Before the 51st State, there was the 14th Colony
Canada and America appear to be in a deteriorating relationship. When Donald Trump expressed an interest in making Canada America’s “51st State” near the end of 2024, an overwhelming amount of Canadians brought their “elbows up” in protest. The hockey term—meaning a player is on the ice to defend and bring physical violence to members of the opposing team—communicated a rejection of such a possibility in a very Canadian way.
Concerns of American annexation are not new to the Can-Am dynamic. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick seemed fated to become the 14th colony in the early days of the Revolutionary War (1776-1783). After Britain defeated France in the mid-1700s, the Acadian (French) inhabitants of those lands were deemed too French to occupy such valuable real estate. After the expulsion of the Acadians, the Crown invited interested colonists from the south to populate these regions with more loyal subjects.1 This was the birth of the Nova Scotia New Englanders—a group of people named for their new colonial location and their place of origin. When, just twenty years later, the members of the 13 colonies declared their independence from the British Crown, it seemed a natural fit for these former New Englanders to join the cause.
Nova Scotia’s loyalty hung in the balance and, in the early days of the contest, popular sentiment seemed to be sliding towards rebellion. However, by the final year of the Revolutionary War, attitudes had shifted decidedly back in the Crown’s favour. One Christian, by the name of Henry Alline, is largely responsible for that shift.
The Alline family had been Nova Scotian New Englanders for over a decade when the war broke out. Having grown up in the land of Jonathan Edwards’ and George Whitefield’s Great Awakenings, Henry Alline understood what was happening when, in his twenties, he had an ecstatic revelation of Christ. He would dedicate the rest of his life to spreading the Gospel of a loving Jesus to his fellow colonists.2 The “Apostle of Nova Scotia” as he came to be known, ushered in a new revival for his fellow Nova Scotian New Englanders.
Unlike Edwards or Whitefield, Alline was not a Calvinist and his view of the relationship between humanity and God was more uplifting. He invited listeners to see Jesus as loving, not angry, and asked them to respond out of love and relief rather than fear of damnation. More importantly to the topic at hand, Henry did not combine politics with his message, believing to do so weakened the Gospel. The worries of war added strain to the already struggling colonists, but Alline offered them spiritual language to simply ignore their former neighbours’ all-consuming war for independence.
His teachings also brought a sense of theological, ideological, and experiential cohesion throughout the province as he travelled and helped form early, distinctly Maritime, social culture.3 This culture drew from both British and Colonial American sources and blended them into something that could be considered innovative and local. Alline’s refusal to engage in the political issues of the day helped his Nova Scotian New Englander audiences remove themselves from the Revolutionary War just enough to remain neutral; which was good enough for the Crown!
The northern colonists could feel justified that their decision to leave well enough alone was not cowardice or apathy, but a focus on the things above rather than the convulsions of a broken and violent world.4 Henry Alline died one year after the end of the Revolutionary War, but one of his ongoing legacies—beyond the formation of the New Lights—was the neutrality he helped instill in his people.
Thus we return to the days of the 51st State. I am an advocate for churches discussing politics within the context of the faith. I also believe it is important for Canadian Christians to understood the unique history we have that differentiates us from our friends to the south. In order to discuss ways in which the faith can help us north of the 49th parallel, we need to be innovative and faithful to both our Saviour and our national stories. In so doing, we can acknowledge the ongoing influence of American Christianities without succumbing to them or being theologically annexed by them. Historically, such a stance has already been modelled for us by Henry Alline.
[1] For an informative, and brief, explanation of this see https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/the-deportation-of-the-acadians-feature
[2] “My whole soul, that was a few minutes ago groaning under mountains of death, wading through storms of sorrow, racked with distressing fears, and crying to an unknown God for help, was now filled with immortal love, soaring on the wings of faith, freed from the chains of death and darkness, and crying out my Lord and my God; thou are my rock and my fortress, my shield and my high tower, [Ps. 18:2] my life, my joy, my present and my everlasting portion. O the astonishing wonders of his grace, and the boundless ocean of redeeming love.” Beverley, James and Moody, Barry (eds.) The Journal of Henry Alline. (Lancelot Press: Hantsport NS, 1982.)
[3] These colonists, “turned to a religious rather than a political figure in their search for guidance on the many distressing problems produced by the war…Religious values that were specifically ‘Nova Scotian’ in character were beginning to emerge.” Gordon Stewart & George Rawlyk. A People Highly Favoured of God: The Nova Scotia Yankees and the American Revolution, (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1972), 79-80.
[4] Alline gave, in Maurice Armstrong’s words: “self-respect and satisfaction to people whose economic and political position was both humiliating and distressing.” M.W. Armstrong, “Neutrality and Religion in Revolutionary Nova Scotia,” New England Quarterly (Mar. 1946), 50-61.
Dr. James T. Robertson
James Tyler Robertson is Associate Professor of Christian History and Director of Distributed Learning at Tyndale University in Toronto, Canada. A frequent presenter at popular and academic conferences, his research focuses on Canadian Christian history, Churches & War, Missions, and Evangelicalism. He is also the author of Overlooked: The Forgotten Origin Stories of Canadian Christianity.
