the life and ministry of e. stanley jones -- by anne mathews-younes

The Life and Ministry of E. Stanley Jones www.estanleyjonesfoundation.com

By Anne Mathews-Younes

Excerpt from thesis, November 2011©

Written by Dr. Anne Mathews-Younes ©

Chapter 1: The Life and Ministry of E. Stanley Jones

E. Stanley Jones (1884-1973) was described by a distinguished Bishop as the “greatest

missionary since Saint Paul.”1 This missionary/evangelist spent seventy years in the ministry of

the Methodist Church and of Jesus Christ. He was an Evangelist, apostle, missionary, author of

twenty-eight books, statesman, Bishop-elect (who resigned before ordination), founder of

Christian Ashrams, ecumenical leader, and spokesman for peace, racial brotherhood, and social

justice, and constant witness for Jesus Christ. Jones was a confidant of President Franklin D.

Roosevelt. He was nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize, and his ministry in India brought

1 Some of this biographical material was drawn from the author’s previous book entitled, Living Upon The Way: The Sermons of E. Stanley Jones on Self Surrender, as well as

from a speech she delivered at a symposium on E. Stanley Jones at Hendrix College, Conway, Arkansas in March 2010.

Figure 1: Portrait of E. Stanley Jones with Cross


him into close contact with that country’s leaders including Jawaharlal Nehru, Rabindranath

Tagore, and Mahatma Gandhi, (www.christianashram.org).

Jones’ approach to evangelism would not be to attack the non-Christian faiths, but to present

Christ as the universal Son of Man without the trappings of Western culture. This new approach

to evangelism was directed at the high caste and educated persons of India who responded

favorably to this message. According to Graham “Jones was one of the most widely known and

universally admired Christian missionaries and evangelists of the twentieth century” (Ordinary

Man, Extraordinary Mission, 11). As a well known, engaging, and powerful evangelist, in his

lifetime, Jones delivered tens of thousands of sermons and lectures.2 He typically traveled fifty

weeks a year, often speaking two to six times a day. He was recognized as an evangelist who did

not require you to leave your intellect at the door. According to Graham, Jones had a life

changing impact on the millions of people throughout the world who heard him speak or read his

books (Ordinary Man, Extraordinary Mission, 21).

In 1938, Time Magazine called him “the world’s greatest missionary evangelist” (Graham

Ordinary Man, Extraordinary Mission, 1- bb). Even after a severe stroke at the age of 88 robbed

him of his speech, Jones managed to dictate into a tape recorder his last book, The Divine Yes.

He died in India on January 25, 1973.

2 For example, in a 1936 sermon delivered at Madison Square Garden in New York City, 20,000 persons were in attendance, with 8,000 making personal decisions to follow

Jesus. (Graham, Ordinary Man, Extraordinary Mission, 248). Mathews writes about this Madison Square Garden experience, “E. Stanley Jones was 52 at the time and at the

height of his powers as a speaker. I never heard anything like him. It was an overwhelming experience to hear anyone who could plead the cause of Christ so eloquently.”

(Mathews-Younes, 2).

Figure 2: E. Stanley Jones (date unknown)


The Early Years3

E. Stanley Jones was born in Clarksville, Maryland on January 3, 1884. He grew up in a family

of four children. He was close to his mother, Sarah Evans Jones, but was reportedly somewhat

more distant from his father, Albin Davis Jones who worked as a toll collector along U.S.

Highway #40, the “National Road.” Jones was greatly influenced and supported by his first

grade teacher, Miss Nellie Logan, and they maintained an active and intimate correspondence for

years until her death.4 It was Miss Logan who was at his side at the altar of the Methodist church

in Baltimore when in February 1901, at the

age of seventeen, Jones accepted Jesus

Christ as his personal Lord and Savior.

Jones’ autobiography (A Song of Ascents)

gives us more details about his conversion

experience. Jones writes that as a teenager,

he ran with a gang – obviously his parents

did not approve…and maybe his “gang”

was more benign than the ones in our day.

However, despite his outer rebelliousness,

he was receptive --- when a visiting

evangelist spoke on what Christ meant to

him. That night this young “rebel” along

with his friends had planned to disrupt the

service. That disruption did not occur and

to the astonishment and annoyance of his

young friends, Jones responded to the

evangelist’s call and a dramatic conversion

changed his life.

3 A very fine biography on Jones was written in 2005 by Stephen A. Graham, entitled, Ordinary Man, Extraordinary Mission: The Life and Work of E. Stanley Jones.

4 “Miss Nellie maintained close ties with the Jones family throughout her life giving Jones spiritual, emotional, and financial support. In addition to her long correspondence

with Stanley, she gave regular financial support from her own income to the mission work of E. Stanley Jones and his wife Mabel. Miss Nellie also wrote to Mabel and to their

daughter Eunice and sent birthday and Christmas gifts to all of them.” (Graham , Ordinary Man, Extraordinary Mission, 33).

Figure 3: E. Stanley Jones standing in front of his birth

home in Clarksville, Maryland


After his conversion, Jones worked at a law library in Baltimore and

then as an insurance agent “writing and collecting industrial insurance

in a poor section of Baltimore” (Jones, A Song of Ascents, 44). These

two positions enabled him to support his family and save sufficient

funds to attend college. E. Stanley Jones had planned to be a lawyer but

instead entered the ministry. He was licensed as a local preacher shortly

before he left Baltimore, Maryland to enroll in Asbury College, in

Wilmore, Kentucky in the fall of 1903.5

According to his autobiography, Jones was looking for a college where

his spiritual life would be cultivated and where there would be nothing to hinder, but all to assist

his growth in faith (Jones, A Song of Ascents, 67). In the course of his time in college, Jones

received the “second blessing” of being filled with the Holy Spirit (Jones, A Song of Ascents,

68). Jones was judged to be both an enthusiastic and able student, was elected student body

president and graduated in 1906. Jones was on the faculty of Asbury College when he was called

to missionary service in India under the Board of Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

(Dough, Sayings of E. Stanley Jones, 17)

Once Jones assumed the responsibilities of faithful discipleship he never turned back. He plowed

a straight furrow from Asbury College, to evangelism, to missionary service in India, and to

world renown as a witness to Jesus Christ. (Mathews, James K., Personal Communication)

To India

In 1907 at the age of 23, Jones went to India as a Methodist missionary. It is amazing to learn

how casually mission boards treated their new missionaries in those days. No orientation was

5 According to Graham, Asbury College was founded by the Rev. John Wesley Hughes, and its origins were in the Holiness movement. “In accordance with the doctrine of

Christian perfection, which was first preached by John Wesley in the Great Awakening of the eighteenth century, the Holiness Movement emphasized both salvation and

sanctification. Today sanctification is often referred to as the experience of being filled with the Holy Spirit. Sanctification is just as much a work of God as conversion and is

both instantaneous and continuous.” (Ordinary Man, Extraordinary Mission, 24) Asbury Theological Seminary now has an E. Stanley Jones Center for Evangelism and Mission.

