Muriel Spurgeon Carder

Muriel Spurgeon Carder
Born November 1, 1922(1922-11-01)
Woodford Green, England
Education
Parents

Mother: Elizabeth Frances (Keeley)

Father: Carey Bradford Spurgeon
Church Canadian Baptist Ministries, Canada
Ordained 16 September 1947[1]
Writings
  • Jeevie, an Indian Boy, For the Dominion Committee, Baptist Women's Missionary Societies of Canada, 1963.[2]
  • A Caesarean Text in the Catholic Epistles, New Testament Studies, 1969. pp. 252-270.[3]
  • The Biblical Concept of Sin in Translation, Indian Journal of Theology, 1971[4]
Offices held
Title Reverend Doctor

Muriel Spurgeon Carder (born November 11, 1922) is a Canadian Baptist who was the first woman ordained as a Baptist minister in Ontario and Quebec,[5][6][7] and a missionary in India.

Contents

Life

Childhood and studies

Muriel Spurgeon was born in Woodford Green, England to Elizabeth Frances (Keeley)[4] and Carey Bradford Spurgeon. Carder is related[6] to Charles Spurgeon, a Reformed Baptist Preacher. She also had a brother named David.[4] Her mother Elizabeth Frances (Keeley) died in 1953.[8] Her father Carey Bradford Spurgeon (December 13, 1892 - March 2, 1968) was born in India to Rev. Robert Spurgeon.[8] Carey was a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries[8] and an Associate of the Society of Actuaries[8] and also was on tour of duty in the Battle of Vimy Ridge.[8]

Carder enrolled at the McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario where she completed received a Bachelor of Arts in 1944.[4] She continued studying there and went on to take a Bachelor of Divinity (B. D.) in 1947.[4] The Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec ordained her the same year.[9] Carder was the first woman to receive a B. D.[9] degree from McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario as well as the first woman to be ordained[9] as Baptist minister in Ontario and Quebec.[10]

Missionary work and teaching in India

Carder took up evangelisation and was sent to India as a representative of the Canadian Baptist Mission serving in Schools and Hospitals.[11] She was also associated with the Leprosy Mission in India.[12] She returned to Canada and taught for a year at the McMaster Divinity College in 1956-1957. From 1957-1958 she pursued post-graduate studies at the Union Theological Seminary in the city of New York obtaining a Master of Sacred Theology (STM). In the academic year 1965-1966 she again taught New Testament and Greek[1] at McMaster Divinity College.

Carder began teaching New Testament and Theology & Ethics from 1967 - 1969 in Rajahmundry[4] where the B.D. section of the Ramayapatnam Baptist Theological Seminary is today located in the campus of Andhra Christian Theological College. Soon after the merger of the Ramayapatnam Baptist Theological Seminary with the Andhra Christian Theological College in 1969, the campus was relocated to Secunderabad where Carder followed and continued to teach the students there up to 1976.[4] At this time Carder enrolled as a doctoral candidate at the Toronto School of Theology and was awarded a Th.D. in 1969 based on her thesis entitled An Inquiry into the Textual Transmission of the Catholic Epistles.[13]

Retirement and Chaplaincy

Soon after Carder retired in 1976,[9] she returned to Canada and began serving as a Chaplain. She first was an intern[14] at the Hamilton Psychiatric Hospital and at the Toronto General Hospital before becoming a Chaplain at the D'Arcy Place Developmental Centre in Cobourg, and later at Oxford Regional Centre at the Woodstock General Hospital. In 1984, Carder was certified as a Clinical Pastoral Education Supervisor.[9]

Publications

Articles

Translations

When the Andhra Pradesh Auxiliary of the Bible Society of India began Telugu New Testament Common Language translation, Carder also served as a panel member on the Translations Committee[12] along with P. Dass Babu, A. B. Masilamani, K. David, and Victor Premasagar. She is credited at having translated a Greek Grammar Text and a Didache into Telugu.[14]

Awards

In 2007, the Katharine Hockin Award for Global Mission and Ministry was awarded by the Canadian Churches' Forum for Global Ministries, Toronto in recognition of her missionary services in India.[18] The citation also read that her ordained status was a contributing factor to the later ordination of women in the Church of South India.[18]

She is a member of the Society for Biblical Studies in India and the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas.[19]

Awards
Preceded by
Sr. Frances Brady[20]		 Katharine Hockin Award
for Global Mission and Ministry awarded by the Canadian Churches' Forum for Global Ministries, Toronto
2007		 Succeeded by

