Latest / The Speak Life Podcast / Happy Birthday Uncle John | The Life and Legacy of John Stott | Interview with Prof. John Wyatt || SLP358

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Happy Birthday Uncle John | The Life and Legacy of John Stott | Interview with Prof. John Wyatt || SLP358 · The Speak Life Podcast

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_03: Well, hello and welcome to the Speak Life Podcast.
• 0:09
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• 0:13
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• 0:55
  SPEAKER_03: But today is a special day, as it would have been the 100th birthday of John Stott, who is a widely respected figure in concerted evangelical circles and indeed even with the wider public.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_03: His ministry having a tremendous impact on thousands of people all around the world through his preaching and his books.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_03: And so to mark this day, Glenn and I spoke to Professor John Wyatt, who was a member of John Stott's congregation at All Souls and Langham Place, but also a personal friend of Stotts.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_03: And we begin by asking John just to tell us a little bit about himself.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I'm uh a medic by background, um, and I first came to London in the early 1970s as a first-year medical student and started going along to All Souls Church, where there was this sort of distant and uh slightly austere person preaching.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: And uh but but uh right from the time when you first heard him preaching, he spoke with uh extraordinary uh authority and uh with a very incisive and uh I'd never heard preaching like it, to be honest.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: And but then two or three years later, to my utter astonishment, I I get a message uh from the rectory.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, would you like to come and have a cup of coffee?
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: And it was a bit like getting a message from the headmaster, and you know, I mean we'd hardly spoken.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I was thinking, I've been found guilty of some gross heresy and of being carpeted by the boss.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I remember going along with great trepidation to his tiny little bachelor flat.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: He had a tiny little place in Bridford Mews, uh, which was literally two rooms and a kitchenette, where he solemnly welcomed me and offered me uh a cup of instant coffee and a digestive biscuit.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: And it's sort of imprinted on my mind that first meeting.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: And but to my utter astonishment, he was basically saying, you know, how can I be pray for you?
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: And what are you reading at the moment?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: And uh would you like to come bird watching with me?
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and so we we built up a friendship which lasted for 40 years.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing, amazing.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: And and that's um a little bit of John Stott's um biography then, uh, for an introduction to people who who might not know uh who Uncle John is.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, you know, some historians have suggested that looking back on the 20th century, he was probably just uh one of a handful of people who were the most influential Christian leaders of the 20th century.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I I think many people think he's in this that same kind of league as some of the you know the well-known names we know, like Spurgeon and Calvin and Luther and Billy Graham.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um he was an extraordinary man.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: He he came from an ex a very privileged background and not a Christian background.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: He was converted in uh one of the camps, the Yuan camps, run by a man called Nash.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: And he um he uh much to his parents' uh disgust, because he was being groomed for you know uh a career as a mandarin, went to an elite public school.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he he he decided that he wanted to become ordained and become a clergyman.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: And what was worse for his father, who was an eminent doctor but also an army doctor, he became a conscientious objector.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so there was a terrible rift with his father.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he was ordained and he came as a very young man, age 24, uh, to All Souls Church.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and he stayed there for the rest of his professional life.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but he became a an he was an extraordinarily big character.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: He was he he was very difficult to pigeonhole.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he he was he built up links uh across many of the different tribes of uh of Christianity, and uh he he was seen as a spokesperson for orthodox evangelical Christianity, but at the same time with a remarkable radical um radical element to him.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I have to say, for me, it was the radical risk-taking aspect of John Stott which drew me to him.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if he was just a nice old buffer who preached the Bible, well, frankly, you know, I'd come across a lot of nice old buffers who preached the Bible and and and you know what was just one more.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: But but Stott was so much more than that, and and there was something about him which um which was very hard to describe.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: And and I I was pinching myself because it must have felt like this if you happened to be in the same village as a Luther or a Calvin or a you know a Spurgeon, and just by chance or by God's providence, you happened to be in the same place.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: And and uh we all knew that he was in a different league from the rest of us, but the idea that you could actually spend some time alone with this man, and as as I got to know him, you know, he was very, very impressive from the pulpit.