Other United Methodist Seminaries have E. Stanley Jones Chairs of Evangelism. These chairs are funded by private donations and from the resources of the United Methodist

Foundation for Evangelism. The United Christian Ashram is now engaging with these seminaries to consider including the writings of E. Stanley Jones in their evangelism

curriculum.

Figure 4: E. Stanley Jones

at Asbury College, circa

1904


given, either for the country, its customs or climate or even how to get around… In A Song of

Ascents, Jones recalls the experience of leaving the United States for India.

No one from the mission board came to see me off…I was given no orientation, no

briefing on what to do as a missionary, no manual of instruction on how to travel. I was

given a Hindustani grammar, forty pounds in British gold, and a ticket to Bombay via

Britain, a handshake and sent off (75).

Figure 5: E. Stanley Jones in his early years in India

The voyage to India took six weeks. While he was given the name of his ultimate destination,

getting there was up to him. E. Stanley Jones tells the story of that 20 hour train ride to his final

destination – Lucknow – in the northern part of the country. He found himself in a compartment

with a well-educated, English speaking Muslim gentleman. He said to himself, “I am a

missionary, I had better get to work” and so full of enthusiasm for his missionary work, Jones

read this gentleman the Sermon on the Mount expecting the man to be overwhelmed and

immediately converted. Instead the man said, “We have the same thing in our Sacred Book.”

(Jones, The Word Became Flesh, 10)

This was the first time Jones had come up against the very familiar “all religions are the same --

only the paths are different” attitude so widely held by many in the non Christian world. It

shook him for he wasn’t prepared to deal with such attitudes. But it also made him face squarely,


at a very early point in his missionary career, the question of whether he was going to argue or

debate with non Christians and try to prove them wrong and Christianity right or use some other

way. He was led to consider another way. This was a crucial decision, which contributed to his

great effectiveness.

Jones began his work in India as an ordained minister in the North India Conference of the

Methodist Church.6 He was appointed to the English Methodist Episcopal Church in Lucknow,

India, most often called the Lal Bagh Church. According to Graham and others, Jones was an

eager student of Indian culture, and he would write about his early days in India, “My greatest

asset was my colossal ignorance; I had no inhibition. All I knew was evangelism – people

needed to be converted, to be changed” (A Song of Ascents, 80). Graham writes that in 1910

Jones was released from the Lal Bagh church to do Conference evangelistic work. (Ordinary

Man, Extraordinary Mission, 59) Jones’s first evangelistic work was among the low castes and

outcasts of India as was the practice of virtually all Christian missionaries in India. However, he

soon began his outreach to the intelligentsia. He enjoyed “energetic discussion/debate with the

educated Hindus and Muslims but would readily admit that `in the final analysis, Christianity is

NOT an intellectual proposition that can establish its own superiority over other religions by

clever argument. Christianity is true because it reveals the truth of God’s love for man in the

person of Jesus Christ” (Graham, Ordinary Man, Extraordinary Mission, 62).

6 “At that time there were 170 Methodist missionaries serving in India. Between 1896 and 1919 the number of Methodist Church members tripled to 74,000.” (Graham,

Ordinary Man, Extraordinary Mission, 47)

Figure 6: Jones in Lucknow

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Additionally, Jones felt uneasiness and alarm with what was happening in the Christian convert

community. Too often in changing their faith, the new converts were also encouraged to reject

their identification with their Indian culture. This was British India but also a time of a rising

tide for independence and nationalism and so some Indian Christians were becoming aliens in

their own country. That did not seem right. Very early in his career, Jones urged Indian

Christians to remain within their culture for he was convinced that Christianity could be truly

indigenous in India and for that matter anywhere in the world.

Figure 8: Jones with Mabel and Eunice, 1938

Figure 7: Stanley and Mabel


Mabel Lossing Jones

Jones married Mabel Lossing (1878-1978) in 1911. After they married the couple went to

Sitapur, a city of about 40,000. Their one child, Eunice, was born in 1914.7

Mabel Lossing was commissioned by the Women’s Foreign Mission Society of the Methodist

Episcopal Church and was sent to India to be a teacher in 1905. (Graham, Ordinary Man,

Extraordinary Mission, 73) Mabel was a pioneer of progressive education and developed the

instructional model of having women teach boys, which was unheard of in India at the time.

Like her husband, Mabel Jones was an outspoken critic of discrimination. Graham remarks that

“Mabel was especially sensitive to the status of women in Indian society and taught sexual

equality in her school. Her boys’ school, staffed entirely by women teachers was itself a direct

challenge to the strict and complete separation of men and women in Indian education”

(Ordinary Man, Extraordinary Mission, 88). Her school in Sitapur proved to be enormously

successful, and the innovation of having women teaching boys, contributed to a paradigm shift in

the manner of elementary school education in India (Graham, Ordinary Man, Extraordinary

Mission, 76).8 “Mabel Lossing Jones stayed in India as a missionary until 1946 when she

returned to the United States where she continued to do fund raising through writing and

7 An excellent biography of Mabel Lossing Jones and Eunice Jones Mathews entitled, A Love Affair with India: The Story of the Wife and Daughter of E. Stanley Jones by Martha

Gunsalus Chamberlain was published in 2009 by the General Commission on Archives and History of the United Methodist Church.

8 Mabel Lossing Jones corresponded for 25 years with Mahatma Gandhi on a number of educational subjects. Her daughter and late son in law have remained close friends of

Gandhi’s family for the past fifty year.

Figure 9: Jones with Eunice, 1922


speaking to support her school virtually until her death at the age of 100”

(Graham, Ordinary Man, Extraordinary Mission, 104). E. Stanley Jones

once made this comment about his wife’s public speaking gifts:

Mrs. Jones is not known very widely as a speaker and yet she is a

very remarkable speaker. In Dubuque where she spoke a great

deal, I was told at the close of an address, ‘You are good but your

wife is better.’ And it was not said as a joke (Graham, Ordinary

Man, Extraordinary Mission, 74).

