In His Name: The Anglican Experience in Upper Canada, 1791-1854

A.J. Pell is rector of Holy Trinity Cathedral in the Diocese of New
Westminster, British Columbia.

In the closing decade of the twentieth century, it is difficult to view
the debates and fortunes of any particular Christian denomination, or
even the whole church, as in any way embodying and shaping the political
culture of the wider society. Yet for more than sixty years the Church
of England (today’s Anglican Church of Canada) played a significant
role in the social and political development of the colony of Upper
Canada.

Fahey’s In His Name (originating in his doctoral thesis) examines
Anglican life in what has become Ontario. He begins with the
Constitutional Act of 1791 (which created the colony of Upper Canada and
made the Church of England the legally established church with a
significant endowment of land) and goes to the Morin-McNab
government’s bill of 1854 (which dissolved the clergy reserves).
During these years the established Anglican church was central to many
political debates in a society marked by a growing pluralism of
Christian denominations. As Fahey demonstrates, these debates shaped
both the institutional development of Ontario Anglicanism and the
democratic nonsectarian evolution of Upper Canadian politics.

This book rests upon impressive scholarly research. Fahey has delved
not just into government debates and church resolutions, but into the
sermons, letters, and church publications of the time to document the
changing shape of Anglican thinking and arguments (internal and
external) as the social and political climate of the wider community
evolved. Thus while the words and actions of John Strachan, first
Anglican bishop of Toronto, provide the central framework for the book,
the thinking and roles of many other clergy (sometimes anonymous) and
laity are recognized. The result is a substantive contribution to both
political and church history in Canada. The comprehensive bibliography
and extensive footnotes increase our debt to Fahey.