Research for this paper was supported by grants from the Canadian Studies Program of the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C., the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals. The helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper made by Douglas Firth Anderson, Martin E. Marty, and the Church History assessors are also gratefully acknowledged.

1. John Webster Grant remarks on the significance of what follows as well in The Church in the Canadian Era, rev. ed. (Burlington, Ont., 1988), pp. 224–225.Google Scholar

2. A program associated with the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago.

3. The conflict in the United Church of Canada over the ordination of homosexuals in the late 1980s is perhaps the most important recent example.

4. Clark Pinnock notes the significance of these organizations in “Who Are the Evangelicals in Canada?” Ecumenism 85 03 1987): 5.Google Scholar For brief impressions of evangelicalism in Canada, see this issue of Ecumenism, especially the articles by Pinnock, Ian S. Rennie, Glen G. Scorgie, Brian C. Stiller, and Shirley Bentall—all evangelicals themselves.

5. Scholars of evangelicalism in America and Britain summarize these traits similarly; see for example Smith, Timothy L., “A Shared Evangelical Heritage,” TSF Bulletin 10 (11–12 1986): 10Google Scholar and Bebbington, D. W., Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (London, 1989), pp. 2–17.Google Scholar

6. To be sure, this “ecumenism” was not a commitment to organic, institutional union as such, but rather a unity of belief, purpose, and function. For apt comment on this see Scorgie, Glen C., “Evangelicalism: A Unitive or Divisive Movement in Christianity?” Ecumenism 85 (03 1987): 11–13.Google Scholar

7. Making thus a distinction between the more generic “evangelicalism” and the particular conviction of “transdenominational evangelicalism” might be valid enough, but there is no obvious nomenclature to distinguish persons belonging to the one group from those in the other. One could use the standard term “evangelical” for the former inclusive group, and “transdenominational evangelical” for those identified with “evangelicalism” in this special sense, but the latter term might misrepresent evangelicals who nonetheless maintained denominational identities. In this paper, then, “evangelical” will be used for both groups with the hope that context will make the distinction clear in each case. George Marsden makes similar points in his discussion of the American scene; see “The Evangelical Denomination,” in Marsden, George, ed., Evangelicalism in Modern America (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1984), pp. ix–xvi.Google Scholar The major difference in this case between American and Canadian evangelicalism is that in America there are a number of important transdenominational evangelical networks within or beyond the one Marsden identifies as such (for instance among blacks, charismatics, or fundamentalists), whereas in Canada there is just the one delineated in this paper. For more on the definition of “evangelical” in the Canadian context, see Stackhouse, John G. Jr, “Proclaiming the Word: Canadian Evangelicalism since World War I” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1987), pp. 5–11 and 222–244.Google Scholar For surveys of literature about Canadian evangelicals, see ibid., pp. 245–264, and the bibliography to Stackhouse, John G. Jr, “The Protestant Experience in Canada since 1945,” in Rawlyk, G. A., ed., The Canadian Protestant Experience 1760–1990 (Burlington, Ont., 1990), pp. 240–252.Google Scholar

8. For Ontario, see Grant, John Webster, A Profusion of Spires: Religion in Nineteenth-Century Ontario (Toronto, 1988),CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Westfall, William, Two Worlds: The Protestant Culture of Nineteenth Century Ontario (Kingston, Ont., 1989).Google Scholar For the history of Canadian Christianity since 1867, see especially Grant, The Church in the Canadian Era, and Rawlyk, ed., The Protestant Experience in Canada. For an important sociological survey of recent Canadian religion, see Bibby, Reginald W., Fragmented Gods: The Poverty and Potential of Religion in Canada (Toronto, 1987).Google Scholar

9. For accounts from different directions of the general change in the intellectual climate, see McKillop, A. B., A Disciplined Intelligence: Critical Inquiry and Canadian Thought in the Victorian Era (Montreal, 1979);Google ScholarMasters, D. C., Protestant Church Colleges in Canada: A History (Toronto, 1966);Google Scholar and idem, “The Rise of Liberalism in the Canadian Protestant Churches,” Canadian Catholic Historical Association Study Sessions (1969): 27–39. For the rise of biblical criticism in Canada and its effects on at least some of the churches, see Gauvreau, Michael, “The Taming of History: Reflections on the Methodist Encounter with Biblical Criticism, 1830–1890,” Canadian Historical Review 65 (1984): 315–346;CrossRefGoogle ScholarMoir, John S., A History of Biblical Studies in Canada: A Sense of Proportion (Chico, Calif., 1982);Google Scholar and Sinclair-Faulkner, Tom, “Theory Divided from Practice: The Introduction of the Higher Criticism into Canadian Protestant Seminaries,” Studies in Religion/ Sciences religeuses 10 (1981): 321–343.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10. On Toronto Bible College, see especially McKenzie, Brian A., “A History of the Toronto Bible College (1894–1968): A Study in Canadian Fundamentalism” (Doctoral paper, University of Toronto, 1982)Google Scholar and Stackhouse, , “Proclaiming the Word,” pp. 53–79 and 149–163.Google Scholar

