E. Stanley Jones books

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2015

Books and other materials by and about E. Stanley Jones

E. Stanley Jones is on the web and on social media!

• Go to www.estanleyjonesfoundation.org

• Like E. Stanley Jones’ Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/EStanley-Jones/115460151836697

• Sign up to follow ESJ’s twitter account at www.twitter.com/E_StanleyJones

This list highlights those books/pamphlets/videos currently in print/available and which source on the Internet is cheapest. If you are ordering for your Ashram, you can often get books in bulk by telephoning the United Christian Ashram central office at 318-232-004 or by emailing them at uca@christianashram.org

Newest materials available: The newest books now in print are a series of books published by Abingdon Press including The Christ of the Indian Road (2014), Abundant Living (2014), The Way (2015) and How to Pray (2015).

E. Stanley Jones books and classics are now available through NookBooks on Barnes and Noble and Kindle on Amazon.com. 

There are a few collections available for free online as well. For example, at www.archive.org you can read or print in PDF format: The Christ of American Road, Mahatma Gandhi: An Interpretation; and Along the Indian Road among others.

Living Upon the Way by Anne Mathews-Younes, the grand-daughter of E. Stanley Jones, is a treasure book and CD of transcriptions and audio recordings of fifteen sermons of E. Stanley Jones. These sermons are also available at http://evangelismresources.org/content/livingupon-way-full-web-release-exclusive

E. Stanley Jones' wonderful biography by Stephen Graham entitled Ordinary Man,

Extraordinary Mission: The Life and Work of E. Stanley Jones is also available. And to learn more about Brother Stanley's life and thinking, read his autobiography

 A Song of Ascents: A Spiritual Autobiography. It is wonderfully inspirational.

A Fisherman for God or Selected Messages are an excellent introduction to E. Stanley Jones and the United Christian Ashram movement. 

You can get these and other videos through the UCA website at www.christianashram.org.

Books Currently in Print [at the most reasonable price]

Abundant Living (2014) (A) www.cokesbury.com $11.04

La Vida Abundante (2010) (P) www.christianbook.com $ 8.99

Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent www.cokesbury.com $17.28

 And Easter (PL)

Christ of the Indian Road (2014) (A) www.cokesbury.com $11.04

The Christ of the Mount (SC) www.amazon.com $32.75

E. Stanley Jones Had a Wife:

 The Life and Mission of

 Mabel Lossing Jones (SP) www.amazon.com $38.99

Holiness Teaching Today, Volume 6

 (BHP) www.christianbook.com $29.99

How to Pray (2015) (A) www.cokesbury.com $ 8.83

In Christ (G) www.amazon.com $12.56

Living Upon the Way (L)

Book only www.christianashram.org $10.00

Book and CD www.cokesbury.com $20.00

A Love Affair with India: www.amazon.com $12.00

 The Story of the Wife and Daughter

 of E. Stanley Jones (UMW)

Mahatma Gandhi: An Interpretation (FB) www.amazon.com $ 7.93

Ordinary Man, Extraordinary Mission (A) www.cokesbury.com $14.73

The Pact of Paris: The General Pact for

 the Renunciation of War: Volume I (N) www.amazon.com $27.86

Selected Messages from

 E. Stanley Jones (DVD) www.amazon.com $12.99

A Song of Ascents (A) www.cokesbury.com $22.77

The Unshakeable Kingdom and the

 Unchanging Person (M) www.amazon.com $12.80

Unchanging and Unshakeable (2013) (X) www.amazon.com $15.49

The Way (2015) (A) www.cokesbury.com $11.04

They Walked in the Spirit (W/JK) www.christianbook.com $27.00

The Word Become Flesh (A) www.christianashram.org $10.00

Victorious Living (2014) (A) www.cokesbury.com $11.04

A=Abingdon Press

FB=Forgotten Books

G=Grace Press

L=Lucknow Publishing House

M=McNett

N=Nabu Press

P=Peniel

PL=Plough Publishing House

SP=Scarecrow Press

UMW = United Methodist Women

W/JK= Westminster/ John Knox

X=Xulon Press

Out-of-Print Editions of Materials Currently Available New

Gandhi: Portrayal of A Friend www.christianashram.org $ 2.50

Selections from E. Stanley Jones www.christianahsram.org $ 2.50

The Way to Power and Poise www.christianashram.org $ 2.50

Conversion www.christianashram.org $ 2.50

Victory Through Surrender www.christianashram.org $ 5.00

Also available are over 100 audio CDs of E. Stanley Jones sermons.

E. Stanley Jones Books available Electronically or Online:

Kindle and/or Nook Books

The Way

The Christ of the Indian Road

Abundant Living

Victorious Living

Along the Indian Road

Mahatma Gandhi

Free online at www.archive.org:

Along the Indian Road

The Christ of the American Road

The Christ of the Mount: A Working

Way of Life

Mahatma Gandhi: An Interpretation

Victorious Living

E. Stanley Jones Books currently only available used:

To find these materials, simply go online to Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com or

alibris.com and type in the title you want or E. Stanley Jones in the section marked used books and pamphlets. You can also sometimes find new or nearly new books in this way.

Along the Indian Road

The Contribution of E. Stanley Jones

The Choice Before Us

Christ and Human Suffering

Christ at the Round Table

Christian Maturity

Christ’s Alternative to Communism

Christ of Every Road

Christ of the American Road

The Divine Yes

El Camino

How Does God Guide Us?

Growing Spiritually

How to be a Transformed Person

The Indian Interpretation of Christ

Is the Kingdom of God Realism?

Mastery

Motives of Evangelism

The Motive and End of Christian Missions

The Reconstruction of the Church: On What Pattern?

Sayings of E. Stanley Jones: A Treasury of Wit and Wisdom

Spiritual Formation of Christian

Leaders: Lessons from the Life and

Teaching of E. Stanley Jones

The Strength of Sacrificial Love or The

Cross of Jesus Christ – What Does It Mean?

Together

The Totalitarian Kingdom of God

Victory through Surrender

When Sorrow Comes

365 Days with E. Stanley Jones

Multilingual Language Versions:

• The Way: Available in Spanish El Camino (2010)

• Abundant Living Available in Spanish La Vida Abundante (2010)

Past additions are also available in Korean, Japanese, German, Finnish, Hindi and so on.

Other Ashram Related Materials

You can get at low or no cost many Christian Ashram related materials that you will find helpful for your local Christian Ashram. Go to www.christianashram.org for more.

Biographical and Various Other Resources with References to E.

Stanley Jones and his Life and Thought

• Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter (2003) by Various Authors

• The Christ of the Bible Way: On the Christ of the Indian Road by Stanley Jones:

Being Criticism of His Book (1929) by R. Cookson.

• Communicating Christ in India (1998) by Martin Paul Alphonse.

• The Contribution of E. Stanley Jones (1973) by Richard W. Taylor. The Christian

Literature Society.

• Devotional Classics (1990) by Richard Foster.

• E. Stanley Jones Had a Wife: The Life and Mission of Mabel Lossing Jones (2007)

by Katherine Reese Henderson.

• Holiness Teaching Today, Volume 6 (1987) by Alfred F. Harper. Beacon Hill Press.

• Living Upon the Way: Selected Sermons of E. Stanley Jones on Self-Surrender and Conversion (2008) by Anne Younes-Matthews.