While Dr. Jones evangelized among the intellectuals of India, Mabel Jones educated hundreds of

boys, many of whom would grow up to provide leadership in Indian society (Graham, Ordinary

Man, Extraordinary Mission 90). Mabel Jones would write, “The longer I stay in India the more

I am convinced that any work done by a Christian in the spirit of Christ is Christian work just as

much as preaching -- lives often speak louder than words” (Graham, Ordinary Man,

Extraordinary Mission, 91). Her school in Sitapur, India is still thriving, and its support is

supplemented by an endowment that she established during her lifetime with resources, in large

part, saved from her extremely modest missionary salary.9

Figure 11: Mabel reading in Orlando, Florida circa 1965

9 Mabel Lossing Jones’ annual missionary salary was $3,000 per year and her pension far less than that.

Figure 10: Mabel Lossing Jones

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Figure 12: Mabel and Stanley Jones with Eunice, circa 1966

A Need for Healing

After several years in India, E. Stanley Jones began to experience a series of what were described

as mental breakdowns. Jones writes, “My body did not throw off disease as before and I began

to have nervous collapses. As a consequence, at the end of eight and one half years, I was

ordered to go home to America on furlough. So at the end of my first term as a missionary I

ended up with a call and a collapse” (A Song of Ascents 86).

He continues,


I knew I was called to put Christ into the minds and souls and purposes of the intellectual

and political leaders of this new awakening India. But when I looked at my resources –

intellectual, spiritual, physical – there were question marks bordering on dismay. That I

should respond to this call was clear. How I was to do it was far from clear (A Song of

Ascents, 87).

It would appear that Jones’ repeated “breakdowns” were the result of job-related stress (he

served as a District Superintendent, the agent of the Methodist Publishing House in Lucknow

and continued traveling around India as an evangelist), depression, and the lingering physical

effects of tetanus, as well as the physical difficulties of living in India with the intense heat and

ever-present disease. At about this same time, Jones became ill with appendicitis. He would

later acknowledge that he was experiencing inner conflicts and was living and preaching beyond

his experience. (Graham, Ordinary Man, Extraordinary Mission, 108) These factors contributed

massively to his profound spiritual unrest. While Jones left India on furlough in 1916, he found

that upon his return to India in 1917, the physical complaints returned, and Jones felt that he was

finally unable to carry on. In fact, after 8 years in India (and the furlough – for rest and renewal -

in the United States) Jones was mentally, spiritually, and physically exhausted. He believed that

he was done for.10

He writes,

I knew the game was up – I would have to leave the mission field and my work to try to

regain my shattered health. As I knelt in prayer in the Lal Bagh church praying for others

God said to me, “Are you yourself ready for the work to which I have called you?” My

reply: “No, Lord, I’m done for. I’ve reached the end of my resources and I can’t go on.”

“If you’ll turn that problem over to me and not worry about it, I’ll take care of it.” My

eager reply was: “Lord, I close the bargain right here.” I arose from my knees knowing

that I was a well man. (A Song of Ascents, 89).11

Jones now had the spiritual resources to continue his evangelistic work. He was convinced that

these same resources would be available to all who are truly converted. Jones describes this

profound experience of healing as follows:

10 “It is tempting to emphasize the outer psychological and physical aspects of Jones’ ordeal and miss what he later realized as the underlying cause: he faced a spiritual crisis.

Can people pastor themselves? Can they go deeper into God’s love or discern his presence more clearly without the support of community? Brother Stanley’s problem was

that he was trying to be his own encourager. The only spiritual teachings he heard were his own, and they were feeble attempts to communicate the most elementary theology

in a language that he was struggling to learn.” (Demaray and Johnson, Spiritual Formation for Christian Leaders, 15)

11 In Jones’ book, Growing Spiritually, he tells a sequel to the story of his healing. “Pauline Grandstrand, a very saintly woman of prayer, was on furlough in American at the

time (of Jones’ healing), and the Voice of God said to her: ‘Give up everything and go to pray for Stanley Jones.’ The Voice persisted and she canceled her engagement, shut

herself up in her hotel room for a whole day and prayed. By evening the burden had lifted. When we went over the matter and compared times, we found that at the very time

she was on her knees in America the release was coming to me in India. But she knew nothing of what was the matter with me, she only knew the Voice called and she obeyed.

And in that obeying she helped release me from a very real bondage and she helped set me free for these years of service – untrammeled.” (283)


Without that total rescuing from weakness to strength, from confusion to certainty, from

inner conflict to unity, from myself to his Self, I doubt whether I would have had the

nerve to undertake this work to which I had been called. It was too demanding, too

baffling, and too overwhelmingly difficult to match it with bare human resources. As I

look back, I now see that it was good that I should start with so little, for I could take so

much (A Song of Ascents, 90).

Once Jones surrendered his all to Christ, he had the full resources of Jesus available to him.

Jones would often tell his audiences that that he became strongest just where he was weakest,

i.e., in nervous energy. The transformation was finally complete.

A New Beginning

It was in Sitapur that Jones first came into real contact with educated non Christians. A casual

remark by a Hindu judge made him ponder his whole approach to the non Christian world.

Asked by the Judge why Christians seemed only interested in the outcastes of India and not the

high castes or educated classes, he responded that he thought that they would not be interested.

The Judge said, “This is a mistake. We do want you, if you come in the right way.” (Jones, A

Song of Ascents, 86) This comment significantly changed Jones’ focus – for he had to decide

what was really essential and what was non-essential in the cultural and religious system in

which he had grown up as he shared Jesus to the non-Western world. He wrote,

When I first went to India I was trying to hold a very long line --- a line that stretched

from Genesis to Revelation, on to Western Civilization and to the Western Christian

Church. I found myself bobbing up and down that line fighting behind Moses and David

and Jesus and Paul and Western Civilization. There was no well-defined issue. I had the

ill-defined but instinctive feeling that the heart of the matter was being left out. Then I

saw that I could, and should, shorten my line, that I could take my stand at Christ and

before that non Christian world refuse to know anything save Jesus Christ. I saw that

the gospel lies in the person of Jesus, that he himself is the Good News and that my one

task was to live and to present him. My task was simplified. (Christ of the Indian Road,

11-12)

Thus began Jones’ great adventure throughout India. He was speaking constantly to ever

growing audiences of educated non-Christians. He presented Christ as a disentangled Christ,

apart from the trappings of Christianity, apart from Western Civilization. Christ was presented


as a universal Christ, belonging to all cultures and all races and the answer to ALL human need.

His audience was interested in this Christ.

