Henry Sturcke, born in New Jersey, studied photojournalism at Boston University and theology at Ambassador College, Pasadena. After stints as a correspondent in Brussels and Washington, he was ordained as a minister of the Worldwide Church of God, a strict fundamentalist sect living in expectation of the imminent end of the world. He served congregations in Canada, the U.S., Germany, and Switzerland before resigning and earning a Th.D. at the University of Zürich, after which he entered the ministry of the Reformed Church in Switzerland.