Introduction

On October 21, 2023, the Fellowship of Evangelical Baptist Churches in Canada (hence Fellowship or FEB) will celebrate seventy years of united gospel witness. The formation of the Fellowship in 1953, had a unique Ontario context in the merger between the Fellowship of Independent Baptist Churches of Canada and the Union of Regular Baptist Churches of Ontario and Quebec.[1] The expectations of the new organisation, however, lay well beyond the horizons of Ontario or Quebec. Rev. W. H. MacBain, the first president, expressed that well when he spoke of the hope that

“every evangelical Baptist Church in Canada would come together in a glorious fellowship of Churches, dedicated to the same great Baptist distinctive and employing the same methods of operation.”[2]

Buoyed by this optimism from its inception, the Fellowship actively pursued like-minded “fundamental Baptist groups” across the country, Like the Regular Baptist Missionary Fellowship of Alberta and the Convention of Regular Baptists of British Columbia (hence BC Convention or Regular Baptists).[3] The Alberta group joined the Fellowship in 1963. Our focus here, however, is on the BC Convention on the West Coast. If this convention could be persuaded into this new Fellowship, evangelical Baptists would finally have a truly trans-Canada Baptist fellowship.[4]

By all probabilities, any formal tie between the BC Convention and the Fellowship was an achievable objective. These brethren had been close allies in the fight against Liberalism in the 1920s and again, more recently in the struggle against Roman Catholicism in Quebec in the 1940s.[5] The Canadian Pacific Railway had carried many of these brethren to and fro between British Columbia and Ontario.

By 1955, therefore, the Fellowship brethren were so optimistic of delivering a trans-Canada fellowship that they formed an Eastern Advisory Committee and later inserted a page on Western news, in the Fellowship’s official magazine, The Fellowship Baptist, designed to inform the churches in the East, but also to encourage churches in the West and to build a relationship.

The Founding Fathers of the Convention of Regular Baptists of British Columbia (July 1927)

However, that optimism had been challenged often and would be again in the decade that followed, and it would be over ten years before the BC Convention formally associated with the Fellowship, and a trans-Canada Baptist fellowship finally became a reality.

To understand this, we need to go back to 1927. The fathers of the Convention could hardly have calculated the cost of separation as they stood for a photo shoot on the steps of Mount Pleasant Baptist Church, Vancouver, in July 1927.[6] If the years of controversy (1920-1927) were difficult and the separation painful, the years that followed were years of sifting and self-examination for the new Convention.

There were natural obstacles of course that impeded the formation of a trans-Canadian fellowship; the great distances that separated the Provinces, and indeed the churches within the Provinces. There was also the barrier of the Rocky Mountains that hampered fellowship even between churches in British Columbia and Alberta. These natural obstacles, however, were minor issues compared to the existential crisis through which the fledgling Convention struggled for almost forty years and which had tested and stretched it to its limits.

There was growth, and there were successes both in individual churches and in the Convention.[7] However, the loss of a missionary programme, the lack of an educational institution, a denominational magazine, Sunday school resources, and a suitable infrastructure for the youth left a void and created an echo chamber of disunity within the Convention.  That these difficulties lingered so long betrays a stubborn incapacity to identify the issues, or to find a solution. Two controversies, however, tore back the veil and revealed the lack of direction, and the need for a distinct Baptist identity and denominational loyalty—the Foreign Missions controversy in the 1930s and the Southern Baptist controversy of the 1950s.

Dr. J.B. Rowell, president of the Convention of Regular Baptists of British Columbia (1928-29, 1938-39). First principal of the Northwest Baptist Bible College (1945-46) and founding pastor of Central Baptist Chruch, Victoria (1927-58).

In this essay I will explore the tensions within the Convention, and, drawing from correspondence with Dr. J.B. Rowell, I will seek to discover the challenges that faced the Convention between 1927 and 1955, particularly focusing on the Southern Baptist controversy. In a follow-up essay, I will focus on the ministry of Dr. Rowell and the Central Baptist Church as a case-study in Church growth in the midst of and in contrast to the struggling Convention. I will seek to answer the question also, why Rowell and his Central Baptist congregation may have voted against a trans-Canada Fellowship in 1958.[8]

 

The Foreign Missions Controversy

After the split from the “Old Convention,” the conservatives had been cut off from the denominational foreign mission fields. In the years that followed the split, in an attempt to find a suitable outlet for missions, the Convention followed a number of avenues but found little success.[9] In 1929 an opportunity arose when Mr. Fred Savage and his wife, and her two sisters, Hilda and Victoria Holm, had returned from China to Vancouver Island. The two sisters settled in Duncan further north from Victoria, but the Savage family settled in Victoria and attended Central Baptist Church. The party of missionaries had been working with the North-West Kiangsi Mission (NKM) but were evacuated because of the threat of bandits in the Province.