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: He was a he was a brilliant preacher, uh a very commanding and and um uh impressive figure in the pulpit.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, very often in my life, I I've met sort of prominent Christians, and you then you you see them in private.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: And it to be honest, it's a bit of a disappointment because you realize that the person in private is very different from the person you see on the pulpit.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it it almost feels like that they've been um projecting an image, um, creating some something very impressive in public, which is not quite the truth when you meet them in private.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: The fascinating and wonderful thing about Stott was actually he was more impressive when you got to know him in private, when there was no one watching, uh, because it became apparent that he was utterly authentic, that he was genuinely trying to live in the way he preached.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: He and and that his own personal life of devotion to Christ and and and humble service uh was entirely authentic.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_03: And I mean I mean you touched on it there, John, that um you know that some people are very different away from the public eye as they are in private.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, can you I mean you you knew John Stott quite well.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, obviously you said he's he was authentic, trying to living out.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, can you give us uh a sense of you know what was he like as a as a person, kind of as a character?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_03: Um someone you you would kind of get along with as a friend.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he he was uh a very personable uh he he gave you the the impression, you know, he was he was utterly focused on you.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: He was interested in you.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: He genuinely wanted to know what you thought, he wanted to find out about you.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you didn't, you know, when you were with him, you didn't get this impression that he was incredibly busy, and uh, you know, that um there was this sense that he he was genuinely interested in you.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um and he was listening, and that's what so many people said about him.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: The extraordinary thing about him was again, I'm afraid that when you meet some big figures in the in in the Christian church, they talk at you and you and you just get you know you get talked at.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: And and Stott was never like that in in private.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: He was genuinely listening, and he he wanted you to talk and he wanted to hear what you thought.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes, oh well, you know, I I don't want to talk, I want, I want to ask you questions.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: But he would he would, you know, he he he would he was genuinely interested, he was listening, he was respectful, even though you know I was a third-year medical student and a complete ignoramus, still am in many ways, but you know I'm an older ignoramus now.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: But um he he he he didn't treat you with contempt or you know demeaning or patronizing.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: He he treated with he treated everybody with a kind of courtly respect, but he he had a great sense of humor.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: He he loved um uh a kind of uh he he loved uh um humor that punctured people's pomposity.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: And he had some great stories that that where people had, you know, uh either about other Christian leaders who were who who had acted in a rather pompous way and that then betrayed themselves, or or other ways that uh sometimes you know they people treated him with exaggerated respect, but it then became apparent they didn't know anything about him.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so he he loved telling telling stories, had a great sort of sense of humor.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, he put quite a lot of his his jokes in the sermons, but he had a very sort of dry sense of humor, and you could see people looking slightly puzzled and writing it down in their notes, and that's actually that was meant to be a joke.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: I remember I I first came to All Sales Lang and Place 20 years ago, and I was I was a lay assistant, and so I had to you know to clean a thousand loos in the year and you know polish all the brass, but you get to you know sit next to John Stott at lunch and that sort of thing.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: But I remember the very first time I it was my first staff lunch, and I and I happened to sit down next to John Stott, and I didn't know what to say, so I just said, Do you play any sports, John?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: And he put down his fork and he said, Do you know I haven't been asked that question in 50 years?
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: So my my only other John Stott uh story is is somehow I got onto the preaching rotor for for 8 a.m.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: communion, and uh as a as a young preacher, you sort of cut your teeth on that.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I was down for Easter Sunday, and so I got it was my very first sermon.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: It was a five-minute little homily on Easter Sunday.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: And who should show up but Uncle John?
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because I didn't know, but he always likes to come to that service because he likes to take communion on on Easter Sunday, and uh I was just absolutely quaking in my boots uh giving this sermon.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: He was he was very he was very lovely afterward.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think that would have been as lovely to me if I was a statesman of his of his character.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: You you said, John, earlier that um it was his preaching really struck you as a student back in the 1970s.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: What do you what do you think it was about his his preaching that really cut through?
