Gordon L. Heath
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​My blog posts revolve around my interests and vocation as a historian: the intersection of history and contemporary church life, the intersection of history and contemporary politics, serendipitous discoveries in archives or on research trips, publications and research projects, upcoming conferences, and speaking engagements.


I also blog for two other organizations, the Canadian Baptist Historical Society and the Centre for Post-Christendom Studies.

The views expressed in these blogs represent the views of the authors, and not necessarily those of any organizations with which they are associated.

Serendipity (3 of 3): Workers, Shirkers, and Jerkers in the Black Baptist Church

2/10/2021

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Images from the archives at Acadia University. Click on image to enlarge.
“Workers, Shirkers, and Jerkers” – a witty outline delivered in a Sunday morning sermon during the annual meeting of the African United Baptist Association of Nova Scotia, Halifax, NS, 7-10 September 1918. I was looking for commentary on the war effort, but this creative and witty outline captured my attention.

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Serendipity (2 of 3): Black Methodist Deaconesses in Canada

2/8/2021

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My second (2 of 3) recent serendipitous discovery was a reference to the training of deaconesses for Black Canadian Methodists (British Methodist Episcopal).
 
In my Women in Christian History course I spend time dealing with the functions of the Order of Deaconesses in the early church, noting how it slowly disappeared in the early medieval period due in large measure to the surging monastic movement (a movement quickly embraced by women).
 
In my current research project, I was looking for information on Methodist attitudes to the Great War. As I did so I stumbled across a reference to the training of deaconesses (see above image). I was surprised to see the position of deaconesses here in the Black Methodist movement in Canada, and I now have a number of questions:
  1. How far back in Methodist history does the office of deaconesses go? All the way back to John Wesley?
  2. Are deaconesses something unique to Canadian Black Methodism? Or were there deaconesses in other branches of Methodism?
  3. How many women served as deaconesses?
  4. Does this mean Canadian Black Methodist women could not preach or pastor?
  5. Who taught the deaconesses? Were they trained in the same way and place as the men training for ministry? 
  6. Were the women separated from the men into separate schools? 
Fortunately, the manual for doctrine and discipline provided a detailed order of service for the dedication of deaconesses (Methodists were methodical, after all). Here it is! (click on image to enlarge)
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Images from Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/doctrineanddisci00brituoft/page/n3/mode/2up
A quick bit of research provides an example of one woman who was a deaconess, one who eventually became an ordained minister in the British Methodist Episcopal Church (BME). In 1951, the deaconesses Addie Aylestock became “the first ordained women minister of the BME and the first Black Canadian women minister in Canada.”[1]
 
That, by the way, is an example of the joy of serendipity. I had never before heard of Rev. Addie Aylestock, but a chance glance at a Methodist document led to a wonderful new discovery.


[1] https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/addie-aylestock
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Serendipity (1 of 3): Black Methodist Theological Education

2/7/2021

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This blog (and two that follow) relates to a few recent serendipitous discoveries. Right now I am working on a project on Black Baptists and Methodists in Canada during the First World War. As I was sifting through primary sources I found a few interesting items related to theological education (a subject completely unrelated to my current project).

I have recently taken up an interest in the history of theological education, and, in particular, how pastors are trained for their roles in the churches. The following are some brief images from a manual for doctrine and discipline published in 1913 by the British Methodist Episcopal Church of Canada (a Canadian brand of Black Methodism).

The book itself is a significant text, with 265 pages (click here for full text). In good Methodist fashion it is very methodical and detailed and covers a wide variety of areas of church life. What follows are a few pages that outline the four-year training for its ministers. As you can see, the educational expectations for Black Methodist ministers in Canada was quite extensive and impressive.


