15 Years of ASBE

ASBE is pleased to celebrate its fifteenth anniversary in 2024. We are grateful for the work and vision of Rev. Dr. Hugh McNally in founding ASBE in 2009. Hugh, together with the tireless support of his wife Shirley, forged the way forward to establish ASBE seeking to draw Christians together to learn together and to advocate for the full equality of women and men in the home, in the church and in society.

 

In his youth, Hugh became a Christian under the pastoral leadership of Rev. Josephine Moore, who was ordained at his home church in Prince William, NB. She was the first woman to be ordained in what is now the Canadian Baptists of Atlantic Canada. Through her influence and the leadership of women that he interacted with while serving as a missionary in India, his conviction continued to grow that the church needed to address the issue of equality.

 

Hugh passed away in May 2023. Together with addressing and combating racism, ASBE was founded and continues to grow rooted in the biblical principles of equality of the sexes in identity in Christ and empowerment for service.

 

We have several plans to commemorate this anniversary over the next several months.

 

First, we hope to enlist 15 new members or organizational partners for ASBE. For more information about memberships and partnerships, visit https://www.biblicalequality.org/membership.

 

We also hope to share stories of 15 individuals’ experiences with biblical equality on our website and social media channels. Please let us know if you would like to share your story.

 

We also plan to create a multimedia presentation honouring Dr. Hugh McNally and his legacy.

 

We hope to collect funds to support the Hugh and Shirley McNally Bursary, which supports female students attending Acadia Divinity College in preparation for ministry, especially in a cross-cultural context.

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We also plan to revise Dr. McNally’s study guide, “Men and Women – Partners or Rivals? A Biblical View of Male-Female Relationships,” and reprint it during this anniversary year.

 

Finally, we hope to help ASBE expand to new audiences. This includes post-secondary students across Atlantic Canada; we hope to recruit on several campuses.

 

We also hope to host a breakfast or lunch in Moncton this fall introducing leaders from multiple denominations to ASBE. This will be a helpful follow-up to a survey we conducted among female ministers from traditions that ordain women. These ministers indicated that additional work was needed to help combat sexism in the church.