Interview with Dr. Stuart Macdonald, Professor of Church and Society at Knox College on his book, Leaving Christianity
Summary:
In this episode of the Ministry Forum Podcast, John Borthwick speaks with The Reverend Dr. Stuart Macdonald, professor of Church and Society at Knox College, about the changing landscape of Christianity in Canada. They discuss the historical trends that led to declining church membership, the challenges of ministry in a post-Christendom era, and the importance of fostering faith formation over cultural nostalgia. Dr. Macdonald shares insights from his books, Leaving Christianity and his upcoming Traditions and Tension, offering a critical yet hopeful perspective on how the church can adapt to cultural shifts with clarity, imagination, and a renewed focus on discipleship.
Quotables:
“But it's that clarity every step along the way. And I really do feel for congregational ministers, and my prayer and hope is always that congregations work to clarify yearly and beyond that, what actually they want their minister to do, and then their minister for her or for him to figure out, yes, and then keep to that. And I think that would be, that would be something, I think that would really help everyone with that greater role clarity.” - Rev. Dr. Stuart Macdonald
“while I think it is important to understand how a church what the theology of an individual congregation is, its sense of identity and history, how things get done all of those things that are really, really matter. Think about leadership. I think we also need to recognize that the broader cultural changes are also things we need to take account of. So that focus on ministry, the self in ministry, I think is great. It's important we need to have it. It also needs to be balanced with understanding the institutions we're going to be serving” - Rev. Dr. Stuart Macdonald
“And you think about that whole ecosystem, and you also think about the fact that that assumes a nominal Christianity, and I'm going to use that word, and not in a derogatory way, but just everyone had some sense of what the church is. Everyone had some sense of they should belong, and if someone invited them, they have a twinge of guilt that they at least knew what they were being invited to. Fast forward. Now that's unimaginable.” - Rev. Dr. Stuart Macdonald
“The other thing that has shifted for ministers is how much time is an administration, because those great visiting ministers didn't have a computer to quote, unquote help them, or email, to quote, unquote, help them. And so that has just transformed for good and ill what happens. But it's that failure to think about it. The other thing that denomination has not thought about well is how we form people in faith, and it generally speaking, isn't by going to this church on a Sunday by Sunday basis. It generally speaking, hasn't been through Sunday schools. It's been through other things. And I say this with tongue in cheek and but the there were times when the denomination ignored things that were working really well and that might have been okay. And so some of the formative things for many were church camps or young people's events, times when you intentionally talked about faith with peers, and you got to explore faith on a deeper level, and you got a chance at leadership, and all of those things as a younger person, that those are the things that really shaped and transformed me” - Rev. Dr. Stuart Macdonald
“I think we need to recognize how much we in Presbyterian Church in Canada, expected that the general culture would reinforce faith. So we taught some elements, but not enough. And I think one of the reasons that some of those more evangelical churches did better is, let's give credit where credit is due. They taught scripture better. They also invited people to make a commitment, and we can critique that fair game, but it is important to say to someone at some point, okay, this is who Jesus is. This is what the faith is about. Are you on board or not? And it's time to make a commitment. And what I've noted is that there are times and accidental ways in our church and our tradition where we've done that and those have been transformative for people. ” - Rev. Dr. Stuart Macdonald
“We understand Scripture to be the word of God, but we also understand that we have to interpret it. And we have to interpret it with skill and grace and prayerfully. But it's not what other voices are saying scripture says, and we need to have confidence in our voice.” -
“Simply saying community isn't our selling point. What do we have that no one else has? That's the question the church has to grapple with. What we have is a belief that Jesus is the Messiah. What we have is the task of calling people, welcoming them, asking them, inviting them in gentle ways, I would suggest to look at Jesus and to follow him. And to share that our experience of following Jesus has been rewarding for us. That's what we have.” - Rev. Dr. Stuart Macdonald
“I think the two things are denial, this is real, and we got to deal with it, and imagination. What institutions do we need to live in a post-Christian, post-Christendom environment, and we got to start talking about that. Got to talk about how we do worship and faith education and invite people in. We've got to start imagining, and I don't even think we've begun to realize we need to. That's the thing about denial, longing for the good old days, which is a part of denial. I think we just name it, lament it, and really lament it, and then figure out where we go now.” - Rev. Dr. Stuart Macdonald
About Rev. Dr. Stuart Macdonald
Stuart has been a member of the Knox College Faculty since 1996.
His research interests and publications are focused on both seventeenth century Scotland and contemporary religion in Canada, in particular religious demography and history related to The Presbyterian Church in Canada.
Stuart’s teaching areas include the global history of Christianity, the reformation era, the history of The Presbyterian Church in Canada, and the various explanations for changes which have occurred related to the place of religion in Western societies. Stuart is a member of the Presbytery of Brampton and serves as Minister-in-Association at Clarkson Road Presbyterian Church, Mississauga.
Additional Resources:
Book - Leaving Christianity: Changing Allegiances in Canada since 1945
Book – Tradition and Tension: The Presbyterian Church in Canada, 1945-1985
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Transcript
[Introduction]
Welcome. Welcome to the Ministry Forum Podcast coming to you from the Center for Lifelong Learning at Knox College, where we connect, encourage and resource ministry leaders all across Canada as they seek to thrive in their passion to share the gospel. I am your host, the Reverend John Borthwick, Director of the Center and curator of all that is ministryforum.ca. I absolutely love that I get to do what I get to do, and most of all that, I get to share it all with all of you. So thanks for taking the time out of your day to give us a listen. Whether you're a seasoned ministry leader or just beginning your journey, this podcast is made with you in mind.
[John Borthwick]
Well, welcome. I'm delighted today to have a chance to talk to the Reverend, Dr Stuart Macdonald, the professor of church and society, on the ministry Forum Podcast today. Stuart, welcome.
[Stuart Macdonald]
Thank you very much, John
[John Borthwick]
It's great to have a chance to speak to you. I get to speak to you more often now, that I'm at the college. But would you mind telling our listeners a little bit about yourself? Introduce yourself in the way you would want to be introduced to? Let me not add on to your laurels or take away from any laurels you may have. I'll leave it up to you to share who you are. Okay?
[Stuart Macdonald]
Thanks very much. I'm Stuart, Stuart McDonald, and I teach church history. I'm a historian. That's one of the first things I always say about what I do and how I approach things. I've had the privilege of being able to read about, think about, and teach about the history of the Christian church since 1996 at Knox College, and it's really been a gift. I've learned so much, and I really care about sharing what it is I've discovered, both in the classroom and in writing. I'm also an ordained Presbyterian minister. I was ordained in 1985 so I spent those years, almost 11 years, in congregational ministry in just around the Coburg area, Coburg, Peterborough area, and then came from there to Knox College. And then I have all kinds of other things I do. I love to play music. I'm a grandfather, very proud of that. But for our purposes, really, I'm a historian of the church, and that's what I do, and it's something I'm really quite passionate about.
