Dr. E. Stanley Jones, distinguished missionary, evangelist and author is one of the most widely known and best loved Christians in the world today. Few living men have had the opportunity to observe at first hand in such numbers, men and women with their individual problems, and nations with their collective problems.

World Outlook in their citation of Dr. Jones as “Methodist of the Year, 1959” called him “missionary extraordinary.” For over a half century as a missionary to India and the East, he has travelled incessantly on evangelistic tours to the Far East, Malaya, North and South America, Europe, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Alaska. Since the war he has spent six months each year in America and six months overseas.

Every other year he spends three months in Japan, and in five visits over 115,000 people signed decision cards to become Christians. His Christian Missions and Ashrams (Retreats) have brought him into intimate contact with people in all walks of life, both in the East and in the West. It is often said of Dr. Jones that his genius lies in lifting new horizons.

Because he has the gift of communication, both in writing and speaking, he has influenced the lives of untold numbers of people. As a religious writer his twenty-two books have been translated into more than thirty languages. Two have sold about a million copies each.

After spending his apprenticeship years as missionary to India, he returned home on furlough and wrote a report of his years of service - what he had taught and what he had learned in that land of complexities which is India. It was published in book form, entitled The Christ of the Indian Road and became a best seller. Other notable books which followed, at the rate of one every other year, include Mastery, Abundant Living, The Way to Power and Poise, Mahatma Gandhi, Growing Spiritually, How To Be a Transformed Person, Christian Maturity and Conversion. A doctor said he gave copies of Abundant Living to over a thousand patients as “therapy.” Certain books or single chapters are required reading in various theological seminaries or in degree courses at government colleges in parts of the world. They are read around jungle fires and have been studied by armies and governments.

Dr. Jones was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and educated at Ashbury College in Kentucky. As a college undergraduate he urged his fellow students on the campus to devote their lives to following in the foorsteps of the Apostles and to going to the four corners of the earth with the Gospel of Christ. He ended his student days by following his own advice.

He went to India as a missionary in 1907. There he says his great concern was to help India see in Jesus what he saw. Up to then missionary work had been mainly among the out-castes and the low-castes. But the intellectuals among the highcaste Hindus and Mohammedans became interested in Dr. Jones’ interpretation of Christ and invited him to talk about Jesus at ancient universities and before learned societies.

At one such meeting their leader said, “We may not agree with what Dr. Jones is saying, but we can certainly all try to be like Jesus Christ.” On another occasion, without preparation, he answered intricate questions directed to him by twelve Brahman lawyers. For four hours, before an audience of 2000 people, he defended Christian doctrine by quoting the Bible from memory.

His respect for the culture and learning of a civilization that had been centuries in developing won for him a courteous and sympathetic reception. His message was Christ, without any implications that Christianity is synonymous with Western civilization or Western forms of Christianity. He developed many missions, founded schools and built a theological seminary in India. He has supported much of this work through his own efforts. Each year Mrs. Jones, through her own efforts, provides scholarships for about 600 boys in schools in India.

His great influence in the East, as well as his frequent contacts with rulers and religious and government leaders . . . the Emperor of Japan, Gandhi, Nehru and Viceroys of India, have given him a unique role as a “reconciler”. The story of his efforts as a go-between for the members of the Japanese Embassy, who belonged to the Peace Party, and President Roosevelt may be read in Gwen Terasaki’s Bridge to the sun, or in its condensation in the Reader’s Digest (September, 1957).

He brought together the two factions of the Methodist Church in Korea, thus avoiding a split. Both parties accepted his suggested solution and remained in one church. Another of his labours was that of reconciling the High Church Party and the Evangelical Party in the Mar Thoma Church of South India.

Dr. Jones has tried to unite the churches of America by the principle of Federal Union. There would be one church — The Church of Jesus Christ in America — but under the one church there would be Branches; the Episcopal Branch of the Church of Jesus Christ in America, the Baptist Branch, the Lutheran Branch, The Nazarene Branch, etc. There would be union, but within these Branches there would be local self-government. He has spoken on Federal Union in over four hundred cities. In advocating Federal Union he seeks not only Christian unity, but the preservation of the individual contribution which each Church has to give to the rest.

He established a Christian Psychiatric Centre in India, introducing psychiatry into India on a Christian rather than a pagan basis. This Centre now has adequate facilities to house this experiment in healing love for emotionally and mentally upset people. It is the first of its kind in India.

Dr. Jones has established Christian Ashrams around the world, beginning in India, spreading to America, Japan, Africa and Europe. At these Ashrams the members strive not to find an answer, but to be the answer in their corporate life. They try to be the Kingdom in miniature, the Word become flesh in a group. After a week about ninety-five percent of the people attending the Ashrams go away transformed. “Little Ashrams” are springing up as an important development and through them he and his associates hope to make the Ashrams a permeative movement in the life of the churches.

Although Dr. Jones is well-known and well-loved as a missionary and author, he prefers to be called an evangelist, which he translates as “the bearer of Good News.” In 1928, he was elected a Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church. After prayerful thought, he returned to the Conference on the following morning and resigned. He was deeply grateful for the honor bestowed upon him, but after having surrendered his life to Christian Evangelism, he felt called upon to go on with his world wide-work among people who had not yet found The Way. The success of Dr. Jones’ work is the amazing story of a man who has poured his life into the task of making Christianity a real and vital force in the life of the individual, the community and the nation. Although originally appointed and supported by the Methodist Church, he was given freedom to broaden his evangelistic programme until it became interdenominational and world-wide.

To find the key to his life we have to go back more than forty years. He had then served eight years in India as pastor of a church, as publishing agent, and as district superintendent. The strain brought on nervous exhaustion. He returned to the United States for a furlough year. Going back to India his illness returned. He twice tried to resume work, and each time collapse followed. He went to a hill sanitarium, knowing that he must receive help or return to America and try on a farm to regain his health.

One day the inner Voice said to him, “Are you ready for this work to which I have called you?” He replied, “No. Lord, I am done for. I have reached the end of my resources.” The Voice said, “If you will turn that over to me and not worry about it, I will take care of it.” He answered quickly, “Lord, I close the bargain right here.” He comments, “A great peace settled into my heart and pervaded me. I seemed possessed by Life and Peace and Rest — by Christ Himself.”

There, in that experience, the E. Stanley Jones we know was born. In the crowded years since, he has never missed an engagement because of his health. He spends from January to June in evangelistic work overseas. He always returns to his beloved India, which he regards as the most critical field in the world today. The remaining time he gives to Africa, or Japan and Korea, and other out-posts of Christianity.

Each June he returns to America where one engagement follows another from the day of his arrival — eight Ashrams from New England to California, and fifteen to twenty Christian Missions interspersed with as many as thirty mass meetings in his Crusade for a United Church. Since 1947, he has given a tithe of his time to carrying the plea for Christian unity through Federal Union to every one of the fifty states. A heavy correspondence, writing a book every other year, and constant personal counselling complete a programme that goes on ‘round the clock’, ‘round the year’, and ‘round the world’ — a miracle of physical achievement! 

Stanley Jones seeks in his personal life to emulate the Christ he serves. He is a very humble man, a man of prayer and great devotion. He is a world statesman of Christianity, yet he says simply, “I am a Christian in the making.” His prayer has been for grace and power to win others for Christ. The years have not wearied him, for he has been blessed with the physical stamina and mental vigor to sustain him in the rugged schedule he imposes upon himself.

When one hears his earnest message, one feels the impact of a sincere personal prayer, “Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in Heaven — beginning with me.”

Methodist Message
April 1963