Clyde Amos Holbrook Papers, 1934-1989, n.d. | Oberlin College Archives

Clyde Amos Holbrook, born in Greenfield, Massachusetts in 1911, was the son of Fred Earl (d. 1947) and Adella S. Holbrook (d. 1942). His first major interest was music. An accomplished cellist, this interest turned out to be an enduring one and expanded into the dramatic field. Over the years, young Holbrook participated in many orchestral and dramatic events. When a double-jointed thumb prevented the serious pursuit of a musical career, Holbrook instead turned to a career in the ministry and eventually to teaching at the college level.

While studying religion at Bates College (Maine) he met Dorothy B. Wheeler (b. 1914) who became his wife in 1937. That same year Clyde received a B.D. from Colgate-Rochester Divinity School. Dorothy Wheeler Holbrook was his intellectual partner, who would later distinguish herself in her work with the League of Women Voters, the YWCA, and many other community projects, for which she eventually received in 1981 the Oberlin College Distinguished Community Service Award. The Holbrooks had three children: Richard C. (b. 1941), Arthur W. (b. 1943), and Deborah Harville (b. 1946).

An ordained minister, Holbrook served parishes in Weston and New Haven, Connecticut while working on his Ph.D. in American Religion at Yale University There he studied with theologian and educator H. Richard Niebuhr (d. 1962). Upon completion of his formal education in 1945, he served as associate professor of religion and dean of chapel at Colorado College, Colorado Springs, and then as chair of the religion department at Denison University, Granville, Ohio, before joining the faculty at Oberlin College in 1951.

Clyde Holbrook’s association with Oberlin College spanned thirty-six years (1951-1977). Given the existence of a Graduate School of Theology on this campus, Holbrook’s important task was to create a new undergraduate department of religion within the College of Arts and Sciences. In this setting Holbrook exposed students to the aspects of critical biblical scholarship and the emerging liberal theology and ecumenical activity of the mid-twentieth century. In addition, he served as chair of Oberlin’s department for twenty-four years. In 1956 the Danforth Foundation established at Oberlin College an endowment for the Danforth Professorship in Religion, a chair that Holbrook occupied until his retirement in June 1977.

The crowning achievement of Holbrook’s professional career was the way in which he completely re-modeled the academic study of religion, both at Oberlin and in the higher education world in general. In forming a new department of religion at Oberlin, he shaped an undergraduate major and discipline to fit in a liberal arts college setting. It did not resemble a theology school curriculum or possess a strong Judeo-Christian bias. Indeed, in time the department of religion at Oberlin’s College of Arts and Sciences overshadowed the older, tradition bound Graduate School of Theology.

Holbrook’s tenure at Oberlin was pivotal and significant in many respects. Under his direction, the department of religion grew from one to six fulltime faculty members. As a result of his pioneering efforts, Oberlin College became the first institution to establish a department of religion as a full and independent part of the liberal arts curriculum.

The study of religion, Holbrook reasoned, was a humanistic field. It encompassed a broad range of subjects and overlapped many other disciplines. The study of religion involved examining cultures, traditions, and philosophies in all parts of the world and in all periods of world history. For Holbrook, the teaching of religion signified an educational, not a religious task. While a Visiting Senior Fellow of the Council of Humanities at Princeton University in 1961-1962, Holbrook systematically set forth his ideas on the study of religion as an academic field in Religion, A Humanistic Field (1963).

A modest and private man, Clyde Holbrook left an indelible mark on the hundreds of students who studied under him at Oberlin College. He was a consummate teacher whose classroom instruction was grounded in active scholarship. By his teaching and by his own example, he taught students to question and to think critically. Holbrook both preached and practiced a non-dogmatic approach to religion, while avoiding the excesses of a non-theistic philosophy. Holbrook strove to instill in students a knowledge, as well as an appreciation of, the universality of the religious experience in mankind.

Although not all agreed with his belief in the necessity of certain standards and requirements, Professor Holbrook imparted to many the value of a disciplined mind anchored in the thought and experience of past centuries. In the interest of broadening his own perspective and that of his students, he often taught outside his particular area of expertise. Students found in Holbrook’s courses a certain freshness, largely derived from his own restless mind and ceaseless reading. In 1966 the Danforth Foundation conferred upon Clyde A. Holbrook its Harbison Award for Distinguished Teaching. This award recognized the importance of individuals in the educational process at the nation’s colleges and universities.