[John Borthwick]
Thanks. Stuart, so we overlapped at Knox College for a little bit when I was a student there in the late 1990s and you came in to be a newly minted professor. How did you find the transition from congregational ministry to being a professor at the college? Were there things that surprised you? Did you? Did you always want to be a professor when you grew up? How did this come into being for Stuart McDonald?
[Stuart Macdonald]
Well, the answer is no, I never imagined being a professor. It was not something I thought about at all when I did, finally, around the age of 19 or so, figure out what I might want to do with my life. It was to be a minister, and I was really quite happy about that idea and choice. The only thing I didn't like about it was going to university, because my last year of high school was not exactly successful. And so the idea of studying at a university was enough of a challenge. The idea that I might do that for a living was basically inconceivable. And so that was something that grew as I went to university and actually came to enjoy it. And as I was just focused on mostly history, and few other disciplines but mostly history, I really, really came to enjoy it. And then I enjoyed my theological studies a lot. And so when I came back, that was a real joy.
I came back into administration, though, and I think that's always something to recognize, that I came back as Basic Degree and Field Ed Director, and my real passion was to help the college to address the issues that we were experiencing in ministry and to help produce better ministers. And so that's a lot of what I came to the college to try to do.
I also wanted to be a scholar, though, and contribute through writing. And I've had a variety of jobs at Knox College over the years. I've actually lost track, as I've gone to be a primarily a professor, to back to administration and various things. It's been a really wonderful time, but a lot of change.
The thing I enjoyed most, it didn't surprise me, but looking back, the thing that I appreciated most about coming to a theological college was having a job description. The thing that was frustrating me most in ministry I realized that later, was the vague job description and the reality that everyone in my congregation thought they knew what my job description was and thought they should tell me what my job description was, and it wasn't negotiable. And so that was the thing I really came to appreciate amidst all of the other challenges, was clarity of role, clarity of function. So at the end of the day, I would work hard, and I would say, this is what you told me to do, this is what I've done. I'm going to sleep. It just was great. And what I realized had become frustrating in ministry, and this is going back a generation, was those undefined expectations, and so I was finding in the middle, early middle 90s that more and more and more and more of my time was being tied up in administration. But there was nobody to talk to about that. And what I kept going is, you're not visiting enough. You're not visiting enough. And what they meant was just general drop in social visits, not visits that had any specific crisis point. I was actually quite good at those visits. And it was those expectations and the lack of clarity about role that I really found frustrating. And so surprisingly, and it was a surprise, the clarity at Knox is something I really appreciated. And there was a time that where I was thinking of going back, for all good reasons, into parish ministry. Nothing wrong with Knox. It was just good. And that was the one thing I was going to insist on, is I was going to have a job description. So that was the greatest surprise and benefit. I think of going to Knox was having clarity about what the expectations of my role were.
[John Borthwick]
That's really interesting. Stuart, there's been a theme in in this podcast since we started. Whenever we talk to folks, one thing we talk a lot about is, is how one discerns a call to ministry, and how that call itself is, is an ongoing discernment throughout the college years, which for some people, I think, is maybe a surprise, but it comes up time and time and time again. And then just the reality that, while we might think we've gone into the college to get a Master of Divinity. We've been certified, we're going to be a congregational minister. For many that that path is not exactly straightforward. For some, it is, you know, they go into congregational ministry. They serve either a few different churches or just one or two churches, and then they retire. But for many it's also it opens doors to other kinds of explorations and pathways that they might have never imagined. And so for yourself, ending up at Knox College was I sense an interesting pathway.
The other thing I'd pick up on is just this, this notion of the unboundedness of pastoral ministry. I really, I really appreciate you naming that.
[Stuart Macdonald]
And you're right, it was. And even within Knox College, my joke is, I've stayed in one institution, but I've had 4,5,6, different jobs, and there have been so many different things. What I'm doing now versus what I did only three years ago is completely different. I'm no longer in administration. I went back in briefly. Now my job is to write and think and teach, and that is a real privilege, and something I enjoy doing. It's also a privilege to do administration, but it's also a different task. But it's that clarity every step along the way. And I really do feel for congregational ministers, and my prayer and hope is always that congregations work to clarify yearly and beyond that, what actually they want their minister to do, and then their minister for her or for him to figure out, yes, and then keep to that. And I think that would be, that would be something, I think that would really help everyone with that greater role clarity.
[John Borthwick]
Well, and I've always found it fascinating, but the only place in ministry where I'm asked for my job description is on the clergy residence deduction form. So Canada Revenue Agency thinks that clergy should have job descriptions. I remember the national church were offering. There was a treasurer in the national church of many years ago. I think Don Taylor was his name, and he did a workshop, and he said, this is what you put in. And it was basically, you know, worship, sacraments, pastoral care, Christian education, like just a line of things with commas, just put that in and say, no job description available. And I just think, wow, if CRA ever came at me and said, no, we want to actually see a real one, I would actually have to have built one in my congregational setting. So, yeah, fascinating that world, right?
So in your time, as you've described, already, about a quarter century or so, as the professor of church history or church and society. Maybe the name change is something of note. I wonder how has your work changed? You've already named a little bit of it. But what have you noticed or become more curious about when it comes to the subject area of history, or history, church and society, those that kind of larger subject matter. What have you noticed over the years?
[Stuart Macdonald]
Well, the name, the title of my job, has always been odd in the sense that, as I said, I've moved in and out of administration. The title connected to the teaching was Dorcas Gordon's idea, and I give her full credit for this, because I think Dorcas wisely realized that we couldn't just have someone teach church history. They would be teaching other things. And they would be teaching other things with a purpose in mind. And so the job description was to give that flexibility so I could teach a little bit more in the area of congregational studies, religious sociology, and continue to teach, as I did at the beginning of my career, a little bit in the middle, and I'm now at the end, teach in the area of pastoral leadership, helping people to understand how they function in congregations. And so that part is, the title really just gives the flexibility.
The thing that I've noticed most, there's been a lot of changes as one would anticipate, over a time period like that, but I think the largest change has been from people thinking they knew exactly where the church was going to having no idea where the church is going. And I'm with them in the no idea where the church is going. But I think there was an expectation when I entered Knox and when I was doing the Field Ed preparation, now these are the kinds of congregations where you want to send students to do their Field Ed placements in because this is what the church should be like, and that is no longer as there's no longer as much confidence in that.
