The need for a third printing of
Church and Sect in Canada
reflects the continuing interest in this pioneer study of the development of
religious organization in Canadian society. It is one of three studies by Professor
Clark; the other two,
The Social Development of Canada
and
Movements of
Political Protest in Canada
show how the opening up of new areas of development
in Canadian society led to the growth of new forms of social organization
challenging the position and authority of established forms. In the field of
religious organization, it was the evangelical religious sect which mounted the
opposition to the established church denominations. By examining religious
developments in Canada from 1760 to 1914 Professor Clark demonstrates how every move
on the part of established church groups to secure, by union and other means, a
greater degree of order in religious organization was accompanied by the rise of new
forms of religious organization in those areas of society undergoing rapid
change.
In face of developments in our society today this study gains
particular significance. The strong influence of the functionalist school in
sociology in the United States and Canada in the 1950s and early 1960s fitted the
mood of a society caught up in economic prosperity and ready to accept the
comfortable assumption that the troublous upheavals in economic, political,
religious, and other forms of social organization experienced in earlier decades
would never recur. As a historical sociologist, Professor Clark gives emphasis to
the importance of viewing developments in historical perspective. His examination of
the basis of protest in religious organization in Canadian society over a period of
nearly two centuries helps us understand the basis of protest, whatever form it
takes, in society today.