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Basic Christianity50th anniversary editionBASIC CHRISTIANITY We are always going to need fresh evangelistic books, so we are grateful for John Chapman’s A Fresh Start, Rico Tice’s Christianity Explored, Mike Cain’s Real Life Jesus, but there is one such book which is timeless, namely John Stott’s Basic Christianity — the evangelical equivalent of C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity. Some of us were privileged in our student days to attend eight consecutive nights of a John Stott mission, and those addresses form the substance of this wonderful book. There is, in my view, no clearer, more faithful and succinct exposition of the gospel of grace. This is still the book to put in the hands of the thinking enquirer. Recently, this book has been mercifully cheap but really unworthy. This new edition — celebrating the 50th anniversary — is superb. It is beautifully printed. The changes are minimal. There are a few concessions to political correctness — ‘Man’s response’ becomes ‘Our response’ and ‘How to respond’. Just occasionally John Stott’s felicitous use of language has been dumbed down to make things easier for our illiterate generation. The ‘tendency of sin’ is no longer ‘centrifugal’, and the application of the seventh commandment is marginally weakened. But these are peccadilloes. It was a joy to recall the Oxford Mission of 1964, and a much, much greater joy to read of this gospel in all its glory and fullness. Read it again and give it away to as many as you can. Jonathan Fletcher,
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