By David L. Larsen
Professor of Preaching Emeritus at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois
In recent years we have had strong biographical address to the life and ministry of the noted Reformed theologian James I. Packer, as well as a splendidly done work on J. Sidlow Baxter, long-time pastor of the influential Charlotte Baptist Chapel in Edinburgh, the evangelical center of Scotland. A superb work on Stephen Olford has also entered the lists. It is always profitable to be reading some preacher biography or autobiography.
Of late we have had two epochal volumes that register strongly on the biographical Richter scale. The first of these is
Fire in the City: Savonarola and the Struggle for the Soul of Renaissance Florence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006, 336 pages). Written by Professor Lauro Martines, historian at UCLA, this learned work does not supply immense spiritual insight but can only thrill us to be reminded of the prominence of powerful biblical preaching in altering the course of a dissolute and debauched society.
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In “a tepid age,” Savonarola was able to transform ideas and concepts into incandescence. He set the city on fire with his preaching of the Old Testament—especially Exodus, Ezekiel, Amos and Haggai. His challenge was to corrupting opulence and the immoral use of political power, and he just opened Scripture and preached it. Martines does not dismiss him as a demagogue (as did George Eliot in her
Romola in 1863) but shows him as in many ways a compassionate moderate. He makes a convincing case that he was wise, scholarly and even a poet. He was an “unbribed soul,” and as “the little friar from Ferrara” stood most resolutely for the truth and principles having to do with repentance at whatever the cost. This entrancing study is highly recommended.
In a starkly contrasting venue, Debby Applegate has unquestionably given us the long-awaited definitive biography of the 19th-century American preacher Henry Ward Beecher in her superlative
The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher (New York: Doubleday, 2006, 527 pages). An amazing commentary on his pre- and post-Civil War times, this book is most satisfying on helping us understand how this eighth child of the distinguished preacher and educator Lyman Beecher became the eloquent advocate of “the gospel of love,” which packed huge crowds into his megachurch in Brooklyn. All seven of the Beecher boys became ministers (and his sisters, such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, were not slouches either); but it was Henry who achieved the pinnacles of fame—without ever professing conversion and entering the ministry because he loved to speak to crowds and receive applause.
He hated pastoral functions but relished the role of telling people they didn’t need to worry about their sins because God loved them. Spurgeon would have nothing to do with Beecher, but Joseph Parker in London courted him. One reviewer cites him as an example of a popularity achieved by “oratorical skills exceeding his principles.” Oh my soul, beware. He was consumed by the desire “to have a good time and be loved.”