The NKM was an independent mission, originally under the auspices of the Plymouth Brethren and at that point directed by Rev. E. J. Blandford who was soon to retire. Central Baptist Church had already supported the Chinese mission and in March 1929, at an Executive Council meeting, Rowell reported their Chinese interest for the first time. In June 1929 it was brought to the Convention and deferred to the Missionary Committee for consideration. The Executive Council arranged that Rev. Blandford would meet with them on August 22, while passing through Vancouver, on his way back to China.[10] The responsibility of the work included ten existing missionaries with varied denominational affiliations, and a property worth $5,000. Blandford informed the Council that if the Convention was to take over the mission, it would be responsible for two of the existing missionaries whose support would be withdrawn—an annual expense of $1,000. Blandford’s proposal also meant that the Convention would take ownership of the property after five years.[11]

Rev. Lorimar Baker, founding father of the Convention and missionary to China (1930-39).

In September, in a proposal tabled by Dr. Rowell and Rev. A. McLeod, who had spent many years in India, it was agreed that the Convention “take over this work in the Province of Kiangsi with our brother Blandford as the Director on the field [sic].”[12] An agreement was drawn up, which required, first, that the existing missionaries carry on as before and agree to the Regular Baptist Articles of Faith. Second, that additional missionary staff is appointed by the Convention of Regular Baptists of BC. Third, that the Convention undertakes to support all missionaries sent out and encourage the congregations to do so. Finally, that the Convention undertakes to contribute $1,300 annually to the work for a period of five years.[13]

On October 12th, Rev. A.J.L Haynes applied to be sent out under the Convention. A month later, Rev. Lorimar G. Baker applied also. It appeared that the Convention had finally secured a field and an outlet for foreign missions. Missionary funds that had been accumulating could now be spent on the Convention’s own foreign missions project.

The Bakers sailed for China the following March (1930). Three missionaries from the China Inland Mission had been captured by bandits in the Kiangsi Province and the Haynes’ departure was delayed. They never made it to China. In the 1930s several others applied also, but the Convention’s finances were insufficient to support them.[14] Miss Esther Peacock also applied and, supported by the Woman’s Missionary Society, was sent out on May 23, 1931.

But things were not what they seemed. Trouble erupted in a series of letters to the Executive Council in January and February 1931, when Rev. Baker brought charges to the Executive Council. First, Baker informed the Council that the mission had been acquired without proper investigation. Second, that Blandford was not a Baptist, that he could not be trusted and indeed, had been dismissed from the fellowship of the Plymouth Brethren.[15] He informed the Executive Council also, that the mission was more a Plymouth Brethren work and not Baptist. It came to light also, that the mission properties valued at $5,000 did not all belong to the mission, but to individual missionaries and that the “control” which the Convention thought it had, did not in fact exist.[16] In the end, Baker left the NKM and moved to another location. He wrote.

“In view of my conviction that no alteration or fixing can mend this matter. I hereby inform the council that I cannot work any longer under the circumstances as they are. I am utterly opposed to being in un-denominational work. I am opposed to the dishonest foundation on which the property arrangements rest. We would not want you to think that we are wanting to throw up mission work in China and would assure you that we are entirely willing to carry out the great commission [sic] in another part of China or wherever the Lord may lead.”

It will not be necessary to detail the long and complicated controversy that rumbled on until 1937. Suffice it to say that by the end of it all, the Convention had made little progress on the missionary front. Although Baker’s furlough had proved a huge success and helped to settle the situation, the controversy had shaken the Convention to the core and “sapped the spiritual resources of the denomination.”[17] The net effect of the whole affair was threefold. First, the Convention was reduced in number and the withdrawal of three churches. Second, it left the Convention with a “lack of solidarity and direction among those who remained.” Third, finance was being withheld from the Convention and diverted to interdenominational and independent organisations.[18]

By the end of the first decade, the BC Regular Baptists had made little progress in securing a sustainable foreign missions outlet, and the subject remained high on the agenda. The diversion of funds to outside organisations, remained a matter of special concern. For the BC Convention, therefore, any discussion of a trans-Canada fellowship would necessarily include foreign missions as a particular and immediate item of concern. In 1960, when the Eastern Liaison Committee was preparing its report for the Fellowship, the BC Convention requested that foreign missions be included as an item for “immediate cooperation.”[19]

 

The Southern Baptist Controversy                       

The 1940s were a little more optimistic for the Convention with the establishment of the Northwest Baptist Bible College.[20] The formation of a Regular Baptist Association in the BC Interior also, in 1940, lead to the establishment of Sunnybrae Bible Camp in 1945. However, a definite denominational Baptist identity still proved elusive and the Convention continued to struggle. One major area of frustration was the inter-denominationalism that existed within the Convention and, ironically, on which the Convention still depended. Many of the young people were heading off to interdenominational colleges and missionary organisations and Regular Baptist money was following them. Early in 1950, in an article for the Western Regular Baptist, titled “While Baptists Slumber and Sleep,” John H. Pickford wrote, [21]

the naked truth is that we are doing so little not through lack of funds but through our dissipation of funds. We are being bled white by foolishly responding to the sentimental high-pressure appeals of unbaptistic organizations who after getting all they can turn and disdainfully look down on our emaciated condition and pronounce us “dead.”

