CMU Faculty

Brian Froese

Professor of History

Brian Froese specializes in the twentieth-century North American West with particular interests in evangelical religion, conservative politics, and Mennonites in a transnational context involving Canada and the United States. A related secondary interest is that of the use, appropriation and place of eschatology and evil characters (devil, Satan, antichrist, for example) in not only religious and political contexts, but also in the broader popular cultures of film, music and print culture—primarily in the post-war decades—as forms of social criticism.

He has published articles on California Mennonites on topics of women's sewing circles, refugee work, and migrant memoirs; the 'Anabaptist Vision'; archival research and pedagogy; and, popular eschatologies from the horror of Left Behind, dystopic California in evangelical fiction, and lyrics of U2, Black Sabbath, and Judas Priest.

Brian has published the book, California Mennonites, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015. Froese is nearly finished his second book on Mennonite mission work in British Columbia in the mid-twentieth century; and has begun writing his next book on the intersection of American-Canadian transnational evangelical networks engaged in missions and politics in Western Canadian during the 1900s.

Brian studied history at the University of Winnipeg (BA), Regent College (MCS), and the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California (PhD). He taught at Providence College (now Providence University College) in Otterburne, MB (2003-2005) before joining CMU in 2006. Most recently, Brian was a visiting research scholar at the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society at the University of Victoria in British Columbia (winter 2023).

Areas of Teaching

American and Canadian history, conservative politics and religion, post-1945, Mennonites

Education

PhD, History, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA, 2003; MCS, Regent College, Vancouver, BC, 1997; BA, History, University of Winnipeg, 1994

Work in Detail

Teaching

Fall 2024

History in the Making: Age of Revolution

Winnipeg: Can Winter be a City?

Transatlantic Conservatism

Winter 2025

History of Colonial Canada

The Fifties and Sixties - North America Cold, Cool, and Radical

1525: Anabaptism at 500

 

Generally Speaking

Brian Froese's primary teaching areas are in methodology, North American history (Canada and United States), with specialized courses in post-war culture and politics of the 1950s and 1960s, Evangelicalism (religion, politics, culture), and Mennonites.

Research

Books

Mennonites in Canada since 1970.  Co-author, with Laureen Harder-Gissing, (working title)

Northern Errand: American Evangelicalism in Western Canada (working title).

Supernatural British Columbia: Mennonites, Transnational Evangelicals, and the Mission of Assimilation (working title)

California Mennonites, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015.

Major/Recent Selected Research Grants

Mennonite Historical Society of Canada, funding for book, Canadian Mennonites since 1970

SSHRC Insight Grant for project, Trekking North: Conservative American Religious and Political migrations to Western Canada, $ $92,682 (2018-2024)

Hagley Museum and Archives, Wilmington, DE, Exploratory Research Grant (2014)

Social Sciences and Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Standard Research Grant for project titled, American Evangelical Missions in the Twentieth-Century Canadian West, $54,000. (2008-2012)

 

Articles:  Peer-Reviewed Journals and Chapters in Books

"Social Credit and Social Gospel: Political Bibles and the Great Depression,"  revise and resubmit.

"Prairie Preachers and Educators: William 'Bible Bill' Aberhart, L. E. Maxwell, and Baptist Fundamentalism in Alberta, 1922-1970," chapter in, Baptist Fundamentalism in Canada, ed. Paul Wilson and Taylor Murray, Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications an imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2022, 205-234.

"We also still have ethnic hang-ups': Church Growth and Identity among the Mennonite Brethren in Post-1960s British Columbia," Journal of Mennonite Studies 37 (2019), 245-266.

"Judas Priest and the Fury of Metal Redemption," Religion and Popular Music: Artists, Fans and Cultures, ed. Andreas Häger, London, UK: Bloomsbury Academic/Bloomsbury Publishing PLC., 2018, 47-64.

"Bodies, Souls and Visiting Hours: Mennonite Brethren Outreach in British Columbian Hospitals," Journal of Mennonite Studies, vol.34 (2016), 177-200.

"Is It the End, My Friend? Black Sabbath's Apocalypse of Horror," Black Sabbath & Philosophy: Mastering Reality, ed. William Irwin, Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013, 20-30.

"Channeling Clio: Archives, Lecture Halls and Western Canadian Conservatism." Submitted to Conrad Grebel Review, 30, no. 3 (Fall 2012), 236-256.

"Compassion and Culture: Southeast Asian Refugees and California Mennonites." Journal of Mennonite Studies 24 (2006), 129-148.

"Comic Endings: Spirit and Flesh in Bono's Apocalyptic Imagination, 1980-1983." Call Me the Seeker: Listening to Religion in Popular Music, ed. Michael J. Gilmour (New York: Continuum, 2005), 61-78.

"'The Anabaptist Vision': A Half-Century of Historical and Religious Debate in Twentieth-Century America." Fides et Historia 35:2 (Summer/Fall 2003), 105-117.

"Beyond Declension and Irony:  Mennonite History as Community Studies." Conrad Grebel Review (Spring 2003), 16-23.

 

Articles:  Other (Selected/Recent)

"In Need of the Distant Past: The Place of History in a Mennonite University," SAGA Conference Proceedings, ed. Paul Doerksen, Canadian Mennonite University, Winnipeg: CMU Press, 2024, forthcoming.  

"Global Mennonite Faith, Farms, and Modernities: Reflections on Mennonite Farmers,"" Journal of the Canadian Historical Association, 33:2 (2023), 211-217.

