Revivals and roller rinks: religion, leisure, and identity in late-nineteenth-century small-town Ontario

Abstract

The history of in Canada is a peculiar field. According to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, it does not even exist -- applicants for funding are forced to mark a box next to intellectual history in the history section, or move to the studies section for history. And yet, in less than a decade the McGill-Queen's Studies in the History of Religion has produced close to 30 volumes. Religious history is a burgeoning area of research, but it has faced different obstacles than many of the other limited identities that have recently expanded. Unlike women's history, or working-class history, history has had to come to terms with the long tradition of history that preceded it, a legacy rich in its depth but laden with stereotypical assumptions. The prevailing view of this church inheritance is apparent in the comment by Doug Owram: All the major Protestant denominations have had histories written about them and some are even good.(f.1)Religious history in Canada is marked by a distinct lack of uniformity in methodology and theory. No field is flawless in this respect, but history is less than distinguished in inaugurating new theoretical approaches, and Canadian history is known more by what it has appropriated from other fields than for what it has contributed. The multi-faceted nature of transects many different areas, but apart from the often vague claim to study for its own sake, the history of has had difficulty defining itself structurally and methodologically. As Mark McGowan noted, the study of has taken the first step out of the cloister to engage broader issues of the role of in society, but English-Canadian historians of have been particularly reluctant to embrace new methods and approaches. McGowan was primarily concerned with developing a closer alliance with scientific methodology, but the same argument could be made in relation to post-structuralism and the literary criticism of cultural studies.(f.2)Instead of coming to terms with the conceptual difficulties of studying religion in history, the historiography of Protestantism in Canada has been distracted by an overriding preoccupation with what has been labelled as the thesis. The origins of this debate are usually traced to Richard Allen's The Social Passion: Religion and Social Reform in Canada, 1914-28 (1971) which linked the social gospel movement with the rise of democratic socialism. The current debate over secularization was crystallized by Ramsay Cook's The Regenerators: Social Criticism in Late Victorian English Canada (1985) and David B. Marshall's Secularizing the Faith: Canadian Protestant Clergy and the Crisis of Belief, 1850-1940 (1992). Despite important differences in subject and approach between Marshall and Cook. both interpreted secularization as a process that was internal to religion, as well as external. The accommodation of in the face of modern intellectual and cultural challenges hastened its demise instead of bolstering its status. What originally appeared to be a promising and fruitful debate that would excite interest in the emerging field, has unfortunately degenerated into a polarized and acrimonious battle that has obscured more than it has revealed.The shadow of secularization, the legacy of assumptions regarding church history and the uncertainty about which direction the second step out of the cloister should take are all elements that are clearly evident in this collection of five recent offerings on the history of Protestantism in Canada. The range and diversity of these works are encouraging signs but it is also apparent that the confident predictions about the development of history have not yet lived up to expectations. There is an increasing concern with recovering religious experience and popular piety, but this transition has been accomplished with very little examination of the basic theoretical assumptions underlying its approach and methodology. …