“Boy meets Girl”: Constructing Heterosexuality in Two Victoria Churches, 1945-1960

Abstract

Canadian historians have neglected the role of churches and religion in shaping post-war sexual, gender, and domestic ideals. This article explores the interplay of religion and sexuality in Glad Tidings Pentecostal and First United Church in Victoria, British Columbia. It argues that church officials actively regulated and defined heterosexual gender relations in the late 1940s and 1950s. While traditional "family values" were upheld in Glad Tidings, Pentecostal beliefs about the individual's relationship with God subtly challenged the primacy of heterosexual marriage. The United Church defined marriage as the most important of relationships, and, drawing on the advice of secular “experts”, started a range of sexual and marital training programs in the post-war years. While church officials contributed to the post-war normalisation of heterosexuality, religion also helped to shape alternative and contested meanings of sexuality and family in this period.

“Some thought they were ‘in Love’”: Sex, White Teenagehood, and Unmarried Pregnancy in Early Postwar Canada

“…As Tina Block found in the case of Pentecostals in British Columbia, evangelically minded religious groups could be especially critical of the mass media. 43 In this connection, the colourful assessment of the Salvation Army is worth quoting at length:…”