Revivalists and Their Impact

The history of religious change has been largely devoted to study of the churches. Revivalists focus on evangelists, singling out several significant entrepreneurs - Hugh Crossley and John Hunter, active from 1880 to 1910; Oswald J. Smith, who built his independent Toronto church into a popular evangelistic emporium; Frank Buchman and the Oxford Group, who appealed to the upper classes in the 1930s; and Charles Templeton, who enjoyed two careers as a revivalist.

Kee shows that by adjusting their methods to the cultural forms of the day, these evangelists contributed to the vitality of Canadian Protestantism.