• A Love Affair with India: The Story of the Wife and Daughter of E. Stanley Jones

(2009) by Martha Chamberlain.

• Missionary of the Indian Road: The Theology of Stanley Jones (1996) by Paul A. J. Martin. Cambridge Theological Book Trust.

• Ordinary Man, Extraordinary Mission (2005) by Stephen Graham.

• A Song of Ascents (1968) by E. Stanley Jones

• Spiritual Formation of Christian Leaders: Lessons from the Life and Teaching of E. Stanley Jones (2007) by Donald Demaray and Reginald Johnson.

• The Totalitarian Kingdom of God (1998) by Stephen Graham.

• They Walked in the Spirit (1997) by Douglas Cook.

• A Treasury of Great Preaching (1995) by Clyde E. Fant and William M. Pinson

• Unchanging and Unshakeable (2013) by Al Jansen

Mahatma Gandhi An Interpretation : E. Stanley Jones : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Mahatma Gandhi An Interpretation : E. Stanley Jones : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Mahatma Gandhi An Interpretation

by E. Stanley Jones

Gandhi : portrayal of a friend : Jones, E. Stanley (Eli Stanley), not Download, borrow only

Gandhi : portrayal of a friend : Jones, E. Stanley (Eli Stanley), 1884-1973 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

borrowable only

Christ of the American Road: E. Stanley Jones, India, and Civil Rights | Journal of American Studies | Cambridge Core

Christ of the American Road: E. Stanley Jones, India, and Civil Rights | Journal of American Studies | Cambridge Core



Christ of the American Road: E. Stanley Jones, India, and Civil Rights


Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 October 2017
DAVID R. SWARTZ
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Abstract


This article, which emphasizes the importance of transnational history, tracks the influence of E. Stanley Jones, a missionary to India in the early twentieth century, on evangelicals in the United States. It contends that global encounters pushed Jones to hold integrated ashrams, conduct evangelistic crusades, and participate in the Congress on Racial Equality. During his time abroad, he discovered that racial segregation at home hurt the causes of missions and democracy abroad. Using this Cold War logic, Jones in turn provoked American evangelicals to consider more fully questions of racial inequality.
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Journal of American Studies , Volume 51 , Special Issue 4: Exploring the Global History of American Evangelicalism , November 2017 , pp. 1117 - 1138
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021875816001420[Opens in a new window]
CopyrightCopyright © Cambridge University Press and British Association for American Studies 2017

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References

1


For “cantankerous conservatism” see Jones, E. Stanley, A Song of Ascents: A Spiritual Autobiography (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1958), 67 Google Scholar. On integration at Asbury see Thacker, Joseph A., Asbury College: Vision and Miracle (Nappanee, IN: Evangel Press, 1990), 202–3Google Scholar.

2


E. Stanley Jones, “Integration,” Chapel address at Asbury College, 16 Oct. 1958; Myrdal, Gunnar, An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1944)Google Scholar.

3


For “breath-taking” see Jones circular letter, 28 Jan. 1959, Box 10, Folder 9, E. Stanley Jones Papers, ARC 2000-007, Asbury Theological Seminary Special Collections.

4


On the Asbury students’ visit to Sat Tal Ashram see Graham, Stephen A., Ordinary Man, Extraordinary Mission: The Life and Work of E. Stanley Jones (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2005), 212–13Google Scholar. On “India's curse” see “India's Conscience Awakened over Untouchables,” The Journal, 8 March 1934. On the “American caste system” see “Stanley Jones Startles South,” Christian Century, 50, 15 (12 April 1933), 510 Google Scholar. Clippings of both articles are in Box 40, Folder 2, ATSSC.

5


For examples of “soul-winning” see Jones, E. Stanley, Christ of the Indian Road (New York: Abingdon Press, 1925), 84, 105Google Scholar.

6


For “Eastern travellers” see ibid., 6. For “Indian setting” see ibid., 26. For “international meddlers” see ibid., 42. For “disentangle Christ” see Jones, E. Stanley, Christ of the Mount: A Working Philosophy of Life (New York: Abingdon Press, 1931), 11 Google Scholar. For “total setting of the world” see Jones, E. Stanley, Christ of the American Road (Nashville: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1944), 9 Google Scholar.

7


On the strength of communism in India see Horne, Gerald, The End of Empires: African Americans and India (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2008), 189 Google Scholar. On Jones's anticommunist work at the Sat Tal Ashram and in Kerala see Jones circular letters, 18 June 1952 and 26 June 1954, Box 19, Folder 53, ATSSC.

8


For Bowles and “repeatedly zeroed in on Jim Crow” see Horne, 198. For Jones's rattlesnake analogy see E. Stanley Jones, “What Have the Churches to Offer,” no date, Box 21, Folder 10. Also see Jones, “History in the Making in India” (1946), Box 19, Folder 2, ATSSC. For “native land” see NBC radio broadcast, Feb. 17 of an unknown year, Box 33, Folder 21, ATSSC.

9


For India's “curse” see “India's Conscience Awakened over Untouchables,” The Journal, 8 March 1934, Box 40, Folder 2, ATSSC. Barbara Brady, “Just Plain Missionary,” Sunday Digest (David C. Cook), 9 Oct. 1955, Box 44, Folder 7, ATSSC. On the ashram at Travancore see Jones, Christ of the Indian Road, 243–44. On Jones's influence see Immerwahr, Daniel, “Caste or Colony? Indianizing Race in the United States,” Modern Intellectual History, 4, 2 (2007), 275–301, 290–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For “more Christian and more Indian” see Yates, Timothy, Christian Mission in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 114 Google Scholar. For Jones's poem “I Took My Lamp” and its background see Jones, Christ of the Indian Road, 164; Taylor, Richard W., “The Legacy of E. Stanley Jones,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research, 6 (July 1982), 102 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, in “600 Faculty/Staff: E. Stanley Jones Biographical,” Asbury University Archives. For Jones on Gandhi see Jones circular letter, 1 Oct. 1926, Box 10, Folder 6, ATSSC, underlining in original.

10


For “truly Christian and truly Indian” see Jones quoted in Taylor, 102. The description of Sat Tal comes from Dorothy Speer, “The Ashram at Sat Tal,” Woman's Missionary Friend, Nov. 1934, 367–68; “Indian Witness,” 6 June 1963, Box 40, Folder 2, ATSSC.

11


For “Indian genius and life” see Jones circular letter, 3 July 1930, Box 10, Folder 7, ATSSC. On meals at Sat Tal see Jones circular letter, 3 July 1930, Box 10, Folder 7, ATSSC. On clothing at Sat Tal see Taylor, 102; Vivian Weeks Dudley, “Indian Night: A Story of the E. Stanley Jones Ashram,” World Outlook, Feb. 1939, 52–55, 39, Box 44, Folder 3, ATSSC.

12


For “Morning of the Open Heart” see “What Is an Ashram,” Box 17, Folder 4, ATSSC. For ashram inscriptions see “Statements Appearing on the Walls at the Sat-Tal Ashram in India,” no date, Box 17, Folder 4, ATSSC. On work practices see “Beautiful Sat Tal,” no date, Box 17, Folder 4, ATSSC. For “foretaste” see “And What Is an Ashram?”, Box 44, Folder 54, ATSSC.

