A commentator once mused that if the evangelical movement in the world had a pope, it was surely John Stott. Stott lived at a time in England when it wasn’t at all kosher, or “pukka” as the Brits would say, to be an evangelical. Stott clung fervently to core principles of the orthodox faith (orthodox in this context meaning the original Reformed faith as encapsulated by Calvin). For him these included the authority of Scripture, the centrality of Christ and the transformational impact of the cross.
To give you an idea of the towering figure and influence on Christianity that Stott was, and conceivably shall remain, keep in mind that Billy Graham issued a statement after Stott’s death saying: “The evangelical world has lost one of its greatest spokesmen and I have lost one of my close personal friends and advisers. I look forward to seeing him again when I go to heaven.” Rick Warren flew to John Stott’s bedside regularly during Stott’s years of infirmity, and Warren always heaped praise on Stott’s contributions to evangelical thought, especially those expressed in Stott’s 50 books. Time Magazine recently named Stott as one of the 100 most influential people in the past century.
Perhaps the highest testament to Stott’s impact was his ability to communicate with people outside the faith. Stott was a true evangelist. One of the most poignant essays about Stott was written by conservative columnist David Brooks, of the New York Times. Brooks, a man of Jewish heritage and, at least until recently, a professed agnostic, said that Stott’s great contribution was his ability to think about and communicate paradoxes. Stott, according to Brooks, loved paradoxes. Stott was always thinking about questions like:
» If Jesus was always so humble, why was he always talking about himself?
» How are we supposed to love others in the face of a world which often hates us?
» How can we be generous of our resources in a world that is so possessed by its desire to accumulate.
My favorite thing about Stott are his perpetual desire to connect and communicate the gospel of Jesus Christ with outsiders. While Stott could, by his own admission, at times be tone-deaf to the nuances, trends and currents of the modern world, he never shrank from a desire to share the gospel with all people. Stott loved India, a completely “other” place, and traveled there regularly throughout his ministry (one of my own friends and mentors, Mark Labberton, traveled to India with Stott in the 1980s). Most of all, Stott, a man of soaring intellectual powers, always sought to communicate intricate details of faith in a down-to-earth, common and understandable way.
I am closely reading John Stott at this juncture in Presbyterian history as a figure who remained a man of faith in the context of his own denomination, the Church of England, which was largely liberal. When Stott was challenged to leave his denomination because of pressure by other luminaries of the evangelical world, such as Martyn Lloyd Jones, Stott clung to the notion that denominations should remain intact and evangelicals should remain in the fight. In “Basic Christianity,” a recent biography of Stott, Roger Steer writes:
When John became President of the Evangelical Alliance he told a ‘President’s Night’ event that some evangelicals like myself, believe it is the will of God to remain in a church that is sometimes called a ‘mixed denomination.’ At least until it becomes apostate and ceases to be a church, we believe it is our duty to remain in it and bear witness to the truth as we have been given to understand it. Some of us who do this, however, are thought not to care about truth. I want to say to you with all the strength of conviction that I possess that we care intensely about the truth, because we believe that God has revealed it fully and finally in Jesus Christ.
And John Stott might have added, “not in the life of every and all church experience.”
GRAHAM BAIRD is the pastor of Highlands Church in Paso Robles, Calif., a new church development in the Santa Barbara Presbytery.
