For years, when driving past 16th and Burrard, I have enjoyed the thoughtful, sometimes provocative, words on the sign outside Canadian Memorial United Church and Centre for Peace.
“God Himself does not propose to judge a man until he is dead. So why should you?” it once asked. “Reality is our God, evidence is our scripture, integrity is our religion.” “The real miracle is not to walk on water, but to walk on earth.” “One must care about a world one will never see.”
The little sign frequently provokes big questions. But a simple question I’ve carried for some time is about the origin of the grandiose name of the place.
It turns out it’s a story that expresses decades of changing views in Canadian society about faith as well as perceptions of history, war and peace.
After the First World War, a military chaplain, Rev. George Fallis, returned home to Vancouver determined to honor the young men he had buried overseas. His vision was to create a monumental church that would represent the unity of Canada — remember, the First World War was one of this young country’s most profound comings of age — and which would stand in tribute to the lives lost.
Fallis travelled the country, raising funds, which paid for a series of remarkable stained glass windows. The church opened in 1928, with a stained glass window for every province (except Newfoundland, which didn’t join confederation until 1949) and Yukon. There is also a window commemorating the nurses of the First World War, created through funds they contributed.
“They are stunning,” says Rev. Beth Hayward, who has been minister here for three years. “The focus is biblical stories, but then at the bottom there is a story from each of the provinces that lifts up a significant moment from their colonial history.”
Time marches on, though. And the United Church of Canada – at once the country’s largest Protestant denomination and a wellspring of much of this country’s liberal fervor — prides itself on moving with public opinion (if not leading it).
Services at Canadian Memorial, Hayward says, defy what most people would expect from church.
“It’s so open-minded,” she says. “The way we talk about God is different than the way you would think would happen in church. This is not your grandma’s church anymore.” Though she hastens to add that there are plenty of grandmas, some of whom dance during services to lively and engaging gospel and other inspirational music.
She describes the church’s theology as more questioning and curious than some Christians might expect.
“We are not certain about a lot of things and we’re proud of that,” she says, laughing. “If we come across to people as having all the answers, that makes us nervous.”
As the church has become increasingly involved, across the decades, in peace and antiwar work, it seems there was some discomfort at the origins of this congregation, with its history so deeply embedded in the war that was to end all wars.
In the 1990s, as mainline Christian churches across North America were suffering decline, Canadian Memorial faced expensive renovations on Memorial Hall, the large building smack on the corner of 16th and Burrard that predates the church by five years and served as a community centre.
There was a pool in the basement where, Hayward says, generations of Vancouver kids learned to swim. At perhaps the lowest membership ebb of the church’s history, the congregation sold the building and it was transformed into condos. Canadian Memorial used the funds to construct a new facility, just to the west, on 16th.
The new building was envisioned as a place not exclusively for Christians, but also for “mission partners,” people of any orientation whose projects align with those of the church. So there are programs in the centre that are church-sponsored and others initiated by mission partners. There is tai chi, meditation, grassroots organizing groups, as well as small discussions that meet to explore books, sermons and people’s individual spiritual journeys.
The move revived the congregation. Hayward says her church is a magnet for people from throughout the city and is thriving, while many other congregations still struggle.
When it came time to name the new building and bestow on it a sense of mission, congregants settled on the Centre for Peace.
“We quite deliberately chose the name Centre for Peace,” Hayward says, noting this was long before her time. “Our old historic building honours the sacrifice of people in war and yet we want to lift up the history that, in truth, the Christian faith is really about love and peace … The church has been complicit in war, in colonialism. People of faith have been part of instances of war and violence and yet our underlying message is about peace.”
The way I think I will imagine it, as I continue decades of driving past this familiar corner, is that the church is a commemoration to the soldiers of the past, while the centre is a monument to the hope that such horrors as they experienced will not be visited upon future generations.
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