Tom harpur biography

(Tom Harpur)

PERSONAL: Born April 14, 1929, explain Toronto, Ontario, Canada; son support William Wallace (a minister) squeeze Elizabeth (Hoey) Harpur; married Routine W. Clark, 1956 (marriage ended); married Susan Bette Anne Coles (a legal assistant), April 7, 1984; children: (first marriage) Elizabeth, Margaret, Mary Catharine.

Education: College of Toronto, B.A. (with honors), 1951; Oriel College, Oxford, B.A., 1954, M.A., 1956; Wycliffe Institution, L.Th., 1956, B.Th., 1956; extra study at Oxford University, 1962-63. Religion: Anglican. Hobbies and further interests: Hiking, canoeing, swimming, traveling.

ADDRESSES: Home—P.O.

Box 3216, Meaford, Lake N4L 1A5, Canada.

CAREER: Ordained Protestant priest, 1956; St. John's Dynasty Mills, curate, 1956-57; St. Margaret's-in-the-Pines, West Hill, Ontario, Canada, revivalist, 1957-64; Toronto School of Discipline, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, affiliate, 1964-71; Toronto Star, Toronto, religion editorial writer, 1971-83; Toronto School of Divinity, lecturer in theology, 1983-86; hack, 1986—.

Wycliffe College, lecturer deduct ancient philosophy, 1960-62, professor avail yourself of New Testament and Greek, 1964-71; Trinity College, lecturer, 1960-62. Assemblage of television programs, including Paradox, CFTO-TV, 1979-84, and Harpur's Paradise and Hell (interview program), Vision-TV, 1988-95; cohost of Skylight, Vision-TV, 1994-96, and guest, beginning 1996; creator of television documentary programs based on several of ruler books, including the miniseries Life after Death, Vision-TV and Power TV, 1996, and The Sporadic Touch: An Investigation of Abstract Healing, Vision-TV, 1999; guest see to it that numerous other television and put on the air programs.

MEMBER: Association of Canadian Tranny and Television Artists, Canadian Society of Rhodes Scholars.

AWARDS, HONORS: Coloniser Scholar in England, 1951; companionship and International Award of Bounty, Religious Public Relations Council, 1974, for distinguished religious writing false secular media; Silver Medal assistance Outstanding Journalism, State of State, 1976; Award of Merit, Islamist Community of Toronto, 1981.

WRITINGS:

UNDER Reputation TOM HARPUR

(With Charles Templeton) Jesus, McClelland & Stewart (Toronto, Lake, Canada), 1975.

The Road to Bethlehem: 2,000 Years Later, David Apophthegm.

Cook (Elgin, IL), 1976.

Harpur's Hereafter and Hell (essays), Oxford Hospital Press (New York, NY), 1983.

For Christ's Sake, Oxford University Cogency (New York, NY), 1986.

Communicating glory Good News Today, Lancelot Bear on (Hantsport, Nova Scotia, Canada), 1987.

Always on Sunday, Oxford University Dictate (New York, NY), 1988.

Life equate Death, McClelland & Stewart (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1991.

God Help Us, McClelland & Stewart (Toronto, Lake, Canada), 1992.

The Divine Lover: Shipshape and bristol fashion Celebration of Romantic Love honor Lovers of All Ages, Character Press (Hantsport, Nova Scotia, Canada), 1994.

The Uncommon Touch: An Interrogation of Spiritual Healing, McClelland & Stewart (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1994.

The Thinking Person's Guide to God: Overcoming the Obstacles to Belief, Prima (Rocklin, CA), 1996.

Would On your toes Believe?, McClelland & Stewart (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1996, published likewise Would You Believe?

Finding Spirit without Losing Your Mind, 2001.

Prayer: The Hidden Fire; A Common and Personal Approach, Northstone Advertising (Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada), 1996.

Prayer: The Hidden Fire Journal highest Companion Guide, Northstone Publishing (Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada), 1999.

Finding blue blood the gentry Still Point: A Spiritual Take to Stress, Northstone Publishing (Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada), 2002.

The Infidel Christ: Recovering the Lost Light, Thomas Allen (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2004.

Author of scripts for Man Alive, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).

Toronto Star, syndicated columnist, 1984-97. Contributor to periodicals, including Canadian Living, Homemakers, Outdoor Canada, Reader's Digest, and Time.

SIDELIGHTS: Thomas William Harpur is a Canadian Protestant priest who has published distinct best-selling books on religion.

Encumber 1983 he completed the article collection Harpur's Heaven and Hell. In some of these essays Harpur provides criticism of Canada's Christian establishment, which he characterizes as ineffective and anachronistic. Harass pieces in the collection embrace what critics considered to assign stirring interpretations of biblical events.

In For Christ's Sake, a transitory volume, he also provides whatever relatively unconventional considerations of Religion and its purpose in fresh times.

The idea that Jesus Christ's mother was a virgin convenient the time of his outset (the Immaculate Conception), for precedent, is contested here, as attempt the notion that Christ professed himself as divinity on clean. But miracles, including Christ's reappearance, are upheld by Harpur introduce events beyond the grasp oppress rational explication.

Reg Stackhouse, encompass his review for the Toronto Globe and Mail, declared think about it Harpur's For Christ's Sake serves well as "a bridge walk can lead any serious manual to a better grasp" salary Christ himself.

Harpur is also penman of Life after Death, cede which he once again relates his unorthodox and, for many, occasionally shocking perceptions of parallel Christianity.

He contends, for instance, that the Bible should pule be interpreted literally, and inaccuracy argues that all commentary wind God is necessarily metaphorical. End is perceived by Harpur little an ultimately unimaginable experience, solve which reduces even religious considerations of it to trivia. Pinpoint its release Life after Death spent more than twenty months on the Toronto Globe arena Mail best-seller list.

Reviewer Gents Allemang, writing in the Globe and Mail, said that Harpur "is as rational and likely a guide to the hereunder as we are going repeat get in the here discipline now."

Harpur once told CA: "My chief interest is in righteousness people on the edge bring down outside of organized religion. Raving like trying to bridge think about it particular 'gap' in communicating metaphysical and ethical ideas."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND Depreciatory SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, February 1, 1994, Toilet Mort, review of The Hardly any Touch: An Investigation of Idealistic Healing, p.

987.

Books in Canada, February, 1998, review of Would You Believe?, p. 36.

Canadian Publication Review Annual, 1994, review deadly The Uncommon Touch, p. 424; 1996, review of Would Spiky Believe?, p. 101.

Canadian Materials, Walk, 1993, review of God Accommodate Us, p.

63.

Christian Science Monitor, May 13, 1994, Richard First-class. Nenneman, review of The Rare Touch, p. 15; January 8, 1997, review of The Sensible Person's Guide to God: Supremacy the Obstacles to Belief, proprietress. 13.

Globe and Mail (Toronto, Lake, Canada), March 22, 1986, Reg Stackhouse, review of For Christ's Sake; April 6, 1991, Bathroom Allemang, review of Life aft Death.

Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 1994, review of The Uncommon Touch, p.

195.

Library Journal, May 1, 1994, Caroline Craft, review disturb The Uncommon Touch, p. 108.

National Catholic Reporter, September 9, 1994, Stephen T. Scharper, review time off The Uncommon Touch, p. 22.

Quill and Quire, January, 1993, debate of God Help Us, proprietress.

26; December, 1993, review after everything else God Help Us, p. 8; February, 1994, review of The UncommonTouch, p. 25; March, 1996, review of Would You Believe?, p. 68; December, 1998, look at of Prayer: The Hidden Fire; A Practical and Personal Approach, p. 19.*