The Rev. Dr. Paul Rees tells an interesting story of first hearing Jones preach at Asbury College

in 1925. He recalls that he had just read Jones’ book, Christ of the Indian Road and was eager to

hear what this evangelist would say. Jones’ sermon began with a reading of 1 Corinthians 3:18-

23.12

There was a kind of quivering excitement about the flowing sequences that formed the

substance of the message: Because you belong to Christ you are immeasurably rich –

“all things are yours.” You don’t belong to things; things belong to you. You don’t

belong to your teachers; they belong to you. If you belong to your teachers they might

manipulate you. Since they belong to you, you are free to learn from them, let them

minister to you. You don’t belong to the world that would be your slavery. The world

belongs to you. That is your stewardship. Life is yours In Christ! Yours to receive, to

invest, to enjoy, to answer for at last. Death is yours. You don’t belong to death as your

fate or your doom. Death belongs to you as having been conquered by the risen Jesus.

The present is yours. You don’t belong to it in any obsessive fashion that fills your mind

with fruitless speculation as to the shape it will take. The future belongs to you, luring

you with Kingdom possibilities tomorrow and imperishable hopes for eternity. All this is

yours because you belong to Christ. All this because you can say in total self surrender,

as indeed Jones himself would often say, “Lord, you’ve got me.”

After the passing of nearly sixty years, I can still see that earnest face those piercing eyes,

that strong set jaw. I can still hear that low key but penetrating voice, those clipped

phrases, those memorable word plays. How can I justify this extensive review and

paraphrase of the first address I ever heard from Jones? I do so on the strength of my

impression that what I heard that day was a remarkable foreshadowing of the basic thesis

and thrust of all that Jones would say and write throughout his long career.

(Transformation, Volume 18, No.4, Winter 1983, 23)

According to Graham, Jones, with no advanced degree and without a real seminary education,

now worked diligently (with the support of the Holy Spirit) to prepare himself for this new task

of preaching Christ to the educated of India. (Ordinary Man, Extraordinary Mission, 112) It was

to Sat Tal, (even long before he had bought the property and turned it into a Christian Ashram),

12 “For all things are yours; whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; and you are Christ’s, and Christ

is God’s.”


that he retired for three months in the summer, where he would spend time preparing a series of

lectures.13

During those three months in the “hills” of India, Jones would spend time reading and

then composing five addresses, down to the last pleasantry that might go into them.

There was nothing casual about his preparation. Then, having spent those three months,

Jones would go down to the plains and spend nine months traveling around to the cities

of India, particularly addressing the intelligentsia. He would give these five lectures five

days of the week. Then on Saturday he would give one of them in a church where he

would train pastors and laity in evangelism. On Sunday he would preach several times,

and then take the Sunday night train to his next stop and there do the same thing over

again the next week. This occurred year in and year out, so that along the way he had

preached in this way in every city of India with a population of 50,000 or more. (Logan,

189-190)

Jones read widely from the religious literature of Hinduism and Islam and became

knowledgeable about current events in India and in the West as well as the contemporary

psychological, religious and philosophical literature relevant to his focus (Graham Ordinary

Man, Extraordinary Mission, 112). Jones would take notes on virtually every conversation or

reading that he believed would help him present the message of Christ to his educated audiences.

Throughout his life, he was a searcher for illustrations and verification of his core message that

self surrender and conversion are necessary for all.

Graham writes:

It was as a result of this intentional involvement with the educated of India that Jones

moved farther and farther away from his narrow and somewhat parochial constraints of

his Wesleyan Holiness background and training. He was beginning to discern that God

was not limited by human concepts of exactly how and to whom the gospel should be

presented (Ordinary Man, Extraordinary Mission 147).14

E. Stanley Jones had a unique three fold approach for presenting Jesus. First, he held his

lectures (they were not called sermons) in public halls, a neutral ground for non Christians. After

the lecture, the next two hours were reserved for questions from the audience. And when he

13 Many of these lectures were ultimately developed into his books.

14 Prabhakar writes that Jones took advantage of the intellectual revolution occurring in India among the educated and used it as a vehicle to present Jesus Christ to the learned

of India. (8)


finished speaking, the questions came and they were hard questions, but he would answer them

well and never in a provocative, testy or argumentative way.15

Figure 13: Jones Preaching

While Jones was not inundated by converts among the educated classes of India, he found that

many practiced Christian principles in their lives and work but did not seek baptism or join a

church. Conservative missionaries asked if these followers of Christian “principles” were really

Christian (Graham, Ordinary Man, Extraordinary Mission, 148). Jones recognized (and

believed) – much to the dismay of some of his fellow missionaries -- that the Holy Spirit could

work through other channels and that Jesus was universalized in the world.

The Holy Spirit is working far beyond the borders of the Christian church. If the church

can bring Christ to India, well and good; if not, then if He comes through other channels,

we say, Amen! (Graham, Ordinary Man, Extraordinary Mission,1 48)

This idea of the universal Christ would be the foundation for Jones’ first book, Christ of the

Indian Road, (1925) which was his effort to create a more culturally inclusive vision of

Christianity (Graham, Ordinary Man, Extraordinary Mission, 186). 16

In this book, as noted

earlier, Jones “preached” a “disentangled Christ” differentiated from Western civilization and

15 Jones ‘ daughter, Eunice Jones Mathews, recalls that, when she first heard her father speak publically before a large non-Christian professional audience, she shuddered as

the audience began to question him only to discover that not only did he “hold his own,” he did a splendid job of responding to the most difficult of questions. She was startled

by his competence and deeply proud! (Personal Communication.) The author had this same experience when she traveled extensively with her grandfather in India (1967) and

Africa (1969).

16 According to Mathews it was almost by chance that Jones became a writer. “It developed by his preaching. The corresponding secretary of the Methodist Board of missions

suggested in 1925 that he incorporate into a book the addresses that he had been delivering all across America the previous year. These were based on his missionary work

among the intellectuals of India, among whom he had developed the unusual rapport. The unexpected result, a month later, was The Christ of the Indian Road, an immediate

best seller. Indeed all of his writings have been proclamation.” (Mathews, Selections from E. Stanley Jones, 16)





unspiritual Europeanism” (Graham, Ordinary Man, Extraordinary Mission 149).17

Jones

believed that India could have Christ without Western civilization (Jones, Christ of the Indian

Road, 17). He made the case that Indian philosophical structures were as valid as Greco-Roman

philosophy for framing an articulation of the Gospel. Jones writes, “As we look back to

Christianity we largely see it through the binoculars of Greek metaphysical and Roman law”

(Christ of the Indian Road, 166). Jones would assert that this Western perspective would limit

the capacity for Christianity to be “naturalized” in India. Instead, we should look to India to

develop the capacity to “universalize” Christianity. Jones writes in Christ of the Indian Road:

The religious genius of India is the richest in the world. As that genius pours itself into

Christian molds it will enrich the collective expression of Christianity. But in order to do

that the Indian must remain Indian. He must stand in the stream of India’s culture and

life and let the force of that stream go through his soul so that the expression of his

Christianity will be essentially Eastern and not Western (203).

