Laurence Coughlan

Laurence Coughlan (?-1784?) was an Irish-born itinerant preacher who was active in Newfoundland during the period 1766–1773. Though born a Roman Catholic, ordained and employed as an Anglican, and at one point even ordained by a Greek Orthodox bishop, his true religious affiliation was Methodism, to which he converted in the 1750s. Coughlan is regarded as a founder of the Methodist Church in Newfoundland (later incorporated into the United Church of Canada).

In the years after his conversion, Coughlan served as a lay preacher in England and Ireland, and for a time was a close associate of Methodist founder John Wesley. However, Coughlan's subjective, enthusiastic, emotional, and feeling-based approach to his faith and ministry later led Wesley to distance himself from him. This was exacerbated by Coughlan's ordination in 1764, along with several other Methodists, by a certain Erasmus, said to be a Greek Orthodox bishop.

In the 1760s a group in the Harbour Grace, Newfoundland area were attempting to procure a minister. In 1766, through the mediation of a local merchant with connections in England, a request was made to the Bishop of London to ordain Coughlan and provide for him to travel to Newfoundland. The reason for the choice of Coughlan for this mission is unclear, but it is known that both the Newfoundland group and their contacts in England had links to dissenters. The entreaty was successful, and Coughlan was ordained by the Bishop of Chester in April 1766. Shortly thereafter, Coughlan left for Newfoundland; a few months later, his ministry came under the auspices of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG).

Initially at least, Coughlan carried out the expected duties of an Anglican priest, performed the sacraments, established a school and chapels, and became a Justice of the Peace. However, his real theological motivation was to spread Methodism, which he did through the Methodist practice of small group meetings and classes, and house to house preaching, emphasizing a simple, emotional spirituality, a life of personal morality, and the necessity of a personal conversion or "born again" experience. By his own account, in his 1776 publication An Account of the Work of God in Newfoundland, his attempts to inspire a Methodist "revival" met with little success for three years, after which time the sorts of "noisy" conversions that he encouraged began to take place.

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