Evangelical Christianity and Political Thought in Alberta

Abstract

This essay explores the influence of religion on the political thought of three key leaders from Alberta’s political history and its subsequent impact on both the populist movements they led and the broader political development of Alberta. Although significant theological differences existed between the religious outlooks of Henry Wise Wood of the United Farmers of Alberta (UFA) on the one hand, and William Aberhart and Ernest Manning of Alberta Social Credit on the other, both of these views were built atop an individualistic evangelical Christian foundation that differed in important ways from the social gospel movement prevalent on the Canadian Prairies in the first half of the twentieth century. This shared individualistic theology helped to generate varying levels of antipathy towards state-led collectivist arrangements in both the UFA and Alberta Social Credit, eventually blossoming into Manning’s outright vilification of socialism in the 1950s and 1960s. The essay concludes with some thoughts on the relationship between these religion-based streams of political thought and Alberta’s broader political trajectory in general and its consistent rejection of left-leaning political parties in particular.