Phillips Brooks (Dec. 13, 1835 - Jan. 23, 1893)

Phillips Brooks is often named among the great preachers of the nineteenth century. In fact, many call him “the greatest American preacher of the nineteenth century.” But who was he? This is the question I asked when I saw this name coming up on our Church History calendar. I’ve heard the name and you have too. Brooks is best known as the author of the Christmas carol “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” I’ve also passed over his book on preaching in used bookstores.

Well, I’ve not read much of his writings, but I’d like to share with you some of what I’ve learned over the past few days.

Phillips Brooks was born in Boston, Mass., December 13, 1835 to William Gray Brooks and Mary Ann Phillips. It has been recorded that his father was a descendant of the New England Puritan John Cotton.

Brooks entered Harvard University at the age of sixteen. After his graduation he taught at the Boston Latin School until he decided upon taking up theological training at the Virginia Theological Seminary (Richmond, Virginia). According to one of his biographers, "He did not feel at home in seminary, scorned "the anti-intellectualism of the Evangelicals," and drank deeply out of Schleiermacher (John V. Wolverton, The Education of Phillips Brooks, University of Illinois, 1995, as quoted by David Larsen in his article "Phillips Brooks: American Icon.").

Upon his graduation from seminary, in 1859, Brooks became the rector of the Episcopal Church of the Advent in Philadelphia. In 1860 he was ordained as a priest and answered his next call to be the rector of the Church of the Holy Trinity in downtown Philadelphia. In 1869 he received his final call from Trinity Church in Boston. He remained there until 1891 when he was Episcopal bishop of Massachusetts. He died two years later of diphtheria at the age of 57.

A contemporary to Brooks was the evangelist D. L. Moody. Whereas D. L. Moody would be readily recognized as a conservative evangelical, Brooks (and another contemporary, Henry Ward Beecher) represented the liberal wing of evangelicalism during that period. * Brooks belonged to what was called the "Broad Church" school of theology (or Latitudinarianism). Although he was reared as unitarian and educated at unitarian Harvard, Brooks affirmed trinitarian theology. He even refused a professorship at Harvard on this basis.

Larsen criticizes Brooks' carol, "O Little Town of Bethlehem", as being "virtually devoid of serious theology." I agree that it could be better, especially the awkward phrase "be born in us today," but it doesn't appear to me to be totally empty. Maybe I'm being to gracious to a known liberal, but I like the third stanza.

How silently, how silently, the wondrous Gift is giv’n;
So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His Heav’n.
No ear may hear His coming, but in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive Him still, the dear Christ enters in.

Needless to say, I now read this carol with new eyes having learned more about Brooks' theology.

Online Resources:

"Phillips Brooks: Brief Life of a Boston Minister (1835-1893)" by Kay Peterson Hall

"Phillips Brooks: American Icon" by David L. Larsen

The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
VOLUME XVII. Later National Literature, Part II. XVI."Later Theology." 13. "Phillips Brooks."

Works of:

The Consolations of God: Great Sermons of Phillips Brooks By Edited by Ellen Wilbur / Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

The Joy of Preaching By Phillips Brooks / Kregel Publications

Works about:

• Life and Letter of Phillips Brooks, 2 Vols.by Alexander V. G. Allen (E. P. Dutton & Co., 1900)
• Education of Phillips Brooks by John F. Woolverton (University of Illinois Press, 1995)
  
• Phillips Brooks: Pulpit Eloquence by David B. Chesebrough (Greenwood Press, 2001)
• Brahmin Prophet: Phillips Brooks and the Path of Liberal Protestantism by Gillis J. Harp (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2003)

Phillips Brooks (Dec. 13, 1835 - Jan. 23, 1893)