Never heard of him, you say? According to David Brooks, if evangelical Christians picked popes, he'd be the lead candidate.
An excerpt:
He was the framer of the Lausanne Covenant, a crucial organizing document for modern evangelicalism. He is the author of more than 40 books, which have been translated into over 72 languages and have sold in the millions. Now rector emeritus at All Souls, Langham Place, in London, he has traveled the world preaching and teaching.
When you read Stott, you encounter first a tone of voice. Tom Wolfe once noticed that at a certain moment all airline pilots came to speak like Chuck Yeager. The parallel is inexact, but over the years I've heard hundreds of evangelicals who sound like Stott.
It is a voice that is friendly, courteous and natural. It is humble and self-critical, but also confident, joyful and optimistic. Stott's mission is to pierce through all the encrustations and share direct contact with Jesus. Stott says that the central message of the gospel is not the teachings of Jesus, but Jesus himself, the human/divine figure. He is always bringing people back to the concrete reality of Jesus' life and sacrifice.
There's been a lot of twaddle written recently about the supposed opposition between faith and reason. To read Stott is to see someone practicing "thoughtful allegiance" to scripture. For him, Christianity means probing the mysteries of Christ. He is always exploring paradoxes. Jesus teaches humility, so why does he talk about himself so much? What does it mean to gain power through weakness, or freedom through obedience? In many cases the truth is not found in the middle of apparent opposites, but on both extremes simultaneously.
Follow-up: Letters to the NYT
Two examples are attached below, but a page with five of them can be found here.
Unlike
Of course, I would say the same thing back to them. So far, so good, and hooray for diversity.
But: Whereas I would then be happy to let them go on their way, they have decided they must stop me, change my mind, modify my behavior and regulate my access to rights, freedoms and services.
That's not humility. That's arrogance. And it doesn't need "understanding." It needs opposition.
Lee Child
Pound Ridge, N.Y., Nov. 30, 2004
Thanks to David Brooks for informing us of the sincere faith and moral conviction of evangelical Christians like John Stott. Unfortunately, the political problem remains of whether such an absolutist faith can co-exist with other religious (and nonreligious) beliefs in a pluralistic democracy.
What about the millions of Americans who do not believe in the "unique glory and absolute sufficiency" of Jesus Christ?
I understand Mr. Stott's faith; what I don't understand is how the political application of his faith leads to anything but theocracy.
Kelly Bulkeley
Kensington, Calif., Nov. 30, 2004
The writer is a visiting scholar at the Graduate Theological Union.