The Burning Bush and a Few Acres of Snow: The Presbyterian Contribution to Canadian Life and Culture

George A. Rawlyk is a history professor at Queen’s University, the
author of Champions of the Truth: Fundamentalism, Modernism, and the
Maritime Baptists, and co-editor of Amazing Grace: Evangelicalism in
Australia, Britain, Canada, and the United State

Less than a century ago, Presbyterians were the largest Protestant
denomination in Canada. Today, more Muslims worship weekly in Canada
than Presbyterians. Alas, The Burning Bush does not attempt to deal with
this remarkable story of declension; instead, it looks longingly back at
an earlier age, when Presbyterians actually contributed something of
consequence to “Canadian [l]ife and [c]ulture.”

As is the case with many essay collections, this one is a mixed bag.
There are some excellent essays, discerning, perceptive, and carefully
fitted into a sophisticated historiographical context, and there are
some limited and very dull antiquarian probes. Four, in particular, are
impressive: Michael Gauvreau’s “Presbyterianism, Liberal Education
and the Research Ideal: Sir Robert Falconer and the University of
Toronto, 1907-32”; D. Barry Mack’s “Modernity Without Tears: The
Mythic World of Ralph Connor”; Richard Vaudry’s “Canadian
Presbyterians and Princeton Seminary, 1850-1900”; and John Visser’s
“Recovering the Reformation Conception of Revelation: The Theological
Contribution of W.W. Bryden to Post-Union Canadian Presbyterianism.”

Although more attention could have been devoted to Presbyterian women,
Presbyterian missions, and Presbyterian popular religion, among many
other themes, this book is an important beginning, particularly since
recent Canadian religious history has been marked by a lack of
significant work dealing with the Presbyterian experience.