The Legacy of E. Stanley Jones

The Legacy of E. Stanley Jones Richard W Taylor "The world's greatest missionary" is what Time magazine W. Stott is probably the brightest and the best") who call for the called E. Stanley [ones.! The Christian Century called him same sort of innovation and who see clearly the instrumental need "the most trusted exponent of evangelism in the American for indigenization, as Jones did, but who lack both specific cultural Church,"2 and later said that "perhaps no Christian leader in understanding and sympathy, and who tend therefore to make America commands a wider popular following than he."? A judgments about particulars of indigenization that are in danger of spokesman of the government of India, when Jones was awarded being bound by a very Western orthodoxy. Perhaps this sort of un the Gandhi Peace Prize, called him "the greatest interpreter of In derstanding of and friendship for a people and their culture can dian affairs in our time," and went on to declare that he had done come only from years of labor-when it comes at all. I venture that more than any other person to bring India and the United States it is a measure of the fruitfulness of Jones's style that many Indian together.! Stephen Neill maintains that "in his great days Jones Christian theologians continue to be stimulated by him-whereas was probably (second to C. F. Andrews alone) the best-known many foreign indigenizers lecture these same theologians on the western Christian in the whole of India.r" Some legacy! limits they must not transgress rather than stimulating them. Missionary, evangelist, India, America, trusted, interpreter, Let us look at some of his innovations-both as examples of pacifist-these are the major dimensions of the Jones legacy. Per his style and approach and because they still have a fruitful sug haps the most admirable aspect of the legacy is that Jones was able gestiveness. I shall take mainly the Indian contributions because I to keep all these dimensions together-each enriching the others. am inclined to hope that I understand their significance better. And he was remarkably creative in interrelating these dimensions. He had an awesomely synthetic mind, and the ability to gather The Indian Christ" people around him who had fresh and timely ideas to contribute. There are not many missionaries like that any more. Times have Stanley Jones's first book, written out of his wide experience as an changed. But there is still much that we can learn from him. evangelist to educated Indians, was TheChristoftheIndian Roadpub- . Eli Stanley Jones was born in Maryland in 1884. He went to lished in 1925.9 It developed out of articles he had written and his Asbury College, felt called to be a missionary and evangelist, and many public talks throughout India and North America. Here, at a" arrived in India in 1907 as a Methodist missionary. In 1911 Jones time when Indian nationalism was on the rise, he wrote: married a colleague, Mabel Lossing, in Lucknow where they were both stationed. She had been teaching in Isabella Thoburn College. Christianity must be defined as Christ, not the Old Testament, not Soon after their marriage they moved to Sitapur where she contin Western civilization, not even the system built around him in the ued to serve as an educational missionary until their retirement. West, but Christ himself, and to be a Christian is to follow him.... He died at Bareilly in Northern India in 1973. Their only child is Christ must be in an Indian setting. It must be the Christ of the Indi an Road.... Christ must not seem a Western Partisan ... but a Eunice Jones Mathews, whose husband is United Methodist Bishop Brother of Men. We would welcome to our fellowship the modern James K. Mathews. equivalent of the Zealot, the nationalist, even as our Master did.'? In the early years of his residence in India, Jones had a physi cal breakdown and a difficult emotional time along with it. Then The fact is, most missionaries and Indian Christians in the he had a fresh religious experience and commitment-and never churches still led by them were supporting the British empire and looked back. In 1928 he was elected a bishop by the Methodist opposing the Indian national movement. General Conference in the U.S.A., but resigned the next morning About theology, he wrote: before his consecration-feeling called to continue as a missionary evangelist. By 1930 his Methodist appointment was "Evangelist We want the East to keep its own soul-only thus can it be creative: at-large for India and the world."? We are not there to plaster Western civilization upon the East, to Stanley Jones was above all a brilliantly innovative evangelist. make it a pale copy of ourselves.... We are not there to give its He was innovative principally in relation to culture and context. people a blocked-off, rigid, ecclesiastical and theological system, His legacy to us is both his style and approach, on the one hand, saying to them, "Take that in its entirety or nothing." Jesus is the and his remarkable innovations on the other. His style was Indian gospel-he himself is the good news. Men went out in those early izing and de-Westernizing in the cultural, social, economic, and days and preached Jesus and the resurrection-a risen Jesus .... We political spheres-all treated evangelically. It was timely-he usu have added a good deal to the central message-Jesus.... Jesus is ally dealt with current questions and problems. This style was universal. He can stand the shock of transplantation. He appeals to the universal heart.... We will give them Christ, and urge them to based on deep and extensive immersion in many aspects of con interpret him through their own genius and life. Then the interpre temporary Indian culture-much of it outside the confines of the tation will be first-hand and ~ital.ll church. And it was based on great sympathy for and empathy with those he met in this immersion. In this way Jones's style differs Further on Jones writes of Christ: "He and the facts not only' crucially from that of some other evangelicals (of whom John R. command us to go, but he, standing in the East, beckons us to come. He is there-deeply there, before us. We not only take him; we go to him.... We take them Christ-we go to him.//12 While this sounds like something Roland Allen wrote earlier.P Jones had Richard W Taylor, a United Methodist missionary, is Senior Associate Director (Re the wit and courage to make it specific to his field of work and search) of the Christian Institute for the Study of Religion and Society, Bangalore, India. thought. In this passage Jones quotes much of the second half of 102 International Bulletin of Missionary Research Matthew 25 too. So he is seeing Christ already there in the hungry, Jones and the interreligious dialogue of much more recent concern. thirsty, naked, and sick. I am inclined to see here a seed of what Jones got the idea for his Round Tables from a tea party host became a major South Asian contribution to ecumenical theologi ed by a leading Hindu before one of his evangelistic lectures;'? The cal thinking in the late 1950s and early 1960s by thinkers who had other guests asked him various religious questions in that very civ been reared on Jones's thinking and preaching-heard most clear il social gathering. It became clear to Jones that "they wanted to know ly, perhaps, in the New Delhi Assembly of the World Council of about [the] Christ of experience. "20 "Round Table conferences" .must Churches in 1961,14 where the importance of seeing Christ at work have been very much in the intellectual air. Jones was advocating in the world was stressed. them as a part of his concern for reconciliation in international af In the heart of the following paragraph Jones has buried a re fairs. The British government was proposing one on Indian consti markable picture of his Christ of the Indian Road: tutional reforms in response to Indian nationalism. With his remarkable sensitivity to people and times Jones picked up this A friend of mine was talking to a Brahman gentleman when the term for what it was clearly timely for him to do. The invited Brahman turned to him and said, "I don't like the Christ of your group of about fifteen members of other faiths and five or six creeds and the Christ of your churches." My friend quietly replied, Christians would sit in a circle. Jones would suggest that they use "Then how would you like the Christ of the Indian Road?" The the then popular "scientific method" of experimentation, verifica Brahman thought a moment, mentally picturing the Christ of the tion, and sharing of results. He really called for the sharing of reli Indian Road-he saw him dressed in Sadhu's garments, seated by the wayside with the crowds about him, putting his hands upon the gious experience in daily life. He suggested that no one argue and heads of the poor, unclean lepers who fell at his feet, announcing that no one talk abstractly. He also suggested that differences the good tidings of the Kingdom to stricken folks, staggering up a should not be suppressed to preserve the friendly atmosphere. Ev lone hill with a broken heart and dying upon a wayside cross for eryone should feel free, as in a family circle.

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