And over time, I remember, even in those early years, trying to say, well, maybe this is an experimental congregation we could try or an experimental ministry and getting pushback, or getting people say, oh, we need to do this. And but everyone always seemed to have an idea of this is the direction, and I don't think we have that anymore. So that's one of the big changes.
The other change that I think I've noted, and I also would say I've contributed to is a greater sense that we are in a different setting as a church now than we were in 1996 let alone in 85 when I graduated, let alone in 1955. So I think charting some of those transformations of the church and recognizing and beginning to think about how we might adapt to that, that's one of the things that I think has changed the most, and I get fewer students unaware of that change or resistant to that idea of change. When I started, there certainly was more resistance, both from clergy who are mentoring students, and from the students themselves about this idea that the landscape of Canada in terms of religion, was changing. Now I couldn't have explained what was going on, but there was a sense that this is not Kansas anymore. We are in something completely different, and we've got to figure this out. Now, I think we have a better sense of both what that is and a greater acceptance, with still some resistance, that things have changed. So I think that those are the biggest changes.
[John Borthwick]
Yeah I find it interesting that you note the resistance of clergy and students. Sometimes in the in the catchment of resistance to change, we most of the time we name the congregation itself, like the people in the church, and we don't always mention the fact that both clergy themselves, but also those who are training to become clergy or ministry leaders in the church today, also have these sort of forms of resistance with inside them of what, I don't know if it's if it's the notion of an idealism of what they hope to be doing, and maybe this touches on that unbounded job description piece of what I of what I think I should be as a ministry leader.
And so much of my formation at Knox, there was a season of it, I think, in the church, where we all had to figure out the self. That was a big part of it. When I was at Knox College, it was all this self stuff, understand who you are and how you're going to be a ministry leader. I just find it interesting that sometimes the collision points that happen in churches, because it in some weird sense, and maybe you have a good comment a little bit into this world, there's this weird sense that ministers are formed and then, you know, get their MDiv, and then they are called to a congregation, and it there's almost a disconnect of how that melding happens. And I'll just give you one real, tangible example.
The first church I ever went to, I went to Rexdale Presbyterian Church, and within the first few weeks there was a session meeting. Now I had done an internship with the Reverend Peter Riddell at Hopedale in Oakville, and I had been allowed to sort of join in and be a present at session meetings. I think he even let me hold the reins for a bit of a session meeting one time, just to get that sort of experience of moderating a session meeting. So when I went to my first meeting at Rexdale, I came at the time the appointed hour, and I sat down, and five people sat down with me, and then they looked at me and said, well, what's the agenda? And I had never asked the question I assumed, because at Rexdale, the clerk set the agenda and had an agenda, and just sort of, and there was a lot of reading it out. Then there was an email and distributing it that way. So I just turned up, and they looked at me and went, Okay, go ahead. And I'm like, I've never moderated a session meeting here, especially, or very little anywhere else. I thought you all would know what to do. And there was that real disconnect I found from being trained in the college and then walking into a church. And I wonder if that's part of the disconnect in for a lot of folks, that sense of the resistance to change, the idealism of who you're going to be as a ministering person, and then coming into a congregation who's had a pattern of life with other ministry leaders whose giftedness was displayed through that, and how those relationships worked out. And part of that new, newness of going to be called somewhere, is figuring out, you know, who are you and who are they as a part of that, and I'm not sure we work that out in the early part of the relationship. It sort of happens in the first five years, and sometimes that can be a nice relationship, and sometimes that can be a really tense one, depending on where you're at.
[Stuart Macdonald]
Well, I think what you're saying is very true, and that's a great example. And it the ministry, there's nothing wrong with working on the self and helping people understand how your buttons are going to get pushed, what's going to drive you who you are as a person. I think that's fantastic. Well, we've never spent enough time talking about though, is who the institution was. The differences between a rural church, town church, a suburban church, an urban church, and then each individual congregation within those. We've never really trained students enough to think about those contexts.
And the denomination itself always had norms. When I was a rural minister, it used to really annoy me, because every year, I had to fill out statistical forms that showed that my congregation was a failure. Why were we a failure? Because the form said, note all the programs you do, and the message was clear that a successful congregation was a congregation that this program and this program and this program and this program. I served an incredible and they are still incredible rural church. I had two points. The one remains, I think, one of the vibrant rural congregations in Ontario. I just they're a wonderful group of people. Fantastic elders. But we failed every year, because there was this norm that we had. And what wasn't measured was faith. And what wasn't measured was relationship. What wasn't measured was the fact that when a member of the community's house burned down, the churches banded together with lay leadership. We held a fundraising dinner to help that, a dance actually, to help that family rebuild that the community came together that didn't fit the forms. And so there was always a sense that there was a norm. You should bring the church into the norm, and there wasn't the realization that each congregation has individual quirks, and to even know how to study that. And so I stumbled into congregational studies in my first year as a professor, and then just kept working on it. And we still did that this year, but I do less of it now. This is the intriguing thing, because I think so much has changed. While that helps us, we also need to talk about the other things that have changed. And so while I think it is important to understand how a church what the theology of an individual congregation is, its sense of identity and history, how things get done all of those things that are really, really matter.
Think about leadership. I think we also need to recognize that the broader cultural changes are also things we need to take account of. So that focus on ministry, the self in ministry, I think is great. It's important we need to have it. It also needs to be balanced with understanding the institutions we're going to be serving.
[John Borthwick]
Yeah, for sure. Stuart, one thing that comes to mind is, was talking to somebody on another one of our podcast episodes, just about where people, for some people, where their faith is formed, and often it's in their younger years, how they understand theology is kind of formed in those spaces. Some people grow and change, and it evolves, and all those kinds of things. But I always wondered, just based on the stories I would hear, and as a history professor, you would have a sense of this. The stories that were told about ministers of the past in a place I served informed me that that was what they believed ministers should be. And so and so many of the people who were leaders in the church that I served for the longest period of time, they were formed by remembering that when they came to a city, the minister with a big hat walked into their business downtown and said, Hello, I'm the Minister from this church. Or was walking through the neighborhood and saw a woman in her garden and said, Hello, I'm the Minister of this church, I would invite you to come and join us on Sundays. The stories that are told are sometimes they'll be like, I don't even know how the Minister knew this. And then they but then they remember, oh, but in the 1950s the local newspaper would publish who's come to town and who's opening a new business in the downtown community, and where they've come from, and a little bit of a bio. And so ministers in the 1950s had a lot more of this walking around kind of experience of ministry, and their role seemed to be, and I remember finding this book from Princeton Theological Seminary from the 1950s written by the professor of pastoral studies or something, and it basically spoke of how you could do hundreds of visits, yes, and preaching. And so visiting and preaching seemed to be the thing. So for people formed in the 1950s when they were in their 20s, and mostly in their 20s and 30s, when they meet a minister in 2003 somehow that's still stuck of what a real Minister should do, or the nostalgic minister that they was beloved of this congregation, and if you weren't doing those things, then somehow there was something lacking. Thoughts on that?
