IN THE BEGINNING : SOMETHING TO STAND ON
Hanns F Skoutajan
“Nooooo, not you of all people!” was the response of Pat Bennet, my favourite high school teacher, when at age 17 in Grade 12 I revealed my professional aspiration to her. She was a Catholic and undoubtedly had in her mind the image of a pious celibate which didn’t quite jibe with the Hanns she had come to know.
Mr. Sigsworth, the principal of this village school in eastern Ontario, was a strict Free Methodist who was less negative but had some doubts about my beliefs. I had not been “saved” as far as he perceived me. My fellow students were unanimously ambiguous or just didn’t give a damn what I did with my life after I left the school.
As for my parents they were relieved that I had chosen what they called an intellectual calling. Father had left the Lutheran church when he was a young man. It was too narrow and nationalistic. Mother had similarly left the Roman Catholic Church about the same time. She was a humanist and feminist and that didn’t sit too well in the pew. In Canada they joined, and indeed became quite active, in the United Church.
I had been challenged by my pastor, the Rev. Henry Vaclavic, shortly after my confirmation. He was a Czech like ourselves and a minister of the Church of All Nations in Toronto. He made periodic visits to our little community to minister to Czech families. His services in the Batawa recreation hall were rather long inasmuch as he repeated the sermon in Czech. I thus became well acquainted with the flooring of the hall.
“Have you ever thought of the ministry?” he enquired of me. Well, yes I did. Although my parents had left their respective churches they felt that I should be acquainted with their former faiths. Father took me to the Lutheran church. It was very plain but had a large statue of Christ with outstretched, welcoming arms, behind the altar as if to say, “Come unto me all ye who labour and are heavy laden...” The services were rather wordy. The music was very Lutheran, not lively. “A Mighty Fortress” however was powerful and father sang it with conviction. Mother had taken me to the Catholic church and I was quite impressed by the bells and smells, the elaborately garbed clergy who bowed and genuflected gracefully before the altar. It was all very dramatic and reminded me of the operas I attended at our beautiful baroque opera house where father was on the board of managers. I regarded the mass like a dramatic performance to be enjoyed but not believed in literally.
After my positive response Mr. Vaclavic passed my name on to Queen’s Theological College in Kingston where the students were organizing a gathering of young people during the Christmas holidays known as the Christians Renewal Conference. I received an invitation and decided to attend. On leaving home father warned me, “The students will make a significant impact on you, think carefully about your decision.”
The students were indeed infectiously enthusiastic about their chosen profession. One of whom was Bob Shorten, who is still in contact with me. We had fun but also listened to lectures given by some of the Queen’s staff. I was particularly interested in the ideas expounded by Prof. Mac Gilmour who gave the gospels a more liberal interpretation than that with which I had been familiar. Also Prof. Harry Kent, an Old Testament teacher, made this ancient history come live. There was also a church bureaucrat present to talk to possible candidates for the ministry individually. Dr. John Leng became my mentor.
One day I received an invitation from Leng to come to Toronto to the “Church House,” the secretariat of the national church, at 299 Queen Street West, not 999 on that same street which was the well known mental hospital.
Leng introduced me to a number of senior secretaries, one of whom advised me to go to the United Church Book Room in the building and to obtain a recently published book with the interesting title “Something To Stand On.” Lewis Dunnington the author was minister of a Methodist church in Idaho. A good many students attended his services - remember this was the post war period. They had lots of questions about the Bible and religion in general. He put a question box in the foyer of the church and invited students to put their questions into it. He then endeavoured to preach on the suggested topics and later gathered them in the book that I had bought.
In these sermons/chapters, he dealt with “Hell, A Place or State of Mind” coming down on the latter, of the person of Jesus, could he possibly be both God and man, and again came down on the latter. He wrote/preached about miracles, sin and forgiveness and much more. His book has a place of honour on my bookshelf inasmuch as it had opened my mind to other interpretations of the faith than that with which I had been accustomed. Today his thinking is represented by John Shelby Spong, an American Episcopalian bishop, who has been in the forefront of the movement for gay marriage and women priests and bishops. He is both reviled and highly honoured by Americans. I have acquired and read most of his books. He is also a frequent lecturer in Canada.
The conference at Queen’s concluded with a communion service at Morgan Memorial Chapel on the Queen’s campus. During that service I did some serious thinking as my father had admonished me to do and came to the conclusion, as he suspected I would, to embark on my journey to ordination in the United Church of Canada. In his latter years when he and my mother lived in Toronto they were always in my congregation.
On returning home I was soon conscripted by my local pastor to assist him. The Frankford pastoral charge consisted of four congregations: Frankford, the village church, Stockdale at the corner of two roads just west of the village and Zion at the end of a long farm road. After the war Batawa was added to this trio of churches. It was different, looking more like a suburb. Its residents were employees of the Bata Shoe Company and thus a more urban crowd. For our education we travelled by bus, perhaps the first school bus in Canada, to the schools in Frankford and finally to Trenton and Belleville.
During the summer holidays all four congregations wanted morning services and I was conscripted to preside over two in rotation. My minister gave me a number of books of sermons to peruse and then turned me loose in those four churches. Dunnington’s book was always close at hand. I needed something to stand on.This turned out to be a real education. I still have some of these sermons in a box in storage.
A number of people have asked me about my faith journey. There is much more to it than what I have just narrated and of course my mind has changed in certain instances, but it is the beginning and I hope to add to this story as time goes by.
SQ 25/08/2014
