Aspects of the Canadian Evangelical Experience

Terry A. Crowley is a professor of history at the University of Guelph,
and the author of Agnes Macphail and the Politics of Equality.

The history of religion was once church history for clerics or the
pious, but the democratization of historical inquiry transformed the
intellectual conception of the subject in the same way that trade union
history became labor history. As general editor of the McGill-Queen’s
University Press series on the history of religion, the late George
Rawlyk did more than any other Canadian to direct this transformation.
The 26 chapters that make up this substantial book range broadly over
the evangelical experience within a variety of denominations. While
Roman Catholic charismatics today constitute a major component of
evangelicalism, they garner only slight attention.

Rawlyk historicizes Canadian evangelical experience by emphasizing its
changing nature over time. Identifying four constants from the 18th
century to the present, he sees evangelicalism as a complex kaleidoscope
constantly shifting over time but still revolving in different ways
around conversionism, activism, biblicism, and crucicentrism. While
Rawlyk’s introduction skirts the thorny question of the relationship
between evangelicalism and fundamentalism, this expansive collection is
still a significant accomplishment. As the Canadian population changes,
the next task for historians of religion will be to elucidate
non-Christian religious beliefs and practices in a country where a
majority are no longer adherents to a faith whose near-total hegemony
was once largely uncontested.