[Stuart Macdonald]
Yeah, absolutely, you've just named it. It's, it's, it's that ministry of the past, that golden age. It worked. I mean, it shaped my life, where Presbyterians because that exact same thing happened, and the minister visited my father. Now he also knew my father, but he specifically invited my father to the congregation, and that's how my family switched from the United Church to the Presbyterian Church. I'm a Presbyterian because of one of those ministry visits. I had no choice in it. My parents made it. My choices to stay have come much later, and they're quite serious, but I mean, I think, yes, that's exactly what happened.
And you think about that whole ecosystem, and you also think about the fact that that assumes a nominal Christianity, and I'm going to use that word, and not in a derogatory way, but just everyone had some sense of what the church is. Everyone had some sense of they should belong, and if someone invited them, they have a twinge of guilt that they at least knew what they were being invited to. Fast forward. Now that's unimaginable. You can invite you can go visit somebody new in the community. You don't know what faith they are. But let's assume they're someone of a Christian faith, heritage wise, they might not have gone in two or three generations, and so one of the things the denomination did poorly was not recognize how much cultural change there had been, and therefore how much ministry had to change. And so yes, that visiting minister was still idealized. And in 96 when I was coming to Knox, it was still idealized. And yet my struggle was to find people at home who actually wanted to visit, and that was the conversation we were beginning to have when I came to Knox. I would have, that's one thing I wish, and you can't do everything, but I would have liked to have seen what the results of that would have been if we had started intentionally thinking about that.
The other thing that has shifted for ministers is how much time is an administration, because those great visiting ministers didn't have a computer to quote, unquote help them, or email, to quote, unquote, help them. And so that has just transformed for good and ill what happens. But it's that failure to think about it.
The other thing that denomination has not thought about well is how we form people in faith, and it generally speaking, isn't by going to this church on a Sunday by Sunday basis. It generally speaking, hasn't been through Sunday schools. It's been through other things. And I say this with tongue in cheek and but the there were times when the denomination ignored things that were working really well and that might have been okay. And so some of the formative things for many were church camps or young people's events, times when you intentionally talked about faith with peers, and you got to explore faith on a deeper level, and you got a chance at leadership, and all of those things as a younger person, that those are the things that really shaped and transformed me. And so but we didn't think about that, and we didn't often, I think, really be conscious of what it was we could do to make that transition to faith significant. And what I think is interesting is those people who had that, however that took place, have continued in the church. Those people who went to church in Sunday school often haven't, and I'm not even blaming them, and everyone has a right to choose. But I think it's fascinating that what the experiences were that made faith grow, and we still, at this point, are not having those conversations. Even though we know that the failure in that was over 50 years ago. We can actually show you on a graph where that failure took place, and yet we still are not consciously talking about that. And that's something that I find really troubling and something we need to change. We need to talk about, how do we encourage people to take faith seriously?
[John Borthwick]
For sure? Yeah, yeah, I really appreciate that. Maybe this is a good jumping off point to talk about your last book, Leaving Christianity: Changing Allegiances in Canada since 1945, changing allegiances, correct, changing allegiances, yeah, in Canada since 1945, You co-authored this with Brian Clarke, yes. Can you tell us a little bit more about your research writing partner, Brian Clarke, maybe to start and then jump, and then jump into your book. And maybe, I'm assuming in the book, actually, I think I know it's in the book, there's a little chart that might tell us one of those things that you're talking about.
[Stuart Macdonald]
So Brian was a friend of mine, colleague, we'd known each other. We were colleagues on the TST history department. He was a sessional at several of the schools at TST and working at Emmanuel at the time that we got together on this project. And Brian was just, and is, a fine, fine historian. He's just so knowledgeable about the history of the church, and specifically the church in Canada. So whereas I was more a Scottish 17th century historian, he was more a Canadian church historian. And what I particularly been impressed with was his understanding of the census, and he'd done a really excellent piece on the history of Christianity in Canada after Confederation, and really did an excellent job. And it was just that. And so when the 2001 census results came out in 2003 I looked at those, and I was just and I heard the narrative that nothing had changed. And I went, no, I don't believe this. And so it was Brian who was my as my friend, who became my, was my conversation partner, and we started talking about this. And so it's the friendship that grew into a partnership in work. And so I think Brian is just an excellent historian. We have some similarities, we have some differences in terms of our approach. I think they generally strengthen things.
And so we began this project in 2003 that finally saw publication in 2017 looking at the history of the church in Canada in the post war period. And what we did, it's an interesting study in that we looked at the census, we took it seriously. We looked at the denominational statistics themselves and took them seriously, which people hadn't done. And we particularly focused on the baptisms, because we figured, you know, you can always make up a member, but you're less likely to make up a baptism. And so those really tell you something. And so we looked at this and we came up with and we tested these ideas, and we road tested them, and people said, Well, what about this? And what about this, and what about this, and what about this? Brian and I went back. We road test, we did that research, we road tested that. That's why there's so much in the book. And there's things you probably anybody who reads it probably might skim over, and that's okay. But for the person who was wondering, well, was it more women than men? Was it this? Was it that we tried to answer that? And so the book really shows when things change for Christian churches in Canada. And it also identifies who were the first churches to see that change. And so that's really what the book is about, and Brian was just a great partner in writing that book.
[John Borthwick]
So in the book itself, did you want to say a little more about what I mean you've spoken of, I think a few of these realities, maybe the one that I'm most curious about, having read the book, and maybe reading between the lines, and you've also named it, I think, is this notion between the church, and maybe we're picking, I guess we'll go broad stripes, or our denomination specifically, continuing to sort of celebrate, I'm trying to be gentle to continuing to celebrate participation and observation of the practice of faith, but nurturing the formation or the transformation of faith.
[Stuart Macdonald]
Yes
[John Borthwick]
In all generations like this, isn't just about imparting it to the young, it's about nurturing it and encouraging it in the old as well. So much of our faith, so much of our life in the church is about, for example, Sunday morning. Not even example, the reality is very much fixation on a Sunday morning experience, which can be more of just observation and a loose connection to participation, singing hymns, doing responsive readings, but mostly you're just observing and sitting, sometimes standing. But where, where does the faith transformation and formation come for all members of the Church, from baptism, from cradle to grave?
