Writing
Brian Brown’s serious writing began with a Canadian trilogy on national unity. Separatism, in 1976 with a forward by Quebec Premier Rene Levesque, was followed by The New Confederation in 1978 with a foreword by British Columbia Premier W.A.C. Bennett, and The Canadian Challenge in 1979, drawn from Brown’s 1000 radio editorials on National Unity heard across Western and Central Canada. They are all out of print now, but still available in most public libraries. A dozen minor works commissioned by school boards, provincial governments, churches and peacekeeping forces of the Canadian military occupied the next twenty years. A side-line during ministry in the United Church of Canada, these were privately commissioned works while Brian was “still learning how to write.”
More recently he is best known for an interfaith trilogy from the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group. SEVEN TESTAMENTS OF WORLD RELIGION and the Zoroastrian Older Testament would be a good place to start. THREE TESTAMENTS: Torah Gospel and Quran contains the complete primary scriptures of Abraham’s family, together in one volume for the first time, with commentary and contributions by respected authorities in each tradition. FOUR TESTAMENTS: Tao Te Ching, Analects, Dhammapada, Bhagavad Gita takes a similar approach to primary sacred texts of the East. It builds on what Brown identifies as the Zoroastrian “Dead Zee Scrolls” which also influenced the Western scriptures more than most of us realized until recently. These volumes are available everywhere in Canada, the USA and in most English speaking and some other markets around the world.
In the meanwhile, True North Strong and Free was a return to Brown’s Canadian theme, above, produced for the 150th anniversary of Canada’s confederation in 2017. It is available now only from Wood Lake Publications, written before turning to the current task at hand for this publisher. True North Strong and Free was a lead-in to two works commissioned by Wood Lake Publications, the “Keys to the Kindom” and “Untied Church” volumes, preparing for and celebrating the 100th anniversary of the United Church of Canada. Kindom is scheduled for release in 2022 and Untied Church in 2024.