From England’s working class to high-profile media personality, Michael Coren charts his encounters with people of faith, fame, and fortune.
Growing up in a blue-collar mixed-religion family and then entering a career in media, Michael Coren was, and in some ways still is, the consummate outsider. In Heaping Coals, he writes of his life leading up to entering the seminary, being ordained, and his early successes as a journalist, encountering Oscar-winning writers and celebrities.
After marrying and settling in Canada, Coren became a darling of the Christian right with his TV and radio shows and syndicated column. His shift to more progressive Christianity and politics embodies Romans 12:20 — heaping coals onto the heads of one’s enemies — and charts the returning of good for evil through a process of self-reflection.
From outsider to institutional mainstay to penitent, Coren shares not just a humble admission of fault but an articulate and convincing account of one man’s spiritual awakening.
We chat about the book and Michael’s upcoming visit to London.

Todd Townshend is the 14th Bishop of The Diocese of Huron in the Anglican Church of Canada. He was Ordained to the diaconate on May 14, 1992, ordained to the priesthood on November 30, 1992, and Consecrated a Bishop and Installed as the 14th Bishop of Huron at St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, ON on Saturday, January 25, 2020.
Bishop Townshend has served in several London parishes. Townshend also served as the Dean of the Faculty of Theology at Huron University College between 2013 and 2019. Prior to assuming his role as Dean of the Faculty, Townshend taught at Huron University College since 2002 in a variety of roles including Professor of Homiletics and Pastoral Theology and Associate Professor of Contextual Theology.

Danielle Tumminio-Hansen has over fifteen years of expertise as a writer, public theologian, and faith leader. She is a three-time Ivy League graduate, a former lecturer at Yale and Tufts Universities, and the author of numerous works on the intersection of spirituality and contemporary culture. She currently works as a professor at Emory University. Her newest publication is TRAUMA INFORMED SPIRITUAL CARE: INTERVENTIONS FOR SAFETY, MEANING, RECONNECTION, AND JUSTICE