Historical Roots
Four broad traditions emerge from the Reformation by the late 1500s:

1. Lutheran
2. The Reformed Tradition (Calvin/Zwingli)
3. Church of England (aka Anglican)
4. Radical Reformers (Anabaptists & Others)

Baptists largely emerge in the first half of the 1600s from the wing of the Church of England which was heavily influenced by Reformed theology. General Baptists emerge around 1610 from early Church of England separatists. However, this group largely adopts the emerging Arminian theology of the Netherlands (holding to a general atonement). The influence of this group of Baptists is not large, especially in North America. Particular Baptists emerge around 1630 from the Puritan movement within the Church of England. However, once these Puritans adopted a conviction for believers’ baptism (and the separation of church and state) they had no choice but to separate. They produce the First London Baptist Confession (1644) and later the Second London (1689). After the act of toleration in 1689 (non-conformists in England no longer directly persecuted but still barred from universities and elected office), most puritans and Baptists flee to New England (pre-USA) to experience a higher degree of religious freedom. The first Baptists come to what is now Canada in the 1760s after Nova Scotia, a British colony, allowed non-Anglicans to have full religious freedom to entice new settlers.

Small Beginnings (1800-1860)

American church-planters in the early 1800s bring the first Baptist churches into what is now Ontario (then Upper Canada). Scottish Baptists arrive a bit later in Eastern Ontario (especially the Ottawa Valley). The Scots experience some local revivals in the 1830s. Baptist growth is slow for much of the early 1800s, while Methodists grow rapidly. There is no centralized movement or push for a Baptist seminary until John Gilmour spearheads the founding of Canada Baptist College in Montreal. He later plants a church near Peterborough that today bears his name. Sadly, the Montreal school remains small and is only open from 1838-1849.

Growth (1860-1925)

• Robert Alexander Fyfe, Pastor of Bond Street Baptist Church, calls a Baptist convention in 1856
  toward opening a new institution. Canada Literary College opens in 1860 in Brantford.
• The new college produces a wave of growth amongst Baptists in Ontario. William McMaster, a
  member of Jarvis Street Baptist finances a move for the school to Toronto beginning in 1881.
• It is renamed McMaster University in 1887. The Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec (BCOQ) is founded in 1888, and most Baptist churches in the provinces join it.

Davisville Baptist Church (1920) & Mount Pleasant Road Baptist Church (1923)

• Davisville Baptist emerges out of a long-time gospel mission run by members of nearby Century Baptist Church. A.P. Wilson is its the first pastor. It quickly outgrows its space, forcing this building to be built in 1923, and the church’s name is changed to Mount Pleasant Road Baptist Church (MPRBC). Alex Thomson, the third senior pastor, serves from 1925 to his death in 1946.

Controversy (1925-1953)

• The McMaster controversy of 1925-1927 splits the BCOQ. 77 churches (including MPRBC) leave after T.T. Shields and Jarvis Street Baptist are expelled for opposing the hiring of liberal professor Laurence Marshall at McMaster University. The Union of Regular Baptist Churches (URBC) forms after the split. A member of MPRBC is its first president.

A smaller split occurs within the URBC between 1931-1933 over the proper oversight of its affiliated ministries and nine churches are expelled. They join with a few other independent Baptists to form the Fellowship of Independent Baptist Churches (FIBC). The FIBC grows to 125 churches by 1950. The URBC remains stagnant, and then splits for a final time in 1949, this time over T.T. Shields firing of the beloved dean of Toronto Baptist Seminary, W.G.Brown. Most churches in the URBC, including MPRBC, side with the dean, who founds a new college, Central Baptist Seminary. The URBC begins talks to merge with the FIBC and in 1953 The Fellowship of Evangelical Baptists Churches (FEB) is formed with 194 churches.

National Expansion (1953-present)

• The FEB grows steadily, adding churches from BC, the prairies, Atlantic Canada, and French-Speaking Canada by the 1970s. It has now surpassed 500 churches. Central Baptist Seminary merges with London Baptist College in 1993 to form Heritage Seminary, and is now the FEB’s main training school. The FEB’s original statement of faith is “thinly Calvinistic”, leading to some slide on this front by the 1980s. There is a complementarian controversy that breaks out in the late 90s-early 2000s. It has recently been rekindled after an uneasy peace.

Grace Fellowship Church (2000) & New City Baptist (2009)

• Paul Martin plants Grace Fellowship Church in Rexdale in 2000. He is supported by Trinity Baptist Church in Burlington, which is part of the small Sovereign Grace Fellowship denomination (which includes Jarvis Street Baptist). GFC plants three churches by 2009, one of them New City Baptist in downtown Toronto with John Bell as its founding pastor. The church grows over the next 14-years, becoming independent from GFC in 2018 before merging with MPRBC in 2024.