Dr. J.H. Pickford President of the Fellowship of Regular Baptist Churches in British Columbia (1976-78), and author of What Hath God Wrought: Sixty Years of God’s Goodness in the Fellowship of Regular Baptist Churches in British Columbia

The recently established college had provided the Convention with a long-awaited theological institution of its own, but this had minimal impact. There were so many other missing elements in the mechanics of the Convention, and many of the pastors were grasping at straws for direction, and for an effective denominational outlook. “They sought,” writes Pickford, “proven methods and tools to do the job of building strong Baptist churches and reaching out into cities and communities of a rapidly growing population.”[22]

The Convention had tried on many occasions to construct within itself a functioning and effective fellowship and build a solid structure for expansion. In 1928 they organised a Sunday School Association and a Boy’s Work Committee in 1931, but these were short-lived.[23]  In 1940 the Interior Fellowship was formed and with some success, but these associations were not well maintained and fell into disuse.

The problems facing the Convention were multiple and well known and they stretched back to its inception and any solution proved elusive. In a typed letter, dated December 4, 1953, Rev. Lorimar Baker, then president of the Convention, wrote to Rowell, outlining the difficulties that had “handicapped” the Regular Baptists for many years.[24] As an old friend, and as one founding father to another, Baker was candid in stating that “it would take hours to go over all the phases of the situation, as you well know.” He spoke of the needs of the home and foreign missionary work, the college, and also the lack of a suitable plan for denominational literature. “It has been a great hindrance all these years,” He wrote,

to have our churches using a great many sources for their Sunday School material, having no co-ordinated young people’s work, no satisfactory magazine which can be taken into houses which would tie these homes in with our Baptist beliefs and practices.

These were deep, stubborn, and complicated issues. There was a natural gravitation to the US, and the well-established Baptist witness there, coupled with “American ingenuity” was an attractive proposition.[25] For many years this informal connection existed without complication. In 1943 Ruth Morton Memorial Church had welcomed the Evangelical Teacher’s Training Association from Chicago. Ruth Morton Memorial subsequently began A Teacher’s Training Classes, with huge success.[26]

Many of the men and women in the Convention had gone to college in America, Multnomah School of the Bible in Oregon, Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, BIOLA in Los Angeles. In the 1930s James Rowell had earned his doctoral degree at the Los Angeles Theological Seminary. Rowell perhaps, more than most BC Regular Baptists, was a frequent visitor in America and had formed close relationships south of the border, particularly with Dr. R. L. Powell, pastor of Temple Baptist in Tacoma, Washington, and a member of the General Association of Regular Baptist in America (GARB).

In 1944 Powell was the guest speaker at the annual Convention meetings. At those meetings, Powell suggested a closer relationship between the two organisations. The idea was quickly adopted, a resolution was drawn up and a Committee appointed that same week—the Northwest Baptist Fellowship was formed to meet twice a year for Conference and fellowship.[27] This proved to be a bad fit, however, and by 1950 the relationship was beginning to collapse.[28]

With the enthusiasm of the GARB declining, there was an active move towards the Southern Baptists who had witnessed impressive growth in the north-west United States after the Second World War.[29] By the late 1940s, the Southern Baptists were beginning to make a deliberate push north of the border and among the Regular Baptists, there was a palpable sense of excitement and hopefulness.

Dr. J.H. Watt, General Secretary of the Fellowship (1965-77) and author of The Fellowship Story: Our First 25 Years (A Fellowship Baptist Publication, 1978).

Callum Jones traces the beginning of the Southern Baptist controversy to Rev. W.H. Ross MacPherson, a young pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Vancouver.[30] MacPherson was from a Pentecostal background and he lacked a sense of history within the Convention and of denominational loyalty. In 1949 MacPherson travelled to Alaska to meet Southern Baptist leaders. He also introduced Southern Baptist materials and programs into Emmanuel Baptist and witnessed significant growth in his own congregation. In the spring of 1951 Dr. R. E. Milam, the Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Southern Baptist-affiliated, Baptist General Convention of Oregon-Washington was invited to speak at a Pastor’s Conference in Northwest Baptist Bible College. MacPherson reported from that meeting, that “he made a profound impression on many of us.”

Interest in the Southern Baptists was growing, and on May 15, 1951, the Executive Council appointed three men to attend the Southern Baptist Regional Conference in August as unofficial “observers”—Lorimar Baker, at that time president of the Convention, H.C. Phillips, and the Rev. Ross MacPherson. Baker and Phillips were unable to attend, and MacPherson took along a student from the college, a Mr. Jim Yoder.  MacPherson reported in the Regular Western Baptist, “what God has done through Southern Baptists, He can do through Regular Baptists, I believe that Western Canada is going to hear from us shortly.”[31]

In the fall of that same year, Rev. P. Tiechroab spent a month in the southern states, observing the SBC, and subsequently brought a report back to the Vancouver (Regular Baptist) Ministerial Association (VMA), which was recorded in the Regular Western Baptist in February ‘52.[32]  MacPherson had reported in the October 13, 1951 edition of Regular Western Baptist that “the growth, influence, and success of Southern Baptists might well be the eighth wonder of the world were we not acquainted with our New Testament.” The VMA identified five features of the SBC evangelistic efforts and church programs.

