Portraits of a Radical Disciple

Recollections of John Stott's Life and Ministry

Christopher J. H. Wright, Christopher J. H. Wright

• Publisher: IVP
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780830863839
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religious Biographies

John Stott has been a giant on the landscape of the worldwide church for more than half a century. Here, however, are almost three dozen brief, very human-sized portraits of a man who has been a radical disciple of Jesus all those years.One of the outstanding gifts that God gave to John Stott was an incredible capacity for friendship. Never did the word single seem less appropriate than for this lifelong bachelor. So in these sketches by his friends, relatives, coworkers and worldwide partners in the gospel, we see portions of his life and personality that many have not.We see the small acts of kindness and service he performed such as regularly emptying wastebaskets and taking hours to find the old, toothless mother of a priest in India. We see the range of his interests, from Woody Allen movies to chocolate. And we see a poignant portrait of Stott as he continues to follow Christ in the midst of age and physical decline.This volume, edited by Christopher Wright, includes contributions from many international leaders such as Michael Green, Keith and Gladys Hunt, Samuel Escobar, René Padilla, Ajith Fernando, Peter Kuzmic and Mark Labberton. We also find insight from others less well-known to the world but very well-known to one of the great international Christian leaders of our day.

1. The Loving Uncle

Caroline Bowerman

Wumby Dumby (the first name I used to give him), and then Uncle Johnnie, has been a very special person to me all my life, not only because he was my uncle and godfather, but also because of his continual loving interest, support and friendship.

As far back as I can remember, Uncle Johnnie was a part of Christmas. Probably feeling utterly exhausted by all the pre-Christmas work and celebrations at All Souls and his travels, he usually arrived on Christmas Eve in time to listen with us to the Nine Lessons and Carols service from King’s College, Cambridge. He appeared to be able promptly to put aside his working life and give this time to the family, including three very demanding nieces. He always loved Christmas dinner, and especially the brandy butter, which he heaped onto his pudding even in his teetotal days!

Uncle Johnnie spoke about his travels in a way that always captured our attention and often gave us an edited slide show of his most recent overseas visit, although there were always plenty of pictures of birds, so I doubt that they were ever edited very rigorously! He also held us spellbound with stories from his childhood. He told us how his behaviour sometimes led him into trouble with his parents. For example, during the sermon at the All Souls morning service, seated in a front pew on the balcony, he and my aunt occupied themselves by screwing up pieces of paper and then surreptitiously dropping them onto the hats of the ladies sitting below.

Throughout my childhood, Uncle Johnnie gave me really good Christian books to read. Often, when he was staying with us or when we were with him at The Hookses, he would read them to me at bedtime. Sometimes he also shared his faith and prayed in a very child-friendly way.

He was always so keen for us to visit his beloved Hookses and he was sometimes able to be there with us too. Those were very special times. It was there that I first saw how hard he worked. And he was delighted when his great-nephew, John, aged nine, announced that he loved The Hookses so much that he planned to spend his honeymoon there!

When I came to London to train as a teacher, Uncle Johnnie maintained his loving support. He encouraged me to attend All Souls and invited me to some delicious lunches and teas at the rectory, welcoming and including my new friends too. It was only then that I discovered his complete dedication, some of his other gifts in ministry, and his importance and popularity within the church.

Family was always very important to Uncle Johnnie. Even as a child, I could see how close he was to his mother and how he really missed her when she died, just as he did his two sisters when they later died. Uncle Johnnie conducted my wedding to Roger, and came as quickly as he could to see our children after they were born. He also took a keen interest in his great-nieces and nephews. On separate occasions he even invited his two great-nieces, Hannah and Emily, to royal Garden Parties. Another time he invited my sister Sarah and me to go to Buckingham Palace with him and Frances Whitehead when he was receiving his CBE award from the Queen. He always tried to join family gatherings, and after my mother (his last remaining sister) died, he spent each Christmas with us.

For me, Uncle Johnnie has always been the same – a very humble, compassionate, caring, loving and just person, and an extremely hard worker (setting himself targets that most people would find hard to achieve). My aunt often used to tease him that she could hear ‘the chains clanging as he drove his slaves on’! Throughout my life, I have clearly seen his desire to serve Jesus, who was so clearly and completely at the centre of his life.