13


For “great summer” see Jones circular letter, 30 June 1931, Box 10, Folder 7, ATSSC. For “kingdom in miniature” see “What Is an Ashram,” Box 17, Folder 4. For “haven of brotherhood” see “The Ashram,” 1934, Box 17, Folder 4. For other reflections on Sat Tal see Jones circular letter, 3 July 1930, Box 10, Folder 7; Dorothy Speer, “The Ashram at Sat Tal,” Woman's Missionary Friend, Nov. 1934, 367–68, Box 17, Folder 4, ATSSC.

14


For a description of Jones as rooted in the “experiential piety of historic Methodism see Bill Kostlevy's 2001 biographical sketch in “E. Stanley Jones ARC 2000–007 Finding Aid,” 2012, ATSSC. For Jones's exchange with the Texas pastor see Graham, Ordinary Man, 282–83.

15


On Jones not returning to India see “Stanley Jones Barred from Return to India,” 25 April 1945, Box 40, Folder 2. E. Stanley Jones, “Why I Do Not Return to India at Present,” Box 4, Folder 1. For “caste is doomed” see Jones, “After India's Independence – What?”, Box 18, Folder 3, ATSSC. For other Protestant condemnations of “caste” see Gallagher, Buell, Color and Conscience: The Irrepressible Conflict (New York: Harper & Bros, 1946)Google Scholar; Du Bois, W. E. B., Color and Democracy: Colonies and Peace (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1945), 137 Google Scholar. On the varied use of “caste” by Indian and American activists see Immerwahr, 276, 283–85.

16


Manis, Andrew, Macon Black and White: An Unutterable Separation in the American Century (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2004), 139–40Google Scholar; Horne, End of Empires, 158, 163–65; White, Walter, A Rising Wind (Garden City, NJ: Doubleday, 1945)Google Scholar.

17


For “false America” see Jones, Christ of the American Road, 75–79, 95–98. Also see E. Stanley Jones, “India's Caste System and Ours,” Christian Century, 20 Aug. 1947, 995–96, Box 19, Folder 18; “Stanley Jones Startles South,” Christian Century, 12 April 1933, Box 47, Folder 15, ATSSC.

18


For Jones's letter from Sat Tal see “An Appeal to the People of Alabama” (n.d.), Box 24, Folder 2. For “embarrassing our witness” see Jones, Christ of the Indian Road, 132–34. For “hesitant people” see “E. Stanley Jones Issues Appeal,” Box 40, Folder 8. On segregation as a national issue see Jones, Christ of the American Road, 179.

19


On Jones's efforts in Macon – and the firestorm that Jones's presence sparked – see Manis, 137–38. For more on Jones's interracial revivals see W. G. Cram, “Stanley Jones in the South,” World Outlook, June 1933, 4–6, Box 44, Folder 35; Jones, Christ of the American Road, 172; J. Maurice Trimmer, “Stanley Jones Discusses Race and Imperialism,” Box 40, Folder 4. For memories of Jones's interracial revivals see William Chafe interview of Mary Taft Smith, 11 July 1973, University of North Carolina–Greensboro Archives.

20


“Suggestions for ‘Little Ashrams’,” Box 14, Folder 15; E. Stanley Jones, “How to Set Up and Run a Little Ashram,” Box 14, Folder 15; “The United American Christian Ashrams – 1958,” Box 47, Folder 20, ATSSC. On the Green Lake ashram see Howard Whitman, “One Week with God,” Collier's, Sept. 1951, 24–25, 40, 24, copy in Box 44, Folder 18; Barbara Brady, “Just Plain Missionary,” Sunday Digest, 9 Oct. 1955, Box 44, Folder 7, ATSSC; William E. Berg, “My Spiritual Journey with Brother Stanley,” in “600 Faculty/Staff: E. Stanley Jones Biographical,” AU Archives.

21


On the North Carolina ashram see Mow, Anna B., “I Remember!” Transformation, 18, 4 (Winter 1983), 13 Google Scholar. On Dellinger see Kosek, Joseph Kip, Acts of Conscience: Christian Nonviolence and Modern American Democracy (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 186 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the transdenominational nature of the ashrams (and of Jones himself) see “Ashram Report,” Sept. 1961, Box 16, Folder 23, ATSSC. For numbers on ashrams in 1963 see Box 47, Folder 22, ATSSC. On the popularity and growth of Jones's ashrams see Preston King Sheldon, “Retreats Slated by Church Group: 25 Christian Leaders to Join with Methodist Missionary in Conducting Assemblies,” New York Times, 19 June 1954, 16.

22


For MOWM see Calling! Calling! All! Negroes! We Are Americans Too! Conference (Chicago: March on Washington Movement, 1943)Google Scholar, copy available in the Historical Society Library Pamphlet Collection, University of Wisconsin; Kapur, Sudarshan, Raising Up a Prophet: The African-American Encounter with Gandhi (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992), 114–15Google Scholar; Graham, 283; Tyson, Timothy B., Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999), 28 Google Scholar; Chicago Daily Tribune, 5 July 1943; Philadelphia Tribune, 10 July 1943; “Puts Race Riot Blame on New Deal Policies,” Chicago Daily Tribune, 5 July 1943, 22. Also see Jones, E. Stanley, “Is Civil Disobedience the Answer to Jim Crow?”, Non-violent Action Newsbulletin, 2 (1943), 21 Google Scholar.

23


On Jones and CORE see James Farmer to John F. Kennedy, 26 April 1961, in Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project. For an example of Jones's Congressional and presidential lobbying efforts see Jones to Eisenhower, 26 Dec. 1956, Box 5, Folder 5, ATSSC. For an example of Jones's call for interracial committees and federal intervention see E. Stanley Jones, “Christianity and Race,” World Outlook, April 1943, 37–39, Box 40, Folder 8, ATSSC.

24


On reenergizing missions in the mainline see E. Stanley Jones, “The Missionary Crisis,” Christian Century, 1 Nov. 1933, 1358–59; Strong, Douglas M., They Walked in the Spirit: Personal Faith and Social Action in America (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997), 77–90 Google Scholar. For “way of salvation” see Florence E. Clippinger to E. Stanley Jones, 23 Jan. 1944, Box 35, Folder 38, ATSSC. For examples of Jones describing himself as evangelical see Jones circular letter, 6 July 1945, Box 10, Folder 8, ATSSC; E. Stanley Jones, to “My Dear Friend,” 30 Aug. 1943, Box 3, Folder 7, ATSSC; E. Stanley Jones Radio Talks, published by Radio Devotional League, and “The Christ of the Andean Road” pamphlet, Asbury College and Seminary, “600 Faculty/Staff: E. Stanley Jones Literary Productions,” AU Archives. For Jones and Graham see undated, unattributed biographical sketch of Jones, Box 1, Folder 3; Box 5, Folders 5 and 6, ATSSC. For Vereide see Abraham Vereide to Jones, 7 Dec. 1964, Box 7, Folder 2, ATSSC. On Jones's relationship with Kamaleson see the back cover of Jones, E. Stanley, Gandhi: Portrayal of a Friend (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1983)Google Scholar. “Mark Hatfield Taps into the Real Power on Capitol Hill,” Christianity Today, 26 (22 Oct. 1982)Google Scholar.