  1. Small, dedicated Sunday-School classes.

  2. Pre-morning-service, all-age training classes exploring Baptist belief and missionary work.

  3. Strong, evangelistically oriented, monthly men’s meeting.

  4. Focused boy’s work, emphasising evangelism and Bible knowledge.

  5. Regular revival meetings held simultaneously across all Southern Baptist Churches.[33]

The bond was further strengthened in June 1952, when Dr. J. D. Grey the President of the SBC, and Dr. R.E. Milam, attended the annual Regular Baptist Convention in Vancouver. Of that meeting, Richards wrote that many had “caught a glimpse of the electrifying possibilities of further fellowship with Southern Baptists.”[34]

The Southern Baptists were trending among the Regular Baptists of BC. A series of meetings took place between the two organisations called, “we look at them, they look at us.” In May 1952 a group of Southern Baptists Sunday school experts, led by Rev. John T. Sisemore, conducted a Daily Vacation Bible School Clinic at Northwest Baptist Bible College and in November of that year a conference in Ruth Morton Memorial Church in Vancouver. Momentum for a firm relationship was growing and the Convention Executive Council passed a motion,[35]

“that we recognise that the well-integrated Sunday School program of the Southern Baptist Sunday School Board offers a solution to many of our pressing problems in our task of evangelism in British Columbia; that we instruct our present Sunday School Committee to promote this program among our Churches.”

Excitement and enthusiasm was at an all-time high. Plans were in place for monthly Sunday School rallies in the Interior and on the Island. A Home Missions Superintendent, Rev. H.C. Phillips, was appointed and took up his duties on October 15, 1953.[36] Churches and regional associations embarked on evangelistic campaigns, accelerated outreach programs, and teacher-training courses. It seemed that the Regular Baptists had finally found the answer to solid growth—a fully integrated Baptist program and identity from which they could expand across the Province.

 

The Breakdown of the Southern Baptist/Regular Baptist Relationship

By the end of 1953, however, the situation had turned a corner, indeed a U-turn. Although it would be many more years in the making, the juxtaposing of two developments was a watershed in the move towards a united trans-Canada Baptist fellowship. First, the breakdown of the South Baptist/Regular Baptist relationship, and second, the development of the Fellowship in the east.

First, consider the breakdown of the Southern Baptist/Regular Baptist collaboration. Despite the numerical growth reported within the BC Convention and the widespread use of Southern Baptist material, a fear began to emerge, that the relationship was moving too fast. Not content with the informal collaboration and assistance, MacPherson was pushing for a more direct affiliation.

The Regular Baptists began to pull back and in 1953 declined financial and personnel assistance from the Southern Baptist Oregon-Washington Convention. MacPherson was outraged at this and led his Emmanuel Baptist Church into a “dual affiliation” with the Oregon-Washington Convention and changed the name to Kingscrest Southern Baptist Church. While it was a so-called “dual affiliation,” it was clear that MacPherson’s allegiance lay strongly towards the Southern Baptists. At a Home Missions conference that same year he had chosen all Southern Baptist speakers and it appeared very much like “a Southern Baptist affair.”[37]

The introduction of this dual affiliation was especially concerning among the older men among the Regular Baptists, who could remember their own modus operandi in 1925 when they formed the Missionary Council to draw money away from the Convention.[38] The Northwest Baptist Bible College was also implicated in the rush to the Southern Baptists. “It is reported from the best authorities,” J.H. Witter, treasurer of the Convention, wrote to Rowell on December 11, 1953, that the interim president of the college, Mr. Percy Lee, “had a Southern Baptist working with him, to form a Southern Baptist Church.”[39]

MacPherson had been cautioned by many of his Regular Baptist colleagues for his impulsive action, and also by Milam, to pull back and not force the issue—but to no avail.[40] He had pushed matters too far and too quickly and had taken on the persona of “a young man in a big hurry.”[41]

It was clear that MacPherson had overreached and had triggered a surge of opposition from within the Convention. The Southern Baptist Convention also, seeing how the whole affair was unfolding, refused to hand out the financial support that was expected to Southern Baptist affiliates, and also refused to seat “messengers” from Canada at its Annual Convention meetings.[42] The mood among the Regular Baptist had changed, the editorial of the Western Regular Baptist was increasingly opposed to any Southern Baptist influence. MacPherson doubled down, and in response to conciliatory recommendations from the Convention in June 1954, he published a newspaper, The Baptist Horizon, to promote his Southern Baptist agenda in British Columbia.[43]

Other issues, also—and more problematic—were beginning to come to the fore, both regarding the Southern Baptists and MacPherson himself. During the 1952 elections, MacPherson had openly declared himself a supporter of the Social Credit Party, founded by the more radical Fundamentalist, William Aberhart. Charges were leveled against the Southern Baptists also, regarding Modernism, worldliness, the sanctioning of growing and using tobacco in the Southern States, but more particularly the practice of “Landmarker” closed communion, which MacPherson had embraced. At the annual meetings in June 1955, the Convention passed the following motion against the rejection of “alien immersion,” a doctrine closely associated with Landmarkism, which rejects any baptism not performed by a local Baptist Church.[44]