"Waiting for Utopia: Religious Immigration to Western Canada," Presidential Address, Canadian Society of Church History. Historical Papers 2022: Canadian Society of Church History, Bruce L. Guenther, Scott McLaren, and Todd Webb (Canadian Society of Church History, n.p.: 2022), 89-109.

"Hellfire Preachers and Preaching Satan: Conservative Evangelicalism, Satanism, and the Infernal Haunting of American Popular Religion," Historical Papers 2021: Canadian Society of Church History, ed. Bruce L. Guenther, Scott McLaren, and Todd Webb (Canadian Society of Church History, n.p.: 2021), 73-98.

""Planet Caravan: California Mennonite Youth on the Road in Western Canada," Direction, 46:1 (Spring 2017), 57-68.

"Archives in Undergraduate History Courses," Mennonite Historian, 43:2 (June 2017), 2, 4-5.

"Preaching Premiers: The Political and Religious Errands of William Aberhart and Ernest Manning." Historical Papers 2014: Canadian Society of Church History, ed. Todd Webb (Canadian Society of Church History, n.p.: 2015), 81-98.

Albertan Oil, Vietnam Christmas: American Revivalism on the Canadian Prairies, 1962-1981." Historical Papers 2013: Canadian Society of Church History, ed. Bruce L. Guenther, Todd Webb and Marilyn Färdig Whiteley (Canadian Society of Church History, n.p.: 2013), 23-42.

"Monsters in the Church: Marking the Body in Evangelical Horror." Direction, 39:2 (Fall 2010), 220-233.   

Performance

Recent Conference Papers

"Global Mennonite Faith and Modernities: Reflections on Mennonite Farmers," Roundtable Discussion for Canadian Historical Association Wallace Ferguson Prize (outstanding scholarly book in a field of history other than Canadian history) for Royden Loewen, Mennonite Farmers: A Global History of Place and Sustainability, University of Manitoba Press, 2021., Canadian Historical Association annual meeting, May 29, 2003, York University, Toronto, ON

"We will be called to account": Political Conflict, Tuberculosis, and Indigenous Advocacy in Saskatchewan, 1935-1945," Western Historical Association, San Antonio, TX, October 12-15, 2022

"Waiting for Utopia: Religious Immigration to Western Canada," Presidential Address, Canadian Society of Church History. Online Conference, May 17-18, 2022

"Angels, Demons, and Bible Schools: Christian Humanism and the Fertility of Crisis," Christian Education in a Secular Age, Briercrest College and Seminary, Caronport, SK, 28-29 October, 2021

"Hellfire Preachers and Preaching Satan: Conservative Evangelicalism, Satanism, and the Infernal Haunting of American Popular Religion," Canadian Society of Church History, Edmonton, AB, June 1-3, 2021

"'Born Crucified': Exploring the Mystical Fundamentalism of Leslie Earl Maxwell," Canadian Society of Church History, London, ON, June 2-4, 2020

"Storm Warnings: Evangelical Narrations of End-times Weather during the Cold War," American Society of Church History, New York, January 3-6, 2020

"Muscular Energy": North American Evangelicals, Albertan Oil and the Cold War." Western Historical Association, Las Vegas, October 16-19, 2019

"'The sea and the waves roaring': Evangelicalism and End-Times Weather," Canadian Society of Church History, Vancouver, BC, June 6, 2019

"The Fluidity of Religious and Political Conservatism in Interwar Alberta and Saskatchewan." Canadian Historical Association, Vancouver, BC, June 2019

"Evolving Conceptions of Service: Mennonites and Missions in Post-1960s British Columbia" A People of Diversity: Mennonites in Canada, 1970-2018, The 50th Anniversary Conference, Mennonite Historical Society of Canada Conference Hosted by the Chair in Mennonite Studies, University of Winnipeg, November 2018.

"'Liberty's Lubricant: Albertan and American Conservative Evangelicals, Oil and the Cold War," Canadian Historical Association, Regina, SK, May 30, 2018

 

Invited Presentations (Recent)

"'The Branding Irons of Antichrist': Prairie Politics and the Bible," University of Victoria, Centre for Studies in Religion and Society, Victoria, BC, May 24, 2023

"Prairie Preachers and Educators: William 'Bible Bill' Aberhart, L. E. Maxwell, and Baptist Fundamentalism in Alberta, 1922–1970," Canadian Baptist Historical Society AGM, April 9, 2022

"Mennonites in Canada since 1970," Fort Garry Mennonite Fellowship, Winnipeg, MB. January 9 and 16, 2022

"Mennonites in the Matrix: Chaos, Cosmos, and the Decoy of Conspiracy," Workshop for Mennonite Brethren Church of Manitoba meetings, March 5, 2021

"From Planting Crops to Church Planting: Mennonite Faith, Identity and Economic Prosperity in Post-War British Columbia," Mennonite Historical Society of British Columbia, Abbotsford, BC., March 17, 2019

Guest lecture, "Paradise Lost: A Canonical Heavy Metal Text," in Dr. Paul Dyck, ENGL-3110-1 Milton, March 5, 2018

 

 

 

 

Community

Book Review Co-Editor, Journal of Mennonite Studies

On the Editorial Boards of Journal of Mennonite Studies and Direction Journal

Canadian Society of Church History, former President

"The Good Book in the Great Depression," CMU Faculty Forum, November 2023

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