Caroline Bowerman is John Stott’s niece; her mother was John’s sister. She is a recently retired schoolteacher, living in London. John was also her godfather.

2. The Wedding Sermon

Michael Green

I first came across John Stott at Iwerne Minster, a Christian houseparty which took place in Dorset three times a year for the purpose of winning and training boys from the public school system for Christ. When I was a teenager there in the 1950s, John would occasionally come down to the camp to speak, or just to be with us. He had been a leader at these houseparties prior to his ordination, but of course his new responsibilities at All Souls made it more difficult for him to get away. The Rev. E. J. H. Nash, known universally as Bash, had taken particular care of John Stott, going out of his way to visit him, taking him out to tea (which combined deep conversation with cucumber sandwiches), and writing him letters (by hand) that always included a spiritual thought. As I recall, Bash wanted John to become Archbishop of Canterbury!

After that, I did not see a lot of John for a few years. However, my closest friend, Julian Charley, became his curate, first at All Souls and then at the Clubhouse,1 so I heard what was going on there pretty often and I could sense a new vigour and vision moving from John through the Church of England. John was keen to spread his influence beyond London, and soon gathered a group of young clergy whom he called Eclectics (following the example of Charles Simeon, who had hosted a group by the same name). It was a privilege to belong to those early Eclectics meetings. We would spend a day together from time to time, sharing fellowship, listening to a major theological paper, and enjoying a powerful devotional time.

At the other end of the spectrum, John was at that time writing Christian puzzles at Christmas time for Crusade magazine!

From those early encounters, I knew him well enough to ask if Rosemary and I might be married in his smaller church, St Peter’s, Vere Street. This was because both of us lived in inaccessible places, and so it made sense to have the wedding in central London. John agreed, not only to the location, but also to preparing us for marriage and preaching at the wedding, while my father tied the knot. We had just one session with him in marriage preparation, I recall, but it has enabled us to love each another happily for over fifty years!

At the wedding, John preached on 1 Thessalonians 5:10 (KJV): ‘He died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.’ John knew that I was a New Testament buff and I remember him modestly apologizing that he had taken the verse somewhat out of context in order to emphasize the word ‘together’. We were delighted.

But one aspect of that wedding always sticks in my mind. John invited me to stay the night before the wedding at the rectory. So I slept on the floor of his study. And I was amazed at how early it was in the morning that John came in to study the Bible and to pray. It is a lesson I have never forgotten.

Of course I have seen him many times since – often at conferences when we were both speaking, and more recently in his retirement home where, in restricted circumstances and despite failing health, he remained the gracious, perceptive leader he has always been. But I shall remember him best for that wedding in September 1957.

Michael Green was Principal of St John’s College, Nottingham, Rector of St Aldate’s, Oxford, and Professor of Evangelism at Regent College, Vancouver. A prolific author and still active in retirement since 1996, he lives near Oxford.

Notes

1. The All Souls Clubhouse opened in 1958 as a community and Christian centre in the eastern part of the All Souls parish.

3. The Compulsive Worker, But a Rare Spelling Mistake

John Eddison

I first met John Stott at Beachborough Park, near Folkestone, in the summer of 1938. This was where Eric Nash (Bash) held his houseparties before the war drove them into deeper country in Dorset, where there was also ample scope for farmwork in the neighbourhood of Iwerne Minster. I was standing at the time at the top of a staircase when this fresh-faced, smiling boy of seventeen came prancing up. He was just back from France and was clutching a bottle of wine. Clearly he had not yet had the chance to discover that this was not the sort of gift you offered to Bash, a confirmed teetotaller!

For the next eight years I saw a lot of John Stott. While he was still at Rugby School, I paid one or two visits to Rugby, where in some local hostelry he would arrange a large tea party for boys whom he wanted to interest in the camps. So successful was he that in 1939, on our last visit there, there were no fewer than fifteen Rugby pupils present.

When he reached Cambridge, John took over the secretarial responsibility for the camps which, with all the war-time restrictions and regulations, was an enormous task. How he managed it, and collected a first-class honours degree at the same time, has always mystified and amazed me. He turned the camps from a slightly amateur organization into a well-oiled machine, relieving Bash of a huge burden. He was a compulsive worker, and even if there wasn’t work to be done, he always found some anyway. I am inclined to think that he could in some ways have spared himself. His successor, Philip Thompson, was able to approach the work in a slightly more relaxed manner, without any apparent loss of efficiency.