“We would … declare ourselves as opposed to the principle which declares all immersions of believers according to the New Testament Formula null and void which are not performed under the authority of a Baptist Church [Sic]”

By 1954 it had become apparent that the Southern Baptist experiment had failed. The whole affair, however, had brought to the surface, the “latent disunities” that had existed in the Convention for many years.[45] It also strengthened the BC Convention with a sense of solidarity and resolution, and with the realisation that the Regular Baptists had indeed their own identity, and it could pursue a broader fellowship on its own terms and within a Canadian context. At the Convention meetings in 1954, to address these issues, in part, the idea of regional associations was revived, and the following year the Interior Association led the charge in pushing for the formation of other Regional Associations—Lower Mainland, and Island Associations.

This was a call for the churches to advance in the Province by forming closer ties, co-operation, and mutual fellowship.[46] In the 1955 Annual Convention meeting, the Specific Aims Committee brought a motion.

“That the associational plan be extended throughout the Convention and that immediate steps be taken to form Lower Mainland and Island Associations, and that these, along with the Interior Association, plan monthly promotional meetings, especially in relation to evangelism and Sunday School.”[47]

Again, as Pickford points out there was “little movement [taking] place on the part of the churches either in the Lower Mainland or on Vancouver Island towards organizing a regional association.”[48] The Convention needed a “greater cohesiveness,” and “greater efforts in evangelistic and church planting.”[49]

The Convention needed help from the more established churches in the east, and senior men knew this. In his letter to Rowell in December 1953, Lorimar Baker wrote, “we only wish that our brethren in the East had shown some slight interest in our work out West, we might have had something lined up long ago.”

Baker was not against the Southern Baptists, and indeed hinted that he would favour using the Southern Baptist material, but “supplement[ing] it with information about our own Home and Foreign Missionary work, College, etc.” He also knew, however, that “if we are to continue as an entity, we will have to plan for our own literature sometime.”

The time was ripe for the trans-Canada fellowship. In October 1953, Rev. McBain had made that now famous and often used statement regarding a “glorious fellowship of Churches,” and it reverberated across the country. For the first time in many years there was more light and less tunnel in view for the BC Regular Baptists. In January 1954, Rev. Don Reed responded to MacBain’s overture in the pages of The Western Regular Baptist; “we have expressed the same hope within these columns. We believe the hour has come for a united testimony across Canada.”[50] “We are Canadians,” he continued,

Let us stay Canadian. Canada needs the testimony of Canadian Baptists. If we can profit by the methods of our American Baptist brethren, well and good. But let us preserve and promote the distinctive work of our Canadian Baptist organization … This editor feels that it is time to turn our eyes to the east.

It is not within my remit here to deal with the years that followed and what delayed the BC Convention joining the Trans-Canada Fellowship until 1968. Certainly, it took some years for the influences of the Southern Baptist controversy to dissipate. In 1955, two other churches, Whalley Baptist in Surrey and Grace Baptist in Burnaby had followed MacPherson’s example, and in Kamloops, seven members had separated from the Regular Baptist Church and formed a Southern Baptism fellowship. Mr. Percy Lee, also a senior businessman and who had previously served as president was also taken by the Southern Baptists.

“How many more churches,” Pousett wrote in his 1956 work, “will be led astray in this fashion cannot yet be foreseen.”[51] Certainly, the influences remained for some years to follow. In a 1960 editorial to The Fellowship Baptist, the author spoke of the continued influence of the Southern Baptists in BC, especially the influence of Liberalism and Landmarkism.[52] By that date, the discussion was well advanced between the BC Convention and the Fellowship, and the editorial was quite a forthright piece and appears to be a shot across the bow, warning the BC Convention to set its house in order.

 

Conclusion: An Analysis of the Southern Baptist Controversy

“It is among the Regular Baptists, Callum Jones, writes, “that the origins of Southern Baptist organisation in Western Canada are traced.”[53] While the whole affair was much bigger than the Regular Baptists, my interest at this point is to identify the catalyst of the controversy—or at least ask some questions that will help us in this pursuit. Did the Southern Baptist’s “invade,” were they “invited” or was the whole affair the result of general unrest in the Convention and Macpherson’s youthful recklessness?[54]

There are some basic observations.

First, J.B. Richards seems to lay the blame at their own door and points out that the Southern Baptist movement arose out of the Regular Baptist Convention itself as “a protest against inter-denominationalism.” In another place, Richards states that the struggle for a “denominational outlook” had gone on for so long without any apparent solution that many within the Convention felt that the only way to create a distinctive Baptist identity was to “import” it. MacPherson certainly betrayed the frustration of a protestor and adopted the style of a protestor in his push for change within the Convention.