These few pages provide a glimpse into an educational model of education that has fascinating similarities with the way theological education is carried out by today's seminaries, but also reveals some interesting differences.
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Of note on the first page is the fact that candidates for ministry had to go through a number of steps before even getting into the more formal aspects of theological education. Specifically, they had to get a license to preach, as well as pass a series of examinations to gain access to a probationary first year "on trial."
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Studies were in expected subjects such as the catechism of the church, writings of Wesley, biblical studies, theology, practical theology, and sermon preparation. However, there were extensive expectations for Bible verse memorization (something rarely expected today in western seminaries).
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Finally, I was satisfied to see the expectation for students to study the history of Christianity. Not only did they have to study what is commonly today called History of Christianity 1 & 2 (surveys of the church from the birth of the church to the pre-Reformation, and then from the Reformation to today), but they also had to take a course in the history of their denomination, as well as one on  polity. 
These few pages are a fascinating glimpse onto the training of Black Methodist candidates for ministry in Canada. It will take further research to determine if those requirements mirrored those of their White Methodist co-religionists, and where and how the Black candidates were to receive that education.

If you want the really big picture of theological education in the history of Christianity, see Justo Gonzalez, The History of Theological Education (2015). 
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Your Home Is Your (Wartburg) Castle: Taking Advantage of Lockdown in a Pandemic

1/29/2021

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https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Luther%27s_study%2C_Wartburg%2C_Thuringia%2C_Germany-LCCN2002720777.jpg
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https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/Wartburg_Eisenach_DSCN3512.jpg
The great sixteenth-century German reformer Martin Luther should have been the one to quip “never let a good crisis go to waste.”[1]
 
In 1521, Luther was whisked away by his supporters to hide him from the prying eyes of the emperor’s secret police or any other opportunistic bounty hunter. Luther had just become an outlaw for refusing to recant at the Diet of Worms, and as a result he had a price on his head payable to anyone who turned him into the state.
 
His supporters took him to the Wartburg Castle, and there Luther stayed in hiding for just under a year. He did not choose to go. He did not want to go. He did not enjoy being there. But he adapted and made the best of it.
 
In fact, that year in lockdown played a critical and formative role in his ministry.
 
The parallels with today’s pandemic lockdown are similar in a number of ways:
  • Luther grew a beard.
  • Luther struggled with depression.
  • Luther was lonely.
  • Luther was frustrated.
  • Luther was worried about his flock and how it was faring without his leadership.
  • Luther even fought with the devil (or so the story goes – he allegedly threw his ink well at the devil).
 
Yet at the same time he set his mind to accomplish things he could not have accomplished had he stayed in the public eye and faced the constant pressures of parish life. The solitude – as much as he did not want it – was exactly what he needed to prepare foundational texts and theological convictions for what was to come. His translation of the New Testament into the German language was one of the greatest accomplishments of his life - and it began at the castle.
 
The obvious application is for us to ask ourselves what we can do in our own “Wartburg Castle.”[2]
 
We have not asked to be locked down, but perhaps we can use the time to accomplish something(s) that we could not have done otherwise. Solitude is hard – as Luther could attest – but perhaps there is something we can do, or learn, or create, or write, or play, or research, or even become, in our solitude that would not have been possible if the hustle and bustle of life did not stop. And lockdown happen.
 
Luther eventually was able to leave Wartburg Castle, and then spent the next two and half decades in never-ending struggles in life and ministry.
 
Lockdown will eventually end for us too, and we will walk out of our own “Wartburg Castle” to face what awaits. In the meantime, let us, like Luther, use our lockdown for great things.



[1] It was Winston Churchill.
[2] The idea of our lockdown being similar to Luther’s at Wartburg came about through a conversation this week with my friend Dr. James Robertson, a professor at Tyndale University.
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RCRM Speaker Series: "The Trauma of War and the Rise of Religious Pacifism in the Interwar Years, 1919-1939"

1/21/2021

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Click here to watch the public lecture for the Royal Canadian Regiment Museum. Open access to all, no registration required.
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“Shop Like a Moravian”: Facing Fear in a Pandemic

1/13/2021

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It is hard not to be afraid in the midst of a pandemic. And as we (here in Ontario) face yet again a furthering of lockdown restrictions, it is easy to fear going shopping for essentials in the presence of those who may carry the dreaded Covid 19 virus.
 
