Smith’s contribution about the metropolis of Quebec to the Bloomsbury collection “Christians in the City” expands on his career of research, teaching and practice in Montreal. This is a work of breadth and depth, spanning from the first mass celebrated on Tiohtià:ke (the island of Montreal) in 1615 to the presence and practices of churches, Christian organizations, and individual Christians in the city today. Smith applies the thought of Charles Taylor, with whom he has co-taught classes au Collège Presbytérien de Montréal (affiliated with McGill University) to understand changes in Christian practice over this period. The first of the book’s three parts opens with a land acknowledgement ; relations between the Church and Montreal’s first nations are a recurring theme in the work. Smith then lays the foundations for his study, discussing Montreal’s place as a global, North American and Canadian city, and sketches Taylor’s treatment of a secular social imaginary. Smith’s major interest in the book is the social imaginary of Christians in the Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) as it has changed through the centuries. He discusses how Taylor’s long story of secularization has transformed the ways that these faithful have inhabited and interacted with their place. Part 2 covers the historical period between colonisation and the turn of the 20th century, from Catholic missionary encounters with indigenous peoples, to the role of Christians in establishing the Great Peace of 1701, the founding of Protestant communities, and the wax and wane of public faith through the centuries. Here, Smith critiques the immanent frame of much secular historical scholarship which, for him, fails to account for the transcendent realities and motivations of faithful historical actors, and even the central role of Christianity in Montreal’s history (p. 48). Part 3, the bulk of the volume, addresses Christianity in Montreal since 1900. The historical angle covers the religious “totalism” (among Catholics and Protestants alike) up to the end of the Duplessis years, the influence of Vatican II, the Quiet Revolution and the birth of Montreal’s ecumenical movement, the evangelical “revival” of the 70s and 80s, and so on. In this section, Smith’s practical, missionary and ecumenical interests shine as he discusses the challenges to the church in the Secular Age’s immanent imaginary, with cross-pressures that confront belief with continual doubt. He dares to ask, “Why would anybody convert to faith in Jesus Christ in the Secular Age ? (Ch. 9)” and offers portraits of a selection of boroughs and of the Christians that minister there (Ch. 10). He complements these with discussions on the cultural and confessional diversity of Christian practice in the city, and the importance of the arts as a prophetic voice that can transgress otherwise absolute cultural taboos. This volume is a meticulously researched and sweeping treatment of the past and present of Christianity in Montreal. At times the writing is uneven, but the wealth of knowledge contained in its pages, drawing from documentary, statistical, ethnographic, and interview-based research, as well as a career of experience, makes the read more than worthwhile. This work will doubtless become a touchstone for practical theologians and ministers in Quebec. We eagerly await the French translation, which the author tells us is forthcoming.
