Christian Higher Education in Canada

Challenges and Opportunities

Stanley E. Porter, Bruce G. Fawcett

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781725282810
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

The Toronto 2018 Symposium on Christian Higher Education provided an opportunity for leaders in the Canadian Christian higher education movement to reflect deeply on its development, current reality, and future possibilities. The Canadian Christian higher education scene comprises a wide range of institutions, including Christian universities, Bible colleges, and seminaries and graduate schools. Each type has its own distinctive history and likewise represents both challenges and opportunities. Even though they are intertwined in their common purpose, these higher educational institutions express this purpose in various ways. This volume is a collection of the papers and plenary talks designed to share the content of the symposium with a wider audience. The papers are all written by active scholars and researchers who are connected to the member institutions of Christian Higher Education Canada (CHEC). They not only illustrate the quality of the scholarship at these institutions, but they make their own critical contribution to an ongoing discussion regarding the role and place of Christian higher education within the wider society. This volume is intended to be helpful to students, faculty, staff, board members, and supporters of Canadian and other Christian higher education institutions, as well as interested individuals and scholars.

Part 1

The Historical and Contemporary Context for Canadian Christian Higher Education

1

The Protagonist of Justice Against the Forces of the Antichrist

Christian Democracy and the Second World War in The Silhouette and The Recorder

Adam D. Rudy

The Second World War had a profound impact on Western culture. While not everyone living today has a tangible connection to the war, there are still many people alive who do. The war has cast a long shadow over our culture. I myself, for example, grew up with the knowledge that my paternal grandfather had volunteered for active service in the war in 1941. He patiently tolerated my frequent questions about what was, to me, an exceptionally interesting time in history. I grew up in the church, and it was not until I was in graduate school that I discovered, much to my surprise, that the role of Canadian Protestant churches in the Second World War was a subject that had been mostly neglected by historians. Even more so was the subject of the views of students at Christian universities during the war. I thought this was odd given the strong cultural narratives about the war and how they have shaped the national identity of countries like the USA, Britain, and Canada, not to mention the ever-growing library of movies, television shows, video-games, and novels inspired by the war.2 In light of these, this paper examines the war commentary in two student newspapers, The Silhouette (McMaster University) and The Recorder (Toronto Bible College), which represent two different patterns of Canadian evangelicalism and two different educational goals, but which were both dominated by Baptists. This examination supports my contention that the views expressed in these newspapers shared a presupposition of Christendom or Christian civilization. This presupposition was linked with British imperial sentiment, and among other things, entailed a conflation of Christianity and democracy. Through this lens, students at McMaster University (MU) and Toronto Baptist College (TBC) understood the war and articulated their role in it.

Before continuing, it should be noted that the notion of the “presupposition of Christendom” and the term “cultural narrative” were not used by Canadians during or before the war. However, they were acquainted with the idea of Christendom and Christian civilization. My use of these terms, then, is a marker of the historical distance between myself and the time I am writing about. During the interim between then and now, a set of ideas commonly labelled as postmodern (though there is disagreement about what this word really means) has brought into focus narratives, which are, in loose terms, stories that tell us who we are, how we got here, why we are here, and what we are supposed to do about it. Postmodern thought is skeptical of such narratives. These narratives are different than the stories of say, a novel, in that they are not set out in so linear a fashion. These narratives, so the story goes...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• List of Contributors
• Christian Higher Education in Canada
• Part 1: The Historical and Contemporary Context for Canadian Christian Higher Education
• Part 2: Canadian Bible Colleges, Christian Universities, and Seminaries Today
• Part 3: Looking Ahead: Issues and Opportunities
• Appendix A
• Appendix B
• Modern Authors Index