Graham clearly understood the power of Jones’ first book and its implications for Christian

missions. He writes:

Christ of the Indian Road was a frontal assault on the cultural prejudices of most

European and American Christian missionaries in the late 19th and early 20

th centuries.

Jones was one of the first Western Christians to realize that in Asia, Africa, and Latin

American the Christian gospel was often betrayed by being enmeshed with the economic

and political self aggrandizement of Western nations. In so doing, Jones declared his

moral and intellectual independence from Western political and religious imperialism

(Ordinary Man, Extraordinary Mission, 159).

Jones first met Mahatma Gandhi in 1919 and apparently in that first conversation, Jones asked

Gandhi this question, “What must Christians do to make Christianity naturalized in India?”

Gandhi replied insightfully, “All Christians must live more like Jesus Christ. You should practice

your religion without adulterating it or toning it down. You should emphasize the love side of

Christianity more, for love is central to Christianity and you must study more sympathetically the

non-Christian religions to find the good in them and to have a more sympathetic approach”

17 In Jones’ autobiography, A Song of Ascents, he relished this particular illustration of the impact on India of the “disentangled Christ.” He writes, “A Hindu principa l of a

college was chairman of one of my meetings and in his closing remarks he said, Jesus has stood four times before the door of India and has knocked. The first time he appeared

he stood in the company of a trader. He knocked. We looked out and saw him and liked him, but we didn’t like his company, so we shut the door. Later he appeared, with a

diplomat on one side and a soldier on the other, and knocked, we looked out and said, we like you, but we don’t like your company. Again we shut the door. The third time was

when he appeared as the up lifter of the outcasts. We like him better in this role, but we weren’t sure of what was behind (this role). Was this the religious side of imperialism?

Again we shut the door. And now he appears before our doors as the disentangled Christ. To this disentangled Christ we say, “Come in. Our doors are open to you” (110).


(Jones, A Song of Ascents 132). While Gandhi never “converted” to Christianity, Jones did find

him to have “Christianized” concepts, and Gandhi’s comments clearly went to the heart of what

would be necessary to have Christianity “naturalized” in India (Appendix 16)

Gandhi, who remained a Hindu, was according to Jones, a representative of this “irregular or

other channel” of Christianity.18

Jones would write in Christ of the Indian Road,

Gandhi’s movement left a new spiritual deposit in the mind of India. The cross has

become intelligible and vital. Up to a few years ago one was preaching against a stone

wall in preaching the cross in India. The doctrine of Karma has little or no room for the

cross in it. But with this teaching of Gandhi that they can joyously take on themselves

suffering for the sake of national ends, there has come into the atmosphere a new

sensitivity to the cross. (78)

Figure 14: A letter from Gandhi to Jones related to Indian Nationalism

India, under Gandhi’s leadership was on the march toward freedom and Jones was involved.

Graham’s book, Ordinary Man, Extraordinary Mission, helps us understand Jones’ response to

the rising Indian nationalism of the 1920s:

18 “Gandhi’s non violent non cooperation was not the cross, but he grasped the principle lying in the cross and dared to apply it on a national scale, betting his life on the validity

of that principle, and won!” (Jones, A Song of Ascents, 140).


Jones was well aware that Western culture and tradition, which shaped and directed his

presentation of the Christian gospel and which he took for granted, were, in fact, an

obstacle to the dissemination of Christianity in India. He knew that if he was going to

reach India for Christ he would have to separate the gospel message from its association

with Western imperialism. He would have to preach a more truly universal Christ (150).

Jones was therefore a careful student of both Indian culture and was sensitive to the impact of his

presence as a missionary. Graham writes that Jones was well aware of what was going on in

India, both spiritually and politically. Jones internalized and used his “awareness” and called

for “all Western Christians in India, beginning with himself, to be more sensitive to the spirit of

Jesus Christ in their adopted country. Jones perhaps surprised many of his Western Christian

colleagues as he recognized the presence of the Holy Spirit in the most unfamiliar places and in

the most unexpected ways as he continued to discover the Christian truth in Hindu theology”

(Ordinary Man, Extraordinary Mission, 167).

The Emergence of a World-Wide Emissary for Christ, Justice, and Peace

During the tumultuous years when India was seeking independence from Britain, Jones would

speak out repeatedly in support of India’s right of self government. As noted earlier Jones was

supportive of the rising Indian nationalism of the 1920s. Jones’ outspokenness resulted in his

being denied (for six years) a visa to return to India during World War II. It was in that interim

that Jones developed the Ashram movement in the United States.19

Once he was able to return to

Indian in 1946, he became “deeply involved in negotiations with the political leaders of the

Congress Party and of the Muslim league, including both Nehru and Jinnah where he focused on

two issues, the deadlock between the Hindus and the Muslims concerning Pakistan and the status

of Christian missionaries in independent India” (Graham, Ordinary Man, Extraordinary Mission,

321). William Pickard writes that Jones’ influence had no small share in establishing religious

freedom in the new constitution of India. (Dough, Sayings of E Stanley Jones, 19) Jones would

insist and was largely successful in ensuring (for a time) that Christian missionaries would be

free to share their faith in India. While he was involved with matters concerning the creation of

Pakistan, Jones, like Gandhi, would be greatly saddened that reconciliation between Hindus and

19 The first Christian Ashram was held in the United States in 1940. The Sat Tal Ashram in India was founded in 1930.


Muslims was so problematic. Jones was a great believer in reconciliation and fellowship among

the various religious groups.

During his time in India, Jones established what he termed the Roundtable Conference as a way

of having fellowship with non-Christians. Jones felt strongly the he had no right to teach others if

he was not learning from them. He writes

I came to India with everything to teach and nothing to learn. I now learn as well, and I

am a better man for having come into contact with the gentle heart of the East. (Christ of

the Roundtable, 48)

These Roundtable dialogues, initiated in the 1930s, would typically include about 30-40 invitees,

generally two-thirds non-Christian and the rest Christian. In introducing the meetings, Jones

would write:

Here we are a group of people more or less religious. We have been using religion as a

working way to live. We have had various approaches to religion – the dogmatic, the

controversial, the traditional and the nationalistic. Let us take an approach more akin to

the method of science. We have all been experimenting with religion as a hypothesis to

solve the problems of life. What have we verified? What has become real to you? Will

you share with us your verification? Tell us what you have found through your faith.

What does it do for you in your everyday life? I suggest that no one argue, no one talk

abstractly, no one discuss the other person’s faith pro or con and no one preach at the rest

of us; but you simply tell us what you have found in your experience (A Song of Ascents,

239).

