Brian Arthur Brown

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Brian Arthur Brown is a Canadian author, political commentator and church leader.

Born and educated in the Maritimes, Brown was ordained to the ministry of the United Church of Canada in 1966. He completed his Master of Divinity degree at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec and his Doctor of Ministry degree at the San Francisco Theological Seminary in California. It was in Montreal that he married Jenny Gosine, whose family roots are South Asian and who gave him a world perspective. Jenny Brown, herself, eventually served in a number of leadership capacities within the United Church of Canada including work on a number of national committees focused to anti-racism and world affairs.

During his Quebec years, Brown was associated with René Lévesque who, as premier, persuaded Brown to write Separatism in 1976, articulating French Quebec’s aspirations to English Canada. Levesque contributed aforeword, regarded by many as a definitive statement on “Sovereignty-Association”.^{[citation needed]}

During a lengthy ministry in Western Canada, Brown wrote on Canadian issues from the perspective of northern natives, prairie populism and western alienation (The Burning Bush, The Canadian Challenge and The New Confederation, with a foreword by Premier W.A.C. Bennett of British Columbia -as a reply to Levesque). While in Dawson Creek, he headed a Royal Commission on Northern Education, founded Northern Lights College, a 4-campus community college, and developed a northern educational philosophy later adopted by the University of Northern British Columbia. In Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, he broadcast 1000 national unity radio editorials across the country through the Moffat Broadcasting chain of radio stations. He also provided spiritual leadership through Canada’s first televised church services from the cathedral setting of St. Andrew’s United Church.

More recently, Brown has worked in both rural and multicultural urban ministries in Ontario. During his Ontario years Brown published Foresters, a book on Canada’s role in peacekeeping which focuses on the Grey and Simcoe Foresters a reserve infantry regiment of the Canadian Forces. In these years Brown also published Your Neighbor as Yourself (1997), a consideration of Canada-USA relations with collaborative comments by economist John Kenneth Galbraith.

Currently, as critical world events have unfolded, Brown is developing an increasing stronger focus on Jewish, Christian and Muslim relationships. This interest began much earlier in his career during Middle East media junkets and study programs. Brown is now an occasional speaker on the topic of Abraham’s Dysfunctional Family, the subject of his most recent book, Noah's Other Son: Bridging the Gap between the Bible and the Qur’an (2007).

More frequently involved in the Middle East than in Europe, Brown’s American exposure has also been significant, including consulting on congregational visioning for the Detroit Methodist Union, and both preaching and consulting for Riverside Church in New York City (United Church of Christ / Baptist).

Other recent endeavors include developing and implementing the architectural concept for a new sanctuary at St. John’s Stevensville United Church, and sacred sculptures for that facility: The Inukshuk Cross and The Table Rock. A recent graduate of post-doctoral studies at Harvard University, as a theologian Brown is Faith and Order Convener for the Niagara Presbytery of the United Church of Canada. He is currently the minister of two United Churches in the Niagara Falls area.