11. See Rennie, Ian, “Gratitude for the Past,” Evangelical Recorder 90 (1984): 6.Google Scholar

12. Elmore Harris, in draft of the 1894 Prospectus, n.p. (Archives of Ontario Bible College and Theological Seminary, Willowdale, Ontario).

13. Rennie, , “Gratitude for the Past,” p. 8.Google Scholar For profiles of several of these leaders, see Sawatsky, Ronald George, “‘Looking for that Blessed Hope’: The Roots of Fundamentalism in Canada, 1878–1914” (Ph.D. diss., University of Toronto, 1985).Google Scholar

14. See the Evangelical Recorder 52 (12 1946): 1–9, 12–15.Google Scholar

15. See McNicol, John, “Fundamental, but Not Dispensational: An Answer to Criticism,” Evangelical Recorder 52 (03 1946): 10.Google Scholar

16. For a brief introduction to Prairie Bible Institute, see chs. 4 and 8 of Stackhouse, , “Proclaiming the Word,” pp. 80–109 and 164–172.Google Scholar

17. For the history of IVCF in Canada, see Donald, Melvin V., History of Canadian Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship, 1928–1983 (Toronto, 1983);Google ScholarPhillips, David, “The History of the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship in Western Canada” (M.C.S. thesis, Regent College, 1976);Google Scholar and Stackhouse, John G. Jr, “The Broadening of Canadian Evangelicalism: The Case of the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship of Canada” (Paper delivered to the Canadian Historical Association at the University of Windsor, Ontario, 11 06 1988).Google Scholar Melvin V. Donald has completed a large manuscript on this subject, “A Spreading Tree: A History of Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship of Canada 1928–29 to 1988–89,” available currently only from IVCF's headquarters in Scarborough, Ontario.

18. The program of the conference is reproduced in part in Donald, , History of Canadian Inter- Varsity Christian Fellowship, p. 4.Google Scholar This was the forerunner of the large “Urbana” conferences run triennially by IVCF in Illinois thereafter.

19. H. W. “Wilber” Sutherland, former general director of IVCF, interview with author, December 1986, Toronto, tape recording.

20. On Bible schools in Canada, see Boon, Harold Watson, “The Development of the Bible College or Institute in the United States and Canada since 1880 and Its Relationship to the Field of Theological Education in America” (Ed.D. diss., New York University, 1950);Google ScholarHarder, Ben, “The Bible Institute-College Movement in Canada,” Journal of the Canadian Church Historical Society 19 (04 1980): 29–45;Google Scholar“101 Reasons to Prepare for Life and Ministry in Canada,” Faith Alive 3 (11 1985): 36–54;Google ScholarO'Neil, Leonard F., “A Survey of the Bible Schools in Canada” (B.D. thesis, McMaster University, 1949);Google ScholarSawatsky, Ronald G., “The Bible School/College Movement in Canada: Fundamental Christian Training,” Canadian Society of Church History Papers (1986): 1–15;Google Scholar and Witmer, S. A., The Bible College Story: Education with Dimension (Manhasset, N. Y., 1962).Google Scholar The bibliography to Stackhouse, “Proclaiming the Word,” lists other sources (pp. 253–254).

21. A recent study of Shields, T. T. is Rawlyk, G. A., “A. L. McCrimmon, H. P. Whidden, T. T. Shields, Christian Higher Education, and McMaster University,” in Rawlyk, G. A., ed., Canadian Baptists and Christian Higher Education (Kingston, Ont., 1988), pp. 31–62.Google Scholar For an introduction to Shields and literature by and about him, see Stackhouse, John G. Jr, “Thomas Todhunter Shields,” in Lippy, Charles H., ed., Twentieth-Century Shapers of American Popular Religion (New York, 1989), pp. 393–402.Google Scholar The most recent large study of Aberhart is Elliott, David R. and Miller, Iris, Bible Bill: A Biography of William Aberhart (Edmonton, 1987).Google Scholar For an introduction to Aberhart and literature by and about him, see Stackhouse, John G. Jr, “William Aberhart,” in Lippy, Twentieth- Century Shapers, pp. 1–9.Google Scholar