Jones was intensely interested to learn about the religious experiences of his colleagues at these

Roundtable Conferences. He discovered that it was at the point of experience that Christianity

differentiated itself from Hinduism and Islam. Overall, according to Graham, these Roundtable

conferences provided Jones with immense opportunities to learn from his Hindu and Muslim

friends as he came to appreciate their insights (Ordinary Man, Extraordinary Mission, 183).

Jones writes,

In looking back at the Roundtable approach, I see now how daring and decisive this

approach was: Here we were putting our cards on the table and asking the non Christian

world to do the same. Suppose our ‘hands” with which we were playing the game of life

should turn out to be inadequate; and suppose other ways of life should prove more

adequate. This was a showdown, and the stakes were high. In every situation the trump


card was Jesus Christ. He made the difference. The people who followed him might be

spotty and inadequate, but they had hold of the spotless and adequate or better Christ had

hold of them! (A Song of Ascents, 239-40)

Present day dialogues with non Christian faiths have been heralded as something new, and they

are surely important and E. Stanley Jones held these conversations 80 years ago.20

Not only would Jones support India’s right for freedom from British rule, encourage

reconciliation among the religious groups in India, and strive to learn from his Hindu and

Muslim friends, he was also an outspoken and early critic of segregation in the United States.

Graham comments on the fact that Jones viewed racism as “spiritual treason against God.” He

writes as follows:

I would be remiss if I did not emphasize here what an enormous debt the American civil

rights movement owes to E. Stanley Jones. Almost entirely unknown today is that fact

that Martin Luther King, Jr., learned about Gandhi’s theory and practice of nonviolent

civil disobedience from Jones. While Jones felt that his book on Gandhi was a failure,

King said to him, “It was your book on Gandhi that gave me my first inkling of non

violent cooperation.” However, Jones’ work on behalf of freedom for African Americans

began earlier. In 1944 Jones wrote: “Unless effective measures were taken to end racial

discrimination in the United States, then Negroes, probably joined by whites, may have to

resort to non cooperation, by picking out certain injustices, and then, through volunteers

trained in nonviolent methods, refusing to obey these specific injustices and taking the

consequences of that civil disobedience.” The origin of Jones’ thinking in this regard

was his emphasis on the kingdom of God, a kingdom without prejudice and available to

all. Racism was a form of spiritual treason against God and he was as well aware of the

negative impact that America’s racism would have across the world (Ordinary Man,

Extraordinary Mission, 374).

20 Thirty years before the United Nations came into existence Jones used his Roundtable experience and proposed a Round table of Nations. (Dough, 18)

Figure 15: A copy of E. Stanley Jones' book Mahatma Gandhi as seen in the Martin Luther

King Library. The book contains a handwritten note by King that says, "This is it! This is the

way to achieve freedom for the Negro in America."


Jones’ deep concern for social justice also thrust him into the role of a peace negotiator. Jones’

autobiography and Graham’s biography of Jones tell this story of Jones’ efforts to prevent the

Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor:21

Just prior to the U.S. involvement in the war, Jones became an unofficial negotiator

among diplomats in Washington, D.C. representing Japan, China and the United States

and would meet with President Roosevelt on December 3, 1941 in an 11th

hour off the

record session that came very close to postponing if not preventing the Japanese attack on

Pearl Harbor. The Japanese diplomat Terasaki would later write that the Emperor told

him that if he had received the cablegram from Roosevelt a day sooner he would have

stopped the attack on Pearl Harbor (Graham, Ordinary Man, Extraordinary Mission,

277).

Martin Ross Johnson comments that it was surprising that Jones should have come out as a social

prophet in the way that he did. Given Jones’ profoundly evangelistic and devotional orientation,

it is both extraordinary and extremely significant. Jones’ concern for social justice was both

theoretical and actual and throughout his life he involved himself in social justice activities.

(280)

In the late 1940s Jones increased his evangelistic work in Japan and Scandinavia, and when he

was in his mid-seventies, he expanded into doing evangelistic work in Africa. Jones would say

about his work as an elder statesman, “As the years come and go I feel less and less that I’m

doing things…I’m just letting God do things through me” (Graham Ordinary Man,

Extraordinary Mission, 356). Jones once said “I know Jesus better than I know any other

person.” (Personal Communication) His good friend Bill Pickard would call Jones “a Christ-

intoxicated man.” (Personal Communication)

Pickard writes the following:

Jones traveled among the peoples of the earth, speaking three or more times a day. A

heavy correspondence, writing a book every other year and constant personal counseling

completed a program that went on “round the clock, round the year and round the world”

a miracle of physical achievement. The years did not wear on him, for he was blessed

21 Chapter 6 in The Totalitarian Kingdom of God by Stephen Graham has considerable detail about Jones’ efforts as an unofficial Ambassador of Peace.


with physical stamina, mental vigor, and God’s grace to sustain him in the rugged

schedule he imposed upon himself. (Dough, 20)

Jones was also engaged in the ecumenical movement and in 1947 proposed the model of a

“Federal Union” to bring the churches together. He conducted mass meetings from coast to

coast and spoke in almost five hundred cities, towns and churches about his proposal. He

advocated a system through which denominations could unite as they were, each preserving its

own distinctive emphasis and heritage, but accepting one another and working together in a kind

of federal union patterned after the United State’s system of federal union.

22(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Stanley_Jones)

Well into his 80s E. Stanley Jones continued his world-wide evangelistic work. He would be

nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962 and would receive the Gandhi Peace Award in

1963. Up until the age of 87, E. Stanley Jones kept up his rigorous and active life and over the

course of his ministry, it is estimated that he preached more than 60,000 sermons.23

Figure 16: Jones writing at table

22 Jones reported the following, “My interest in federal union of churches came in a very dramatic and unexpected way. I habitually take an hour off in the evening between

five and six, and if there is the opportunity, I pace up and down in mediation and prayer. In Poona, India, while holding a series of evangelistic meetings, I was pacing up and

down on the mission bungalow veranda, when suddenly, and without anything leading up to it, for I was not thinking of church union and was not particularly interested in it,

was (laid out) this whole plan of the Federal Union of churches, full blown before me. I did not think it out—it was there in its entirety, I cannot say that it came from God, for

that tends to make it sacrosanct and unquestionable. I have no desire for that. But if it didn’t come from God, I don’t know where it came from -- certainly not from me.

(Transformation, Volume 18, No. 4, Winter 1983, 23)

23 Before Jones began any sermon or lecture, he would bow his head in silent prayer reciting this verse from John 15:16. “You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you, and

ordained you, that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain and that whatsoever you shall ask for the Father in my name he may give it to you.”

