HARPUR, Thomas William 1929-

(Tom Harpur)

PERSONAL: Born April 14, 1929, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada; son of William Wallace (a minister) and Elizabeth (Hoey) Harpur; married Mary W. Clark, 1956 (marriage ended); married Susan Bette Anne Coles (a legal assistant), April 7, 1984; children: (first marriage) Elizabeth, Margaret, Mary Catharine. Education: University of Toronto, B.A. (with honors), 1951; Oriel College, Oxford, B.A., 1954, M.A., 1956; Wycliffe College, L.Th., 1956, B.Th., 1956; additional study at Oxford University, 1962-63. Religion: Anglican. Hobbies and other interests: Hiking, canoeing, swimming, traveling.

ADDRESSES: Home—P.O. Box 3216, Meaford, Ontario N4L 1A5, Canada.

CAREER: Ordained Anglican priest, 1956; St. John's York Mills, curate, 1956-57; St. Margaret's-in-the-Pines, West Hill, Ontario, Canada, rector, 1957-64; Toronto School of Theology, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, affiliate, 1964-71; Toronto Star, Toronto, religion editor, 1971-83; Toronto School of Theology, lecturer in theology, 1983-86; writer, 1986—. Wycliffe College, lecturer in ancient philosophy, 1960-62, professor of New Testament and Greek, 1964-71; Trinity College, lecturer, 1960-62. Host of television programs, including Paradox, CFTO-TV, 1979-84, and Harpur's Heaven 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 his books, including the miniseries Life after Death, Vision-TV and City TV, 1996, and The Uncommon Touch: An Investigation of Spiritual Healing, Vision-TV, 1999; guest on numerous other television and radio programs.

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

AWARDS, HONORS: Rhodes Scholar in England, 1951; fellowship and International Award of Merit, Religious Public Relations Council, 1974, for distinguished religious writing in secular media; Silver Medal for Outstanding Journalism, State of Israel, 1976; Award of Merit, Muslim Community of Toronto, 1981.

WRITINGS:

UNDER NAME TOM HARPUR

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

The Road to Bethlehem: 2,000 Years Later, David C. Cook (Elgin, IL), 1976.

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

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

Communicating the Good News Today, Lancelot Press (Hantsport, Nova Scotia, Canada), 1987.

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

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

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

The Divine Lover: A Celebration of Romantic Love for Lovers of All Ages, Lancelot Press (Hantsport, Nova Scotia, Canada), 1994.

The Uncommon Touch: An Investigation 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 You Believe?, McClelland & Stewart (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1996, published as Would You Believe? Finding God without Losing Your Mind, 2001.

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

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

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

The Pagan 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 Anglican priest who has published several best-selling books on religion. In 1983 he completed the essay 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. Other pieces in the collection include what critics considered to be stirring interpretations of biblical events.

In For Christ's Sake, a brief volume, he also provides some relatively unconventional considerations of Christianity and its purpose in modern times. The idea that Jesus Christ's mother was a virgin at the time of his birth (the Immaculate Conception), for instance, is contested here, as is the notion that Christ perceived himself as divinity on earth. But miracles, including Christ's resurrection, are upheld by Harpur as events beyond the grasp of rational explication. Reg Stackhouse, in his review for the Toronto Globe and Mail, declared that Harpur's For Christ's Sake serves well as "a bridge that can lead any serious reader to a better grasp" of Christ himself.

Harpur is also author of Life after Death, in which he once again relates his unorthodox and, for some, occasionally shocking perceptions of contemporary Christianity. He contends, for example, that the Bible should not be interpreted literally, and he argues that all commentary on God is necessarily metaphorical. Death is perceived by Harpur as an ultimately unimaginable experience, one which reduces even religious considerations of it to trivia. After its release Life after Death spent more than twenty months on the Toronto Globe and Mail best-seller list. Reviewer John Allemang, writing in the Globe and Mail, said that Harpur "is as rational and lucid a guide to the hereafter as we are going to get in the here and now."

Harpur once told CA: "My chief interest is in the people on the edge or outside of organized religion. I like trying to bridge that particular 'gap' in communicating religious and ethical ideas."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, February 1, 1994, John Mort, review of The Uncommon Touch: An Investigation of Spiritual Healing, p. 987.

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

Canadian Book Review Annual, 1994, review of The Uncommon Touch, p. 424; 1996, review of Would You Believe?, p. 101.

Canadian Materials, March, 1993, review of God Help Us, p. 63.

Christian Science Monitor, May 13, 1994, Richard A. Nenneman, review of The Uncommon Touch, p. 15; January 8, 1997, review of The Thinking Person's Guide to God: Overcoming the Obstacles to Belief, p. 13.

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

Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 1994, review of The Uncommon Touch, p. 195.

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

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

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