National Network for Equitable Library Service

Immigrants often face considerable challenges when it comes to preserving their cultural and religious teachings. D. Mitra Barua argues that the Sri Lankan Buddhist community in Toronto has maintained its coherence and integrity not despite but because of the need for cultural adaptations.

Si l'on en croit l'historien Denis Vaugeois, les gens inventent des histoires depuis soixante ans à propos du gouvernement de Maurice Duplessis. Dans le domaine de la politique, l'image généralement acceptée du Québec d'avant la Révolution tranquille est celle d'une société écrasée par une Église catholique omniprésente, avec la complicité d'un gouvernement de l'Union nationale corrompu.

A shrewd synthesizer, gifted popularizer, and inspiring founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance movement, A.B. Simpson (1843-1919) was enmeshed in the most crucial threads of evangelical Christianity at the turn of the twentieth century. Daryn Henry presents Simpson's life and ministry as a vivid, fascinating, and paradigmatic study in evangelical religious culture, during a time when the conservative wing of the movement has often been overlooked.

"What is the secret that allows L'Arche to exist? I'll tell you: pleasure!" explains Jean Vanier, founder of the international federation of L'Arche communities where people with and without intellectual disabilities share their lives. Vanier's spiritual vision and playful sense of humour shaped L'Arche, but the organization was also informed by its surprising history with the United Church of Canada.

From their everyday work in kitchens and gardens to the solemn work of laying out the dead, the Anglican women of mid-twentieth-century Conception Bay, Newfoundland, understood and expressed Christianity through their experience as labourers within the family economy. Women's work in the region included outdoor agricultural labour, housekeeping, childbirth, mortuary services, food preparation, caring for the sick, and textile production. Ordinary Saints explores how religious belief shaped the meaning of this work, and how women lived their Christian faith through the work they did.

In 1770, the priest Nicolas Vernier was accused of neglecting church services, inappropriate behaviour in the confessional, financial improprieties, and affairs with the village schoolmistresses. In a contentious church court case, parishioners described all of their priest's wrongdoings, and in turn, he detailed many of theirs. Ultimately, Vernier finished his career as a cathedral canon in another diocese. Scandal in the Parish recounts Vernier's story and many similar eighteenth-century cases.

The United Church of Canada has a rich and complex history of theological development. This volume, written for the general reader as well as students and scholars, provides a comprehensive overview of that development, together with an analysis of this unique denomination's core statements of faith and its contemporary theological landscape. When the Methodist, Congregational, and Local Union Churches in Canada, as well as most of the Presbyterians, came together as The United Church of Canada, the theological commonalities between them were significant.

In 1790, the French revolutionary government reformed the Catholic Church and demanded that clerics swear an oath of allegiance to the nation and its vision for French Catholicism. Although half of France's parish clergy refused to accept the state-sponsored reforms, others became embroiled in this decade-long ecclesiastical experiment. This included Jean-Baptiste Volfius, a patriot, priest, and professor who embraced the changes in France and believed in the revolution's potential to create a purer church.

During a period of great religious upheaval, Anglican philosopher and ecclesiastic Henry Longueville Mansel (1820-1871) became famous for his 1858 Bampton Lectures, which sought to defend traditional faith by employing a skeptical philosophy. Understanding Mansel and the passionate debate that surrounded his career provides insight into the current struggle for ancient religions to articulate their traditions in a modern world. In Scripture, Skepticism, and the Character of God Dane Neufeld explores the life and thought of the now forgotten nineteenth-century theologian.

Since the 1970s Richard Allen's scholarship on the social gospel has broken new ground in the field of Canadian social and religious history by recovering key aspects of the tradition and its contribution to reform movements and politics. Beyond the Noise of Solemn Assemblies collects and extends many of his classic works to present a comprehensive overview of a major thread in the fabric of the country.