"This book has been prepared at the request of a considerable number of Young People's Societies connected with the German speaking Baptist Churches in our country and Canada... This younger generation now wants to study the essential facts of the religious movement with which they became identified by reason of their early environment and training and, obviously, they want to read these facts in the language with which they are most familiar"--Pref.
"This book has been prepared at the request of a considerable number of Young People's Societies connected with the German speaking Baptist Churches in our country and Canada... This younger generation now wants to study the essential facts of the religious movement with which they became identified by reason of their early environment and training and, obviously, they want to read these facts in the language with which they are most familiar"--Pref.
"Organized in the nineteenth century, the General Conference of German Baptists was primarily a North American denominational body that adopted the polity of the American Baptists to build religious communities of converts of German ethnic background. From 1851 to 1920, the General Conference of German Baptists resisted institutional unity with the larger English-speaking bodies. Instead, it developed an ethnic mission with the financial aid of the American Baptist Home Mission Society. With time the German church membership became more Americanized in language and habits. The external pressure to assimilate increased. Yet, the German Baptist leadership moved away from complete Americanization of the churches and sought to preserve the distinct Pietist theological basis and ethnic mission of the Conference. The General Conference of German Baptists embraced institutional independence beginning in 1920 with the dissolution of the Cooperative Agreement that bound the mission of the German Baptists, the ABHMS, and the Baptist Union of Western Canada." --
How are Baptists distinctive as a Christian denomination? Canadian Baptists, confronted with the question of discovering a common identity from the welter of strands of influence that make up their heritage, may infer several answers from the essays in Memory and Hope. Focussing on Baptist history in central and western Canada, Memory and Hope discusses individuals, institutions and issues that have stirred Baptists in North America for two centuries, including confessionalism and eucharistic theology and fundamentalism vs. modernism. Recurring themes include the Baptist role in education in Canada, the establishment of new churches, overseas missions and social responsibility. Essayists also examine the powerful forces that have influenced Baptist history: immigration, theology and society. Studies of missionary Samuel Stearns Day, fundamentalists Aberhart, Maxwell and Shields and social gospellers Sharpe and Shaw illustrate the diversity of ideas and personalities that have shaped and been shaped by the Baptist Church. Memory and Hope is an important resource for the history of the Baptist Church in Canada. In the issues it raises on the role of churches in the twenty-first century, it will also make a significant contribution to the study of religion in general.
