Douglas Johnson: the invisible man

Dr. Douglas Johnson, known as DJ, was born on December 31 1904. Because he was so self-effacing, few people realise just how important he was for the revival of evangelicalism in the last century, and how much we owe to his work. He was quietly behind many important developments that we take for granted.

The 1920s were the heyday of a thoroughgoing liberalism that had captured theological education and not only the student Christian movements, but much of the leadership of the churches in Britain. It was the lowest point of the status of biblical evangelicalism for over 100 years. Any confidence in the authority and reliability of the Bible was treated with scorn by many.

DJ, coming from a Christian family and a church where he must have been well taught, entered University College London in 1921 to read history. Noticing someone saying grace at lunch in the canteen, he got in touch and so began the Christian Union there, since they found the existing Christian organisation quite misleading. Transferring, with a scholarship for medicine, to Kings College London in 1924, he took the theology diploma at the same time and saw the dangers of the then dominant theology teaching. He annoyed the full-time theology students by doing better than most of them in exams.

Vision for universities

Before long he was involved in starting or encouraging CUs in London's other colleges and was instrumental in creating the London Inter-Faculty Christian Union, of which he was made secretary. He and a few others had a vision for similar work in other universities.

While still a student, in 1924 he was quite unwillingly made secretary of the Inter-Varsity conferences. These had been started in 1919 by Oxford, Cambridge and London CUs and were beginning to attract a few individuals from other universities, although they were non-residential in London. DJ proposed that the conferences should be annual and residential, and the conferences flourished, drawing more from outside the original scope. By 1927 there was clearly a need for a more permanent organisation and in 1928 the IVF (now UCCF) was formed. Again, DJ was persuaded to take on the secretaryship, though his studies were bound to suffer, and he began to postpone exams, only finishing the training when he was compelled to take a year out to do nothing else.

Bows and arrows

From that point on, he became the life and soul of the IVF, travelling the country to help start, and then encourage the mostly very small CUs, until he stepped down in 1964, leaving the work in a very strong position. Existing student Christian organisations, with much official support, had been huge by comparison and increasingly liberal. No one at the time expected that they would crumble so soon, and CUs became the main Christian witness on campus. He used to say that we were like a group of Boy Scouts with bows and arrows pitched against a mechanised column, but scoring some good hits nevertheless.

Winsome warfare

DJ taught us all to scorn the patronage of 'important people' and care only for the Lord's honour. He often reminded us of Proverbs 29.5: 'Whoever flatters his neighbour is spreading a net for his feet' and told us to look out for the net! He insisted that the IVF office was not a headquarters and that he was only the secretary. He had an infectious confidence in the unique superiority of biblical truth, however widely it was despised. He would fight for sound teaching tenaciously, but not in a doctrinaire way, because it came from his jealousy for the reputation of his Lord. That gave his battles a certain winsomeness coupled with intensity.

DJ had greatly helped to develop the graduate groups of IVF, and when he retired from IVF he gave his energies to the Christian Medical Fellowship, building it up to a position of real influence in the profession. He had always been ambitious to tackle the real thinking behind professional concerns, so as to make the Christian witness there effective. He was one of a very small number who realised that it was essential and possible to capture the high ground in theology. Very unobtrusively and keeping himself in the background, DJ, with two or three others, was a major force in the establishment of London Bible College, the Evangelical Library and of the committees which led to the founding of Tyndale House. His gift was to provide much of the drive to get hopes and provisional decisions put into practice.

This he did often by personal visits to the key individuals, and putting in a huge amount of time in handwritten letters, sometimes with cartoons and fine humour. He was a great team leader, but often got back home very late. This led to a heart attack which put him out of action for six months, but he was back with tireless energy. He had learned to trust godly students to take the lead in the world which they understood, as the churches did not. He taught us to 'catch them young', and innumerable future church leaders and missionaries had cause to be deeply thankful for the way in which he pushed them into taking on some small but growing spiritual responsibility. He gave them good books and encouraged their reading and Bible study and evangelism.

ML-J and IFES

When, with some difficulty, he persuaded Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones to become a chief conference speaker and advisor of the still small IVF, it brought a new love of doctrine to many, and Dr. Lloyd-Jones became a major guide and strategist for the IVF and a little later for the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES). DJ and Dr. Lloyd-Jones became close friends, exchanging book recommendations and views on many topics. Each acknowledged their debt to the other in particularly difficult situations.

DJ was the first secretary of the IFES, typically handing on the responsibility to someone else very quickly, though he remained for a good many years a major influence. He had put in a lot of work to lay its foundations, and its worldwide influence on the churches owed much to his early input. He was behind its growth in Africa and elsewhere, sending others to pioneer the work and insisting on the policy of giving leadership to nationals as soon as possible. He was exceptionally well-informed about the Christian traditions of each country and could guide delegates and speakers surefootedly, and advise the committees. He imparted a vision to 'contend for the truth' when 'tolerance' and compromise were becoming the ecumenical way.

Evangelical truth

He saw the need for good and substantial evangelical literature, when much was superficial or subjective, and he gave much time to getting T.C. Hammond's book on doctrine, In understanding be men, into shape for publication (1936 and still in print). It taught many to have for the first time a clear outline of evangelical truth and to love doctrine as the necessary foundation for evangelism and the Christian life. He was behind the setting up of Inter-Varsity Press (IVP) and its basic policies.

Without his constant stimulus some of their key books such as the New Bible Commentary and the New Bible Dictionary would not have appeared for a very long time, if ever. He was not a particularly good writer or speaker, saying it was best to get more gifted people to do the job, though some of his brief articles were very influential. He was an inspiring friend to a great many, never on the platform himself, but quietly talking to individuals behind the scenes and helping them to do the many things that were urgently needed. At conferences he was surrounded by students, often in a hilarious group, listening to his wisdom and anecdotes.

Guard the deposit

Of course, he was not alone in his ambitious goals for the recovery of biblical Christianity and always attributed to others the advances that were being made. One, therefore, never knew for certain whether initiatives were his, whether he had planted them in the minds of others, or if they really were the ideas of others. He did not care so long as some advances were being made. He then enabled many of them to be put into practical reality by very efficient and hard work, and his warm encouragement to persevere. He was totally opposed to an idea that he might have a published biography as many people hoped.

So we thank God for the very considerable advances that have been made in these 100 years, and particularly for one of God's most self-effacing, faithful and influential servants. If he was still alive he would probably remind us that many of the battles fought then have to be fought all over again in every generation if we are to 'guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you'.