22. For recent Canadian history, see Bothwell, Robert, Drummond, Ian, and English, John, Canada Since 1945: Power, Politics, and Provincialism (Toronto, 1981);Google ScholarMorton, Desmond, “Strains of Affluence (1945–1987),” in The Illustrated History of Canada, ed. Brown, Craig (Toronto, 1987), pp. 467–543;Google Scholar and McNaught, Kenneth, The Penguin History of Canada, rev. ed. (London, 1988).Google Scholar

23. Average church attendance among Canadian Christians dropped by one-third between 1956 and 1975 (Canadian Institute of Public Opinion, cited by Bibby, p. 17). Between 1961 and 1981, of the four largest Canadian Protestant denominations only the Lutherans—who generally kept themselves out of the mainstream of Canadian culture—reported a gain in membership (of about 21 percent). The others reported the following declines: United Church 13 percent, Anglican Church 32 percent, and Presbyterian Church 18 percent (calculated from figures in Bibby, p. 14). In 1941, 0.5 percent of Canadians told census-takers that they had “no religion”; in 1961, 4 percent said so; and in 1981, 7 percent declared that they had “no religion” (cited by Bibby, p. 47).

24. For case studies of Regent College and Trinity Western University in which these issues are discussed, see Stackhouse, , “Proclaiming the Word,” pp. 184–195 and 196–210.Google Scholar

25. Which briefly later was known as Faith Alive and finally Faith Today. This should not be confused with the short-lived tabloid Faith Today edited by Leslie K. Tarr in the late 1970s. Indeed, Tarr helped to edit the EFC magazine in the 1980s.

26. The only formal study of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada is reported in Stackhouse, , “Proclaiming the Word,” esp. pp. 211–220.Google Scholar

27. Oliver, Dennis Mackintosh, “The New Canadian Religious Pluralism” (Paper delivered to the Canadian Society of Church History, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, 1 06 1979).Google Scholar

28. As reported, for instance, in that decade's editions of Constant Jacquet, H. Jr, ed., Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches (Nashville, Tenn., 1979–1989).Google Scholar

29. Stackhouse, , “Proclaiming the Word,” p. 1.Google Scholar

30. So “101 Reasons to Prepare for Life and Ministry in Canada.”

31. The income of the EFC grew from just over $60,000 in 1983 (It's Time to Break the Silence [;Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, n.d.]), to just over $1,200,000 in 1988 (files of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada), an increase of 2000 percent in half a decade.

32. This pattern of support was typical of such evangelical organizations as Regent College, Ontario Bible College and Theological Seminary, and Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship (see the respective chapters in Stackhouse, “Proclaiming the Word”).

33. Canadian evangelicals had been prominently involved in religious broadcasting since the work of William Aberhart in the 1930s. By the 1980s, the television programs of evangelicals David Mainse and Terry Winter were clearly the most popular Canadian religious broadcasts.

34. Who left IVCF to join another transdenominational evangelical organization, World Vision, in 1990.

35. For example, IVCF sponsored an annual summer conference with Ontario Bible College and Theological Seminary; the Institute for Christian Studies sponsored occasional conferences with the EFC; and Christian Writer's Conferences were sponsored by the EFC and a variety of evangelical schools across Canada.

36. See Bentall, Shirley, “The Experience of Women in Canadian Evangelicalism,” Ecumenism 85 (03 1987): 17–19;Google Scholar and Stackhouse, John G. Jr, “Women in Public Ministry in Twentieth-Century Canadian and American Evangelicalism: Five Models,” in Studies in Religion/Sciences religeuses 17 (1988): 471–485.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

37. Indeed, the tale of these two schools manifests both denominational distinctives (ACTS represented exclusively the “believers's church” tradition, while Regent represented evangelical plurality, from Christian Brethren to Anglicans) and other differences (as in different views of the nature and role of Biblical criticism) in Canadian evangelicalism (see Stackhouse, , “Proclaiming the Word,” pp. 237–243;Google Scholar and idem, “Canadian Evangelicalism in the Twentieth Century: One Heart, Two Minds,” plenary address at the Canadian Evangelical Theological Association, Toronto, 14 May 1990).

38. The presence of notable Pentecostal leaders in the EFC—from J. Harry Faught in the earliest days to Brian Stiller in the 1980s—did not reflect the prominence of Pentecostals as such in similar evangelical institutions until well into the 1970s. Ontario Bible College and Theological Seminary and Regent College both were notable as they addressed the needs of both Pentecostal and Asian churches in the 1980s, offering courses directed specifically to their interests. The latter concern was graphically evident also in both the appointment of William K. T. Wan to the deanship of Ontario Bible College and the installation of J. I. Packer in the Sang Woo You Tong Chi Chair of Theology at Regent College in 1989.