(Dough, 66)



The Last Year

In December 1971, at the age of 87, while leading a Christian Ashram in Oklahoma City, Jones

suffered a “brain stem” stroke which profoundly impaired him physically but not mentally or

emotionally.24

“The voice that had thrilled thousands with Christ’s Gospel was almost stilled,

reduced to indistinct mumblings.” (Mathews’ postscript in The Divine Yes, 152)25

After months

in rehabilitation hospitals in the Boston area, he returned to India where he learned how to walk

again; preached more than fifty times, despite severe speech difficulties and wrote his final book,

The Divine Yes.26

In this last book, Jones writes movingly of how he picked up the pieces of what

appeared to be the “wreckage of his life” and gave them back to God. He maintains that God

helped him make “a living whole” from that wreckage.27

He would joyously proclaim that not

only has he had the opportunity to preach on how to use defeat and calamity, but now he could

“illustrate” it (The Divine Yes, 117). He saw his stroke as an opportunity, not a catastrophe.

24 The Rev. William Berg visited Jones in the hospital following his stroke and wrote him this letter following the visit: “You have moved me often closer to God and to His task

for me. But the greatest moment and the most moving message came this afternoon in your hospital room; I can almost imagine the angels learning over the parapet of heaven

to catch your words. ‘For sixty five years he’s been sharing Good News. But what will he have to say now?” Then God created your greatest hour of witness, your most ringing

testimony for Christ. Never was your message more clear as you said, ‘Nothing has changed. I’m the same person. I belong to the unshakable Kingdom and to the unchanging

Person. He may heal me, or he may not, but I believe in the divine yes. I see an open door. Perhaps it is to write a book from here. This is not the end but the beginning. Jesus

is Lord!” (Transformation, Volume 18, No. 4, Winter 1983, 16)

25 From his hospital bed in Boston, Jones taught Boston University School of Theology seminary students evangelism. (Personal Communication)

26 Eunice Mathews tells the story of how Jones’ last book was created: “After my father’s stroke in 1970, he was very handicapped by not being able to see anything small such

as print. He was determined to put into manuscript form the fruits of his faith. Since he could not see, he spoke into a cassette tape recorder. His voice was almost

unintelligible. However, a friend painstakingly transcribed the material, but the frequent hospital interruptions made continuity of thought very difficult. He then returned to

India in 1971. The use of Indian stenographers with an imperfect command of English made the manuscript even more disordered and jumbled. Much deciphering was needed.

After my father’s death, the manuscript was brought back to me. It seemed impossible that it could ever be published. We struggled with it for months and nearly gave up.

What my father had wanted to say was scattered throughout the manuscript, but with no form or order. It seemed a hopeless task, and we put it aside. Then almost a year

later, my husband had an idea -- cut up the manuscript paragraph by paragraph and see where the ideas would fall. We did that. We found that most of the material fell into

twelve questions which demanded an affirmative answer of “yes” – the Divine Yes. The manuscript had miraculously fallen into place, or were we led, into an orderly

progression of thought? It was incredible that the paragraphs fit into the twelve categories. They formed a diary—a diary of affliction, if you will and it ended up with the

resurrection note. It was indeed spiritually his last word and testament. (Logan, 201) .

27 Jones son in law, Bishop Mathews tells the story of Jones learning to walk again. “The specialists in Boston said that he would never walk again or preach again. I can

remember vividly how he asked me, “Jim, will you help me walk again?” At first our efforts at Sat Tal were dismal failures. Then we prayed – prayed around the clock for a

week. We fasted and prayed. In addition we used such common sense as we possessed. We built a kind of wooden “track” which prevented his stumbling as it guided his

paralyzed foot. We helped develop a rhythm for the right sequence of movement of feet and cane. At first we counted the cadence for him, but the next day he said, “Don’t

count. I’m counting myself,” but most of all we found all over again that walking is always a matter of faith. To begin our walking lessons we would say to him, “In the name of

Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk!” (Acts 3:6) and he did – at first falteringly, and then a few steps with fuller assurance. After a week, this man who was never supposed to walk

again was walking as far as fifty feet. Finally he could walk as far as half a mile and climb up and down steps too. Moreover, this man who after sixty thousand sermons was

never supposed to preach again and he did preach six times in my hearing within a week. Altogether during his last year he preached about fifty times. I last saw him at the end

of November, 1972. He completed his last book. The Divine Yes, on his eighty-ninth birthday, January 3, 1973. When I last saw him he was walking, walking with God and like

Enoch of old, God took him!” (Mathews postscript in The Divine Yes, 154)


I never dreamed that a stroke that leaves you helpless would be a call to present a Divine

Yes, the universal Yes which meets a universal need. My means of locomotion were

shattered, and I could not recognize my own voice on a Dictaphone. The only hopeful

thing was that my intelligence was unaffected. Everything else had been changed. But I

said to myself, “Nothing has changed! I’m the same person that I was. By prayer, I am

still communicating with the same person. I belong to the same Unshakable Kingdom

and the same Unchanging Person. The glorious thing was that my faith was not

shattered. I was not holding it; it was holding me. Jesus is Lord! I can honestly say that

I wasn’t asking, “My God, why?” I could and I can face the future with him. If it is

hard for me to preach a sermon now; why not be one?” (Jones, The Divine Yes 26).

Jones became that sermon for the last thirteen months of his life as he lived the affirmation of the

Divine Yes. His daughter helped put Jones’ last book together after his death and wrote in the

introduction that she hoped that this book would be of particular help to persons who may be

“seriously or chronically ill, the discouraged, those who feel themselves badly used of life, or

those whose lives seem to have caved in on them” (Jones, The Divine Yes 10). Jones would

consistently affirm in his last book that:

Disease is not the will of God. And God will either cure you now in one of these ways or

give you power to use it until the final cure in the resurrection (The Divine Yes, 9).

