McGowan, Mark

English

Histoire sociale / Social History (E-Journal, York University)

COMPTES REND US -BOOK REVIEWS 179 whole discourse of the eugenics movement is gendered in terms of motherhood, both in the past and present, by women and men. One also lacks a clear sense of the process through which society decided to sterilize a human being. However, this is not a book about victims, but about people who created a social policy: academics, feminists, physicians, spiritual leaders, scientists, and social workers. People like us, which is the point of the book. *** Lome Hammond University of Ottawa James S. Murray, ed. - "Through Him Who Strengthens Me". Selected Shorter Writings and Sermons of Stuart Eldon Murray. Hantsport, Nova Scotia: Lancelot Press, 1989. Pp. XXXV, 270. Stuart Eldon Murray was born in Mapleton, New Brunswick, 6 November 1919. After his education in nearby Moncton, he began a varied career as a salesman, logger, carpenter and soldier. Immediately after World War II, however, he started a spiritual journey that would lead him from student life at Acadia University's Divinity School, in 1946, through a variety of pastoral charges and post-graduate studies, to the presidency of the Atlantic Baptist College from 1973 to 1980. Among his fellow Baptists of New Brunswick, he earned a reputation as a tireless church worker, eloquent preacher, zealous advocate of Bible-based Christianity, and effective college administrator. Despite being diagnosed with cancer in 1981, he continued his teaching and preaching ministry until his death in 1985. Through Him Who Strengthens Me is a compilation of Murray's most recent writings and sermons, and is quite obviously a labour of love endeavoured by his son James, an assistant professor of classics at the University of New Brunswick. The younger Murray provides a generous, yet judicious selections of Stuart Murray's writings on a variety of religious themes germane to conservative evangeli-cal Protestantism. Historians of contemporary Christianity will be familiar with the principal issues covered by the elder Murray: divine revelation, the "saving" power of Jesus, new birth, the importance of prayer and preaching, and the role of the Church in contemporary society. While Murray's approach to Biblical studies and theology appears far more conservative than his own mentors at Acadia, this book cannot be considered the ravings of a rabid fundamentalist-style "tete-evangelist." On the contrary, Stuart Murray warns his students and parishioners to be wary of some contemporary evangelists whose preaching smacks of "easy-believism" (83) and "programming" (69-70); he asserts that such "preaching is like a flash-blub rather than a light. It blinds a man for a moment and leaves him more than ever in the dark" (221). Instead, Murray implores evangelical Christians to resist anti-intellectual temptations and to engage actively in meaningful academic study. Otherwise, Christianity will remain isolated and unable to speak to the secular world around it. For the social historian, Murray's social and political criticism may provides the most provocative reading in the anthology. As an active member of the Progressive Conservative Party and an unabashed anti-communist (197-199), he did not shy away from addressing the problems faced by Western society and Canadian federalism in 180 ffiSTOIRE SOCIALE- SOCIAL ffiSTORY the 1970s. Like everything else in his life, however, his social and political choices are cast within a Christian context, which underscores the fact that the believer must live in this world yet not necessarily be of it (134-135). His speeches titled "Patriotism" (189-192) and "National Righteousness" (192-194) direct Canadian Christians to be patriotic citizens, to recognize in her national symbols Canada's regard for human personality and liberty, and to defend the integrity of Canada against graft, income-tax evasion and fraud. In "Death from Within" (194-197), Murray offers brief criticism of western materialism, the dehumanization of western society wherein people are identified as numbers without names, the of rise drug-dependence, and the decline of spiritual values. His answer to these social and political ills is an exhortation for "a reactivated faith in the Eternal God," and a confession of personal and corporate sin by all Canadians. While this collection provides a stimulating "snapshot" of one evangelical Protestant's response to contemporary western values, the book is certainly not without some serious methodological shortcomings. Murray's writings are categorized into eleven coherent chapters, although the editor makes little attempt to situate the sermons and lectures in their social and historical context. The three or four sentences that preface each chapter offer approximate dates, places of presentation, and audiences for the writings, but these brief introductions are unable to unpack the theological and social forces that influenced Murray's thinking and prompted the themes and temperament of his writing. Moreover, most of the texts included in the volume date from the 1970s and early 1980s, the last phases of his career. Without the inclusion of documents from his early pastoral and academic life, readers get no sense of how he evolved as a preacher and teacher, how his theology and sense of "the issues" developed over time, or how his social, political and religious critique responded to the dramatic changes in Canada's religious identity since the Second World War. It would have been most helpful had the editor erected a more comprehen-sive scaffolding around the documents, situating Murray within his rapidly changing world. Nevertheless, given its emphasis on contemporary evangelical thought, this collection of Murray's short writings is a valuable addition to the "Baptist Heritage in Atlantic Canada" series. Mark G. McGowan St. Michael's College, University of Toronto *** S.J.R. Noel- Patrons, Clients, Brokers. Ontario Society and Politics, 1791-1896. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990. Pp. viii, 329. S.J.R. Noel's long-awaited interpretation of the political culture of nineteenth-century Ontario in terms of clientelism, patronage and brokerage is stimulating and insightful, but terrible flawed. Basing his work primarily on secondary sources, he deals with his patrons and brokers in a discursive if readable treatment which is not so much riddled with methodological problems as simple lacking altogether in any methodology adequate to address the problems he poses. In recent years, several political scientists, with all too limited success it must be said, have turned to nineteenth-century topics with a view to recasting current interpretations and offering 

James S. Murray, ed. - "Through Him Who Strengthens Me". Selected Shorter Writings and Sermons of Stuart Eldon Murray.

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James S. Murray, ed. - "Through Him Who Strengthens Me". Selected Shorter Writings and Sermons of Stuart Eldon Murray.

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Histoire sociale / Social History (E-Journal, York University)