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Religion History

After Evangelicalism

The Sixties and the United Church of Canada

by (author) Kevin N. Flatt

Publisher
McGill-Queen's University Press
Initial publish date
May 2013
Category
History
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9780773588578
    Publish Date
    May 2013
    List Price
    $100.00
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780773541245
    Publish Date
    Jul 2013
    List Price
    $40.95
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780773541238
    Publish Date
    Jul 2013
    List Price
    $110.00

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Description

At a time when Canadians were arguing about the merits of a new flag, the birth-control pill, and the growing hippie counterculture, the leaders of Canada's largest Protestant church were occupied with turning much of English-Canadian religious culture on its head. In After Evangelicalism, Kevin Flatt reveals how the United Church of Canada abruptly reinvented its public image by cutting the remaining ties to its evangelical past.

Flatt argues that although United Church leaders had already abandoned evangelical beliefs three decades earlier, it was only in the 1960s that rapid cultural shifts prompted the sudden dismantling of the church's evangelical programs and identity. Delving deep into the United Church's archives, Flatt uncovers behind-the-scenes developments that led to revolutionary and controversial changes in the church's evangelistic campaigns, educational programs, moral stances, and theological image. Not only did these changes evict evangelicalism from the United Church, but they helped trigger the denomination's ongoing numerical decline and decisively changed Canada's religious landscape.

Challenging readers to see the Canadian religious crisis of the 1960s as involving more than just Quebec's Quiet Revolution, After Evangelicalism unveils the transformation of one of Canada's most prominent social institutions.

About the author

Kevin N. Flatt is assistant professor of history at Redeemer University College.

Kevin N. Flatt's profile page