Features
John Stott 1921-2011
Roy McCloughry
John Stott led a rediscovery of political,
social and cultural engagement among evangelical Christians - the
movement that spawned Third Way. Roy McCloughry, who
updated his seminal Issues Facing Christians Today, looks back on a
long, influential career.
John Stott died on July 27th at 3:15pm. Three old friends were
at his bedside reading 2 Timothy to him and listening to Handel’s
Messiah. When the chorus began to sing, ‘I Know That My Redeemer
Liveth’, ‘Uncle John’ slipped away to be with the one to whom he
had devoted his life.
Given that he was a man with a global vision who ministered all
over the world, it is extraordinary that he lived all his life in
the streets around his childhood home in Harley Street where his
father was a highly respected cardiologist. Around the corner was
All Souls, Langham Place where he was taken by his mother as a
child and where he served as Curate, Rector and then as Rector
Emeritus until his retirement. Under his leadership it was to
become a beacon for evangelicals all over the world. His preaching,
teaching and pastoral care brought people together who, with his
encouragement, developed their own passion for the gospel and the
Bible. Students flocked to All Souls to ‘be fed’ spiritually.
I first met him at an annual ‘tea party’ which he held for
presidents of Christian Unions in London. We gathered in his small
flat in Bridford Mews. As we started our discussions one of our
number called him ‘John’. Very gently he let it be known that he
did not think that such familiarity was appropriate. We were
nonplussed, looking for an alternative which was not overly formal.
Then one student said, ‘How about ‘Uncle John’?’ He immediately
looked pleased with this suggestion and ‘Uncle John’ it was from
then on. Since then hundreds of thousands of people have seen him
as ‘Uncle John’, which accurately represents the mix of affection
and respect which many of us felt towards him who were his
colleagues and friends.
A PASSION FOR THE GOSPEL
Anybody who came into contact with Uncle John felt his passion for
the gospel, his sense that he had been called to be an ambassador
for Christ and that nothing should get in his way of bringing
people to Christ. He felt called to be celibate and never married.
He refused, after prayerful consideration, several approaches to
consider becoming a bishop. He was a passionate evangelist through
whom thousands of people came to Christ all over the world. Yet he
felt that fulfilling the Great Commission to preach the gospel did
not exhaust our duty to our neighbour. The Great Command to love
our neighbours meant that we were to be concerned about their
welfare. These two went together. He is famous for saying that
evangelism and social responsibility are like two blades of a pair
of scissors or two wings of a dove. Later in his ministry he was
instrumental in setting up the Lausanne movement focusing on world
evangelization with his friend Billy Graham. The Lausanne Covenant
which resulted from that initiative which was drafted by John,
aided by others, with skill and diplomacy, became a reference point
for evangelicals from all over the world. It provided the ethos on
which Third Way was founded.
Uncle John was a pastor theologian. He wrote 50 books which were
authoritative and meticulous in scholarship but accessible to lay
people. I had the privilege of being his first study assistant and
saw at first hand the great care he took to research everything he
wrote about. He had formidable powers of concentration and great
clarity of mind. He had a great love of the Bible and in all his
writing and preaching his desire was not that we should know what
John Stott thought about a subject, but that in grappling together
with scripture God would open his word to us. Hundreds of thousands
of people have listened to him preach or read his books and been
excited by their deeper understanding of the Bible as a result.
For him, an evangelical was simply an ordinary Christian.
Evangelicals are ‘Bible people and gospel people’ and he worked
tirelessly not only to increase the number of evangelical clergy
throughout the world but also to fulfill his dream of training lay
people to become key leaders in their churches, communities and
places of work. He was proud to be called an evangelical in a way
in which sadly today some are not. There are many people who have
contributed to the strength of evangelicalism in the world today
but his contribution has been in a class of its own.
SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ACTION
In the seventies Uncle John was developing his approach to ‘The
Christian Mind’ and preached a series of sermons which were to
become his book, Issues Facing Christians Today. He became
convinced that Christians needed not only to be involved in social
service to individuals but also social and political action. He
also wanted evangelicals to have the tools to think through the
issues of the day and the challenges they faced on a daily basis,
from a Biblical perspective. He was fully supportive of the role of
Third Way magazine, founded the London Institute for Contemporary
Christianity and brought together many groups, some publicly and
others behind the scenes to encourage evangelicals to be sharper
intellectually in their approach to culture.
Uncle John was a man of formidable discipline. The person who
preached in the pulpit was the same man who befriended you in
private. He was attracted to holiness and repulsed by sin. I
remember sitting at All Souls listening to him preach when he
suddenly exploded in the pulpit saying, ‘I hate sin, I hate it in
other people and I hate it in myself’. Yet despite the fact that he
was so uncompromising morally he was extraordinarily gentle with
those who were frail. He was a humble man who did not see himself
as great but as a ‘sinner saved by grace’. I once had to go to him
as his study assistant and, with embarrassment, confess something
to him which I had done wrong. Without condoning it he then
proceeded to confess that he was a great sinner. I had to stop him
saying that this was not the point of the conversation!
All who knew him knew that he lived very simply and was
extremely generous. Although the royalties from his books must have
been considerable, all of them went to charity and very often to
provide resources to pastors and potential leaders in the majority
world who could not otherwise afford them.
LIVING SIMPLY
When asked once, by Brian Draper, a former editor of Third Way,
when he felt ‘lifted out of himself’ he gave three answers.
Firstly, when he was participating in congregational worship and
transported into heaven ‘with angels and archangels and all the
company of heaven’. Secondly, when he was with friends enjoying
their company and doing things with them and thirdly, when he was
bird watching and enjoying nature. Indeed, he was a fanatical
ornithologist and travelled the world preaching and teaching with
his binoculars round his neck.
Since his death hundreds of people have written saying what they
owed to him. So many saw him as their friend. He had a remarkable
facility for remembering names which made people feel special and
no person was too poor or humble to be his friend.
There is no point in asking whether he was one of the greatest
Christians of the 20th century. He would hate that and point out
that only God has the prerogative to answer that question. For now
I see him in the New World with Jesus enjoying the new creation –
with binoculars round their necks.
John Stott gave an in-depth interview to Roy McCloughry for Third
Way in 1995, which you can read here.
