Tradition and Tension
The Presbyterian Church in Canada, 1945–1985
A pivotal period of reckoning and change for a major Canadian church.
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In 1945 the Presbyterian Church was one of Canada’s largest and most culturally influential churches. This impressive standing, in the aftermath of a depression and a global war and just twenty years after much of its membership had departed to form the United Church of Canada, was a mark of the Presbyterian Church’s resilience and resourcefulness. Yet the denomination’s greatest challenges lay in the decades that followed.
Tradition and Tension explores the history of the Presbyterian Church in Canada from 1945 to 1985. In the first half of this period, the church vigorously built new congregations in the suburbs, revitalized existing congregations, and took part in the religious revival of the 1950s. It opened its doors to new ethnic communities, updated its forms of worship, and revised its structures to permit the ordination of women. These renewal efforts were not without controversy within the church, however. Amid the cultural aftershocks of the 1960s, and as membership growth stalled, arguments about who was responsible for the church’s waning influence widened the rift between modernizers and traditionalists. Their common vision was lost.
The place of religion in Canadian society changed dramatically in the postwar period. Tradition and Tension examines how the Presbyterian Church consciously sought to reflect these changes – and how it was transformed and even overwhelmed by them.
“Macdonald provides an innovative and multifaceted rendering of Presbyterianism that integrates the perspectives of both ordinary members and denominational luminaries.” Denis McKim, Douglas College and the author of Boundless Dominion: Providence, Politics, and the Early Canadian Presbyterian Worldview
“Macdonald addresses various debates and antagonisms that are still ongoing within the Presbyterian church. [He] painstakingly examines denominational records and magazines, [arguing] that Presbyterians were not to blame for shifts that a historian might say were overdetermined, if not predestined.” Canadian Historical Review
- Winner, History Book Award (Scholarly), Presbyterian Church in Canada 2026