[Stuart MacDonald]
Yeah, that's a really important question, and it's one of those questions that frustrates historians, because we can't go back and ask surveys of things in 1965 or 55 to know how much has changed. So what we have are sometimes statistics that simply tell us things like the census is identity. The Census, I say I'm a Presbyterian, and the census is really clear. You don't have to be there. You don't have to be a member, but what do you think you are? And then we have those other ones, as you say, rightly of observation, well, I'm a member. And then a participation. While I go this weekly, we don't have as many of those, as we would think in Canada, what we tried to do is put all of those together. And one of the signs that you would find that would tell you at least something about people coming to faith, would be when they joined the church, the decision to join the church. Or if you're in a congregation or a tradition that baptized tradition that baptizes believers only when you have baptisms. And that's where we really that's one of the statistics that helped us see that hinge of change when things culturally really shifted?
And the short answer is in the 1960s. That's when we really see things change dramatically for churches. And we see this as a change in the environment, the culture. This is an external cultural change that affects the church, but it's not driven by the church. And so this is when I think of the key parts of our research is pointing this out. The other thing that we would identify, that Brian and I identified, is that the group that felt this most was those churches that were the most associated, the larger ones, and those most associated with the culture. And so that would be the Anglican Church, the United Church, believe it or not, the Presbyterian Church, and then the Roman Catholic Church in Quebec. So these are the powerful bastion churches, and they're the ones who see their numbers plummet the most. Intriguingly the Atlantic Baptists. Again, Baptists in Atlantic Canada at the time were a really powerful church.
And so one of the things that we can now identify is when people started leaving, not even attending, so therefore not having the chance to have their faith shaped. We specifically also see, and I think what has become probably the most significant graph in the entire book is the one that shows the number of children baptized in the United Church in the 1950s. And we anticipate what would have happened if those children had actually been confirmed. What would it look like with what did happen? And that gap is so enormous, it's stunning. And so children came, but they didn't join the church. So there was a break in the transmission of faith. And I think that really is clear, the church, for whatever reason or series of reasons, did not successfully pass its faith over.
Now, there were other churches in Canada that did better for a little bit longer. Those were the smaller churches. And we often identify those as evangelical churches. And some of them are conservative or evangelical. Not all of them are, but probably most of them are, and they did well a little longer. And so that reinforced a narrative that has really shaped our understanding of what happened to Christianity in Canada, and that was it was the quote unquote mainline, or the quote unquote liberal. We try to avoid both of those terms. We just give mainstream. Trying to say these are the churches that are most associated with power. But it's certain kinds of churches that didn't do well, that people are leaving and going to the other churches. And so that really has been one of the narratives that has shaped our understanding of what happened in Canada. And we kind of go, no a little bit of that happened. It took longer, but we were seeing those churches also in greater difficulty. When we published the book in 2017, we were out on a limb on that one a wee bit, but I would say that the results of the 2021 census just really shored up that limb. We actually were, and most of my colleagues, I think, would agree we were seeing that no, no, no, the Pentecostals did not grow in 2021 between 2011 to 21. The Baptist all of these churches now, individual congregations, maybe I'm not saying they're not.
When we look at the mega trends we are seeing, we are in a different Canada, and the group that has grown, and I think this is the most significant finding, John of the book, is the affirmation that the group that has grown most and most consistently in this period, in those in Canada who claim to have no religion. And that is what has transformed Canada. Yes, we're now a multi faith, rather than largely Christian congregation with or Christian nation with some acknowledgement of Jewish people. We're no longer that we are a multi faith, agreed. But the other huge component is people of no or spiritual but not religious, whatever is all the component of that no religion, but people living their lives without a conscious religious identity, commitment. And in some cases, as this goes down over the generations, not even a Christian memory of any kind.
[John Borthwick]
Yeah, when I describe it in the tracking for my entry into Knox College, and then to today, I can remember us expressing in the late 90s and early 2000s, that you will go off into churches that are losing their Christian memory. And I bore witness to that within the congregations that I served where it wasn't just losing their Christian memory. And these are people within, the church, who would come regularly they didn't have much of that formation of a memory, of the of the pieces of faith, of the stories of faith, things like that.
The most obvious to me at one point, which really changed the nature of the kind of ministry I did on a Sunday morning was when I had, within the span of a couple of weeks, two different questions from two different sources of people who've been in the church their entire lives, and not just old, like, also, like, you know, one older and one, one sort of middle aged person who were asking me questions, like, you keep using this word Exodus, what is Exodus?
[Stuart Macdonald]
Yes. And then another person asking you've said this thing about exile, what is exile? And then, within that same conversation around the Exodus piece, a question of from their own child, who had been in our church school for years, said, Yeah, my daughter was asked, she's doing a project for school and she's needs some answers to, I couldn't give the answer to where Jesus died was, was that Bethlehem? And I'm thinking, your child has been raised in our church school, and she doesn't remember where Jesus died and thinks it's Bethlehem, and you as her parent are also not sure. What have we done? And so I that took me. An arc of we need to do some Bible basics in this space and tell the stories of the story, and speak at a level, I always have spoken at a much reduced level, It comes easily to me, but a sense of like, you know, speaking at a level that people can sort of start to grasp the stories and understand it better and not use language that's way, way gone.
And so now I would say even more so, like, that's where we're at. People are, people have no concept. And many people used to be, they would come for a funeral or a wedding or even a baptism. And so many people now, in our in our culture today, have not even been to any of those that would reflect a Christian faith. And so haven't had even those touch points in any point in their life. So we're really starting with, it's terrifying and exciting, all at the same time that you're starting with a blank slate, with a with a significant portion of the population
[Stuart Macdonald]
Agreed, terrified and exciting are that exactly the kinds of words I would have chosen. I think we need to recognize how much we in Presbyterian Church in Canada, expected that the general culture would reinforce faith. So we taught some elements, but not enough. And I think one of the reasons that some of those more evangelical churches did better is, let's give credit where credit is due. They taught scripture better. They also invited people to make a commitment, and we can critique that fair game, but it is important to say to someone at some point, okay, this is who Jesus is. This is what the faith is about. Are you on board or not? And it's time to make a commitment. And what I've noted is that there are times and accidental ways in our church and our tradition where we've done that and those have been transformative for people.
I remember Margaret Taylor, one of the great ladies of our church, talking about how she committed to service in the church at an event out in the prairies, and it transformed her life. So I want to say that's a great thing. Creating a boundary between the culture, not in a hostile way. But we as Christians believe this. The culture believes this. We're going to be disagreeing, and people are going to perhaps assume a different issue as the one to put the boundary on. I like to use pacifism as an issue, just to be provocative, but also because I think Jesus clearly taught nonviolent resistance against injustice, as opposed to violent resistance. And so let's use that even as a thought experiment to talk about the difference between us as Christians and a culture that celebrates Marvel Superheroes. Where the way we deal with injustice is one individual, usually male, with superpowers, who destroys arch people who are evil. I mean, it is comic in all of the meanings of that term. But that's not who we are. That's not what we believe. And so John, I can agree. I agree with you completely.
