Why The U.S. And Canada Are Different

Canada and the U.S. have similar stories of origin, and are populated by similar types of people. But yet the two are different, and I would like to explain why in a way that I have never seen before.

The Reformation, begun in 1517, brought about a range of new Protestant churches. All broke away from the control by Rome, with doctrine based more on the Bible itself rather than the man-made traditions of the Catholic Church. The Bible was to be translated from the original Greek and Hebrew into the local languages, to be readable by anyone. Of course, the printing press is what really made the Reformation both possible and inevitable.

Have you ever wondered why, in the beginning of Christianity, there was only one Catholic Church? The only exceptions are the eastern churches, which are separate from the Catholic Church over disagreements concerning the first Ecumenical Councils involving how Christ's divine and human natures fit together. When the Great Schism of the Eastern Orthodox Church splitting away from the Catholic Church in 1054, over the authority of the pope and the role of icons, took place, it still produced only one new church. But the Reformation, which began in 1517, brought about a multitude of new Protestant churches, which are still multiplying today.

The simple answer is the printing press. There was no printing press when the original church formed, and when the Schism of 1054 took place. Bibles were hand-written and very scarce. But by the time of the Reformation it was possible for anyone to read, and interpret, the Bible for themselves.

However, some of the new Protestant churches kept elements of the Catholic liturgy that the people were familiar with. Martin Luther, generally credited with initiating the Reformation, actually only had reform of the Catholic Church in mind and never intended to start a separate church. The church named for him, Lutheran, would become the major Protestant denomination that retained the most Catholic liturgy, although the church doctrine would be based on the Bible and there would be no control from Rome. This made sense because it was the type of church service that people had long been familiar with.

The second generation of the Reformation went further. John Calvin is the name most associated with this time. Puritans arose, who wanted to "purify" the new church of anything Catholic. They wanted religion based on just the Bible itself, with no hierarchical church structure. Such a church denomination is referred to as Calvinist or Reformed. The best-known Reformed church today may be the Baptists.

There was a long period of religious turmoil in Europe following the Reformation. In England, Henry VIII broke with the Catholic Church. The Catholic queen Mary I then tried to bring England back to Catholicism by force. The attempt was ultimately unsuccessful but she did get a mixed drink, the Bloody Mary, named for her.

Elizabeth I (the queen at the time of this writing is Elizabeth II) tried to end the religious conflict by forming the Anglican Church. The Anglican Church was based in Canterbury, which is where one of the Catholic archbishops had been based. The formerly Catholic archbishop, based in Canterbury Cathedral, would now lead the Anglican Church.

The nature of the Anglican Church might be described as trying to please everyone by being a compromise between Protestant and Catholic. There would be no control from Rome, and church doctrine would be based on the Bible, but it would retain a lot of the familiar form of the Catholic Church. This could be considered as a case of religion following the patterns of politics, rather than the usual vice-versa. It resembles the procedure of the earlier Magna Carta (Great Charter), allowing the monarchy to remain but with much-reduced powers, rather than face being overthrown.

The Magna Carta had been signed in 1215, limiting the power of the king. This shows the British way of doing things. The French royal family went under the guillotine, the Russian royal family went in front of the firing squad. But the British royal family accepted a compromise reduction in power, and so are still with us today.

The defining liturgy of the Anglican Church is the Book of Common Prayer. It has had a great influence on the English Language, in a way similar to the King James Bible of 1611. It went through a number of revisions to reflect the atmosphere of compromise, and is still used in it's various editions by Anglicanism and the other churches associated with it.

The reign of Elizabeth I was a good time, and is known as the Elizabethan Era. She was known as a kindly person, much unlike her witch-like predecessor and half-sister Mary I. During her reign, the pope unsuccessfully had the Catholic King Phillip of Spain dispatch his Armada to bring England back to Catholicism by force.

Elizabeth I was the last of the Tudor line of monarchs, and died childless in 1603. Not long after she died, a colony of Anglicans was formed in what is now Virginia. This is generally considered as the beginning of the British Empire. She was sometimes referred to as "The Virgin Queen" and the U.S. state of Virginia, as well as every woman named Virginia, is named for her.

This is Elizabeth I:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_I_of_England#/media/File:Darnley_stage_3.jpg

The Reformation repeated itself. The Anglican Church was an attempt to please everyone, but it didn't. Puritans refused to have anything to do with the Anglican Church, saying that it went nowhere near far enough in reform.