In his own suffering, Jones had the power to use the profound disabilities created by his stroke to

glorify God and to show a workable way to live to others – to be thrown back on grace. (Jones,

The Divine Yes, 116)

Six months after his stroke, Jones flew from India to Jerusalem to speak at the First Christian

Ashram World Congress. The Rev. William Berg, a member of the Ashram leadership group,

(and still an active leader at the age of 101) wrote this commentary about Jones’ closing sermon:

In his closing message, his valedictory to his world family which was a most moving and

memorable address, Brother Stanley, with brilliant clarity and Holy Spirit power,

reviewed the foundation of the Ashram movement and its basic principles. Speaking

from his wheelchair and bound by many physical infirmities, he was the living symbol of

liberation and deliverance. Heaven came down and overwhelmed us. On that mountain

top, we caught a glimpse of the Promised Land. (Transformation, Winter, 1983, Vol. 18,

No. 4, 17 and Graham, Ordinary Man, Extraordinary Mission, 380)


Figure 17: First World Ashram Congress, July 1972, with E. Stanley Jones turning the Ashram movement

over to the world

Jones remained engaged in public affairs, or as he would put it, affairs of the Kingdom of God,

almost until the day of his death.28

29

For example, just two weeks before he died, he signed a

letter directed to then President Nixon deploring the bombing in Vietnam. (Graham, Ordinary

Man, Extraordinary Mission, 383)

For sixty years I have thought of one subject, have spoken about that one subject, and

have written about that one subject – a Person, Jesus Christ. After thinking and talking

about one subject for sixty years one should be bored and should want a moral holiday,

want to get away and think of something else. On the contrary, I was never so excited, so

exhilarated, so full of surprise as now. Something new breaks out from Him every day, a

28 A few days before his death, Jones dictated this last entry into his diary, “Dear God - Put thy hand upon us as we go forth knowing that the divine Yes is at last sounded and is

the Yes that affirms all the promises of God. They come to their fruition in him. The world is going to find it out – and what a turning and what an opportunity and what an open

door it will be. In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen” (Jones, The Divine Yes, 150)

29 The Rev. Gordon Hunter, a leader in the Ashram movement wrote in 1983; “Brother Stanley gave me a world view. He was never parochial or provincial, his concern swept

the world and yet he had a passion for the Gospel of every individual. He was above denomination, race, nationality, and culture. He lived out of a suitcase but he was at home

everywhere because he was in Christ. He was a man on a mission. This came home to me at the end of an Ashram in which lives were changed and miracles had taken place.

Many would have liked to hold him, but he simply said, ‘you must let me go now.’ And we watched him with tearful thanks as he got into a waiting car to take him to the airport.

No one can hold a person like that. They must be released for the next assignment in fulfilling God’s plan.” (Transformation Winter, 1983, Vol. 18, no.4, 18)


surprise around every corner, horizons cracking, life popping with novelty and meaning

and value. (Jones, The Word Became Flesh, 51)

Jones died of pneumonia on January 25, 1973 at the age of 89 in the Clara Swain Hospital in

Bareilly, India.

Jones wrote and spoke for the general public. There is little doubt that his words brought hope

and refreshment to multitudes all over the world (Mathews, Selections from E. Stanley Jones,

15). Jones’ writing and preaching did not require people to leave their intellect at the door; his

presentation of Jesus engaged both the intellect and touched humanity’s desire to experience the

living Christ in their lives. When Jones wrote or talked about Jesus, it was as if he knew Jesus

personally and could reach out and touch him. Jones described himself as an evangelist….the

bearer of the Good News of Jesus Christ. The countless illustrations found in his books and

sermons speak to a cross section of humanity and demonstrate, in a multitude of ways, the

transformative impact of Jesus Christ on human existence. Few readers or listeners could miss

identifying with one story or another – virtually all would find stories that touched their lives.

All were offered hope that they too could experience the transformation available through self

surrender and conversion. (Mathews, Selections from E. Stanley Jones, 13-20)

In presenting Jesus as the redeemer of all of life Jones used his wide ranging study of the non

Christian religions, medicine, psychology, philosophy, science, history, and literature to make

the case that the touch of Christ is upon all creation --- that the totality of life was created by

Christ and for Christ. We were all created to live upon the Way. (Mathews-Younes, 295) Jones

would repeatedly tell his audience that the Christian Way is the Way to live. This Way is

written into the nature of reality, into human nature – into all of life. Jones easily moved from

the personal message of self surrender and conversion to the implications of a life in Christ and a

life lived upon the Way.

Figure 18: Jones' ashes--Sat Tal,

India prior to burial



In summary, E. Stanley Jones – the missionary/evangelist spent seventy years traveling

throughout the world in the ministry of Jesus Christ.30 According to his son in law, Bishop

Mathews, “the most salient and spiritually significant characteristics of Stanley Jones were the

spiritually transparency, clarity and persuasiveness of his personal witness for Christ” (Personal

Communication). “For thirty five years I knew him intimately and had occasion to observe him

closely for prolonged periods. He rang true! Once when I asked a Hindu how he was, he replied,

‘As you see me.’ So it was with Brother Stanley, as he was called. He was as you saw him.”

(Mathew’s postscript in The Divine Yes, 156)

While Jones was strongly ecumenical, he was a convinced Methodist all of his life.31

Jones

wrote twenty-eight books and more than 3.5 million copies of his books have been sold and they

have been translated into 30 languages. All proceeds from his books have gone into Christian

projects including the United Christian Ashram. He gave all of his money away! Now nearly 40

years after his death – his books and sermons (many written in the 1930s and 40s) are really not

out of date and with few exceptions are entirely relevant to today’s world. Jones worked to

revolutionize the whole theory and practice of missions to third world nations by disentangling

Christianity from Western political and cultural imperialism. He established hundreds of

Christian Ashrams throughout the world, many of which still meet today.32

E. Stanley Jones was

a crusader for Christian unity, nonstop witness for Christ, and a spokesman for peace, racial

brotherhood, and social justice. He foresaw where the great issues would be and spoke to them

long before they were recognized…often at great unpopularity and even antagonism and derision

to himself. Many consider Jones something of a prophet and his honors – and he did receive

them – were all laid at the feet of Jesus Christ. Jones would readily admit that his quite ordinary

life became extraordinary only because he fully surrendered his life to Jesus Christ! (Graham,

Ordinary Man, Extraordinary Mission, 21).

30 While he visited nearly every country in the world, these are the countries where he spent most of his time: India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia Thailand, Singapore, Palestine, Egypt,

China, Burma, Japan, Korea, Philippines, Australia, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden, South Africa, Fiji, Mexico Cuba, Argentina, Brazil, Canada and the United States. .

31 Bishop Mathews tells this anecdote about his father in law’s enthusiasm for Methodism, “Jones would tell this story about a man who was staying in a hotel. At breakfast

the waitress put before him a luscious dish of strawberries. The man said, ‘Take these away and bring me prunes.’ As Jones concluded his story, he said “As long as there are

people like that in the world, there will be people who do not appreciate Methodism.” (Logan, 187)

32 The Ashram schedule for North America includes several dozen Ashrams of various sizes. One of the largest is in Nova Scotia which averages nearly 1200 participants for a

week each summer.


Figure 19: Jones affirming Jesus is Lord

the life and ministry of e. stanley jones -- by anne mathews-younes

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