And this is where I think, in this new environment, the church needs to focus on what it does and needs to do, and one of those things is education. Helping every member, whatever their age, to understand what it is that we believe. And I don't think it's dumbing it down. I think it's giving people the framework so that we can understand what it is we believe.
So talking about the Old Testament, we read it in church. Well, how do you understand the Old Testament? Well, let's start with the two E's, Exodus and exile. And if we just hammer that home and tell people, these are the experiences that shape the entire Old Testament. Not only that, this is what Jesus is talking about almost all the time. And so you can't really understand Jesus without understanding those two experiences, or the people living under Roman occupation, and what they're hoping for and longing for.
And so I think we can do it. We just have to very consciously set about it. And that's the exciting part, that we can do it, and it's up to us. We don't need to rely on the culture. We need to do it, and we need to also do it as we, as reform Christians, understand the emphasis. And I'm becoming less ecumenical the older I get, and more confident in my own tradition, the tradition I choose to be a part of, and more confident in its heritage and the way that we go about things.
And so I now start thinking about Living Faith. I think it's a brilliant document. I think it encapsulates, in a modern way, what it is we understand. And I think we go forward, are there bits we're going to change? Of course, there are bits we're going to qualify. Of course there are, but it gives us how we read Scripture very accurately. We understand Scripture to be the word of God, but we also understand that we have to interpret it. And we have to interpret it with skill and grace and prayerfully. But it's not what other voices are saying scripture says, and we need to have confidence in our voice.
[John Borthwick]
I really appreciate that. So there's a couple of quotes in your book that your late last book that I found really interesting, and we've you've touched on them a little bit, and I'm just wonder if you'd want to say maybe a little more. The one at the end of the chapter on major trends. Why the 1960s matter? You offer these words, and interestingly enough, I've heard these words offered as speaking into the reality that we find ourselves in today by a variety of ministry leaders. And so you write this, “churches are offering answers to questions about life and death, but to most Canadians, whom we've identified as unaffiliated, some 55% of the population, those answers don't seem to speak to their existential issues. Nor does a Christian community offer them anything, a sense of beyond belonging, an identity or a sense of purpose in life, that they can't get elsewhere and on more familiar terms.” Would you stand by that statement today? Has it changed in any way? And I guess if this is true, what hope do we have as ministry leaders? Because I hear this often from folks, maybe we're not, we think we have answers, but, it's not to the questions that the real questions that people are asking today.
[Stuart Macdonald]
I so I stand by it. And as with most of the statements of the book, I can't remember who wrote it first, who edited it. It's Brian and I together saying that. But I stand by it 100%. And I think one of the understandable challenges that church leaders have, both clergy and lay, is they spend too much time in the church. And so if you really want to understand people, go get a hobby, go do your hobby, and go meet people who aren't in church. And I think you'll discover that this is both true and maybe have a sense of what some of those questions are.
I also stand by the thing that the other part of that quote is that people aren't coming to us, nor are they likely to come to us for things like fellowship or community. And I think one of the things Brian and I were trying to say there is people are finding their community and their fellowship elsewhere. And I just want to say 100% I agree with that, and because I have the fortunate position of not working in a congregation, and therefore I have more time outside the church, and I have a community of friends outside the church. They're a community. I miss that community as I move from one town or city in Ontario to another town, I'm missing that community. I'm missing my church community, I'm missing my other community. Simply saying community isn't our selling point. What do we have that no one else has? That's the question the church has to grapple with. What we have is a belief that Jesus is the Messiah. What we have is the task of calling people, welcoming them, asking them, inviting them in gentle ways, I would suggest to look at Jesus and to follow him. And to share that our experience of following Jesus has been rewarding for us. That's what we have. And I think the church, its future and its hope is focusing on that, on not on coffee and not on gimmicks, not on bad rock music. Because I know a lot of people who play really good rock music and really good music, and we're never going to get them with, even when we do great rock music in the churches, that's not what's going to get people. It's Jesus, it's faith, it's what we believe. And what I think is interesting is how and why we've moved away from that. And so I really am someone who says, No, we got to get back. Anytime you get in trouble, you go back to the beginning. I know it's a line from the Princess Bride, but it's also true that you go back to the beginning, and when you go back to the core, and I think that's what we in the church have to do. So yeah, I completely stand by that.
[John Borthwick]
Yeah, that's fascinating. So many pearls in that, in that statement, the a couple of things. Yeah, I think we've, we've moved from, and I, well, I don't even know when the last time we fully embraced this as a church, but the idea of welcoming people or inviting people to take up their cross as a form of an invitation to discipleship versus, all are welcome here. Come and join our family of faith. You're invited to be a part of our fellowship and our community.
And what was the most this was pointed out so poignantly to me, little old me, and my little congregation that I served during the pandemic. I remember saying to my family, in the first few months of the pandemic, when we were all locked down and I was the next Sunday after the lockdown, I was on Zoom for the first time, doing worship on Zoom and we did that for months, and what I gleaned and learned was the priorities of the church, and what they missed most in order was coffee hour, music, and whatever it is I do. And the funny thing was, all they were getting was whatever it is I do, on a different in a different platform, in a different venue, in a different way, and I was actually having fun. I thought we were doing some great things on Zoom. But they so lamented and so missed their music and, most importantly, their opportunity for coffee hour. And then when we came back about three years later, when we started to get into the rhythm again of being the church again, the pushback around people who were worshiping online was so intense. And the why was because so people could come and be a part of coffee hour, that was the most important thing. And I think, again, that's where so we can, we can name that the church is a community, and it's very important to folks to come every Sunday and see the people they've known for years, or getting to know. And to see people like them who they are enjoying learning about and getting to know. But where we've lost the mark somehow along the way is it's not been more than that. And I can only name the loop that my children observed throughout their lives in the church, and what they would say to me, even to this day, they would say the same thing, I didn't enjoy going to church because I felt like I was in a in a constant loop of every Sunday being told that I'm getting bigger, that every Sunday the same people asking me what grade I'm in, what do I hope to do? No real full relationship, but the small talk of coffee hour. No real concern about, hey, have you learned about the Exodus in church school yet? I mean, that might be a weird starter in coffee hour, but not sort of that those connections beyond that. And I think that's where we've kind of, we've allowed a community to continue, which is good for those that are there, but once you get locked into a community, or you call the church a family that that puts barriers around it, doesn't become as permeable as maybe the church or following Jesus and being that kind of community really needs to be.
