author
James Freeman Clarke
1810–1888
A leading 19th-century Unitarian minister and popular religious writer, he brought a broad, curious mind to subjects ranging from Christian faith to the world’s major religions. His books helped introduce many American readers to comparative religion in a clear, accessible way.
4 Audiobooks
Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors
by James Freeman Clarke
Ten Great Religions: An Essay in Comparative Theology
by James Freeman Clarke
Christianity and Modern Thought
by Henry W. (Henry Whitney) Bellows, James Freeman Clarke, Athanase Coquerel, Orville Dewey, Charles Carroll Everett, Frederic Henry Hedge, James Martineau, Andrew P. (Andrew Preston) Peabody, George Vance Smith, Oliver Stearns
Nineteenth Century Questions
by James Freeman Clarke
About the author
Born in Hanover, New Hampshire, in 1810, James Freeman Clarke was raised in Boston and educated at Harvard College and Harvard Divinity School. He went on to become a Unitarian minister, theologian, lecturer, and prolific author whose work reached well beyond the pulpit.
Clarke served a congregation in Louisville, Kentucky, before founding the Church of the Disciples in Boston in 1841, where he remained a central figure for much of his life. He was known for his liberal religious outlook, interest in social reform, and gift for explaining big ideas to general readers.
Among his best-known books is Ten Great Religions, a widely read study that reflected his unusually early American interest in comparative religion and Eastern traditions. He died in 1888, but his writing still offers a vivid window into 19th-century religious thought in the United States.