The Church in the City: An Index of Change
Dr. Elizabeth McGahan, UNB Saint John
Following World War II the city of Saint John recognized the preponderance of substandard housing, serious overcrowding, and visible slums within its municipality. An urban renewal programme resulted in slum clearances and the simultaneous movement of many residents either to newly constructed government housing or, for the more affluent, to the “suburban” development occurring in the Millidgeville section of the city proper. These years also witnessed suburban growth occurring just outside the city’s limits.
This demographic shift – from the core to the periphery – impacted the city on several levels, including the form and function of many houses of worship. Post-war Saint John retained the vestiges of its nineteenth century sectarian past centered materially on its houses of worship many of which had been erected following the Great Fire of 1877. Historically, these familiar churches/places of worship with their intergenerational memberships, provided individuals with a significant reference point in their social, as well as, religious/spiritual lives as neighbourhoods often were anchored by church communities. Consequently, the impact of urban renewal and suburbanization, accompanied by the construction of a four lane thruway, which physically severed a number of church communities, had an influence on the morphology of houses of worship within Saint John. Similar morphological changes have been documented for sacred places throughout North America.
This project examines the changing form and function of urban churches within Saint John, as well as a few selected places of worship on the periphery of the city during the years 1950 to the present -- a period of dramatic change in the city’s profile. The principal record groupings which have been consulted for selected faith groups include: 1. Anglicans: Annual Journals of the Diocesan Synod of Fredericton, 2. Baptists: Annual Yearbook of the Baptist Churches, 3. Jews: Records from Shaarei Zedek Synagogue / Saint John Jewish Community Center, 4. Muslims: Growth profile: Muslim Association of New Brunswick/ Saint John Mosque, 5. Presbyterians: Annual Yearbooks: Published from Toronto, 6. Roman Catholics: Annual Yearbooks published by CCCB (Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops) based on annual parish reports: Status Animarum (State of the Souls), and 7. United Church of Canada: Annual Reports of Pastoral Charges published from headquarters in Toronto.
Preliminary analysis:
General findings: suggest an overall decline in denominational attendance within the inner city but an increase in suburban churches in the Saint John suburb of Rothesay. As well anecdotal evidence suggests the residual importance of religious affiliation for selected important events: birth, marriage, and death.
Specific findings regarding denominational issues at the administrative level:
1. Within the inner city an increasing trend among some denominations towards the amalgamating of two or more parish churches, frequently followed by the closure of one or more of these amalgamated parishes is due to denomination-specific reasons, for example, priest shortages in the Catholic church or declining numbers in the Anglican church. Denomination-specific reasons also are exacerbated by the significant number of poorer congregants within the inner city who are unable to support the maintenance of 125 year old houses of worship. Recent closing such as the inner city church, St James Anglican, and the Millidgeville church, St Barnabas Anglican reflect diminishing congregations and the shrinking revenues needed to support a church operation.
2. Especially in the suburbs, as well as in the churches constructed in the 1960s in the “suburban” areas of the city proper, a changing interior design in Christian churches and the Mosque (built in the mid-1980s) suggests structures intended to provide a range of social/educational services beyond the exclusively religious ceremonies. This latter development is particularly striking in the construction of the new suburban Rothesay, NB Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, a multi functional building dominated by religious space but also containing basement classrooms for religious education.
3. Houses of worship in the suburbs and the “suburban” areas of the city proper are generally accessed by auto, whereas, a number of long established inner city churches continue to rely for the most part on ageing or indigent populations who still walk to church.
Specific findings regarding sectarianism within Christianity:
1. A rise in intermarriage among Christians, suggesting a possible “unification” across Christian churches at the grassroots level which may be viewed as a complement to the more formal discussions taking place at the hierarchical/institutional level between some denominations.
2. There is some anecdotal evidence that a percentage of weekly congregants are “perennial shoppers” and not necessarily regulars who are participating in the parish envelope system. This is a change from the early 1950s when many parish congregants had an inter-generational history with a church.
Significance of project to Greater Saint John’s current land-use patterns, material heritage history, and denominational function:
A number of late nineteenth century houses of worship grace the landscape of Saint John, creating a skyline of spires. Now somewhat quiescent sentinels these sacred spaces are visible witnesses to the city’s religious history. As part of the built environment they are integrated clearly into the urban infrastructure; as part of the social environment they function less noticeably than in previous years, yet they touch many lives daily and at critical life cycle points.
On a socio-religious level most of these denominational buildings are financially challenged. Exempt from property taxes these under-utilized houses of worship eventually may be viewed as a financial drain on the tax system, prompting changes in the tax codes. However, as examples of architectural heritage these buildings form a significant portion of the city’s heritage inventory of “large buildings” and contain internal and external bases for developing urban sacred sites tourism. A few sacred spaces have been decommissioned and now serve as dinner theatre sites. Others wait decommissioning as houses of worship when they will join a growing list of such buildings on multiple listings…or be slated for possible heritage designation.
A continuing inquiry is focusing on how these inner city houses of worship with their increasing rates of mixed marriages and congregations of permanent and “transient” members may be speaking to a change in the form and function of religious practices in urban and urbanized societies such as Saint John and its immediate suburbs.