The United Church of Canada in Canadian literature

Abstract

This thesis traces the relationship of The United Church of Canada to the development of Canadian national identity in the years prior to Church Union, and in the first forty years of the denomination's history, with particular attention to the literary witness to this relationship manifest in a number of key works of Canadian literature. Major historical events and trends are surveyed in the history of the country and denomination in each of three historical periods -- from Confederation to Church Union, the Depression and Second World War, and 1945-1965 -- followed by an analysis of the way in which references to the United Church in various novels of each period reveal and reflect the denomination's changing influence on and relationship to Canadian identity.