Charles Bradley Templeton

Templeton, Charles Bradley

Charles Bradley Templeton, evangelist, journalist, broadcaster, editor, author (b at Toronto 7 Oct 1915, d there 7 June 2001). Templeton began a career in journalism as a sports cartoonist. In 1936 he turned to religion but, although he became a renowned evangelist, introducing the "Youth for Christ" movement to Canada in 1945 and then to Europe and Japan, he later became an agnostic. He achieved new prominence as senior editor of the Toronto Star and Maclean's and news public-affairs director of CTV, and contender for leadership of the Ontario Liberal Party in 1964. His nonfictional Jesus (1971) and 2 thrillers, The Kidnapping of the President (1974) and Act of God (1977), were best-sellers. Two later novels, The Third Temptation (1980), which foreshadows the American TV-evangelist scandals of 1987, and The Queen's Secret (1986), which speculates on the implications of the actual break-in of an intruder in Buckingham Palace, were less successful but equally fascinating. His autobiography, Charles Templeton: An Anecdotal Memoir (1983), is a self-portrait of a multifaceted personality. In 1996 he published Farewell to God: My Reasons for Rejecting the Christian Faith.