In an effort to avoid further religious strife, it had been forbidden to start another church in England. This is what drove the Pilgrims and Puritans to settle in America. The character of these Pilgrims and Puritans is that they were radicals, willing to separate from the mainstream to have things the way they thought that they should be.

There would later be another echo of the Reformation in the Methodist Revival. This was another split from the Anglican Church in England. Just as the Anglican Church retained some of the familiar liturgy of the Catholic Church, the new Methodist Church initially retained a measure of loyalty to the Anglican Church and used a variation of the Book of Common Prayer. Methodism was known for it's emphasis on social conscience and vigorously campaigned for better schools and less-harsh prisons. Much of modern socialism was influenced by Methodism. The Salvation Army is also a product of the Methodist Revival.

When America later declared independence from Britain, it's network of Anglican churches also declared independence from Canterbury. The Anglican Church in America became known as the Episcopal Church.

This separation also disconnected them from the Anglican Church in Canada. Much of the Loyalist Movement, the movement to Canada of those in America who did not want to go along with independence from Britain, was actually religious, rather than political, in nature. Strong nationalism is actually a relatively recent development.

They did not want to break with the Anglican Church. What is now the Canadian province of New Brunswick was formed by Loyalists leaving New York City. Thus, the Loyalists brought more of the moderate compromise philosophy of Anglicanism. Their absence, relative to the number of the more radical Pilgrims and Puritans, concentrated radicalism in the U.S.

This shows us how Canada was shaped by the moderate compromise philosophy of the Anglican Church. There are Anglican churches all over in Canada today. The Commonwealth can also be seen to reflect the structure of Anglicanism, in that the Archbishop of Canterbury is defined as the leader but his precepts are not actually legally binding. Anglican churches are a "collection of equals", just as are the nations of the Commonwealth.

America was certainly shaped by Anglicanism too. It was Anglicans that landed at Jamestown. But it is also shaped by the more radical break-away elements like the Pilgrims and Puritans. Have you ever thought that this is why America declared political independence from Britain, the influence of the radical element that had earlier broken away from the Anglican Church?

This "break away" mentality of the Pilgrims and Puritans would, of course, later be reflected in the secession of the Confederacy, prior to the U.S. Civil War of 1861-65. I have also thought that, if the Shootout at the O.K. Corral in 1881 had turned out differently, what is now the western United States may have tried to break away from federal control and form a separate country. The lawmen won the shootout. The event has been thoroughly Hollywoodized but it was not with criminals like bank or stagecoach robbers. It was with a group who did not want to give up their guns as required by a local ordinance. In other words, it was about sovereignty.

In no way is this element of radicalism in the U.S., originally introduced by the Pilgrims and Puritans, all a bad thing. It shows up in American investors that tend to be more willing to take risks, in search of "the next big thing", than investors in most other western countries. It is true that, when too many investors take risks that don't pay off, it can lead to a market crash. But it is also true that "radical" investors willing to take risks have brought us things like Google and Facebook that we now cannot imagine living without.

The religious origin of Canada can be seen in how the 72 resolutions from the 1864 Quebec Conference and Charlottetown Conference spelled out the uniting of Canada in a very similar way to the numbered theses which defined the new protestant churches following the Reformation. There was Martin Luther's 95 Theses, as well as the 39 Articles of Religion, adopted by the Anglican Church.

Quebec fit together with English-speaking Canada not only because the Anglican Church retained much of the same liturgy as Catholic Quebec, but also because the original basis of Anglicanism was compromise between two different viewpoints, and this was applied to language as it had earlier been applied to religion.

This church structure influence on the nature of the whole society can be seen in other places.

The Communist theories of Karl Marx were originally intended for Britain. He could not have imagined that Russia would be the first nation to implement his doctrine. But consider the structure of the Eastern Orthodox Church, which had earlier broken away from the Catholic Church, in 1054. This church is very closely coordinated yet egalitarian in structure, there is no hierarchical structure like that from the pope on down. The theories of Communism fit perfectly onto this historic structure. whereas it did not fit with the Catholic, Anglican or reformed Protestant structures.

Notice how the moderate socialism of the Scandinavian countries today is like a secularized image of the compromise structure of the Lutheran Church, which predominated in the Scandinavian countries. Socialism is basically a compromise between Capitalism and Communism, seeking the best of both with the worst of neither. The Lutheran Church broke away from the control of Rome and based it's doctrine on the Bible, which is what the Protestants wanted, but it also retained the liturgy of the Catholic Church that people were familiar with.

This is what makes the U.S. and Canada different.