25


For “personal piety and social gospel activism” see Kostlevy, “E. Stanley Jones.” For correspondence with Wesleyan institutions see Box 8, Folder 2; Box 14, Folder 3; Box 6, Folder 2; Box 7; and Box 3; Box 47, Folder 21, ATSSC. On Jones's commencement addresses see Thacker, Asbury College, 49; Box 40, Folder 9, ATSSC. For correspondence between Jones and Asbury Seminary see Will Beauchamp to Jones, 9 Sept. 1962, Box 6, Folder 5; Boxes 6–8, ATSSC.

26


On Jones and the liberal speaking circuit see Miller, Keith D., Voice of Deliverance: The Language of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Its Sources (New York: The Free Press, 1992), 68, 95Google Scholar. For “crystalline sincerity” see “Noted Missionary in City Tomorrow,” Box 13, Folder 1, ATSSC.

27


For “Christ of the Asbury Road” see “Faculty/Staff: Dr. E. Stanley Jones Day, 8 May 1942,” in “600 Faculty/Staff: E. Stanley Jones Literary Productions,” AU Archives, underlining in original. For “treatment of the Negro” see Jones to Jesse Arnup, 20 Jan. 1944, Box 4, Folder 1, ATSSC.

28


On Jones's reputation as a civil rights leader see Fellowship of Reconciliation Executive Secretary Richard L. Deats, “E. Stanley Jones: A Tribute,” Fellowship, Feb. 1973, Box 1, Folder 26, ATSSC. On Jones's accomplishments see the Encyclopedia of Christian Literature, Volume II (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2010), 396 Google Scholar; “Missions: Keeping Up with E. Stanley Jones,” Time, 24 Jan. 1964, 34; “E. Stanley Jones’ Name Cited for 1962 Peace Award,” New York Times, 26 Jan. 1962, 16; “E. Stanley Jones, Wrote on Religion: Methodist Missionary for 60 Years Dies at 89,” New York Times, 26 Jan. 1973, 38.

29


On Jones's 1958 reception at Asbury see Box 5, Folder 7, ATSSC. On Jones's visit to Africa see 25 Jan. 1958, circular letter, quoted in Graham, 368–69. For “real blow” see Jones to Z. T. Johnson, 20 Feb. 1959, in “600 Faculty/Staff: E. Stanley Jones Correspondence,” AU Archives.

30


“Results of Integration Questionnaire Tabulated,” Asbury Alumnus, Dec. 1958, 3; Zachary Taylor Johnson, “The Story of Asbury College”; Appendix in Vol. 3, AU Archives; 600 “Faculty/Staff: E. Stanley Jones Correspondence”; Thacker, 258–54; 202–3. On no more restrictions see Folder 7: “Asbury College Trustees Approve Full Integration,” 3 Oct. 1962, Box 100-2, AU Archives.

31


On the international dimensions of the civil rights movement see Horne, End of Empires; Borstelmann, Tim, The Cold War and the Color Line: American Race Relations in the Global Arena (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001)Google Scholar; Dudziak, Mary, Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000)Google Scholar. On broader evangelicals see Miller, Steven, Billy Graham and the Rise of the Republican South (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 23–24 Google Scholar; Willis, Alan Scot, All According to God's Plan: Southern Baptist Missions and Race, 1945–1970 (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2005)Google Scholar; Newman, Mark, Getting Right with God: Southern Baptists and Desegregation, 1945–1995 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2001)Google Scholar.

32


For “race-blind and colorblind” see http://globalchristiancenter.com/1126-english/devotionals/daily-devotions/60-seconds/33700-60-seconds-the-idols-of-yesterday. On the limits of color-blindness and the persistent individualism of postwar evangelicals see Emerson, Michael and Smith, Christian, Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000)Google Scholar; DuPont, Carolyn, Mississippi Praying: Southern White Evangelicals and the Civil Rights Movement, 1945–1975 (New York: New York University Press, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wadsworth, Nancy, Ambivalent Miracles: Evangelicals and the Politics of Racial Healing (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2014)Google Scholar. For “potentially inequality-reducing national policies” see Emerson, Michael, People of the Dream: Multiracial Congregations in the United States (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), 162 Google Scholar.

33


Jenkins, Philip, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hanciles, Jehu, Beyond Christendom: Globalization, African Migration, and the Transformation of the West (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2008)Google Scholar.

How Gandhi inspired Methodist peacemakers - Global Ministries

How Gandhi inspired Methodist peacemakers - Global Ministries

How Gandhi inspired Methodist peacemakers




By David W. Scott

May 2020 | ATLANTA

The impact of one person lies behind much of the mission of 20th century Methodist peacemakers: Mohandas K. Gandhi. The Mahatma (or “great soul”), while neither Methodist nor Christian, nonetheless influenced Methodist missionaries in India, and through them, other mission leaders around the world.Mahatma Gandhi, circa 1930s, meeting Methodist missionaries in India.
PHOTO: GENERAL COMMISSION ON ARCHIVES AND HISTORY

Gandhi was part of a broader movement that sought the end of British colonial rule of India, but his unique contribution to that movement was the philosophy of satyagraha, or “soul force,” usually referred to as nonviolent resistance. This philosophy proved appealing to Methodist missionaries who met, corresponded, and worked with Gandhi between his return to India in 1914 and his death in 1948. Satyagraha shaped Methodist involvement in peacemaking, nonviolence, anti-colonialism, civil rights in the United States and a host of other issues.
E. Stanley and Mabel (Lossing) Jones

Perhaps the Methodist missionary who was closest to Gandhi was the Rev. E. Stanley Jones. Given Jones’ interest in interreligious dialogue and contextualizing Christianity into India, it is perhaps not surprising that Jones would have found Gandhi an intriguing figure. The two, however, became quite close, and Jones wrote two of the earliest books on Gandhi, “Gandhi: Portrayal of a Friend” and “Mahatma Gandhi: An Interpretation,” both first published in the U.S. by the Methodist-affiliated Abingdon Press. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. later read Jones’ writings as part of his introduction to Gandhi.

Jones also borrowed from Gandhi’s model of ashrams, or spiritual retreats, as nuclei for religious and social reform. Jones founded his own Christian ashram in Sat Tal, India, in 1930 and later expanded that beginning into an international Christian ashram movement. These ashrams were focused, in part, on promoting peace across religious and racial divides.Mabel Lossing Jones and the Rev. E. Stanley Jones, missionaries in India.
PHOTO: GENERAL COMMISSION ON ARCHIVES AND HISTORY

Jones went on to promote international peace between Japan and China in the 1930s, between Japan and the United States before World War II, in Burma and Korea in the late 40s and 50s, and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the 1960s. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1963.

Mabel Jones, E. Stanley’s wife, was also a friend and correspondent of Gandhi’s. She and Gandhi wrote regularly about education, a significant interest of Gandhi’s and the focus of Mabel’s missionary work. The value that Gandhi placed on all people fit with Mabel Jones’ noted egalitarian approach to people of all races, nationalities, social classes and genders.
Eunice Jones Mathews and James K. Mathews

Gandhi was also a significant influence on Mabel and E. Stanley Jones’ daughter, Eunice, and the missionary she married, the Rev. James K. Mathews. Eunice Jones served as a literary assistant and editor for 25 books of her father’s and nine of her husband’s, helping share their Gandhi-influenced

understandings of mission, Methodism and world events. James Mathews admitted in his autobiography that “these very memoirs should be titled, ‘We Did It Together.’” Throughout her life, Eunice maintained relationships with Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and other world leaders and was remembered at her passing as a consistent advocate for peace.

