Michael Coren’s priestly diary is wise, witty and quietly challenging

Rev Michael Coren was doing some late Christmas shopping straight after church and was still wearing his clerical collar. A little girl, perhaps five or six years old, stared at him and then asked her mother, ”Mum, is he Santa?” Her mother, briefly glanced up and replied, “No darling, he’s the other one.”

In Diary of a Low-Born Cleric: A Year in the Priesthood (Dundurn Press) Coren reflects: “I rather like the idea of being the other one.”

The other one. This puzzling, enigmatic phrase may say a lot about Michael Coren’s life. He’s not a person that you can place in a box, put in a category and say this describes him.

Born in London, the son of Jewish immigrants from eastern Europe, Coren became a Christian in his mid-twenties. He began his journalism career in Britain and moved across the Atlantic at 28 to marry a Canadian woman.

In Canada, Coren developed a high-profile media career promoting a conservative Christian viewpoint – but much of this evaporated when he came out in support of same-sex relationships. He later trained for the ordained ministry in the Canadian Anglican church and now combines his community ministry with broadcasting and writing, including for Premier Christianity magazine.

Coren is a superb communicator. Reading this book was like sitting down with a knowledgeable friend and having them tell you how their day or week is going. He is a man of two countries and can discuss equally the performance of his beloved Tottenham Hotspurs, or of former Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau.

Readers may not agree with Coren’s views on all the subjects, but this tension stimulates you to think about your own opinions and why you hold them.

This diary traces a year in Coren’s life, with several days selected from each month. There are many insights into the life of a Christian minister: meeting with people in need, visiting older people in care homes, carrying out baptisms, weddings and funerals. Sitting with those who are dying, visiting the terminally ill in hospital wards.

Coren also brings insights from his journalism, speaking of how, as a young man, he interviewed author Roald Dahl, and was deeply shocked to hear him voice anti-Semitic opinions. When in London, he meets with his friend, author and broadcaster the Rev Richard Coles, and they discuss grief and suffering.

Coren has said: “I thought I was worldly and hardened until I was ordained – my goodness, life teaches us all sort of lessons.”

A particularly poignant lesson from Coren’s Canadian experience is that country’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) legislation – their version of the type of assisted dying laws that have been considered by the Westminster government.

Coren explains that Canada introduced MAID in 2016, and more than 45,000 people had ended their lives this way by 2024. In 2021, there were more than 10,000 cases and the following year the rate had increased by 30 per cent. The rate continues to increase, with more than four per cent of all deaths in Canada now due to MAID.

Coren questions whether a policy intended to ease suffering could instead become another weapon used against the poor and marginalised. Drawing on his experience as a priest, he writes compassionately about the reality of human suffering while rejecting simplistic religious platitudes. For Coren, Christianity is rooted as much in love for humanity as in love for God, and he warns that once we lose that personal connection, inclusion can quickly give way to judgement and hatred. 

Coren is wonderfully self-deprecating, telling stories of how he thought he had broken up a fight outside a supermarket, only to realise that the arrival of a police officer had had greater effect. He mishears a visiting parishioner saying he doesn’t want to live and responds with serious concern, only to realise that the person had said that they did not want to leave.

He misreads a bruise on a neighbour’s forehead as indication that they had received the imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday, and an awkward conversation follows.

This is a book for anyone considering Christian ministry, whether in the Anglican church or elsewhere. It gives important insights into the daily life of Christian ministers. But it also has much wider appeal, helping all readers to understand the pressures of Christian ministry, and to consider their own views on a wide range of topics.

Coren does not lecture or browbeat. This is not a book delivered from the height of a pulpit or stage, but gently, engagingly, sitting alongside the reader and inviting them into the author’s world.

Diary of a Low-Born Cleric: A Year in the Priesthood (Dundurn Press) by Michael Coren is out now