An extended review of a 2023 book by Michael Wood Daly
Note: Our print issue contains a shorter version of this review. Faith Today welcomes your thoughts on any of our reviews. We also welcome suggestions of other Canadian Christian books to review: Contact us.
Cascade, 2023. 256 pages. $33 (e-book $33)
While preparing this book review I heard a sermon on Psalm 24, on the ancient vision of Church, the House of God, opening the gates and lifting the ancient doors so all could come in.
Michael Wood Daly retells this vision of Church in the first part of his new book, taking readers from ancient times through to the churches of Canada today.
It is an amazing journey from Old Testament stories to the early churches in the Mediterranean, then their rooting in Europe before travelling to the Americas with the colonial conquest. From there the book describes what the Church became in early Canada, then after a statistical review of where our country’s churches find themselves today, a thoughtful exploration of ways ahead.
I have stacks of books about mission, ministry, justice, governance and Christian perspectives on this or that discipline in the academy. Perhaps many Faith Today readers will identify with that. But I don’t have many about the Church, much less about the Church in Canada, and my impression is that this is a rare read, a book of ecclesiology – specifically about a history of ecclesiology leading to a hard-nosed description and diagnosis of the church in Canada.
It’s fair to say this book is for all who are interested in knowing more about where churches of Canada have come from, and so also interested in where the Church in Canada is going. Clearly pastors, priests, lay leaders and ministry staff are key audiences.
Its author Michael Wood Daly is an accomplished researcher of the church and faith communities in Canada. He is comfortable working in several Christian traditions and brings a strong comparative eye to the discipline. He currently works in community engagement at a national charity focused on repurposing underused churches into community hubs and affordable housing. This charity was founded in 2018 as Trinity Centres Foundation and is now called Relèven.
He also directed the Halo Canada Project (HaloProject.ca), which calculated that for every dollar in a congregation’s annual budget, a city gets $5.02 worth of benefits in rural areas, or $3.32 in urban areas. He’s also served as a minister and holds a DMin in community development.
I like a book with good questions, and Wood Daly asks plenty of them. A turning point in the book, after a grim retelling of the churches’ role in colonization and Indigenous residential schools, connects with a well-known Sunday School rhyme – Here is the church and here is the steeple; open the doors and see all the people. Wood Daly asks, “Now that the pews are not so full, the steeples (signposts of Christian presence) are failing, and the buildings beneath them are closing, where does that leave us?”
Wood Daly is one of the few Canadians with an in-depth research knowledge of the statistics of church attendance and religious identity and so along with the retelling of the history, his careful analysis of the data is another highlight of this book. Data has a way of correcting what can sometimes be treasured narratives in one or another Christian tradition about what it means for church to flourish.
After reading God Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, I have a few questions of my own. In what ways do New Canadians change the narrative? How will more recent immigrants from Christian traditions come to understand the legacy of the Christian church in Canada’s story? And in what ways will those same New Canadians influence and shape the future presence and witness of church in Canada?
Canada, unlike many other countries with a Christian heritage, includes many different Christian traditions from Catholic to Evangelical, from Orthodox to historic Protestant, from Pentecostal to Free Church. How will the stories of those different Christian traditions relate with one another, develop differently, and become the Church in Canada of the future?
I don’t subscribe to pessimistic views of the future of the church described by declining attendance and closing church buildings. Church is so much more than attendance and steeples, and I see many new innovations and reinventions of church across Canada. (I work at the Canadian Council of Churches.)
If by knowing one’s past we are better equipped to foresee the future, then Michael Wood Daly’s contribution on decline and resilience in the Canadian church offers a compelling preview of where the church is going in Canada today.
This book is for all who are interested in knowing more about where the Church in Canada has come from, and so also interested in where the Church in Canada is going – pastors, priests, lay leaders, ministry staff and the like.
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