James Mathews came to India in 1938. He traveled to E. Stanley Jones’ Sal Tal Ashram, where he met the Jones family and was introduced to Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence. Jones later wrote his dissertation at Columbia University about satyagraha, which was eventually published as “The Matchless Weapon: Satyagraha” in 1989. James Mathews maintained life-long friendships with Gandhi’s grandsons Raj Mohan Gandhi and Arun Gandhi.Bishop James K. and Eunice Mathews, during a session of the United Methodist Church’s 2004 General Conference in Pittsburgh, in which Eunice was honored for a lifetime of service to the church.
PHOTO: MIKE DUBOSE, UMNews

Throughout his work as an executive at Global Ministries and a bishop of the church, James Mathews was significantly involved in the civil rights movement, another product of Gandhi’s influence on him. He participated in the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. He and fellow bishop, Charles Golden, an African American, were barred from integrating an all-white church in Jackson, Mississippi, on Easter Sunday, 1964. In 1978, Mathews participated in “The Longest Walk” on behalf of Native Americans.
Ralph T. Templin

The connection between Gandhian nonviolence, peacemaking and civil rights is also exemplified in the life of Ralph T. Templin. Templin and his wife, Lila, went to India as educational missionaries in 1925. Like the Joneses and Mathews, Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence had a significant impact on Templin. Templin wrote a never-published manuscript on Gandhi, and his major published book, “Democracy and Nonviolence: The Role of the Individual in World Crisis,” clearly shows Gandhi’s influence.

Templin was expelled from India in 1940 because of his refusal to take an oath to the British colonial government, an expression of his sympathy with Gandhi and other Indian nationalists. Back in the United States, Templin helped found the Harlem Ashram in New York City. The ashram’s interracial community included many associated with the pacifist and civil rights movements. With others in these networks, Templin helped form Peacemakers, a pacifist organization, in 1948. His connection to Puerto Ricans in Harlem also inspired support for Puerto Rican independence.

Templin served as the head of the nonviolent School of Living in Suffern, New York. Templin later moved to Ohio, where, in 1948, he became the first white faculty member of the historically black Central State University, teaching sociology there. In 1954, Templin transferred his ministerial credentials to the Lexington Conference of the all-black Central Jurisdiction, the first white clergyperson to do so.
Walter Brooks and Mary (Rosengrant) Foley

The Rev. Walter Brooks Foley and Mary Foley arrived in India as missionaries the year after the Templins. Like their colleagues, they too met Gandhi and became involved in the Indian independence movement. In 1931, they were expelled from India because of their connections to that movement.

They returned to the United States for four years before going out again as missionaries to the Philippines. There, they continued to practice Gandhian principles of nonviolence by working for peace

and against American colonialism in the Philippines and Japanese aggression in China. In part because of their resistance to Japanese militarism, they were imprisoned during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines. In prison, they continued to serve others by providing food and education. Tragically, Walter was killed, and Mary maimed by a Japanese bomb, four days after being liberated from the Japanese prison camp.

The Foley’s story has an afterword that shows the enduring impact of Gandhi on Methodist mission, even beyond those missionaries who knew him personally. The Foley’s daughter, Frances-Helen, who was two when the family left India, was one of the first Crusade Scholars after World War II. Later, Frances-Helen Foley Guest became one of the first female pastors in the Florida Annual Conference and an advocate for racial and gender equality.
A Broader Legacy

The influence of Gandhi on other Methodist peacemakers who did not know him personally, but knew those who did, is visible elsewhere. As a young adult, the Civil Rights leader James Lawson was a Methodist missionary to India for three years, after Gandhi’s death. Nonetheless, Lawson was influenced by Gandhi and deeply committed to Gandhian principles of nonviolent resistance. Martin Luther King Jr. called Lawson “the leading theorist and strategist of nonviolence in the world.”

The Rev. Dr. Richard Deats served as a missionary in the Philippines, not India. But E. Stanley Jones and others influenced by Gandhi were among his teachers and friends, and through them, Deats was introduced to Gandhi’s thought. He became heavily involved in the pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation and was another Methodist missionary (following Jones and Mathews) who wrote a biography of Gandhi, “Mahatma Gandhi: Nonviolent Liberator.”

In that book, Deats wrote, “In my peace ministry spanning the last half of the twentieth century, I have continued to drink deeply from the well of Gandhi’s life and thought.” What was true for Richard Deats was true for The United Methodist Church as a whole.

Dr. David W. Scott is a consultant and mission theologian with Global Ministries.

E. STANLEY JONES & GANDHI — EVOLVING HUMANITY

E. STANLEY JONES & GANDHI — EVOLVING HUMANITY

E. Stanley Jones and Gandhi

 

Gandhi’s victory of non-violence over violence occurred in two of the “most unexpected places.”

One was India. The other was Afghanistan.

In both places, the radical teachings of Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount” were understood by people whom many Western Christians might think “least qualified” in terms of being religious.

These people were Hindus and Muslims.

I specified “Western Christians” because I knew the Gandhian scholar Mathai who was an activist and Christian himself. 

Gandhi, a Hindu, saw in Jesus’ teachings a worldview powerful enough to solve a crisis Einstein, a Jew, warned world leaders was the result of an “old way of thinking” that was leading toward unparalleled catastrophe.

Badshah Khan, a Muslim warlord in Afghanistan, was attracted to Gandhi’s pacifist worldview. He saw in it a model more powerful than any army he could raise; more powerful even than the British army. He convinced members of his Pashtun tribe to lay down their weapons and join in Gandhi’s nonviolent revolution.

Khan trained 80,000 of his fellow tribesmen to serve in a disciplined “nonviolent army.” They wore red uniforms and called themselves the “Servants of God.” Gandhi credited Khan’s unique army with playing a major role in the nonviolent campaign that won freedom for India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

In a book titled, A Man to Match His Mountains: Badshah Khan, Nonviolent Soldier of Islam, the author, Eknath Easwaran, described why British soldiers feared Khan’s nonviolent civil disobedience even more than they had feared the Pashtuns’ former savagery.

Gandhi was quoted as saying:

“That such men who would have killed a human being with no more thought than they would kill a sheep or a hen, should at the bidding of one man have laid down their arms and accepted nonviolence as the superior weapon sounds almost like a fairy tale.”

Badshah Khan said:

“There is nothing surprising in a Muslim or a Pathan (Pashtun) like me subscribing to the creed of nonviolence. It is not a new creed. It was followed fourteen hundred years ago by the Prophet all the time he was in Mecca, and it has since been followed by all those who wanted to throw off an oppressor’s yoke. But we had so far forgotten it that when Ghandiji placed it before us, we thought he was sponsoring a novel creed.”

The novel creed with the way of love, compassion, and nonviolence that Jesus taught 2,000 years ago.

(Article by Ron Sider, “Pashtun Pacifists” in Timeline, a bimonthly publication of the Foundation for Global Community, May/June 2003.)

