This post was originally posted at my Brethren-focused website, O Brethren! I am not sure I currently agree with everything herein, but thought I’d repost here anyways — I’ll post new stuff as it comes up.
Having recently discovered (with the help of my brother-in-law) some of the earlier roots of the Brethren in Edmonton, I have been wondering about shifting gears and, rather than pushing still further back in time to understand the sources of Scottish Revivalism, instead to trace forwards the gradual development of assembly life from the first decade of the 20th century up to the First World War and beyond.
The announcement in the 1907 Annual Conference notice makes it clear that there have been conferences held in previous years, suggesting that there is already enough of a Brethren community in place to make the printing and distribution of advertisements worthwhile and even expected. There is work to be done on understanding the state of Brethren meetings occurring between 1896 (approximately when Turbull Allen arrived in the region following the receive of his land grant) and 1903, when J.J. Rouse arrives in Edmonton.
I am curious to know what kind of information is available for the period from 1907 to the founding of 97 Street Gospel Hall. (And, notably, I am also not sure when 97 Street Gospel Hall got its start, although a review of directories from the period suggests that it is in existence by at least 1917.)
There is a clipping (see below) from the July 22, 1919 edition of The Edmonton Bulletin announcing a conference that is being held at the Gospel Hall in the Cameron Block on the corner of 97 Street and 105 Avenue. Whether this is the 97 Street Gospel Hall would be helpful to understand, it is certainly located near their ultimate location (or even in the same location, depending on whether street numbers changed during this early stage in Edmonton’s development).
What is more interesting to me about the advertisement is the name of the speaker, Robert McMurdo. In the entry on the excellent Brethren Archive website, it describes McMurdo’s writing as speaking out against “tight” principles and the importance of church unity. I was particularly struck by several parts of McMurdo’s 1909 text, “The Church of God in Testimony,” where he argues that “men of God in the past have taken different views of this subject, and yet have gone on happily together, both in the service of Christ in the Gospel and in seeking to maintain a collective testimonty for God upon earth” (14). (This essay is interesting for a number of reasons, not least of which is its summary of Brethren history to that point with an emphasis on the events of division.)
McMurdo appears to have played a role in a major split that occurred in Canadian Brethren history in 1908. The archivist for the Brethren Archive website includes helpful information in a comment, quoting at length from a 2011 article by Eugene Badgely in “Truths for Our Day”:
…here on this side of the ocean all things continued as they had begun in harmony until the fateful day of May 24, 1908, for it was on that date in the conference in Warminster near Orillia, Ontario that a speaker opened the door for division that continues to this day. On that dark day at the little country conference came an able speaker lately arrived from Scotland and sponsored by Mr. Richard Irving and some others. In a morning session he gave an address on the local assemblies throughout the world likening them to the stars in relation to the moon which in turn, as mere reflector of the light from the sun, he compared them to the church universal designed to reflect the glory of the Lord. Next he gave a passionate plea that there be no divisions among us, no schisms in the body, deploring the fact that if such great and godly Christians as Hudson Taylor were present, they would not be allowed to break bread…he continued pleading for more liberal views respecting the local assembly […] in 1911, Mr. McClure made a proposal which is now commonly called the ‘middle-path policy’.” This policy ask us to accept any and all gatherings which profess to be gathered to the name of Christ as true assemblies, agreeing to disagree on all matters accept the fundamentals of the faith.
The above history likely will require a separate post. Apparently, this 1908 conference is the source of the split between the Gospel Halls and the Chapels, which will be very significant for the subsequent development of the assemblies in Edmonton. I am particularly interest by the “middle-path policy” and whether assemblies in Edmonton adopted this approach.
At any rate, the fact that McMurdo was the speaker at this conference in Edmonton — 11 years after the events of 1908 — is suggestive of several possibilities, not least of which is a concern for unity in the air at the time. The search continues!