes up with the sacramental notion of ex opera operato (i.e. the sacrament accomplishes its purpose apart from the spiritual condition of the presider or the congregation) after battling the puritanical Donatists who were outlawing from the community anybody who had been baptized by a morally compromised (by the Donatists' measure) presider. We also see how Augustine was driven to embrace the radical doctrine of Original Sin, with all its negative sexual overtones, by way of defending the freedom of God's grace over and against the perfectionistic, works-oriented Pelagians.

Simone Weil is also best understood by keeping her life context in mind. A Jewish convert to Catholicism, a haunted, traumatized woman living through haunted, traumatized times (the Second World War), and dying when she was only thirty-four, Weil's theology is often impressionistic and quixotic. She refused baptism, for example, in order to identify with the God who, through the Cross, identifies with the outcast. Weil's pithy probings can't help but intrigue. Brilliant herself, her fine distaste for intelligence alone prompted her to liken the preening intellectual to a condemned prisoner showing off the size of his cell!

More plodding, even pedantic at times, are the books on Thomas More (16th century), Francis and Bonaventure (13th century) (I know, I know, I should be jumping with joy, but this was supposed to be a series on thought), and John of the Cross (16th century), whose poetry, we're told (and we can only believe it) is better in Spanish.

Still, there's Kierkegaard, a choice assignment the editor reserves for himself. Vardy writes lucidly about Kierkegaard's tragic life and convoluted but nutritious works, spelling out the central christological importance of the Absolute Paradox. Space allows for only one mouth-watering quotation from the great Dane's writing on the eternal. It's presence, he says ... is like the murmuring of abrook. If you go buried in your own thoughts, if you are busy, then you do not notice it at all in passing. You are not aware that this murmuring exists. But if you stand still, then you discover it. And if you have discovered it, then you must stand still. And when you stand still, then it persuades you. And when it has persuaded you, then you must stoop and listen to it attentively. And when you have stooped to listen to it, then it captures you...

- John McTavish
 

VOICES UNITED: Words Only Edition

Toronto: United Church of Canada, 1997. $18.95.

Having carried two reasonably detailed (by our standards) examinations of Voices United in the January 1997 issue of the journal, it seemed as though it would be an unnecessary use of precious space to publish even a brief review of the words-only edition when it appeared. I didn't even seek out a copy to check on how the project had been handled. It was only when I attended a funeral recently, with a words-only copy sitting before me in the pew rack, that I took the opportunity to examine one. In general appearance it is the same as the music edition, with the dimensions somewhat smaller, and about half the weight, thus being much easier to be held by very young hands, or by those weakened with age and/or arthritis. On opening it I saw that the print is sufficiently large for me to read without my glasses, though normally I am dependent upon them. My pleasure in the book suddenly evaporated, however, when I looked more closely at the texts. I discovered to my horror that the names and dates of the authors of the hymns have been left out.

My first inclination was to get on the phone and find out how such a blunder could have been made. On reflection I didn't do that. I realized that Touchstone must, after all, carry a review of this volume, and that if I became conversant with the details of the book's production I might find myself awarding specific blame to people who are well known to me and for whom I have affection and respect.

What I want to say, then, is that however the decision was reached to leave off the authors' names from the hymns, it was an unfortunate one. The hymn book, more than any other thing available to congregations like ours -- not excepting the Bible -- has been avisible testimony to the way the ages of the Church's life belong together as a living whole, and a good part of the reason for it fulfilling that function is that the name of the author, with the date of birth and death, or perhaps with the date of composition of the hymn, have been there at the bottom of each text. It's true, in most cases, that congregational members don't pay all that much attention to those names and dates, but we also know in most cases that they don't pay all that much attention to the reading of Scripture during the service, and we have never seen that as a reason to leave such readings out; we recognize that part of a preacher's task is to hold up the Scripture passages that are read so that people will have their attention pulled to them, and perhaps pulled within them. Similarly, I think it is part of a presider's task, with some regularity, to draw the attention of the congregation to the contents of the hymns that are to be sung, which will ordinarily involve references to the hymns' authors, and to the various times from which they come. To do this effectively is immeasurably more difficult without the names and dates sitting at the bottom of the texts which congregational members have before them. People need help to sing with understanding. And they need a sense of the communion of saints. The latter is significant for Christian faith and life at any time of the Church's existence, but now, with the corporate amnesia in our Church being as prevalent as it is, having such a sense is of critical importance.

If any readers of Touchstone come from congregations who to this point have not purchased Voices United, or have yet to add some of the words-only version to their collection, my advice is to obtain the absolute minimum number of that edition which will meet the known needs of certain congregational members; otherwise, STICK WITH THE EDITION CONTAINING THE TUNES. And to those who have had anything to do with the publishing of the words-only version I say, review what you have done. In the music edition the names of the authors, and the dates, have beenincluded in much smaller type than the texts of the hymns. If a similar plan had been followed in this version it wouldn't have added a single page to the size of the book! And having the names of the authors is far more important in a words-only edition than having the names and metres of the tunes, which surprisingly have been included. If there are to be any subsequent printings, please get those authors' names and dates back in! And I would recommend also that the Author's index be included. It's possible that fifteen minutes on the computer will be all that is necessary. If that turns out to be far too optimistic an estimate, and it takes instead fifteen hours or fifteen days, we know the money is there to cover it, since Voices United has been deservedly a best-seller.

-- A.M.W.

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