In 1942 I joined the staff of Scripture Union as an assistant to Eric Nash, and for the next three years I worked very closely with John and saw a great deal of him. Even then he gave the most memorable talks, and to this day, well over sixty years later, I can remember one particularly vivid illustration. More than once I heard him tell the story of the cross in a most moving way.

When the boys had gone home at the end of a camp, it was customary for the few of us leaders who had remained to tidy up, to relax over supper in a local cottage. That was when we would see the playful, almost mischievous, side of John. I remember too that on one such occasion I found myself ‘one-up’ on John. I told him that the word ‘withhold’ had two ‘h’s – John was sure it had only one. Somebody produced a Bible, and it was only on the evidence of Genesis 22:12 (‘because you have not withheld from me your son’) that we were able to convince John that for once he was wrong!

At the end of the summer camp in 1945, John finally relinquished the secretarial work, and I took it over for two years until Philip Thompson was able and free to do so. I motored John home that day, and I got the feeling that for him it was the end of an era; he was closing one chapter of his life and preparing for something new. Iwerne had one or two further visits from him, and of course enjoyed his enduring encouragement and support. But it was time for him to move on, and his gifts required greater scope and a wider canvas. I am glad to say we kept in touch. He stayed with us more than once, and we met from time to time. My links with the Iwerne Minster camps continued for many years, and it was not hard to see the incalculable debt that they owed to John.

After a curacy in Tunbridge Wells, John Eddison joined the staff of Scripture Union in 1942, and retired in 1980. For most of this time he was a colleague of Bash, and helped him at the camps at Iwerne Minster. He also ran the junior camps for preparatory schoolboys at Swanage.

4. The Young Defender of the Faith

Oliver Barclay

John Stott arrived at Trinity College, Cambridge, straight from school in 1940, two years after I had arrived there myself. He completed the first part of his degree in French and German in two years and then went on to study Theology for his third and fourth years before moving on to Ridley Hall, an Anglican theological college in Cambridge, to complete his training for ordination in the Church of England.

As soon as he arrived in Cambridge, John immediately found fellowship in the college group of the strongly evangelical Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union (CICCU), and before long he was seen as its obvious informal leader. The Cambridge Christian scene at that time needs describing. Almost every college had a full-time Anglican chaplain, with some weeknight activities and services in the college chapel on Sundays. Without exception these chaplains were not evangelical but held a mixture of High Church and liberal theology. The theology faculty was then almost uniformly liberal. These chaplains and professors were very scornful of evangelicals, often criticizing their beliefs or ridiculing them. That era was a high point of an aggressive, rationalistic liberalism. To study Theology was proving a death trap for many who had come to university with a simple faith. In Cambridge the Student Christian Movement (SCM) had become very liberal too, and the CICCU had split from it in 1920. By the time John Stott arrived, the SCM’s college groups were in decline and the CICCU provided the only lively evangelical fellowship. It was a battle to maintain orthodox faith.

The CICCU arranged excellent united Saturday night Bible expositions and Sunday night evangelistic services, as well as a smaller daily prayer meeting for core members. Each college group had a weekly Bible study, which usually ended with coffee and discussion late into the evening. The Trinity College CICCU group of about twelve members usually attended the college chapel services on Sundays as a matter of duty, but it was the CICCU that represented a lively Christian witness. To me it was a most convincing fellowship of genuine faith and life. The CICCU group tried to reach and befriend each new generation of Christian freshers as they arrived. They did this for me, in spite of my initial doctrinal vagaries imbibed from school religious education. I had been converted at school and the CICCU had drawn me in and sorted out my basic doctrinal thinking. But I was not a mature Christian and had a lot to learn.

John Stott, although also a young Christian, had arrived better taught than I had been, thanks to the Iwerne Minster camps and the Rugby School Christian Union, through which he had been converted two years earlier. We were both learning fast and acknowledged that we owed a huge debt to the CICCU. We quickly became good friends, often walking in the college courts and gardens, discussing things, and in later years going out on bicycles birdwatching. However, I had become more interested than he in apologetics, particularly as I was a science student and had to face different questions from those with which he was familiar. We helped each other through the battles, along with others in the college group.

