Thomas Todhunter Shields was a leader of Fundamentalist Christianity in Canada. A self-educated immigrant from England, Shields was the longtime pastor of the Jarvis Street Baptist Church in Toronto. The Baptist denomination in Canada bore the brunt of that controversy and was centered at Jarvis St.

Christian fundamentalism, also known as fundamental Christianity or fundamentalist Christianity, is a religious movement emphasizing biblical literalism. In its modern form, it began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries among British and American Protestants as a reaction to theological liberalism and cultural modernism. Fundamentalists argued that 19th-century modernist theologians had misunderstood or rejected certain doctrines, especially biblical inerrancy, which they considered the fundamentals of the Christian faith.