Peacemaking in Canada
Rev. Blake Eady is pastor of a Baptist congregation in Cayuga, Ontario. It sits at the edge of the Six Nation Reservation, the largest reservation of First Nations peoples (i.e., Canadian “Indians”) in Canada. For the past year, a land dispute has ensued between the local community and the Six Nations with hotheads on both sides spouting hateful and violent rhetoric. Caught in the middle has been this Baptist church. Rev. Eady told the story of their struggles to make peace with justice with all the communities–struggles that sometimes came within a hair’s breadth of subjecting the church to violence by either Anglo or First Nations activists. It was an amazing story and showed how the Christian virtues of patience, inclusivity, cross-cultural openness, desire for justice for all–and much more were needed to avoid bloodshed.
The story is ongoing. The Six Nations, indeed, all the First Nations peoples, have suffered much over the centuries from the French and British colonizers and then from their successors in the Canadian government–even though comparatively less than Native Americans suffered at the hands of the U.S. government. That suffering has led to much resentment and a feeling of “enough is enough, this time we are compromising on NOTHING!” Meanwhile many of the Anglos and other Canadians in the area might not have even had ancestors involved in these historic wrongs and are impatient with the whole process–and there are many who want to call the might of the government down again.
Rev. Eady and his Baptist congregation keep working for a just peace in the midst of all this. They refuse to let their own fears and insecurities push them into setting aside the Sermon on the Mount for the wisdom of a violent world. I lift up their struggle to be a reconciling presence in the world.
Glen Stassen: Peace Theologian
My mentor, Glen Harold Stassen, now the Smedes Professor of Christian Ethics, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, CA, was one of the founders of the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America in 1984. There was a Baptist Peace Fellowship that was only for American Baptists that began in 1941. In 1984 the remaining leaders of this group met with Southern Baptist peace leaders (especially those connected with publishing The Baptist Peacemaker, which is now the official journal of the BPFNA) at Deer Park Baptist Church in Louisville, KY. At the end of that meeting, the two groups decided to merge and to boldly call the resulting group (in hopes of even broader participation) the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America! Glen served on the board for several years as the group’s membership expanded to include Canadian Baptists (connected with the Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec [BCOQ]; the Baptist Union of Western Canada [BUWC]; the Convention of Atlantic Baptist Churches [CABC]; so far, we have not succeeded in gaining any members of the Francophone l’Union d’Eglises Baptistes Francaises au Canada ), Mexican Baptists, Puerto Rican Baptists, Cuban Baptists (mostly associated with the small, progressive, La Fraternidad Iglesias Bautistas de Cuba), Seventh Day Baptists, National Baptists, Progressive National Baptists, members of the Baptist General Conference and the North American Baptist Conference (denominations which originally were peopled by immigrants from Sweden and Germany, respectively). Since the splintering of the SBC, our members have also included many from the Alliance of Baptists and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and fewer that call themselves Southern Baptists, still. We have yet to be successful in outreach efforts to members of the Conservative Baptist Association, General Association of General Baptists, or Free Will Baptists.
Glen has stepped back in recent years to let others fill leadership roles in the BPFNA, but he usually attends and has a deep sense of identification with this organization. Many of us can trace our involvement to Glen’s influence and he is a mentor to more than just his own students. This picture was taken by my daughter, Molly.
About
Michael L. Westmoreland-White, Ph.D. I live in Louisville, KY USA with my wife, Kate, and our two wonderful daughters. My wife, Kate, is a Baptist minister who works at a Catholic charity (the Society of St. Vincent de Paul) to provide assisted housing to homeless people. Our daughters are Molly (’95) and Miriam (’99). I am a former soldier converted to gospel nonviolence and a once (and future?) academic theologian turned peace activist, author, and peace educator. Contact me at [email protected]
The Levellers were a 17th C. movement during the English Civil War. They were a religiously-inspired political movement for democracy, human rights, justice for the poor, and peace. Their strongest leader was Richard Overton, a pacifist General Baptist influenced by Dutch Mennonites. Although I write on a wide range of topics, most often this blog deals with the intersection of faith, especially Christian faith, and work for social justice and peace. So, I have named the blog and dedicated it to the spirit of Richard Overton and the 17th C. Levellers.
Rules for commenting on this blog: 1) Respect everyone, even when you disagree strongly. 2) Keep comments relatively short. If you need a long post on your own blog, I’ll follow you there to see what more you have to say. 3) Stay on topic, please. 4) Don’t hog the conversation; let others have a turn. 5) This is a family-friendly blog. No profanity or language that my children and your children cannot read, please. Failure to follow these simple rules could lead me to removing your comment(s).
![[PDA - Heathcare NOT Warfare - Sign the Petition.]](https://i0.wp.com/pdamerica.org/images/ads/HealthNotWar_final.jpg)
Where Are My Readers?
Recent Comments
Levellers 