Biography
Joseph Parker was born on April 9, 1830, in Hexham, Northumberland, England. His father was a stonemason, and his family was poor. He grew up in a Congregational home and attended the local chapel. He had little formal education, and he worked as a stonemason as a boy. He was a bright youth who read widely, and he developed a taste for literature. He was drawn to the ministry and began to preach in the villages at the age of nineteen. He soon became known for his eloquence.
He studied for a short time at University College, London, and began his pastoral work at Banbury, in Oxfordshire, in 1853. He soon moved to Cavendish Street Chapel in Manchester, where he served for twelve years. In Manchester, his preaching grew in power, and he came to be regarded as one of the leading ministers in the Nonconformist churches. He wrote a great deal, and in 1869 he accepted a call to the Poultry Chapel, in the heart of the City of London. It was a rundown church in a district that had been emptied of residents. He worked to build it into a major congregation. A new building, the City Temple, was opened on Holborn Viaduct in 1874, with seating for three thousand people. It was one of the largest Nonconformist churches in the country.
He was an orator of the first rank. His voice was deep, and his gestures were dramatic. He had a theatrical manner, and he used humor and pathos. He drew large crowds, and the City Temple was filled each Thursday for his midday lectures and each Sunday for his sermons. People came from all over the world to hear him. He preached extempore, and he often put into his sermons the flash of his own mind. He also used a wealth of illustration from literature and from daily life.
His major work was The People's Bible, a series of expositions of the whole Bible in twenty-five volumes, published between 1885 and 1895. It was based on his weekly sermons and was a work of immense labor. It was widely read in Britain and America. He also wrote a number of other works, including Ecce Deus, a study of the life of Christ, and Apostolic Life, an exposition of the Acts of the Apostles. His writing was colorful, but it lacked the careful scholarship of some of his contemporaries. Critics said that he was shallow in his exegesis and prone to rhetorical excess.
He was a man of strong personality. He could be vain and domineering, and he had a habit of making a stir. He took stands on controversial matters, and he was drawn into disputes. In 1884, he broke with other Congregationalists over the question of the church's relationship to the state, and he took a more liberal view. In the 1890s, he showed sympathy for the new biblical criticism, though he did not abandon the faith. He also had a number of friends who were prominent in public life.
His personal life was marked by sorrow. His wife, Ann, died in 1899. He was lonely after that, and he suffered from a series of illnesses. He continued to preach, but his powers waned. He died on November 28, 1902, in London, at the age of seventy-two. His life shows what can be done by a man of great gifts who rises from poverty. He also shows the way in which a pulpit can be made a center of public life.