W Stanford Reid: An Evangelical Calvinist in the Academy

Alexander Craig is a freelance journalist in Lennoxville, Quebec.

History is the dwelling within which all other disciplines reside, said
the great Victorian historian Trevelyan. So studying the life of a
historian can provide one with some interesting changing perspectives.

Take for example the subject of this book. It shows, within very recent
living memory—Reid lived from 1913 to 1996—how one leading historian
shaped and reflected his times, particularly in the ecclesiastical and
academic worlds. For instance, his 1965 letter of application to the new
University of Guelph began: “For some time now I have been
increasingly disturbed by the social and political developments in the
province of Quebec. Although the outsider may at the present moment feel
that all seems relatively calm and undisturbed, there is undoubtedly a
ground-surge of French Canadian nationalism, which, after 1967 may well
result in a veritable explosion. Because of this I have grave fears as
to what may happen to McGill University, and feel that perhaps now might
be the best time to move elsewhere.”

Reid was born in deepest rural Quebec—Megantic—of a Presbyterian
ministerial family. He himself was active in the church, beginning his
career as both a minister and a professor. The nature of his evangelism
and its thorny relationship both with other Christians and within a
rapidly secularizing university world is well portrayed by the author,
who teaches at the Tyndale Theological Seminary in Toronto.

Macleod, who reveals an astonishingly intimate knowledge of Reid’s
family and upbringing, has worked prodigiously to survey his subject’s
works and achievements.