McCandlish Phillips

John McCandlish Phillips Jr. (December 4, 1927 – April 9, 2013) was an American journalist and author on religious subjects. He worked at The New York Times from 1952 to 1973. McCandlish was most well known for writing a story for the Times which revealed that senior Ku Klux Klan and former American Nazi Party official Dan Burros was ethnically Jewish, which resulted in Burros committing suicide.

Several years later Phillips stopped his work as a journalist to focus his career on evangelical Christianity. In 1962, he helped found the New Testament Missionary Fellowship in Manhattan.

Early life John McCandlish Phillips Jr. was born in Glen Cove, New York, on December 4, 1927. He had a sister. His parents separated when he was three. His father was a traveling salesman; as a result, Phillips attended at least 13 schools. Phillips declined involvement in Gelb and Rosenthal's book on Burros, One More Victim, citing scripture: "touch not the spoil". After the Burros piece, he wrote for the Times ' Metropolitan column. In 1974, he wrote a collection on reporting in New York, City Notebook.

Evangelical Christianity Beginning in 1970, he wrote several books on evangelical Christian topics. He became frustrated with his job at the Times; he was fixated on a story that the others in the office ridiculed, that of Otto Griebling, a circus clown who he thought was a great artist, and was frustrated by a lack of recognition for Griebling. He was also frustrated by what he saw as the Times ' indifference towards persecution of Christians. Other reporters saw his work as becoming increasingly religious. The paper also paid him little for features that took weeks. In December 1973, he resigned from the paper to focus on evangelical Christianity, preaching the gospel at Columbia University, though he worked occasionally as a freelancer for the paper. He intended to work for other outlets, but never approached any of them. Afterwards he fell out of contact with most of his former colleagues. He wrote the occasional article for Christian journals.

In 1962, he helped found the New Testament Missionary Fellowship in Manhattan with Hannah Lowe; the group believed all "pornography, drugs, abortion, and any form of fornication (including premarital sex and homosexuality) are sins", though did not advocate that the government should intervene. This group made news headlines in the 1970s when several of their congregants were kidnapped by their families after they claimed the group had brainwashed them. The group continues to exist and has otherwise incurred little controversy since. In 1996, Phillips was the primary speaker at the funeral of Nathaniel C. Nash, a fellow Times reporter and member of Phillips's congregation killed in a plane crash.

In the 1990s, he worked as general manager of a small publishing house that focused on religion that he had co-founded with Lowe, Thomas E. Lowe, Ltd.

Death and legacy Phillips died in Manhattan on April 9, 2013, from complications of pneumonia. The World Journalism Institute's John McCandlish Phillips Director of Mentoring is named in his honor.