E. Stanley Jones

Greetings,

Following a trip in March to Mt. Olivet Cemetery and its Bishop’s Lot, I was asked to comment on E. Stanley Jones, whose devotional book The Way I have frequently referred to in these e-mails. My return trip there today reminded me of that, and so I send this information.

Eli Stanley Jones was a renowned missionary to India, a prolific popular writer of Christian devotionals and commentaries, and an influential Methodist leader world wide.  He was born in 1884 in Clarksville, Maryland, and grew up in Baltimore where he attended Baltimore City College for high school.  He was a member of the Memorial Methodist Church on Frederick Avenue in West Baltimore (just one block west of Hilton Street).  As a teenager he responded to an altar call during a Methodist revival meeting.  According to his testimony, however, he did not "experience" his conversion until a service two years later.  Of that first service, he said, "I fumbled for the latchstring of the Kingdom of God, missed it ....[and] took church membership as a substitute."  After the second experience he never looked back, but followed Christ step by step.  He early on discovered the joy of “reading and writing,” which he would maintain throughout his life. 

He was teaching at Asbury College when the Board of Missions of the then Methodist Episcopal Church asked him to go to India in 1907.  Other than furloughs home, which became few and far between, he spent the next 66 years in India.  Jones was instrumental in defending the importance of an indigenous proclamation of the Gospel in mission work.  His Christian Ashram at Lucknow was a community committed to an indigenous expression of the Gospel, mutual spiritual responsibility, racial and caste equality, and economic sharing.  He wrote, "Christianity must be defined as Christ, not the Old Testament, not Western civilization, not even the system built around him in the West, but Christ himself and to be Christian is to follow him.”  A careful student of Indian culture, his message was influential among the upper and lower castes and he became, in effect, a missionary to all of India.  His first book, Christ of the Indian Road (1925), was translated into thirty languages.  His many other devotional books (he wrote 29 books) have inspired millions of Christians around the world.

Jones’ strong calling to mission work led him to turn down the office of bishop after his election by the 1928 General Conference.  He said, “If I go on and receive the consecration to the office of bishop my evangelistic work as I have carried it on is practically at an end.  I see very clearly now the issue before me, and I do not feel that any price I could pay would be great enough to cancel that.”  He became a friend of Gandhi, and a supporter of the Indian people in all their efforts to better themselves.  His life and work touched such diverse people as Presidents of the United States, and foreign leaders, Billy Graham and Martin Luther King, Jr., leaders of Christianity around the world and me. 

His daughter Eunice married a young U. S. Methodist missionary in India, James K. Mathews, who later became a bishop and served as the Bishop of the Baltimore Conference.  We had the privilege of knowing Bishop and Mrs. Matthews, and were able to arrange for them to have dinner with our lectionary group, so they could hear first hand the accounts of her father.

E. Stanley Jones died in India on January 25, 1973.  Half of his ashes were interred at the Ashram in Lucknow, and half were sent to America to be interred in the “Bishop’s plot” at Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Baltimore, along side of  Francis Asbury, Robert Strawbridge and other great leaders of the United Methodist Church. 

I think it was in 1955 or 1958 that I first heard E. Stanley Jones speak in person.  He was visiting his home church and gave a talk about his work in India and also delivered a sermon in a worship service.  I heard him other times and at a Conference program.  I do not remember him as the greatest preacher I ever heard, but he was certainly one of the most striking, dynamic speakers I have heard.  He was not an imposing figure to look at, but he had a riveting presence, and one hung on every word.  He truly was Christ-like.  One felt the love radiating through him.  I highly recommend his writings to anyone who wants to grow spiritually.  His Abundant Living was a major, early influence on my life.  His work, in India, the United States, and wherever people would look to Christ, continues today.

Yours & His,

DED