Wednesday
Dec292010

HOWARD, Thomas

Dr. Thomas HowardThomas Howard, Ph.D., author, was raised in a prominent Evangelical home (his sister is well-known author and former missionary, Elisabeth Elliot), became Episcopalian in his mid-twenties, then entered the Catholic Church in 1985, at the age of fifty. 

Dave Armstrong writes of Howard: "He cites the influence of great Catholic writers such as Newman, Knox, Chesterton, Guardini, Ratzinger, Karl Adam, Louis Bouyer, and St. Augustine on his final decision. Howard's always stylistically-excellent prose is especially noteworthy for its emphasis on the sacramental, incarnational and ‘transcendent’ aspects of Christianity."

Like C.S. Lewis, who he greatly admires and has written about often, Howard is an English professor (recently retired, after nearly forty years of teaching), who taught at Gordon College and then at St. John's Seminary. He is a highly acclaimed writer and scholar, noted for his studies of Inklings C.S. Lewis (Narnia & Beyond: A Guide to the Fiction of C.S. Lewis [2006, 1987]) and Charles Williams (The Novels of Charles Williams [1991]), as well as books including Christ the Tiger (1967), Chance or the Dance? (1969), Hallowed Be This House (1976),Evangelical is Not Enough (1984), If Your Mind Wanders at Mass (1995), On Being Catholic (1997), and The Secret of New York Revealed.