Second, Richard Blackaby defends the Southern Baptists and argues that “they did not enter Canada uninvited.” Whether officially invited or not, there was certainly encouragement from the Regular Baptists. The first overt solicitation occurred in 1949 with MacPherson. However, we now know that the Board of Management at Central Baptist Church had written to the Southern Baptists four years before requesting plans for a proposed new Sunday school building.[55] One writer suggests that this “probably encouraged [the Southern Baptists] in their expansion into Western Canada in the 1950s.[56]

Lorimar Baker, who was denominationally loyal, was also a friend of the Southern Baptists. He trusted, in a letter to Rowell, that the “American brethren … were perfectly on the level … and would not solicit any of our Churches to join up.”[57]

Third, clearly, the Southern Baptists had an interest in moving into Canada and perhaps acted irresponsibly in taking advantage of the division among the Regular Baptists. Baker acknowledged that they were aware of the great difficulties within the Convention—the “limited membership, great distances, no denominational Sunday School, Young People or devotional literature …” He did not go as far as Pousett to claim that certain elements within the Southern Baptist Convention had taken “advantage of the lack of solidarity within the Regular Baptist work in order to enlarge the size of their own movement.”[58]

Pousett references statements published by Milam which would indicate an irresponsible intrusion into other’s field of labour, or at least strong encouragement for others (i.e. BC Regular Baptist) to allow them in. In 1949 he wrote, concerning an “opportunity unparalleled in history, and with this, “Southern Baptists have now renounced all Comity Agreements and recognise the world as their field of labour.”

Rather than answering the question of the impulse behind the Southern Baptist controversy, these observations will serve to show how complex the controversy really was. Its seems to have been a collision of circumstance; the Southern Baptists were both established and had zeal and ingenuity for expansion. The Regular Baptists were searching for these same qualities.

A follow-up essay, “Dr. J.B. Rowell and the Central Baptist Church: A Case Study in Church Growth,” coming sometime in the future, DV, will deal with Dr. Rowell’s involvement in the Convention and why he may have voted against the BC Regular Baptists joining the trans-Canada Fellowship.

 

[1] The Union of Regular Baptist Churches of Ontario and Quebec was founded in Toronto by Dr. T. T. Shields in October 1927. Dr. Shields, or “T.T.” as he was known, was a strong personality and many conservative Baptists, while separating from the old liberal convention remained independent from the conservative (Regular) Baptist Convention. In 1933 these independent conservative churches formed the Fellowship of Independent Baptist Churches, but while Dr. Shields remained at the head of the Union of Regular Baptists, fellowship with the Independent Baptists was stifled. However, in 1949 Shields was forced out of the Union of Regular Baptists, and with Shields out of the picture Baptists in Ontario many felt more at ease in fellowshipping outside their own associations. Thus, the formation of the Fellowship on October 21, 1953, under the presidency of W. H. MacBain. J. F. Halliday edited the magazine for the Independents called theFellowship Evangel and Rev. Arnold Dallimore edited a magazine for the Union called The Union Baptist. The magazines were also merged to become the Fellowship Baptist and Halliday was appointed as the first editor. See J. H. Watt, The Fellowship Story: Our First 25 Years, (Toronto: Fellowship of Evangelical Baptist Churches of Canada, 1978), 38-41.

[2] John H. Pickford, What Hath God Wrought: Sixty Years of God’s Goodness in the Fellowship of Regular Baptist Churches of British Columbia, (Vancouver: Baptist Foundation of B.C., 1987), 129.

[3] The name, The Convention of Regular Baptists of British Columbia was officially changed to The Fellowship of Regular Baptist Churches of British Columbia in June 1984. See Pickford, 276.

[4] It had been the ambition of Baptists since coming to Canada, to have a Canada-wide Baptist fellowship. In 1880 the Baptist Union of Canada was formed with William McMaster as its first president. The Baptist Union of Canada did not include British Columbia nor the Maritime Baptists. At that stage, Baptists had scarcely arrived in British Columbia (the first Baptist church in BC was organised just four years before in Victoria). Although Manitoba was included for a brief period, the nomenclature “Union of Canada” was optimistically premature in 1880. In 1888 this Union was reorganised and became, the more realistic, Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec. The same optimism was evident also at the formation of the Fellowship of Evangelical Baptist Churches of Canada, (emphasis added). It would be ten years before the Fellowship could legitimately be called “Canada-wide.”

[5] On June 18, 1942, T.T. Shields was a guest at the annual BC Convention meeting. At that meeting, the BC Convention passed a resolution in support of the Canadian Protestant League (CPL), established in Toronto in October 1941 by Dr. T.T. Shields. See Gospel Witness, Vol. 21, No. 12, (July 23, 1942): 11. In the years that followed, Dr. J.B. Rowell was closely aligned with Shields in the CPL. For a broader discussion on Canadian Baptist opposition to Roman Catholicism see Brent Reilly, Baptists and Organised Opposition to Roman Catholicism in “Costly Vision: The Baptist Pilgrimage in Canada,” Ed. Jarold K. Zeman (Burlington: Welch Publishing Company Inc. 1988), 181-198. See also Aaron Dunlop, “Dr. T.T. Shields on Roman Catholicism: Pt. 1. Theologian and Pastor,” http://thinkgospel.com/dr-t-t-shields-on-roman-catholicism-pt-1-theologian-and-pastor, accessed December 15, 2020, and “Dr. T. T. Shields on Roman Catholicism: Pt. 2. ‘A Powerful International Political Organization,’” http://thinkgospel.com/dr-t-t-shields-on-roman-catholicism-pt-2-a-powerful-international-political-organization, accessed December 15, 2020.

