Christie and Gauvreau look at the ways in which reformers expanded the churches' popular base through mass revivalism, established social work and sociology in Canadian universities and church colleges, and aggressively sought to take a leadership role in social reform by incorporating independent reform organizations into the church-sponsored Social Service Council of Canada. They also explore the instrumental role of Protestant clergymen in formulating social legislation and transforming the scope and responsibilities of the modern state. The enormous influence of the Protestant churches before World War II can no longer be ignored, nor can the view that the churches were accomplices in their own secularization be justified. A Full-Orbed Christianity calls on historians to rethink the role of Protestantism in Canadian life and to see it not as the garrison of anti-modernity but as the chief harbinger of cultural change before 1940.

Households of Faith

by Nancy Christie

Published 1 January 2001
Households of Faith has a broad scope, extending from a consideration of church ritual in New France, to demographic analyses of New Brunswick and the Eastern Townships of Quebec, to the intersection of gender and ethnicity, the construction of family in Aboriginal communities, and the changing definitions of sex roles and the family itself among both clergy and laypeople. Contributors include Nancy Christie, Enrico Cumbo (CBC), Patricia Dirks (Brock University), Ken Draper (Canadian Bible College), Michael Gauvreau (McMaster University), Ollivier Hubert (Universite de Montreal), Christine Hudon (Universite de Sherbrooke), Hannah Lane (University of New Brunswick), J.I. Little (Simon Fraser University),Susan Neylan (Wilfrid Laurier University), and Marguerite Van Die (Queen's University).