------------------------

 

Ashram is a Sanskrit word. The “a” means “away.”  “Shram” means “work.”

In July 2009, I attended a Christian Ashram that met in Lake Junaluska, NC. The purpose of being “away from work” was to connect to a different story of reality than the fast-paced, unreal story we were living out of. The different story was the slow-paced real-world story of Creation. In every civilization for more than 5,000 years, humans had been taught to live out of a make-believe mythic story of reality.

In 1940, E. Stanley Jones brought the Ashram idea from India to North America. Jones was a Christian evangelist and a missionary in India. He and Mahatma Gandhi were friends. He knew that Gandhi’s “lifelong experiments with truth” had begun in an Ashram. So did Gandhi’s “impossible dream” that he could lead a nonviolent revolution to win freedom for India from British military rule.

Gandhi was a Hindu. His “impossible dream” for a nonviolent revolution was inspired by Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Jesus spelled out to his followers his way of love, compassion, and forgiveness. This would be the path for all future Christians to follow. As long as they followed Jesus’ way of love, their path would connect them to the real-world story of God’s Creation. It has been the path less followed.

After Gandhi was assassinated, Jones described Gandhi’s great contribution to Christianity and his contribution to the world.

Jones explained that for centuries, Christians had avoided the challenge of Jesus’ way of love. Their excuse was that Jesus could live the way of love because he was divine. They weren’t divine so they couldn’t live the way Jesus lived. In Jones’ book Gandhi: Portrayal of a Friend, he explained that the success of Gandhi’s nonviolent revolution had demolished, forever, this excuse used by Christians. Jones wrote that Christians now had to “face (Jesus’ challenge) anew in a man very much a man—fallible, limited, originally timid, and with no special talents, except the will to act upon this level of life…” Gandhi “demonstrated…on a colossal scale (that Jesus’ way of love) is no longer idealism; it is stark realism. It has been demonstrated as clearly as a problem in geometry. It is pure science.”

 Regarding Gandhi’s great contribution to the world, Jones wrote, “Mahatma is God’s appeal to this age—an age drifting again to its doom. If the atomic bomb was militarism’s trump card thrown down on the table of human events, then Mahatma Gandhi is God’s trump card which he throws down on the table of events now—a table trembling with destiny. God has to play his hand skillfully, for man is free, so God cannot coerce.”

Jones concluded, “I would like my readers to see the man I see…a little man who fought a system in the framework of which I stand, has taught me more of the spirit of Christ than perhaps any other man in East or West. This book is a symbol of my gratitude…”

WE MUST DO WHATEVER HAS TO BE DONE FOR THE CHURCH TO BE REBORN

What did E. Stanley Jones mean by “the framework of the system” in which he stood? It was the system in America that motivated him to bring the Ashram from India to Christians in America. It was the system in which those of us attending the Ashram in 2009 were standing. It was the system Gandhi fought against. It was the system that is now drifting again to its doom.

The Altar Call by Danny Morris that concluded our time together in the Ashram could have been given by Jones. The Call to those of us present was to: “do whatever has to be done for the church to be reborn.” The Ashram was calling us to leave behind the rat race. Put aside our excuses. Take seriously God’s “trump card.” In 2009 the disastrous consequences of trying to teach each new generation to live out of a make-believe mythic story was clearer than ever. God’s trump card had been played skillfully. But we were still free to do as we pleased. God was not free to coerce us.

 

Danny Morris, a retired Methodist preacher and a longtime friend, delivered the Altar Call. I had met Danny in 1983, when I signed up for “his” Academy for Spiritual Formation. The Academy was one of the Upper Room missions Danny created. Now retired but “re-fired,” he and Evelyn Laycock led our Ashram.

But for Danny and me the Ashram did not end as scheduled. It had barely begun. We kept asking ourselves, what it would really take for the church to be reborn! The Altar Call had come to Danny out of the blue. Where had it come from? All we were certain of was that it would be hard for us to go back to the fast paced make-believe reality we knew was so out of sync with God’s real-world Creation.

Why couldn’t we create our own space “away from work?” Keep the Ashram going? Danny lived in Tennessee. I lived in Florida. Did that make it impossible? At one time it would have, but no more. When Gandhi launched his nonviolent revolution, his workday never ended. Yet Gandhi was never away from God. He created his own Ashram space “away from work.” Even the overwhelming nonviolent work of freeing a continent from military rule could not pull Gandhi away from God. When he was shot to death his last word as he fell was “Ram,” his word for “God.” Gandhi died “God conscious.”

TRANSFORMING OUR ADOLESCENT TRAITS TO SPIRITUAL TRAITS

Could we keep our Ashram, “space away from work,” going for a full year? There would be another Christian Ashram at Lake Junaluska in July 2010. What could two old retired, but re-fired, codgers like us hope to accomplish in a year? For one thing, Danny had in mind a book, a digital book that could be used for an on-line course. What would the course be about? Could we write about the vital relationship between theology and science?

Sometimes our Ashram was on the telephone. Most of the time it was in cyberspace, linked by e-mail. What made it an Ashram? Our space “away from work” was always within reach of God.” It was always a space for earnest, searching, honest dialog.

The book Danny had in mind gradually became a reality in that space. Ironically, we got more work done than we could have imagined possible—in our space “away from work.” The space was also for prayer, meditation, reflection, and even for spending time alone. 

The book Danny called A Miniature History of Earth, was also expanding our space “away from work.” A new world seemed to open up as Danny wrote one chapter and I wrote the next. He did the theology and I did the ecology. (The book could not have been written without the help of Danny’s team, Rene Chavez on editing and Dandy Lewis working on the course and coordinating the overall project.)

The focus of the Ashram that Danny and Evelyn led was on the adolescent behavior of Peter, one of Jesus’ disciples. Peter was irresponsible. An assumption was that Peter, the loudmouthed fisherman, was a full-grown adult, somehow stuck in an adolescent stage of consciousness. The Bible tells how the Holy Spirit transformed Peter’s adolescent traits into spiritual traits. Peter was “reborn.” He became Peter, the Rock.

Another assumption was that the Holy Spirit could transform our adolescent traits into spiritual traits. Were those of us in the Ashram any different from Peter? If we lived within the framework of a mythic system, out of sync with the real-world of Creation, shouldn’t we do something about it? If we were doing nothing, could we assume we were grownups stuck in an irresponsible adolescent stage of consciousness?

One assumption led to another assumption. It was like pushing over a line of dominoes.

CONFIRMATION FROM ON HIGH

Half way through our year with our self-directed Ashram experiment, the United Methodist Council of Bishops confirmed our assumption Earth was in deep trouble, and we were the trouble makers.

The bishops 2009 Pastoral Letter began with the words: “God’s Creation is in Crisis…We have turned our backs on God and our Responsibilities…this beautiful natural world is a loving gift from God…God entrusted its care to all of us…we must begin the work of renewing creation by being renewed in our own heart and mind…we cannot help the world until we change our way of being in it…we as your bishops pledge to deepen our spiritual consciousness as just stewards of creation…and to practice dialog with those whose life experience differs dramatically from our own…”

I added the Bishop’s letter to the 7grrp Seed Bank collection of “seeds of wisdom.” I had begun collecting seeds for the “7 Generations Remembering and Reconnecting Project” in 1983 at the Academy for Spiritual Formation. “Seeds of wisdom” could be used as clues to reality test assumptions. They could be used as puzzle pieces to put together a bigger real-world story to live out of.

