Pentecostalism, Mainline Protestantism, and the A.C. Valdez Jr. Healing Campaign in Winnipeg, 1952 by Brian Mclean

Pentecostalism, Mainline Protestantism, and the A.C. Valdez Jr. Healing Campaign in Winnipeg, 1952 By Brian McLean A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies of The University of Manitoba in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of History University of Manitoba Winnipeg Copyright © 2014 by Brian McLean Abstract The purpose of this study is to explore an aspect of Canadian religious history that has been largely neglected by historians, namely the relationship between conservative Protestant Christianity and mainline Protestantism from the early twentieth century to the 1960s, and address critical questions related to the continued presence of conservative Protestant Christianity in Canadian society. Through its focus on relations between conservative and mainline Protestants in Winnipeg, it will examine whether the abandonment of evangelicalism in mainline Protestant churches contributed to the growth of groups like the Pentecostal movement throughout the first half of the twentieth century. It will investigate whether Pentecostals and other evangelical groups filled the void vacated by the liberalizing mainline denominations. And finally, it will consider whether the continued growth in membership of conservative Protestant churches in the middle decades of the twentieth century was indeed influenced by conflict between liberal and conservative Protestants. My dissertation addresses the place of conservative Protestant Christianity by examining a specific event. The A.C. Valdez Pentecostal healing campaign in Winnipeg in 1952, and the murder of a seven-year old girl by her parents, long-time members of the United Church unhinged by the Valdez claim that the end of the world was imminent, sparked vigorous public debate and exposed long standing tensions within the Protestant world of Winnipeg and elsewhere. I argue that the campaign and the murder were watershed moments in the religious history of Winnipeg and provide many insights into the larger Canadian context. An analysis of these events shows both the mass public appeal of Pentecostal evangelism and the liberal Protestant response revealing deep-seated theological divisions among evangelical and non- evangelical Protestants in the city. The event was a turning point in the religious history of the city that marked the beginning of a new era that saw Pentecostalism emerge as one of the centres of aggressive evangelism as mainline Protestantism retreated to a modernist theology that increasingly abandoned the evangelical beliefs of its past. ii Acknowledgements I’d like to thank the following people for their generous assistance in the preparation of this dissertation. Diane Haglund, the Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario Conference Archivist at the United Church, assisted me in my initial research. Due to her efforts the rich collection of records from the Gordon-King United Church was catalogued just prior to the start of this project. Gloria Romaniuk at the Diocese of Rupert's Land Archives was helpful in my research on the Canadian Guild of Health. Anita Schmidt and Hazel Birt both provided useful information regarding the history of the Guild in Winnipeg. Special thanks to Hazel for inviting me to attend a memorable meeting of the Guild at St. James Presbyterian Church. At the Pentecostal Archives of Canada in Toronto the late Marilyn Stroud was a key contact and this work owes a tremendous debt to her and her assistance in locating records related to Pentecostalism in Winnipeg. James Craig at the PAOC Archives graciously shared his extensive knowledge of early Pentecostalism in Canada. One of the great pleasures of doing this research was meeting Chris Kennedy at the Calvary Temple Archives. Chris was responsible for organizing the archives and worked tirelessly in guiding me through the church records. He also kindly introduced me to members of the church who had attended Calvary Temple in the early 1950s. I was fortunate to be one of the first researchers not affiliated with the church to visit the archives and I greatly appreciate receiving the Calvary Temple Board’s permission to access these records. Glenn Gohr at the Flower Pentecostal Heritage Centre in Springfield, Missouri provided useful suggestions for my research on A.C. Valdez Jr. and Pentecostal scholars Mel Robeck, Gastón Espinosa and Larry Martin provided helpful suggestions for sources. Jamie Howison generously shared his research on Elim Chapel and fundamentalism in Winnipeg. Troy Van Ginkel, the former minister at Gordon-King United Church, took an early interest in my research and assisted me in becoming familiar with that church and its history. I am grateful to have been in contact with Carol Colvin and Janis McCullough, grandchildren of Gavin and Lillian McCullough, who shared their memories of their father and grandparents. Debbie Norman and Rick Wilcosh provided support and feedback. Thanks to all. I'd also like to thank my examination committee, Roy Loewen, Lisa Alexandrin, Len Kuffert and Robert Burkinshaw for their insightful comments. Finally, this research would not have been completed without the support and encouragement of my advisor Barry Ferguson. iii Dedicated to my son Brendan and in loving memory to my sister Sandy (1959-2013) and my parents Betty (1932-2012) and Keith McLean (1930-2012) iv Table of Contents Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................... iii Dedication ..................................................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................v Chapter 1 - Protestant Evangelicalism and Secularization in Twentieth Century Canada .............1 Chapter 2 - The Origins of Pentecostalism ...................................................................................34 Chapter 3 - Pentecostalism in Winnipeg .......................................................................................59 Chapter 4 - Spiritual Healing and the Anglican and United Churches in Winnipeg ..................122 Chapter 5 - The A.C. Valdez Jr. Healing Campaign in Winnipeg ..............................................149 Chapter 6 - The Murder of Martha Louise McCullough ............................................................189 Chapter 7 - The Response to the Murder ....................................................................................246 Chapter 8 - Conclusion ...............................................................................................................288 Bibliography ...............................................................................................................................295 v Chapter One Protestant Evangelicalism and Secularization in Twentieth Century Canada During the twentieth century a profound shift occurred in Canadian religion as the strongly evangelical character of mainline Canadian Protestantism declined. In the late nineteenth century Presbyterian and Methodist churches were the center of Canadian evangelicalism and based their doctrine on the acceptance of the Bible as the supreme authority and infallible word of God. By the late twentieth century liberal Protestantism was the dominant ethos in most of Canada’s mainline Protestant churches and the leadership of the evangelical movement had passed to a variety of conservative Protestant groups including the Pentecostals.1 The nature of this religious realignment and the place of evangelicalism within mainline Protestantism in Canada have been subject to extensive historical debate. The contours of the “secularization debate” have been reviewed by numerous historians who have focused almost exclusively on mainline Protestant denominations.2 While there remains much disagreement about the time-line of secularization, most historians agree that at some point in the twentieth 1 Kevin Flatt, After Evangelicalism: The Sixties and the United Church of Canada (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2013), p.2. 2 On the historiography of the secularization debate in Canada see David B. Marshall, “Canadian Historians, Secularization and the Problem of the Nineteenth Century”, Canadian Church Historical Association, Historical Studies, 60 (1993-1994); Nancy Christie and Michael Gauvreau, Full-Orbed Christianity: The Protestant Churches and Social Welfare in Canada 1900-1940 (McGill-Queen's University Press,1996), pp. xi-xiii; Flatt, After Evangelicalism, pp.6-7. For an extended discussion of the “secularization debate” see Kevin Neal Flatt, “The Survival and Decline of the Evangelical Identity of the United Church of Canada, 1930-1971”, (Ph.D. thesis, McMaster University, 2008), pp.2-8. 1 century Canada’s mainline Protestant denominations had largely abandoned evangelicalism and entered a period of membership decline and decreased social influence. As the number of evangelicals in mainline denominations declined, population surveys have shown a consistent pattern of growth among evangelicals in Canada. In 1987, sociologist Reginald Bibby estimated that approximately seven per cent of the Canadian population were evangelicals, and in a later study in 2001, concluded

Load more