[Stuart Macdonald]
I would agree, and when we don't live up to what other communities do, a Facebook message appeared last night that one of our musician friends had been in a serious car accident and was going in for an operation. And the number of people who responded, that's a community. We had a friend die in COVID, and it was gut wrenching. Those people knew each other and loved each other and cared about each other, and so we in the church can't pretend that casual conversations at Coffee Hour are the same thing. Now that doesn't mean there aren't deep conversations at Coffee Hour. I remember going up to the church that my parents went to, and I could barely talk to my father because some kid was running up to tell my dad something that had happened in school, but that's because my dad had developed a relationship and listened. And so I think we need to have community, but real community, so we're on the same page. And I think though, our identifying mark can't be community, it can't be coffee, our it has to be faith, faith in Jesus as the Christ, and that's who we have to be.
And our music, I would argue, has to be the same. I don't care the style. I do care that it's good, but I don't care the style. And I also think we have to think about the function of music. Is it just performative for the musicians? I'm a musician I love to perform. Get me away from the mic, or is it to help people have songs of faith for when they need them. And they will need them, and that includes songs of lament. And so one of my favorite songwriters, Wendell Kimbrough, has written a whole series of songs about lament. And when the Neo Nazis marched in Charlottesville and the churches had to gather for worship, those are the songs they needed to sing, and thank God they knew them, because otherwise they would have been devastated. But they had those songs of faith that they could rely on. And I've heard people from those congregations talk about it. And so I think, why do we have these things? What songs do we need to give up these? These are the questions. The church can do it. We have hope. We have Jesus. We have Christ. God is with us. I believe that to the core of my being, what I think we're doing is not a very good job of sharing that we're living it, I think, but we're not sharing it, and we have a tendency of fighting the last battle. So there was a time when we weren't friendly and we needed to welcome everyone. Got it, but maybe we need to do something else as well.
[John Borthwick]
Yeah, provocative questions to think about. You conclude the book with “the story told in this book is not a story most people have heard before. Indeed, it runs contrary to most of the stories we hear. The collapse of the vitality of what has been the dominant religion in Canada, Christianity is, in fact, very recent, and it's a story that needs to be told and understood.” I want to, I want to thank you and Brian for telling this story. I think it is very helpful. You know, shameless plug for your book. I think, I think it's a good one.
[Stuart Macdonald]
Thank you
[John Borthwick]
Because we get told certain stories or certain narratives are told about our reality. They're shaped by our own personal experience or neighborhoods, you know, all those kinds of things. And many of us maybe don't read the census with this, with the kind of lens that you, you all bring to it. But I the curiosity I have was, would you comment? Or could you comment on the notion of, why isn't? Why is this story not the one that's typically told, the story that you tell in the book. We've nuanced it throughout this conversation. But why do you think people aren't telling that story?
[Stuart Macdonald]
I think they're not telling that story because the dominant story that we've dealt with for a long time, there's really two, but both of them suggest long term trends. And the first narrative, when we do talk about this in the book, in the theory section, right at the beginning, is some form of secularization theory, which basically says, Oh, the Enlightenment happened and people started losing their faith. Darwin came out, people started losing their faith. Science, urbanization, industrialization, people have gradually and consistently been losing their faith. That faith doesn't work in a modern world. It's irrelevant. The data doesn't support that, but I'm starting to call these ideas vampire ideas, because it's impossible to kill an idea like this, you can prove all the evidence of this, and people still say, well, no, it's true. There's elements out of it are true, but there has been a growing awareness that people can live without faith. There's been greater tolerance of that all those things are true. The nature of faith has changed. All those things are true, but that, that's the one dominant narrative, the secularization, that science wins.
The second one is more complicated, and it has a couple of ideas. Well, basically it's related to the fact that, or it suggests the fact that the trend is, certain kinds of churches are failing, other kinds of churches are succeeding. And if you get the right formula, you will succeed. And Rodney Stark, Finke and Stark, and the churching of America have really pushed that narrative. Rational choice theory, that people are rationally choosing the right kinds of churches. The more common version came through the title of Dean Kelley's book, Why Conservative Churches are Growing. And that's really not what he wanted to title the book. His books about something else, but that's the narrative, and that narrative has, in particular, I've come to understand shape the Presbyterian Church in Canada. The basic idea is we got our theology wrong. If we get our theology right, and it's a conservative theology, things will go well again. And I don't think there's any evidence for that, and Brian and I together didn't think there was any evidence for that. And so that's what we really took apart.
What we think the evidence shows is an unexpected shift that relates to the cultural shift in the 1960s and that's, to me, what the evidence shows. But those are two very powerful ideas, and again, there's very limited evidence of that. Conservative churches, some of them are doing better, but not all of them, and definitely in today's day and age, very few people are doing well, and I think we just need to recognize that. And those that are, the mega churches, are built on foundations of sand, because they're built on charismatic leadership, almost an autocratic model of leadership in some cases. And when that leader goes down, there's nothing left and a lot of destruction in the wake.
[John Borthwick]
I used to joke with with colleagues, at least in in, I guess, Southern Ontario, I used to joke that there's probably within the vicinity, or within relative driving distance from where you are, a church that has side as a part of its name. Could be a could be a creek side, could be a lakeside, could be a something side. I don't know why, but all the names seem to be that. And for the people in the pews, in our in our Presbyterian churches, the lamentation was always, why couldn't we be as successful or more like those churches that have the name side. They seem to be bigger. They seem to be active. Young people were there, families were there. And that would have been the early part of my ministry for a for a good chunk. But then what I noticed and what I heard from the colleagues I knew in those sides, churches and other kinds of churches was that people are fickle and they would move. So you might have been doing great as a as one of those side churches, but then, for some reason, there was a new thing in town, and a good chunk of your leadership and your people went to a different church, and left you, and then you were you were struggling for a time. Sometimes that was around transitions in leadership, just as you noted, but sometimes it was just a new thing. Let's try something different. Let's try something new. What has the coolest programs, or just built a brand new building and has awesome stuff for our kids and stuff like that.
I even notice the phenomenon of people leaving the Presbyterian Church or other kind of traditions, like mainline traditions, and taking their kids to those churches, even if they actually would articulate out loud that they didn't appreciate the kind of theology that might have been expressed. They themselves didn't like the form of worship that took place on a regular Sunday, but they were doing it for their kids. And I found it odd that people would make those choices, but, but they were making those choices. And so that was an interesting phenomenon, as I observed that in my town,
[Stuart Macdonald]
I agree, and I think you really named it very briefly. So what we've seen as success is numbers. What if our in our imagination, success as the Quakers, where you don't have numbers, but my goodness, you're punching above your weight. You have a commitment to a particular understanding of faith that identifies you. And you may not be big, but my goodness, you're powerful.