Many other honors came to Holbrook over the years, including an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Sacred Theology from Denison University in 1969 and an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Divinity from Oberlin College in 1982.

The specialized areas that caught Holbrook’s attention during his student years and that emerged as lifelong interests and areas of research were theology, ethics, and the thought of theologian Jonathan Edwards. Holbrook became a leading authority on Edwards, and during his last ten years at Oberlin he periodically conducted a popular seminar on Edwards’ thought and ethics.

Holbrook’s publications underscored both his research and his professional concerns. In 1987 he contributed the opening chapter to an edited volume titled Crime, Values, and Religion. A leading authority on Jonathan Edwards, he wrote Jonathan Edwards: The Valley and Nature (1987). Another work on Edwards, The Ethics of Jonathan Edwards, was published in 1973. In 1970, he edited Original Sin, the third volume of the complete works of Jonathan Edwards, an edition published by Yale University Press. Holbrook’s other monographs included Faith and Community: A Christian Existential Approach (1959), The Iconoclastic Deity: Biblical Images of God (1984), and earlier referenced Religion, a Humanistic Field (1963).

During his long career, Holbrook affiliated himself with many professional organizations. Included among them were the American Academy of Religion, where as a co-founder he served as vice president and president, the American Theological Society, the Commission on Theological Issues in the merger of the Congregational and Evangelical and Reformed Churches, and the Society for Religion in Higher Education. He was a former member of the Commission on Higher Education of the National Council of Churches. In addition, he served as trustee and president of the Oberlin Shansi Memorial Association.

Although Holbrook’s writings and teachings were non-denominational, he was a member of First Church in Oberlin (United Church of Christ) and often spoke there as guest minister. He contributed an article to the church’s historical calendar of 1984 entitled “A Great Preacher, Charles G. Finney, 1792-1875.” Earlier he had served on the Commission on Theological Issues in the merger of the Congregational and Evangelical and Reformed Churches.

In retirement, he spent most of his time in Oberlin serving as Distinguished Visiting Professor of Religion at the college in 1980-1981 and 1984-1985. (In 1979-1980 he spent the year as a Visiting Professor of Religion at the University of Virginia.) He was honored when asked to deliver three Mead-Swing lectures in 1986. He remained active in Oberlin College and community affairs until his unexpected death from a heart attack on March 16, 1989.

At Clyde Holbrook’s memorial service on March 20, 1989 in First Church in Oberlin, speakers warmly remembered his questioning mind, his sense of humor, his love of history, his affinity for detective stories, and his love of the Connecticut Valley where both he and Jonathan Edwards had spent parts of their lives. Most of all, posited Grover Zinn, Holbrook was a man of faith: a faith which was “radical,” “rugged,” and “prophetic.” At the same time, he was also a questioner. “He questioned because his faith was so deep….”

Basically, Holbrook’s approach to religion and life in general was non-doctrinaire. This did not preclude, however, his affirmation of a belief in God, which he firmly declared in a 1977 Oberlin News-Tribune interview. In that same interview, he described religion as what people give their ultimate loyalty to; how they spend their money, time, and lives. Throughout his life, Clyde Holbrook demanded excellence of himself and of others, pursued knowledge and truth, and remained faithful to family, friends, and ideals.

Sources Consulted

Clark, David W. “In Gratitude for the Life of Clyde Amos Holbrook.” Memorial service address, First Church in Oberlin, 20 March 1989.

Farquhar, Leslie. “Clyde Holbrook Retires.” Oberlin News-Tribune (28 April 1977).

Frank, Harry Thomas, Jr. “How Could One Person Do All This?” Oberlin Alumni Magazine 73 (July/August 1977): 13-16.

Holbrook, Clyde A. “Three Ways to a College Education.” Oberlin Alumni Magazine 73 (May/June 1977): 9-10, 15.

“Obituary Notices: Clyde A. Holbrook.” Oberlin News-Tribune (23 March 1989): 2.

Solomon, Jolie. “Holbrook: Presenting the Religious Side of Life.” Oberlin News-Tribune (10 December 1976): 3.

Zinn, Grover A., Jr. “Memorial Minute: Clyde Holbrook, Danforth Professor of Religion.” Oberlin Alumni Magazine 86 (Winter 1990): 46-8.

________. “Words of Remembrance Delivered at the Memorial Service for Clyde Amos Holbrook.” First Church in Oberlin, 20 March 1989.