Speaking Truth to Power: How the United Church Observer and The Canadian Mennonite Helped Their Denominations Navigate a New Church-State Dynamic during the Vietnam War

Abstract

<p>Beginning in the 1960s, shifts in the Canadian religious climate required the United Church of Canada and Canadian Mennonites to reassess their respective relationships with the state. Meanwhile, the Vietnam War presented practical and urgent challenges to the churches' political theologies. By examining these denominations through the lens of their periodicals, this thesis demonstrates that each church's response to the Vietnam War was a function of its ongoing internal negotiations with respect to church-state relations and the engagement of society. When an influential contingent within the United Church recognized that the denomination was no longer viewed as Canada's vital source of moral legitimacy, they became more willing to voice unpopular opinions. Meanwhile, once-marginalized Mennonites re-evaluated their traditional isolationism when faced with new opportunities to express their pacifist beliefs. Both Canada's priests and its martyrs began to realize that their role in the national landscape was to be a prophetic one.</p>