[John Borthwick]
Fascinating, for sure, just in the time, we have a couple of other curiosities and questions. I've heard it said, from a fellow historian and a mutual friend of ours, Dr. James Robertson, that historians look back, they aren't meant to be fortune tellers, but I'm going to take a risk, and I'm going to ask you, I think you've been already doing some fortune telling today. But ask the historian in you, what do you perceive are the greatest challenges ahead for the PCC, specifically, and maybe the wider landscape of the Christian church. But we can also just be very specific on the PCC, what are the greatest challenges as you foretell them, having a good sense of what's been gone on before us.
[Stuart Macdonald]
Denial and lack of imagination. Denial that this is real and that the strategy has to be more than simply contracting at an acceptable pace. We need to do something different. And lack of imagination is the other thing that I think is really true. We can't imagine how to live as Christians, without congregations, I mean, without other fellow believers. But the kind of institution that's developed over the last 200 years more, though, the last 100 years, it's got a building and a certain set of programs, a certain thing. We can't imagine how to live the Christian faith without that. And I think we need to. We can't imagine how to live the Christian faith outside of a Christian government or government is sympathetic to us. Christendom. And I could go on, but I think the two things are denial, this is real, and we got to deal with it, and imagination. What institutions do we need to live in a post-Christian, post-Christendom environment, and we got to start talking about that. Got to talk about how we do worship and faith education and invite people in. We've got to start imagining, and I don't even think we've begun to realize we need to. That's the thing about denial, longing for the good old days, which is a part of denial. I think we just name it, lament it, and really lament it, and then figure out where we go now.
[John Borthwick]
And I would just, I would add on to the mix that my observation is that the reality of denial and a lack of imagination comes from a massive and almost overwhelming and crippling feeling of anxiety and fear.
[Stuart Macdonald]
Yes.
[John Borthwick]
That's reinforced regularly by the society we live in. Yes, we're afraid of so many things, but we're also afraid when it comes to our church and Christianity and our faith, we're afraid and anxious. And when we're afraid and anxious, we will deny a lot of things and hope for something different to the past. We will lack creativity. We can't even you can't be creative when you're feeling anxious all the time
Last question, I hear you're working on a new book. I only hear because every so often you're walking the hallways saying, I'm doing the edits. I'm almost done. I'm almost done. I believe you are done.
[Stuart Macdonald]
Done.
[John Borthwick]
You're super done.
[Stuart Macdonald]
It's at the publishers. We're at all we're at those stages that happen in publishing as the book moves from an idea and a manuscript to the final thing. They actually even have it up for pre order on Amazon and a few of these sites. It's called Traditions and Tension. It's a history of the Presbyterian Church in Canada from 1945 to 1985. One way of thinking of the book is. That it tries to cover the same ground, the same key years that Brian Clarke and I identified in Leaving Christianity, but with completely different sources. So if Brian and I said, this is what the numbers say, what this book says was, well, let's look at denominational reports, Presbyterian Record, all of those other more traditional historical sources. And did they tell a similar story or a different story? And the news, good, bad or indifferent, is it lines up perfectly. That's actually why, this book was the original book. Leaving Christianity needed to be written before this book could be. And I realized that, and so put this book on pause, because we had to figure out the reality of what was happening in Canada, before we could really look at some of the themes that I explore in this book.
So it's a thematic look. It looks at how we built new congregations and how they flourish to begin with, and then struggled more and more later on. It talks about our identity. We go from confidence, proud to be Presbyterian to an uncertainty. And again, it's around that mid-60s that things start to change. It's about the place of women in the church. I think that's a really, really important discussion, how we move to the ordination of women, and then how we reaffirm that. But some of the debates around that, which I think is really important, and not what you're hearing in a lot of the common chatter now. I'm realizing the extent to which people are misinformed about how the Presbyterian Church in Canada denominationally decided that it believed that scripture allowed for, even called for the ordination of women as elders and ministers. That, to me, is a foundational principle of what we believe, and so how that happened, and then the arguments around it, and then I look at changes in theology and music.
So there's the themes that go through the book, but I think combined, it really gives us a sense of this period. And you really can see both the confidence in the early period, when things are going well, but then as things go poorly, you can see those growing tensions and the tradition not adapting as much as one would wish it would. And I think it's ironic that in 1984 we came up with a contemporary statement of faith. It is brilliant. I appreciate it couldn't have been written in the 60s. Thank goodness we didn't create one in the 60s, but it was also too late. I think, to have had a contemporary statement, rather than always pointing back to the 17th century, would have done us service if it had been written in the 40s or 50s, It would have done a service through the 60s and 70s, at least, to give us a sense of what we believed. So we end up with with Living Faith, which I think is brilliant, but by that point, the denominations membership is already lower than it was when we when we came out of the Second World War. So the change had already happened, and it's that external cultural change. And the book really talks about how we worked to and sometimes did better, sometimes did not do as well to deal with that cultural change. So that's what the book's about. I'm excited by it, and it's been fun to write and really interesting to research.
[John Borthwick]
And when does it come out? Stuart, when's it official?
[Stuart Macdonald]
The I believe they're saying in June of next year is the official publication date. I'm hoping it will be out sooner. I'm hoping that they're being more conservative in that, but hey, I don't work in the publishing industry. It will be reasonably priced. It's McGill Queen's University Press, which is an incredibly good press to work with. I'm very, very pleased they published leaving Christianity. They've been fantastic on this. They know what they're doing. I try to do my job because I know they can do theirs. They're just wonderful to work with. And I think the end product is due to the teamwork yet again.
[John Borthwick]
That's amazing, and we'll put that in the show notes for pre order and things like that.
[Stuart Macdonald]
Thank you.
[John Borthwick]
I'll also note in the show notes that you did a really interesting lecture on on one of those themes that you're speaking about that are that are going to be in the book around the role of women and the ordination of women in the PCC for the University of Toronto alumni week or something, or reunion week. I think it was, and that's on the Knox College YouTube. So I'll make sure that that's in the show notes as well. Yeah, I think that would be great. Is there anything I haven't asked you that you wish I had in this conversation today, Stuart?
[Stuart Macdonald]
No, it's always great to talk to you. We have some very similar concerns and passions and love, a love for the church, and a wish for the best of the church, and sometimes a frustration your church is not changing in ways that will help us deal with this situation. So no, I think we've covered the ground very well, and I really appreciate the wisdom of your questions.
[John Borthwick]
And thank you for this conversation. I think this has been really meaningful to me and helpful, hopefully to our Ministry Forum, audience. Thank you, Stuart, for all you do for college, for the Presbyterian Church in Canada, and for those people in your community, in your circle, you are a gift in all those spaces and places. Thank you.
[Stuart Macdonald]
Take care. Thank you.
[John Borthwick]
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