When fear lurks in my heart, I often think of John Wesley’s[1] iconic encounter with German Moravians on a ship in the midst of a cold Atlantic winter storm in January 1736. And I am reminded that my way forward in the pandemic is to “shop like a Moravian.”
 
Sailing across the Atlantic in a relatively small wooden ship in the eighteenth century was, as one author notes, “not for the weak at heart.”[2] What made it worse for Wesley was that he had never before been on a ship and had a fear of the ocean from youth.[3] Yet there he was, tossed about it the dark with no means of rescue. 
 
And then he saw the Moravians, fearlessly singing and praying in the midst of a storm while he and others wailed in fear. Wesley described the event this way: “In the midst of the psalm wherewith their service began, the sea broke over, split the mainsail in pieces, covered the ship, and poured in between the decks, as if the great deep had already swallowed us up. A terrible screaming began among the English. The Germans calmly sang on. I asked one of them afterward, ‘Were you not afraid?’ He answered, ‘I thank God, no.’ I asked, ‘But were not your women and children afraid?’ He replied, mildly, ‘No; our women and children are not afraid to die.’” (January 1736)
 
The Moravians had a vivid sense of the presence and protection of God, and that led to their being able to deal with their fear. As others cried and cowered, they were courageous. 
 
Wesley was profoundly impressed with their faith – something that he as a priest of the church lacked. However, in subsequent encounters with the Moravians he too grew to become like them. And as result, he too could face the dangers of ministry with a fearless courage that impressed even his opponents.
 
The current pandemic can be a fearful time. And there are many ways to survive and even thrive in the midst of it. What we can learn from Wesley is that one way to be courageous is for us to imitate the Moravians. Or, stated differently, “shop like a Moravian.”



[1] An Anglican priest and key founder of Methodism.
[2] Richard P. Heitzenrater, Wesley and the People Called Methodists (Nashville: Abingdon, 1995), 58.
[3] Richard P. Heitzenrater, Wesley and the People Called Methodists (Nashville: Abingdon, 1995), 58.
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Canadian Baptist Historical Society Annual Meeting

1/13/2021

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Al Gore and the Lost Legacy of Putting National Interest Before Personal Ambition

1/9/2021

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Unknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
​I am not suggesting the Vatican initiate a process of canonizing Al Gore and making him St. Gore. But there is something about his conduct in the 2000 US presidential election that was remarkable. And worth emulating.

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Baptists in Canada: Their History and Polity

1/7/2021

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I am pleased to announce the publication of a book I co-authored with Dallas Friesen and Taylor Murray. Here is summary of the book found on its cover:
"Baptists arrived in what would become Canada in the mid-eighteenth century, and from those early arrivals Baptists from a wide variety of backgrounds planted churches in every region of the vast nation. This book traces that history of Baptists in Canada, and provides historical antecedents and theological rationales for their church polity. Written in a generous spirit, it recognizes what Baptists share with other Christian communities and how they differ among themselves on some matters. It places Baptists in Canada in the larger historical and global context, and concludes with commentary on opportunities and challenges ahead."
Click here for a link to the book.
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Covid 19 and Utopian Dreams: Never Let a Good Crisis Go to Waste?

12/22/2020

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It seems that political leaders who are seeking to leverage the current “War on Covid 19” to advance their radical political goals have taken a play from the playbook of Winston Churchill who quipped during the last world war to “never let a good crisis go to waste.”
 
To observers of the Canadian government seeking to take advantage of the current crisis to re-imagine and remake the economy into a green utopia, it may come as surprise to realize that this would not be the first time that a Canadian war effort was hijacked to advance a radical agenda.

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