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   Today throughout Canada United Church parishes are celebrating the 80th anniversary of the Act of Church Union, which brought the United Church of Canada into existence.

This celebration has special meaning for us here at the Church of the Good Shepherd, since we have enjoyed a long and cordial relationship with Mount Dennis United Church. The founding last year of the Mount Dennis Residents Association has provided our two parishes with a welcome avenue for addressing issues in our neighborhood.

The United Church did not come into existence without pain and upset. Presbyterian congregations were divided, not because anyone was against ecumenism, but because some Presbyterians feared that precious parts of their own tradition would be forfeited in a united church, and so chose to remain outside.

At a later date ecumenical discussions took place between the United Church and the Anglican Church of Canada, but they only got as far as a common hymnal, the Red Book, which we still use. (I believe bishops were part of the problem.)

Many things have changed for the United Church since 1925. The church no longer has the ear of the Canadian Prime Minister, as once it did. However, it has dealt forcefully with an issue about which the Anglican Church is still dithering: the issue of homosexuality. By its action the United Church laid the groundwork for the political process on this matter, which is ongoing.

Our United friends have recently come to see that bishops may have at least one useful function after all, namely to protect the clergy from harrassment at the hands of unreasonable lay members. Without this protection, the clergy of the United Church have even considered the possibility of forming a union.

The present Minister at Mount Dennis United declined to participate in the closing of her previous parish, because she believed that such a decision should be made by the congregation, not by the presbytery.

All our churches are affected, one way or another, by the vastly changed status of Christianity in Canada over the past eighty years. But there is one thing about the United Church which has not changed: its members seem to know clearly who they are and where they have come from. Here at the Good Shepherd we share in the value we place on this knowledge of our religious identity.

We wish our sisters and brothers in the United Church a Happy Anniversary!

June 12, 2005

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