Most Ontario universities were established by Christian denominations; a Christian ethos was assumed and pervasive, and students were required to take courses designed to teach and inculcate religion. This insightful and comprehensive study demonstrates how, as Ontario society became secularized and pluralistic, so too did universities. Today, religion is again studies in university classrooms but as “religious studies,” a relatively new field that reflects the religiously pluralistic nature of Ontario and the world-wide explosion of knowledge.

This authoritative volume will be of interest to students of religion in and outside academic circles, to adminstratots of academic institutions and granting agencies and to persons wanting to know more about the social and cultural changes that have transformed Ontario and Canadian society.

General editor, Harold Remus, professor emeritus, Wilfrid Laurier University, is the former executive officer of the Council on the Study of Religion and the former director of Wilfrid Laurier University Press. He is past president of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies and the founding managing editor of Religious Studies Review. His publications include Pagan-Christian Conflict over Miracle in the Second Century, Jesus as Healer, and various articles in scholarly journals and encyclopedias.

Boyd McDonald, pianist and composer, made his New York debut in 1963. He joined the Faculty of Music at Wilfrid Laurier University as a member of the Beckett and McDonald Piano Duo in 1976. His compositions have been played by orchestras in Kitchener, Vancouver, and Hamilton. McDonald has recorded with the Canadian Chamber Ensemble, The Streicher Ensemble, Bellows & Brass, Willem Moolenbeek, and Sylvia Tyson.

Rose Blackmore worked as a social worker with the Ontario Department of Public Welfare and as a field instructor for social work students from the Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto. After ten years in this dual role, she was named assistant director of Staff Training and Development and became aware of the new school of social work being established at Waterloo Lutheran University with an emphasis on field practica for the students. Hired to head a practicum unit of students, she joined Waterloo Lutheran University in 1970 and retired from Wilfrid Laurier University in 1993.

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Daniel Fraikin was professor of New Testament studies at Queen’s Theological College and Queen’s University department of religious studies.

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William Closson James is a professor at Queen’s University in Kingston, where he has been a member of the Department of Religious Studies for twenty-five years.

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