Public discussion about the relationship between religion and public life in Canada can be heated at times, and scholars have recently focused on the historical study of the many expressions of this relationship. The experience of Canada's smaller Protestant Christian groups, however, has remained largely unexplored. This is particularly true of Canada's Baptists. This volume, the first produced by the Canadian Baptist Historical Society, explores the connections between Baptist faith and Baptist activity in the public domain, and expands the focus of the existing scholarship to include a wide range of Canadian Baptist beliefs, attitudes, perspectives, and actions related to the relationship between Baptist faith and practice and public life.

pt. 1. Baptist individuals and public life. Jonathan Woolverton : education advocate, 1811-1883 / Sharon M. Bowler -- Fighting fire with fire : T. T. Shields and his confrontations with Premier Mitchell Hepburn and Prime Minister Mackenzie King, 1934-1948 / Doug Adams -- The formation of a public intellectual : Wilfred Currier Keirstead, Christian personaland modernity / Daniel C. Goodwin -- "One here will constant be" : the Christian witness of T.C. "Tommy" Douglas / Sandra Bearsall -- pt. 2. Baptist responses to conflict. "A very present help in trouble" : the Canadian Baptist's response to the Fenian invasion of 1866 / James Tyler Robertson -- Traitor, half-breeds, savages, and heroes : Canadian Baptist newspapers and constructions of Riel and the events of 1885 / Gordon L. Heath -- Caring for their community : the philanthropic and moral reform efforts of Toronto's Baptists, 1834-1918 / Paul R. Wilson -- "Sheep not of this fold" : case studies of non-Baptist student populations at McMaster University, 1890-1929 / C. Mark Steinacher -- A missed opportunity : Central-Canadian Baptists and the Forward Movement, 1919-1920 / Donald A. Goertz -- For whose kingdom? : Central Canadian Baptists, Watson Kirkconnell, and the evangelization of immigrants, 1880-1939 / Robert R. Smale.