CHURCH AND STATE IN UPPER CANADA: JOHN STRACHAN'S POLITICAL THEOLOGY AND PRACTICE

Abstract

The purpose of the dissertation is to argue that John Strachan’s involvement in politics and education stemmed from his belief that a generally Christian and particularly Anglican Tory British culture would provide the healthiest form of society in Upper Canada. The project provides a counterbalancing view to the common narrative that Strachan was an ambitious and greedy theological turncoat who stifled the political, educational, and religious development of Upper Canada in the first half of the nineteenth century. It argues instead that Strachan was consistent with the thoughts and beliefs of an eighteenth-century Anglican Tory. Chapters 1 to 3 detail the key political and religious events of the eighteenth century in Britain and North America, as well as Strachan’s early life and personal influences. These chapters show that Strachan’s worldview was shaped by the events of the eighteenth century, and that it is difficult to understand his beliefs and actions without recognising the formative power of those occurrences. Chapters 4 to 6 detail Strachan's theological beliefs in the three central areas of church, education, and politics, emphasising the firm and unchanging nature of these beliefs, and their defining role in his life and actions. Chapters 7 to 9 illustrate how he put those theological beliefs into practice in the three instances of the Clergy Reserves, King’s College, and the battle over Responsible Government. Compromise was unthinkable for Strachan, and caused his defeat in each of the three engagements, a fact that dispels the idea that he was motivated solely or mainly by personal ambition. Instead, Strachan is shown to be an Anglican Tory, theologically motivated and consistent in his support for the established church, Christian university education, and the need to preserve the “Glorious Constitution.”