[6] Only three of the founding fathers of the Regular Baptist Convention of BC lived to see the Convention become part of the Canada-wide Fellowship in 1965; J.B. Rowell, L.G. Baker, and A.J.L. Haynes.

[7] Remarkably, despite the difficulties, by the 1950s the new Convention had more congregations than the old Convention from which it separated in 1927. See Robert Burkinshaw, “Conservative Evangelicalism in the Twentieth-Century ‘West,’” in Amazing Grace: Evangelicalism in Australia, Britain, Canada, and the United States, Mark A. Noll, and George A. Rawlyk, eds., 342. A brief summary of the flow of success shows that there was an early growth. In the first year (1927-28) six new churches had been organized bringing the total number of churches to twenty-two and bringing the total membership from 1,623 to 1,843. Three factors contributed to a decline in the 1930s: the Depression, lack of denominational loyalty, and the Foreign Missions Controversy. The convention entered the 1940s with the same number of churches it had when it entered the 1930s and a decrease of 100 from the total membership. In the fifteen years from 1945-1960, the number of Churches doubled in the Convention (from 22 churches to 41 churches), the total membership rose from 1,400 to 2,500, the Sunday school enrolment increased two and a half times (2,075 to 5,500), the total income tripled ($55,000 – $200,000) and there was a fourfold increase in the budget ($11,000 – $45,000). See J.H. Pickford, The Story of the Regular Baptists of British Columbia, (Toronto: The Fellowship Baptist, Vol.7, no.7 (May 1960): 2,21.

[8] Much more research needs to be done on this era of BC Baptist history, especially the years of struggle and the delay in becoming part of the Fellowship (from 1953 to 1965). My focus here is the ministry of Dr. J.B. Rowell at Central Baptist Church, the first church-plant of the new Convention. Central Baptist Church grew to become one of the biggest in the Convention. To play “devil’s advocate,” and balance our understanding of this period, there are many questions that arise regarding Rowell’s interest and involvement as a founding father and a leading figure in the Convention. He (and Central Baptist Church) was known for being “a church particularly open to nondenominational “faith’ mission influence” (See Pousett, 132, fn.93). Also, of all the churches in the Convention, Central Baptist, Victoria had the most missionary candidates, most of whom were in nondenominational missions. Why, for example, did his abilities to lead—so evident on the local level—not transfer to the Convention? Was he a denominational man, or indifferent to it? Was his focus on the local church warranted in light of the struggles within the Convention? One area in which Rowell was involved, and which was perhaps the greatest success story in the Convention in those years, was the establishment of the Northwest Baptist Bible College.

[9] One option in securing a missionary outlet was to support interdenominational and fundamentalist missions approved by the Convention, but this brought limited success. A second option was to align with missionary projects already undertaken by the Regular Baptist of Ontario and Quebec, but again, this failed with the only missionary who came forward was rejected on health grounds. See Pickford, 76-78, and Pousett, 81.

[10] John B. Richards, Baptists in British Columbia (Vancouver: Northwest Baptist Theological College and Seminary, 1977), 104.

[11] Pickford, 78.

[12] Ibid, 78.

[13] BC Baptist, September 1929, pages 1-2, cited in Gordon H. Pousett, The History of the Regular Baptists of British Columbia (Toronto: McMaster University, unpublished thesis, 1956), 133.

[14] BC Baptist, June 1930, pages 6. cited in Pousett, 82.

[15] Richards, 104.

[16] Pousett, 83.

[17] Richards, 106, Pickford, 75-92. Both Richards and Pickford deal quite extensively with the Foreign Missions controversy and its effect on the Convention. In July 1927, the total membership of the new Convention was 1,623. The initial growth of the Convention was encouraging and by 1932 stood at 2,000. By the end of the 1930s, after the Foreign Missions controversy, the number was reduced to 1,400.

[18] Richards, 107.

[19] Watt, 93.

[20] For a more detailed history of the Northwest Baptist Bible College see Aaron Dunlop, Dr. J. B. Rowell and the Beginning of Northwest Baptist Bible College, http://thinkgospel.com/dr-j-b-rowell-and-the-beginning-of-northwest-baptist-bible-college, accessed December 10, 2020.

[21] John H. Pickford cited in G. Richard Blackaby, The Establishment of the Canadian Convention of Southern Baptists, https://cnbc.ca/articles/the-history-of-the-ccsb accessed December 20, 2020.

[22] Pickford, 103.

[23] Pousett, 103.

[24] Lorimar Baker, Letters, December 4, 1953, McMaster University Archive, Rowell Archives, Box 6, File 6.

