In his chapter on Acadia, Barry Moody argues that the university has been surprisingly open to a variety of theologies and pedagogical perspectives, tracing this to the liberality and breadth of vision of Nova Scotia Baptists. His study helps explain the remarkable strength of the Baptist tradition in late nineteenth-century Nova Scotia. J.R.C. Perkin's chapter on one of Acadia's distinguished presidents, Watson Kirkonnell, shows Kirkonnell as representative of this tradition and its strength. G.A. Rawlyk examines some of the underlying forces which significantly affected the development of McMaster University. He suggests that the cutting edge of McMaster's nineteenth century Evangelicalism may have been dulled by the enthusiastic manner in which "consumerism" and "modernity" were appropriated by the Baptist Convention leadership which controlled the university. In his discussion of Brandon College, Walter Ellis argues that Brandon failed as a Baptist institution of higher learning largely because it was out of touch with Western Canadian realities. If it had been a bible college rather than a Manitoba variant of McMaster, Brandon might still be in existence and Conventional Baptists might as a result be a far stronger force in the West. These essays on individual institutions highlight the pressure on denominational universities to emphasize not only Christian spirituality but secular scholarship. They will be of interest to all those who are concerned not only with the fate of Baptist institutions but the entire Christian church in Canada.

Since the late eighteenth century, Canadian Baptists have held sharply divergent views on the efficacy of higher education. For some, higher education undermines Evangelical piety; for others, it is a necessity if contemporary Baptists are to contend effectively with modern doubts about religion. The ongoing debate concerning Christian higher education has significantly shaped the contours of the Canadian Baptist experience for almost two centuries and continues to do so even in the 1980s. Canadian Baptists and Christian Higher Education deals with this debate and its effects on three educational institutions: Acadia University, McMaster University, and Brandon College.

The Toronto 2018 Symposium on Christian Higher Education provided an opportunity for leaders in the Canadian Christian higher education movement to reflect deeply on its development, current reality, and future possibilities. The Canadian Christian higher education scene comprises a wide range of institutions, including Christian universities, Bible colleges, and seminaries and graduate schools. Each type has its own distinctive history and likewise represents both challenges and opportunities. Even though they are intertwined in their common purpose, these higher educational institutions express this purpose in various ways. This volume is a collection of the papers and plenary talks designed to share the content of the symposium with a wider audience. The papers are all written by active scholars and researchers who are connected to the member institutions of Christian Higher Education Canada (CHEC). They not only illustrate the quality of the scholarship at these institutions, but they make their own critical contribution to an ongoing discussion regarding the role and place of Christian higher education within the wider society. This volume is intended to be helpful to students, faculty, staff, board members, and supporters of Canadian and other Christian higher education institutions, as well as interested individuals and scholars.

As the first single-volume work to present a national picture of Baptist engagement with the fundamentalist movement in Canada in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Canadian Baptist Fundamentalism fills an important gap in the historiography. It explores the contributions of well-known fundamentalists, such as T. T. Shields, William "Bible Bill" Aberhart, and J. J. Sidey, while also introducing the reader to several lesser-known figures, including Joshua Denovan, E. J. Stobo, and T. A. Meister. Together, these studies demonstrate the diversity of the fundamentalist movement as it emerged and developed across Canada. By drawing on material from across the country, Canadian Baptist Fundamentalism addresses old themes in new ways--and, in the process, raises a variety of questions and possibilities for new avenues of study.

Public discussion about the relationship between religion and public life in Canada can be heated at times, and scholars have recently focused on the historical study of the many expressions of this relationship. The experience of Canada's smaller Protestant Christian groups, however, has remained largely unexplored. This is particularly true of Canada's Baptists. This volume, the first produced by the Canadian Baptist Historical Society, explores the connections between Baptist faith and Baptist activity in the public domain, and expands the focus of the existing scholarship to include a wide range of Canadian Baptist beliefs, attitudes, perspectives, and actions related to the relationship between Baptist faith and practice and public life.

The stories of the women have often stayed in the shadows of Canadian Baptist history. The writers of this book have sought out neglected primary source materials to reveal the lives and work of an array of Baptist women in Canada's history. Read here about the Acadian Mary Lore hungrily reading her French Bible and welcoming the message of Baptist missionaries in Lower Canada, Jane Gilmour leaving her home in Britain to minister with her husband in Montreal and the wilds of Upper Canada, a group of remarkable black Baptist women in southern Ontario in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Isabel Crawford from Niagara becoming an advocate for the Kiowa people of Oklahoma, Miriam Ross from Nova Scotia ministering in the Congo, Lois Tupper, pioneer female Baptist theological educator, and, more generally, the work of Baptist women in the Maritimes in the nineteenth century and western Canada in the first half of the twentieth century. Empowered by their Baptist faith, these Canadian women did remarkable things, and their stories deserve to be told and read.

Baptists arrived in what would become Canada in the mid-eighteenth century, and from those early arrivals Baptists from a wide variety of backgrounds planted churches in every region of the vast nation. This book traces that history of Baptists in Canada, and provides historical antecedents and theological rationales for their church polity. Written in a generous spirit, it recognizes what Baptists share with other Christian communities and how they differ among themselves on some matters. It places Baptists in Canada in the larger historical and global context, and concludes with commentary on opportunities and challenges ahead.