Charles Coulombe, Author at Catholic Herald

Charles Coulombe

April 09, 2020

John Wilson (1799-1870) was born in Kilmarnock, Scotland, and took to studying innumerable histories at the library of Trinity College Dublin. Basing his studies on obscure but interesting writers who had written over the preceding century, he came to several interesting conclusions: the British are the descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes; the Royal Family

Heretic of the week: Charles Taze Russell

April 02, 2020

Charles Taze Russell (1852-1916) was born to Presbyterian Ulster Scot parents in Pennsylvania. His mother died when he was nine; four years later he achieved a local reputation as a devoted Bible student, and left the Presbyterian church for the Congregationalists. He was acute at business from an early age, and his father made him

Heretic of the week: Henry Drummond

March 26, 2020

Henry Drummond (1786-1860) was born to a banker and the daughter of a famous Scottish politician. Raised in wealth, his circumstances allowed Drummond to attend Harrow and Christ Church College, Oxford. Despite not taking a degree at his university, he was elected to the House of Commons in 1810. An independent Tory, his wealth allowed

Heretic of the week: Edward Irving

March 19, 2020

Edward Irving (1792-1834) was born in Scotland. Graduating from the University of Edinburgh with an MA in 1809, he taught and studied mathematics and science for a few years, while also pursuing classes in divinity, with a view to ordination in the Church of Scotland. Licensed to preach in 1815, he became an assistant minister

Heretic of the week: Dwight D Eisenhower

March 12, 2020

Dwight D Eisenhower (1890-1969) is best known both as the Allied Commander in World War II and as the 34th president of the United States. He is not generally thought of as a religious thinker. But in fact his presidency epitomised the quasi-sacral role of that office as “high priest” of the “American civic religion”,

Heretic of the week: Dion Fortune

March 05, 2020

Dion Fortune (1890-1946) was born Violet Mary Firth to a wealthy English steel manufacturing clan who had moved to Wales. The family motto – Deo, Non Fortuna – “God, Not Fortune” was coined by her grandfather. Her mother (and possibly her father) was interested in Christian Science, and from the age of four Violet began

Heretic of the week: Thomas Jefferson

February 27, 2020

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) is a world-renowned figure. Founding Father, author of the Declaration of Independence, ambassador, first secretary of state, third president of the United States, founder of the University of Virginia, inventor, farmer – the list goes on. To this day, his Virginia plantation, Monticello, is a shrine of sorts. But what is less

Heretic of the week: Paul Moore Jr

February 20, 2020

Paul Moore Jr (1919-2003) was born into an extremely wealthy and historic clan. (Clement Moore, author of the poem “The Night Before Christmas” and a leading New York Episcopalian layman, was a direct ancestor.) As befitted his elevated status, he attended St Paul’s School (New Hampshire) and Yale. Joining the Marine Corps in 1941, he

Heretic of the week: Frank Buchman

February 13, 2020

Frank Buchman (1878-1961) was born in Pennsylvania to devout Lutheran parents and was ordained a minister in that denomination in 1902. His first charge, a new and churchless congregation in a suburb of Philadelphia, ended in a financial dispute over a hospice for the mentally ill he had proposed. Sent to Europe to recover his

Heretic of the week: Lorenzo Dow

January 23, 2020

Lorenzo Dow (1777-1834) was the forerunner of that archetype of American frontier lore, the wandering preacher. Born in Connecticut, his early years were plagued by religious controversy, but by 1798 he had joined the Methodists. He started out as a lay preacher in New England, but broke with the Methodist Episcopal Church to go to

Heretic of the week: Ellen G White

January 09, 2020

The 1830s were a tempestuous time for American Protestantism, from the fires of the Second Great Awakening to the ongoing march of Unitarianism. Adding to the general excitement, a self-described biblical prophet, William Miller, came up with two dates for Doomsday in that fraught decade. When neither eventuated, Miller declared himself a failure, and retired

Heretic of the week: Harry Emerson Fosdick

January 02, 2020

Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969) was born in Buffalo, New York, graduating from Colgate University in 1900 and Union Theological Seminary in 1904. He had already been ordained a Baptist minister a year prior at Manhattan’s Madison Avenue Baptist Church. The year he graduated, he was called to the First Baptist Church in Montclair, New Jersey

← 1 2 3 4 … 10 →

Sorry, no search matching search results found. Please try again.