[25] Richards, 117

[26] In 1938 Ruth Morton Sunday School averaged 125 and by November 1949 had reached 422, and a new Sunday School education unit. Central Baptist Church also, has grown and reached out to the Southern Baptist Convention for help for a new two-story Sunday School complex in 1945. In 1953, Oakridge Baptist Church also built a new Sunday School complex in Vancouver. During most of the 1940s, there was a renewed emphasis on teacher training and “nearly all the churches experienced a marked increase in attendance.” See Pickford, 103.

[27] Richards, 114ff, Pickford, 102

[28] Richards, 114. The decline of the relationship with GARB was twofold. First, the British Columbia Baptists were beginning to move away from dispensationalism. Second, some BC Convention pastors had begun to advocate fellowship with Southern Baptists, who were opposed by GARB.

[29] Pousett, 130-140, Richards, 114-117, Pickford, 101-107.

[30] Callum Jones (2014) Western Canadian Baptists and the Southern Baptist ‘invasion’ of the 1950s, Baptist Quarterly, 45:7, 141, DOI: 10.1179/bqu.2014.45.7.003.

[31] Cited in Pickford, 104.

[32] Pousett, 133.

[33] Western Regular Baptist, February 15, 1952, 10-11, cited in Callum Jones (2014) Western Canadian Baptists and the Southern Baptist ‘invasion’ of the 1950s, Baptist Quarterly, 45:7, 141 footnote 7, DOI: 10.1179/bqu.2014.45.7.003

[34] Richards, 115.

[35] Pousett, 133.

[36] Pickford, 105.

[37] H.J. Witter, Letters, December 11, 1953. McMaster University Archives, Rowell Archives, Box 6, File 6.

[38] In 1925 the conservatives, still within the Old Convention, formed the Missionary Council to channel funds away from the increasingly liberal Convention and from Brandon College. This dual affiliation was a signal them many that MacPherson had transferred his allegiance to the Southern Baptists. Kingscrest Southern Baptist Church removed its affiliation with the BC Convention in 1954.

[39] H.J. Witter, Letters, December 11, 1953. McMaster University Archives, Rowell Archives, Box 6, File 6.

[40] G. Richard Blackaby, The Establishment of the Canadian Convention of Southern Baptists, https://cnbc.ca/articles/the-history-of-the-ccsb accessed December 20, 2020.

[41] Richards, 116.

[42] Ibid, 117.

[43] Pousett, 136-137.

[44] Pousett, 138. The Regular Baptists, while firmly taking a position on the theological issues, refused to exclude MacPherson and his church from the Convention. The Kingscrest delegates had attempted to create a situation in which the Convention would exclude them. MacPherson defended his shift to the Southern Baptists and his adherence to Landmarkism. He defended his position on “closed communion” from the Regular Baptist’s Statement of Faith. “Closed communion” however, as the Regular Baptists had understood it and as Dr. Rowell had defended it back in 1927, did not mean restricting of the Lord’s Table to members of the local congregation, but rather to those who have been regeneration and baptised. It became apparent in the discussion, to the embarrassment of some, that for many years “some of the regular Baptist churches were virtually “open communion” in practice. Many had effectively reverted to the practices of the old Convention from which they had separated and were no longer “Regular” in practice.

[45] Richards, 103.

[46] Pickford, 129.

[47] Western Regular Baptist, July 1955, 6 cited in Pousett, 123.

[48] Pickford, 129.

[49] Pickford, 155.

[50] Watt, 89.

[51] Pousett, 139.

[52] Charles Tipp, “‘Southern Baptists’ in Western Canada Involved with Landmarkism and Liberalism” (Toronto: The Fellowship Baptist, Vol.7, no.7 (May 1960): 2,21. My thanks to Jordan Senécal, Research Assistant at Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies (Heritage College and Seminary, Cambridge, ON) for sourcing this article.

[53] Jones, 414.

[54] For a scholarly analysis of the broader Southern Baptist organisation in Western Canada see G. Richard Blackaby, ‘The Establishment of the Canadian Convention of Southern Baptists’, in David T. Priestley (ed.), Memory and Hope: Strands of Canadian Baptist History, Waterloo, ON: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 1996, 99-110; Callum Jones (2014) Western Canadian Baptists and the Southern Baptist ‘invasion’ of the 1950s, Baptist Quarterly, 45:7, 141, DOI: 10.1179/bqu.2014.45.7.003.

[55] Minutes of the Board of Management, 3:11 (September 17, 1945) and Minutes of the Church Business Meeting, 2:83 (Nov. 1, 1945). Central Baptist Archives, Victoria.

[56] David F. Holm, A Comparative History of Armstrong, Ruth Morton and Central Baptist Church (The University of Victoria, unpublished thesis, 1968), 141.

[57] Lorimar Baker, Letters, December 4, 1953, McMaster University Archive, Rowell Archives, Box 6, File 6. While Baker was clearly on the Convention side of the debate, he had reason to be thankful to the Southern Baptists from his time as a missionary in China. It was the Southern Baptists who had helped him when he was forced to leave the North-West Kiangsi Mission.

[58] Pousett, 139.