Church and Sect in Canada

The need for a third printing of Church and Sect in Canada reflects the continuing interest in this pioneer study of the development of religious organization in Canadian society. It is one of three studies by Professor Clark; the other two, The Social Development of Canada and Movements of Political Protest in Canada show how the opening up of new areas of development in Canadian society led to the growth of new forms of social organization challenging the position and authority of established forms. In the field of religious organization, it was the evangelical religious sect which mounted the opposition to the established church denominations. By examining religious developments in Canada from 1760 to 1914 Professor Clark demonstrates how every move on the part of established church groups to secure, by union and other means, a greater degree of order in religious organization was accompanied by the rise of new forms of religious organization in those areas of society undergoing rapid change.

In face of developments in our society today this study gains particular significance. The strong influence of the functionalist school in sociology in the United States and Canada in the 1950s and early 1960s fitted the mood of a society caught up in economic prosperity and ready to accept the comfortable assumption that the troublous upheavals in economic, political, religious, and other forms of social organization experienced in earlier decades would never recur. As a historical sociologist, Professor Clark gives emphasis to the importance of viewing developments in historical perspective. His examination of the basis of protest in religious organization in Canadian society over a period of nearly two centuries helps us understand the basis of protest, whatever form it takes, in society today.