In 1986, the Bishops’ Council had issued another Pastoral Letter that began: “We write in Defense of Creation. We do so because creation itself is under attack. Air and water, trees and fruits and flowers, birds and fish and cattle, all children and youth, women and men live under the darkening shadows of a threatening nuclear winter…much evidence points to a runaway technological obsession that leads inexorably toward doomsday. (We are) like victims of some sort of hypnotism, like men in a dream, like lemmings headed for the sea…”

Are we really like lemmings headed for the sea?

Are we really like victims of some sort of hypnotism?

Are we really hooked on a runaway technological obsession that leads inexorably toward doomsday?

Have we really turned our backs on God and our Responsibilities? 

Can we really help the world by changing our way of being in the world?

A Miniature History of Earth is finished. It will be available soon on the following websites: spiritslaughing.com, Earth_Learning.org, and BridgesAcrossBorders.org. In the future more websites will make this book and all 7grrp Seed Bank resources available around the world. Plans are being made for an on-line course to be available in the future on BeADisciple.com.

 

Where does this leave the “Impossible Dream for the 21st Century?”

The answer to that question will be up to us.

E. Stanley Jones was right. In the 20th century Gandhi “demonstrated on a colossal scale (that Jesus’ way of love) is no longer idealism; it is stark realism.” We have no excuse if we continue to turn our backs on God and our responsibilities.

 

We really could change the world by changing our way of being in the world.

 

Gandhi: Portrayal of a Friend by E. Stanley Jones | Goodreads

Gandhi: Portrayal of a Friend by E. Stanley Jones | Goodreads

Paperback, 160 pages
Published February 1st 1993 by Abingdon Pr (first published December 1983)
Original Title
Gandhi: Portrayal of a Friend (Abingdon Classics)

Nov 11, 2012Angela Sun rated it really liked it
Well written with first hand accounts of Ghandi; complete biography of the spiritual leader from stories in his youth through his death. Inspirational.
flag3 likes · Like · comment · see review



Feb 03, 2020Monisha rated it it was amazing
An amazing look at the father of the Indian nation. An insight into Gandhi, as a leader and as a person. This book gives in detail the principles followed by the great leader of India
flagLike · see review



Apr 07, 2020Jonathan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
A powerful account of the man and his ideas from a lifelong friend and admirer (and even self-professed follower of Gandhi's principles and teaching). An easy read that is a must among the corpus surrounding one of the greatest men to ever live. (less)

Gandhi Quotes Showing 1-1 of 1

“The opponent strikes you on your cheek, and you strike him on the heart by your amazing spiritual audacity in turning the other cheek. You wrest the offensive from him by refusing to take his weapons, by keeping your own, and by striking him in his conscience from a higher level. He hits you physically, and you hit him spiritually.”

― E. Stanley Jones, Gandhi: Portrayal of a Friend

Stanley Jones and Mahatma Gandhi (Part1-4) | Toolshed Meditations

Stanley Jones and Mahatma Gandhi (Part 1 of 4)13 November 2012In "Devotional"

Stanley Jones and Mahatma Gandhi (Part 3 of 4)15 November 2012In "Devotional"

Stanley Jones and Mahatma Gandhi (Part 2 of 4)14 November 2012In "Devotional"


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Stanley Jones and Mahatma Gandhi (Part 1 of 4)
Posted on 13 November 2012 by jmichaelrios


“Mahatma Gandhi, I am very anxious to see Christianity naturalized in India, so that it shall be no longer a foreign thing identified with a foreign people and a foreign government, but a part of the national life of India and contributing to India’s uplift and redemption. What would you suggest that we do to make that possible?” He very gravely and thoughtfully replied: “I would suggest, first, that all of you Christians, missionaries and all, must begin to live more like Jesus Christ.” ~ E. Stanley Jones, The Christ of the Indian Road, “The Great Hindrance.”

The mission we are called to embrace and follow is so simple, yet we are negligent of it. We have one simple task, but we replace it with many other things. We try to fulfill our Christian life with a host of extraneous details, when the real thing we must do is seek to live more like Jesus Christ. That it is one of the world’s greatest non-Christians who says this to us is to our greater shame. Gandhi can see that the power of Christianity is Christ–why are we so dense? O Christian, live like Christ! Be like Christ! Follow, imitate, copycat Christ! And let nothing else cloud the clarity of our common call!




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Stanley Jones and Mahatma Gandhi (Part 2 of 4)
Posted on 14 November 2012 by jmichaelrios


“Second,” says Gandhi in response to Jones’s question about Christianity in India, “I would suggest that you must practise your religion without adulterating or toning it down.”

Jones then writes the following: “The greatest living non-Christian asks us not to adulterate it or tone it down, not to meet them with an emasculated gospel, but to take it in its rugged simplicity and high demand. But what are we doing? As someone has suggested, we are inoculating the world with a mild form of Christianity, so that it is now practically immune against the real thing.” (E. Stanley Jones, The Christ of the Indian Road, “The Great Hindrance.)

Have you been living a mild, weak, and cut-off form of Christianity? Have you fed it to your friends and family like a mild form of the flu virus–inoculating them against the reality of your faith? Have you watered down the strong wine of communion with the tepid waters of cultural relevance? What the world needs is not a weaker, more accessible faith–what the world craves is real faith. My former pastor used to say, “People are searching for a genuine alternative to the world; not a weak imitation of it.” Never compromise or settle for less as you seek to follow Christ, because to the degree that you radically commit to him, you will be a radical, vibrant, and living testimony to the power of God.




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Stanley Jones and Mahatma Gandhi (Part 3 of 4)
Posted on 15 November 2012 by jmichaelrios


“Third,” pronounced Gandhi in response to Jones’s question about Christianity in India, “I should suggest that you must put your emphasis upon love, for love is the centre and soul of Christianity.” Jones then says this: “He did not mean love as a sentiment, but love as a working force, the one real power in a moral universe, and he wanted it applied between individuals and groups and races and nations, the one cement and salvation of the world. With a soul so sensitive to the meaning of love no wonder there were tears in his eyes when I read him at that point the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians.” (E. Stanley Jones, The Christ of the Indian Road, “The Great Hindrance.”)

Love is the real, abiding, and potent power of Christianity. It is not sentimentality, nor is it touchy-feeliness. It is not a weak response to life or a cultivated emotional state or devotion. No, love is the central, pulsing energy of Christianity in practice–it is the love of Christ compelling us. Were we to live out this Christ-love for one another, what would be the effect of our mission in the world? I can tell you in a word: unstoppable.

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Stanley Jones and Mahatma Gandhi (Part 4 of 4) | Toolshed Meditations


TOOLSHED MEDITATIONS
Devotions and Quotes to Give Glimpses of God

Stanley Jones and Mahatma Gandhi (Part 4 of 4)
Posted on 16 November 2012 by jmichaelrios


E. Stanley Jones once asked Gandhi for his opinion about the formation of Christianity in India. Gandhi gave four answers, the final one was this: “Fourth, I would suggest that you study the non-Christian religions and culture more sympathetically in order to find the good that is in them, so that you might have a more sympathetic approach to the people.” To this Jones responds, “Quite right. We should be grateful for any truth found anywhere, knowing that it is a finger post that points to Jesus, who is the Truth.” (E. Stanley Jones, The Christ of the Indian Road, “The Great Hindrance.”)

