A Church at War
MacKay Presbyterian Church, New Edinburgh, and the First World War
- Publisher
- Les Presses de l'Université d'Ottawa/University of Ottawa Press
- Initial publish date
- Mar 2024
- Category
- World War I, Post-Confederation (1867-), Presbyterian
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9780776642154
- Publish Date
- Mar 2024
- List Price
- $44.95
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9780776642161
- Publish Date
- Mar 2024
- List Price
- $31.99
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Description
Cent quarante et un membres de l’église presbytérienne MacKay, à Ottawa, ont servi pendant la Première Guerre mondiale. Il s’agit d’un record étonnant, mais qui n’était pas rare au Canada.
Pourquoi ces hommes, leurs familles et leur église se sont-ils engagés dans cette grande guerre pour « la justice, la vérité et la droiture, et pour la gloire de Dieu » — Quel a été l’impact de la guerre sur les soldats survivants qui, avec leurs familles, se sont adaptés à un monde nouveau et à des dommages permanents, puis ont appris à vivre avec des souvenirs douloureux —
Cette étude sur l’expérience d’une église en guerre jumelle les récits des soldats sur les champs de bataille d’Europe à ceux des familles qui ont attendu et prié, endurant les privations, vivant dans la peur et la solitude, et en étant rongées par le chagrin.
Il se concentre sur les 19 hommes tombés au combat – certains en tant que héros lors de batailles désespérées, d’autres dans des circonstances tragiques ou à la suite de maladies, plusieurs sans sépulture connue – et sur leur veuve laissée à l’abandon se débrouillant comme elle le pouvait, sur les enfants qui ont grandi sans père et sur les familles qui ont pleuré leur perte tout en étant fières de leur sacrifice.
En utilisant de nouvelles méthodes, dont la recherche en ligne et des outils d’étude généalogique pour faire revivre des personnes qui n’ont pas laissé de riche patrimoine informationnel sur leur vie et leur famille, cette étude d’une église en guerre approfondit notre compréhension de l’histoire sociale de la participation du Canada à la Première Guerre mondiale et fournit un modèle pour la recherche sur les églises, les communautés et les organisations.
About the authors
Alan Bowker has a Ph.D. in Canadian history. He has served for over 30 years in Canada's foreign service, including a position as High Commissioner to Guyana. He is the editor of a collection of Leacock essays, On the Front Line of Life and Social Criticism: The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice and Other Essays. He lives in Ottawa.
Excerpt: A Church at War: MacKay Presbyterian Church, New Edinburgh, and the First World War (by (author) Alan Bowker; series edited by Pierre Desrosiers)
141 people from MacKay Presbyterian Church served in the First World War, and their church and their families at home steadfastly supported the war through four years of privation, suffering, and grief. MacKay church served New Edinburgh, a community with roots in the lumber industries at the Rideau Falls, which contained Rideau Hall and was home to a growing number of public servants and a large German-speaking minority, and had a rich tradition of athletics and militia service.
MacKay church embraced the conviction that an immanent God was working in history, and that Christians had a duty to realize the Kingdom of God on Earth through evangelism and social and moral reform. They regarded the British Empire as the apogee of Christian civilization bringing peace and progress to the world. They were thus convinced that in defending their country and Empire against German aggression and autocracy they were fighting for “justice, truth, and righteousness, and for the Glory of God”. This study weaves together the stories of the men who served, their families at home, and their church as they responded to a terrible war.
It focusses particularly on the nineteen men who fell in the war—some as heroes in desperate battles; others with tragic randomness or from illness; several with no known graves—as well as their siblings who also served, the widows they left to cope as best they could, the children who would grow up without fathers, and the families whose pride in their sacrifice was mixed with heartbreak at their loss; and it uses these stories to illustrate and develop the main themes of the book. Final chapters describe the return of the survivors and their adjustment, with their families, to a changed world, as they launched new careers or returned to old jobs, started new families, and in some cases struggled with permanent injuries and painful memories. MacKay Presbyterian Church became MacKay United Church, re-affirming its Christian faith and remembering those who had made the Supreme Sacrifice.
This study of a church at war deepens our understanding of the social history of Canada’s response to the First World War, using new methods, including on-line research and the tools of genealogical study, to bring to life, however imperfectly, people who did not leave a rich legacy of information on their lives and families.
Other titles by
Alan Bowker's Canadian Heritage 2-Book Bundle
A Time Such as There Never Was Before / On the Front Line of Life
A Time Such as There Never Was Before
Canada After the Great War
On the Front Line of Life
Stephen Leacock: Memories and Reflections, 1935-1944
Social Criticism
The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice and Other Essays