References

  1. ^ a b c Alumni Directory 1836 - 1970, The Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York, The Alumni Office, New York, 1970. p. 429. [1]
  2. ^ Muriel Spurgeon Carder, Jeevie, an Indian Boy, For the Dominion Committee, Baptist Women's Missionary Societies of Canada, 1963. [2]
  3. ^ Muriel Spurgeon Carder, A Caesarean Text in the Catholic Epistles, New Testament Studies, 1969. pp. 252-270. Cited by Carroll D. Osburn in The Text of the Apostolos in Epiphanius of Salamis in The New Testament in the Greek Fathers, Monograph by Society for Biblical Literature, 2006. p.257. [3]
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h Muriel Spurgeon Carder, The Biblical Concept of Sin in Translation, Indian Journal of Theology, 1971. Cited in Biblical Archaeology Society, Who's who in Biblical Studies and Archaeology: 1993, Second Edition, 1993, p. 43. [4]
  5. ^ Rosemary Skinner Keller, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Marie Cantlon Encyclopedia of women and religion in North America 1 p294 2006 "Canadian Baptists ordained Jennie Johnson in 1907, who preached in Chatham, Ontario, for twenty years. The Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec ordained a woman for the first time in 1947, Muriel Spurgeon Carder."
  6. ^ a b William H. Brackney, Baptists in North America: An Historical Perspective, Blackwell Publishing, 2006, p. 152. [5]
  7. ^ Bruce Fawcett, Recruiting Clergy for the Canadian Baptist Churches: A Typological Understanding, a doctoral dissertation submitted to the University of Wales, Bangor in 2006. p.69. [6]
  8. ^ a b c d e Transactions of Society of Actuaries, Volume 20, Point 1, Number 56 AB, 1968. p. 160. [7]
  9. ^ a b c d e Susan Hill Lindley, Eleanor J. Stebner (Eds.), The Westminster Handbook To Women In American Religious History, Westminster John Knox Press, 2008, pp. 33-34. [8]
  10. ^ Rosemary Skinner Keller, Rosemary Radford Ruether (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America, 2006. p. 294.[9]
  11. ^ McMaster University, Alumni Association. Internet, accessed 15 January 2009. [10]
  12. ^ a b Cindy Doering, Signals, Bethany Lutheran Church, Woodstock, Ontario. p.2 [11]
  13. ^ W. L. Richards of the Andrews University, Michigan had the following comments on the dissertation: W. L. Richards, Textual Criticism on the Greek Text of the Catholic Epistles: A Bibliography, Andrews University Seminary Studies. pp. 107-108. [12]:
    “ .....Deals with 1 Peter and 1-3 John. The MSS used in the dissertation are discussed "according to von Soden's classifications," although only a few of the 25 MSS used were actually classified by von Soden. In chapter 2, the textual characteristics identified as Alexandrian, those identified as Alexandrian, and those identified as Byzantine are set forth. A delineation of textual groupings (using Colwell's method) is given in chapter 3, and then in chapter 4 the question is asked, "Was von Soden's classification correct?" ”
  14. ^ a b McMaster University, op. cit.
  15. ^ W. L. Richards of Andrews University, Michigan:
    “ .....Muriel used Colwell's method and concluded that Gregory 1243 was not Byzantine in Catholic epistles but had high proportion of Alexandrian and Western readings and since Caesarean was the only text in this ratio the MS could be Caesarean. ”
  16. ^ Muriel Spurgeon Carder, Spiritual and Religious Needs of Mentally Retarded Persons that appeared in the Journal of Pastoral Care, Volume XXXVIII, Number 2, June, 1984.[13]
  17. ^ Muriel Spurgeon Carder, Journey into understanding mentally retarded people's experiences around death again appeared in the Journal of Pastoral Care, Volume 41, Number 1, 1987, pp. 18-31. Cited by Kathryn Pekala Service, Diane Lavoie (Eds.), Coping with losses, death and grieving. In Matthew P. Janicki, Arthur J. Dalton (Ed.), Dementia, Aging and Intellectual Disabilities, Psychology Press, Philadelphia, 1999.[14]
  18. ^ a b Milestones, Victoria University in the University of Toronto[15]
  19. ^ Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas. Membership List (updated up to 2006).Accessed 15 January 2009.
  20. ^ Sr. Marie Clarkson, O.L.M., Scarboro Missions Magazine, May 2006. Internet, accessed 15 January 2009. [16]