As the Second World War continued and student numbers shrank, Trinity College intended to close its Sunday chapel services. However, John and I, along with other CICCU members in Trinity, asked if we could run them so that they could continue. In our minds this was a means of outreach to the number of fairly nominal Christians who liked to go. The college agreed and John became our key speaker. He also had an exceptionally good singing voice and had previously sung solos in chapel. He often read the Bible lessons, and had even won a college prize for the best reader in chapel. He was an example to us all of an extremely disciplined life, always leaving the college Bible studies at 9.30pm to go to bed, even when discussion was in full swing, so he could rise by 6am for his ‘quiet time’. Then, having skimmed through The Times, he would leave early after breakfast to go to the library, where he worked very hard at his studies.

John also had considerable responsibilities in the administration of the Iwerne Minster camps run by Bash, through whom he had been converted. ‘Camp’ gave an excellent grounding in basic Christian doctrine and living, including the disciplined habit of daily prayer and Bible study. ‘Bash campers’ had been CICCU presidents for several years in succession and were a distinct group of fine leaders in the college groups and in personal evangelism.

They were, however, inclined to be suspicious of wider interests and especially anything that could be deemed to be ‘intellectual’. When I told one of the campers that I was very interested in modern poetry (T. S. Eliot and W. H. Auden), I was told not to advertise this or some would think I was going astray! Bash’s view on these things stemmed largely from the devastating effect on many students of studying Theology, and the sad state of the SCM who pursued such issues. As a result, Bash and many campers could be very critical of anything other than basic Bible study and evangelism. Bash stressed ‘the simple gospel’ and he rightly discerned that most students had not really understood this but held very misleading ideas of the nature of the Christian message. The emphasis on direct evangelism was necessary, but unfortunately it was accompanied by a negative attitude to culture and even to apologetics. Only later, when his campers found that a message ideal for schoolboys was not by itself enough for those who went out into the workplace, did Bash begin to appreciate the need for others to provide teaching on areas of Christian discipleship that he himself could not supply. John, as he moved through his studies, probably helped Bash to see the point of tackling such wider issues. In later years Bash became less negative, while always still stressing the importance of the simple gospel.

John was also involved with the college CICCU group and was a fine personal evangelist. More than one of his student friends professed conversion through his help, and he was soon skilful at helping young and immature believers. When he moved to Ridley Hall, he often led Bible studies in different colleges. I remember a very young Christian falling asleep while John was still speaking and him having to be quietly kicked awake to save his embarrassment. So John’s speaking style was clearly not yet honed and at its best!

When John began the second half of his degree, studying Theology, the battles became fierce. Lecturers took delight in pointing out the difficulties for traditional faith, and he had to study their books too. I do not think others realized how acutely difficult John found this at times, just because he was so honest-minded. I well remember him sitting in my college room virtually in tears, saying that if he could not work his way through the liberal teaching, his ministry would be destroyed and he would be left with no ability to preach a word from God. Bash could not help him, and at that time there were no evangelical scholars available to do so either.

Thankfully, however, one of the former campers, John Wenham, a part-time curate (assistant pastor) in a church in Cambridge, who was also doing post-graduate studies in Theology at the university, was developing into an excellent theological thinker. He introduced John to the writings of Benjamin Warfield and other, mainly American, conservative scholars. Wenham had a habit of lending or giving away key books. He befriended John and encouraged him to realize that there were others who were tackling these tough theological issues too. John Wenham was involved, with the British Inter-Varsity Fellowship (IVF), in the establishment of Tyndale House, an evangelical research library in Cambridge specializing in biblical and theological studies at the highest levels of scholarly rigour. John later acknowledged his debt to scholars like John Wenham and others at Tyndale House. He could not quickly find answers to all the problems raised and he had to put some of them into a mental ‘pending’ file for future attention. However, he accepted with new confidence that if our Lord and the apostles taught the authority and reliability of the Bible, then the Bible would prove reliable and authoritative. This confidence was confirmed when he constantly saw the spiritual power of the word of God as it was preached. While at Ridley, John had the opportunity to visit neighbouring villages to preach in small churches. These were his first efforts to preach to less academic congregations and began to ...