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 PrintableVersion John StottWarts and allJOHN STOTT This is an extraordinarily hard book to review. Not because it is difficult, long, dull or unorthodox (it is none of those), but because it consists of 35 delightful reminiscences of those who knew John Stott best, both in public and in private. Alongside the biographies of Dudley-Smith and Steer, this stands as an affectionate portrait of one of the most significant Christians of the 20th century, ‘warts and all’, as Stott himself requested (p.14). Reviewing it is a bit like reviewing the speeches at a birthday party: and the book was published (before his death) to coincide with Stott’s 90th birthday. Massive rangeChris Wright has chosen the contributors, and they cover the massive range of Stott’s life and influence, both here in the UK and globally. Each one has a story to tell, and what emerges is the consistent encounter with a man blazingly committed to putting his remarkable gifts in the service of the Lord he loves so passionately. Buried in there is a chapter by the remarkable Frances Whitehead, John’s Stott’s secretary, to whom the book is rightfully dedicated. Along the way are the reminiscences and quotations that all who love the man will enjoy, and probably retell in affectionate imitation of that clear and booming voice. The delight of this book is that not only will the reader discover stories old and new (my favourite, ‘The Crawl’, is on p.140, and David Jones, the first president of John Stott Ministries, the USA wing of Langham Partnership International, has the honour of telling it), but then stories that have been left out come to mind and are retold themselves. As I have been reading it, I have told friends: ‘But it doesn’t have “The Very Large Lady. In The Very Small Canoe”, or “Stott of the Antarctic”’. And on it goes. ‘Ornitheology’The structure is simple and obvious, and none the worse for that. Early and formative years, All Souls and the wider Church of England, international influence, and wider interests — Saki, chocolate, but mostly the beloved birds, and the new science of ‘ornitheology’. There are reminiscences by the study assistants, and final summative chapters by John Wyatt and Chris Wright. The books Stott has written, the organisations he has founded (Lausanne, LICC, Langham) are all here, and it is not the place of this brief review to list them. Let us, though, celebrate the man who wrote The Cross of Christ, Issues facing Christians Today, and Christ the Controversialist, who founded, modelled and jointly edited The Bible Speaks Today series, who engaged in an international ministry second only to Billy Graham’s, all while leading one of London’s largest churches. Organisational geniusThe man who emerges is, as one would expect, a Christian of ruthless self discipline and drive, of seemingly inexhaustible energy and love for Christ, who has spent his life communicating with unmistakeable clarity what it is the Bible says. Every EN reader will have had the experience of reading one of Stott’s paragraphs, and thinking that there could be no clearer, finer way to sum up an issue. This is matched with a humility, an awareness of the terrible injustices and imbalances between different parts of the worldwide church, and of a determination to change what he could. That determination was focused, because one aspect of Stott’s ministry that is rarely remarked on, even in this book, is his organisational genius. He asked for ‘warts’ and they are there, occasionally. Several people mention that fools were not suffered gladly, whether among friends (p.102) or staff (p.205), and he himself was aware of coming across as a bit of a ‘cold fish’, and worked to rectify that (p.36). But those are the expected and pardonable flipside of his gifts. Something more evaluativeAt some point there will be a need for something more evaluative, I think. The issue of annihilationism is mentioned here and, interestingly, dealt with by Ajith Fernando, who still disagrees with him (p.108). Not all his brainchildren survived well after being taken from his active supervision. His often-cited method of finding a balanced position midway between two extremes is one that is rhetorically neat, but has, I think, served us ill when it comes to resolving significant tensions over evangelism and social justice, for instance. EN readers might be surprised that there is no chapter by a friend from ‘the other side’ of the 1966 debate with Lloyd-Jones; perhaps some issues are still too raw. There is evidence of haste in compiling the book. An observant friend has pointed out that Dick Lucas was Rector of St. Helen’s, Bishopsgate until 1998, not 1981 (p.50). More significantly, Stott was awarded the CBE, not the OBE, in 2006 (p.21). Nonetheless, we owe Chris Wright a huge debt of gratitude in putting together a kind and generous tribute to ‘Uncle John’. Chris Green, © Evangelicals Now - November 2011 |
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