With what kind of sight do you approach mission? Do you come as a conqueror in power? Do you come with open ears and open eyes? Do you remember, at all times, that Christ goes before you in mission, that the Spirit sows seeds in advance, waters those seeds, and that you are merely a harvester of God’s work in the field He has prepared? When you approach another culture, another religion, are you attentive to the work that God is doing in that culture and religion which prepares the way for Christ? If we come to missions with eyes that are open to the ongoing work of God, with spirits that are attentive to God’s Spirit working in others, then we will not come as judges or powers, but as people who recognize in others our common need and search for God. Plant the Gospel, O Christian, after the pattern of the Master Sower–He has been in the field before you and left tools for your use. Employ them and your ministry will honor it’s King and Maker!

Gandhi glimpsed Christ, rejecting Christianity as a false religion - Washington Times

Gandhi glimpsed Christ, rejecting Christianity as a false religion - Washington Times

Gandhi glimpsed Christ, rejecting Christianity as a false religion
By Frank Raj - - Wednesday, December 31, 2014


MIDDLE EAST, INDIA, March 28, 2011 — After twenty centuries all that can be said of Christianity is that it is the world’s largest religion with over 2 billion followers. Its influence on men’s hearts and minds as the truth is highly debatable.

Mahatma Gandhi is perhaps the best example of someone who was discerning enough to reject Christianity not Christ. He was deeply hurt by his experiences with apartheid and “Christians” during his time in South Africa, and it obviously stymied his relationship with Christ.


Mahatma Gandhi


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Like Gandhi millions have been unable to see the Christ obscured by Christianity.

Gandhi was shrewd enough to tell missionaries, “I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” When asked why he did not embrace Christianity, Gandhi said it offered nothing he could not get from his own religion, observing, “…to be a good Hindu also meant that I would be a good Christian. There is no need for me to join your creed to be a believer in the beauty of the teachings of Jesus or try to follow His example.”

The man whose death Nobel prize nominee and legendary missionary E. Stanley Jones described as, “the greatest tragedy since the Son of God died on the cross,” precisely assessed Christianity as being no different from other religions.

Gandhi took the ideas of Christ and tried to implement them by faithfully adhering to Hinduism. But he did not realize there were forces already at work in his lifetime, converting the Hindu religion into, ‘Hindutva’ a fanatic ideology developed by radical Hindus who ultimately murdered the Mahatma.

Today these same forces have acquired political respectability and sit in India’s Parliament as the country’s largest opposition group – the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accountable to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) that bred Gandhi’s assassin Nathuram Godse.

Hinduism is not the only religion that has been perverted by ideology. Christianity has used and misrepresented the name of Christ; Islamism is a corruption of Islam, which basically means submission to the will of God and obedience to His law.

It also works the other way around – ideologies basically seek to become religions, Nazism, Communism, Fascism etc., are good examples. So far Materialism has found the most acceptance globally.


Violent ideologies inflict pain, a materialistic philosophy breeds the love of pleasure in direct contrast to Jesus’ counsel, “’Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

Among the religious ‘isms’ of the world Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Catholicism etc., are notable. Islam does not have a suffix but Islamism is associated with extremists.

To what purpose was the name of Christ extended? Does Christianity distance or draw people to Jesus?

In a hopelessly muddled world of religiosity, theology may have obscured the basic good news of eternal salvation. Entrusted mainly to illiterate fishermen at first, the gospel was never meant to be veiled or enhanced by man’s religious knowledge. The finest theological minds could have been divinely employed for that purpose if their learned input was required.

Christianity asks people to follow wise men in a hierarchy; Christ asks people to follow him in Spirit and in Truth. Christianity requires institutional membership; Christ has promised to be anywhere two or three gather in his name. Christianity binds individuals with ritual and tradition; Christ warns that tradition makes God’s Word void in people’s hearts. Christianity has blood on its hands, it is guilty of untold depravity; in John 8:46 Christ demands, “Can any of you prove me guilty of sin?”

Because Buddhism, Sikhism, Islam etc., were each founded by one individual, it is assumed that Christianity falls in the same category. But Jesus was not its founder - it was legalized as Rome’s state religion in 317 by the emperor Constantine.


The fact remains truly knowing Christ need have nothing to do with Christianity.

Down the ages with its violent history of power and politics, debauched clergy and widespread division, Christ has been consistently sullied and concealed by what the world accepts as “Christianity.” Often it displays no resemblance to the name it bears. It is man-made and not all Christians consider it authentic or desirable in its current institutional model.

Many are concluding that a choice must be made, and following Christ authentically and simply as he showed how, is the growing preference.

Even the uninitiated in their hearts know that Christ brings peace and unity, all else has been tried and found wanting.

How could one man’s death on a cheap, wooden cross reconcile mankind to God? Why does our perplexed, religiously diverse world struggle with such a possibility?

Why does the Quran confirm his exclusive virgin birth and call Jesus Kalimuttullah – the true Word of God? Was he just a man? Was he just a prophet? Why is he called the Messiah?

Why does the Bible declare that everyone who calls upon the name of Christ shall be saved?


I believe no one can induce people to believe it is Christ who waits at the end of man’s spiritual quest – there is enough evidence God uniquely dialogues with each one of us. It’s a mystery most people ignore or dismiss. Only a few accept the divine invitation for an incomparable, lifelong relational adventure.

Profound theological arguments may refute this, but anyone who has glimpsed the hope of eternal salvation is soon unimpressed by the knowledge and piety of man, clergy or otherwise.

When people surrender their hearts to Christ and discover sin’s grip can be broken, they will not settle for a lofty religion that complicates life and brings no deliverance. Freedom does not always come instantly without trials, but people know it surely comes to broken hearts longing for their “Maker.”

Alternatively some folks prefer to feel safe in the groupthink of organized belief, and uniformly follow something called Christianity or some other religion. One way demands death to pride, the other offers the standard feel-good-about-myself religious experience and self-gratification with group membership in a club of sorts.

The idea that the God of the universe can be bribed with good works, piety, rituals and traditions has widespread acceptance, and millions are shackled and controlled by the idea, which the clergy easily manipulates.

But the scriptures mysteriously indicate that it is God who chooses us, (John 15: 16), offering the free gift of himself. We don’t choose him. We can accept or reject him, but we cannot bribe our way to him using religion.

That pretty much describes authentic, divine, agape love.

So what is of greater worth – the truth that sets people free or the experience of being stuck in a lifelong religious rut?

Frank Raj belongs to an extended Indian-American family; he is based in India and the Middle East where he has lived for over three decades. He is the founding editor and publisher of ‘The International Indian’, (www.theinternationalindian.com) the oldest magazine of Gulf-Indian society and history since 1992. Frank is listed in Arabian Business magazine’s 100 most influential Indians in the Gulf and is co-author of the upcoming publication ‘Universal Book of the Scriptures,’ and author of ‘Desh Aur Diaspora.’ He blogs at www.no2christianity.com