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: There were a number of things.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: I I mean it became apparent that his all his sermons were immaculately prepared, the huge amount of work had gone into them, and that, and then honed down so that he manages to pack into every sentence um a huge amount of content.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember many times at All Souls hearing him preach, and it was like trying to drink off a fire hose, you know, and it just keeps coming at you more and more stuff, and I'm desperately trying to capture it because you realize that that everything here has been meticulously worked on and honed down.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: And um I think that's one thing.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: I I think and you you sense that you were just seeing the tip of the iceberg, you know, that that that that what he was speaking about was things that he had reflected on and dwelt about and prayed about for hours and days and years, and and and you were just getting the little bit.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: He also he had a remarkable ability to to preach at two levels simultaneously.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: So it if you nearly every Stot sermon, if you if you look at it and analyze it, it works for somebody who knows absolutely nothing.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: It works for somebody who's who's a who who's a complete beginner in the faith or has no faith at all, uh, because he's made sure to be clear and to use simple language so that the basic points that he's making are comprehensible.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, if if you already know a bit about the Bible and you know a bit about the Christian faith, actually there are all kinds of sophisticated nuggets in there for you.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: So you were never bored, you know, even if he was preaching about material you thought you knew well, lo and behold, it turned out there were whole depths in there that you had never seen before.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so so that was another thing.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think the third thing was what really lit me up, to be honest.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'd been exposed to a lot of sort of Bible preaching by that by that stage.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: What really lit me up was when he started talking about the stuff that was in the newspapers.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so he he was doing a series um at All Souls Church in the late 90s, which I think subsequently a lot of that became part of his book called Issues Facing Christians Today.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: And he was taking the major issues that were in the newspapers that society was facing, and he was then responding to it from a Christian point of view.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I can still remember the topics.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: This was the 1970s, so it was things like labor relations and unemployment, um, nuclear disarmament, uh, and uh discrimination law, anti-discrimination uh law, and things like that.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: And these were the stuff that were being debated, and then I heard him, you know, carefully dissecting it and then showing, and this is how Christian, the biblical truth, can be related to these issues.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: And and you suddenly see, gosh, you know, it's relevant, it actually bites where the where the I and I'd never heard preaching like that before.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when I'd heard preachers talk about modern problems, it was usually something like dancing, you know, or or jazz the real modern problems, discos, you know, and and to hear a Christian leader engaging with the stuff that was in the commonplace stuff in the newspapers and showing how Christianity engaged.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I've it was like an electric shock.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: I've never forgotten it.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: And it actually became a kind of guiding principle for me as I tried later on as a medic to engage in some of those ethical issues.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: It his the way he did that became the model for me.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_03: Do you do you think that's partly why um John Stott has kind of gone on to be so or held in such high regard and have been so influential over the years?
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_03: Because I mean there are lots of people, aren't there, I guess, who've been great preachers and even good leaders, uh, but not everybody is kind of remembered as fondly as John Stott.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_03: So do you think it's down to those kind of things, or or were there other factors that you think have led him to be so influential?
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: It was the whole package deal, if you know, if it was it's it's this extraordinary combination of somebody who uh was very Christ-like, very humble, genuinely humble.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know, humility is is not something that is prized, uh, genuine humility, even to be honest, much amongst in the in the in the Christian world.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, it's people to pay lip service to it, but but when you met this man, you know, you just sensed this was real, he wasn't playing games.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, where it it says in in the old testament that Moses was the most humble man on the face of the earth, oh really Moses, you know, he's just been up.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, but actually I have a sense of what it means.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so there's something about his Christ-likeness, his authenticity, his ability to listen.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: I think, you know, he in intellectually he was very bright, you know, double first at Cambridge.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: He he was he had a very incisive mind, amazing memory, um, incredible hard work and and prayerfulness.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then and service-hearted.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: He then sort of went around the world, and instead of being, again, as so often happens, you know, this big guy from uh the West, UK or the States, turns up in Africa and he's there to help these poor, you know, local Christians and give them the benefit of his wisdom.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: Stock wasn't like that.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: Again, he was listening, he was wanted to learn, he was asking questions, and he and he was changing his his his his attitudes about social engagement, about justice issues, um, about poverty, about creation care.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he was way ahead of his time, but it happened because he was listening.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: He wasn't um, he wasn't just you know, I'm the big cheese.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, again, I've I've spoken to a number of Christian leaders in developing countries, in Africa, in Asia, in Latin America.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: And what they say is that Stott was so different because he listened, and sadly they say that this next generation are not like that.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: The next generation of Western church leaders are all convinced they're right, and they're here to tell us the way to do it.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_03: In a sense in which he was um I know one of those things was about being that salt and that light.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_03: Um and and that he was he in a sense, he was he was truly salty.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_03: You know, he really did stand out, you know, but you said you that people could look at him and say there is something different about this guy, there is something, you know, you said he was just very price-like, and then actually when someone is like that, um I mean it really makes a huge difference, you know, it stands out like a sword.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and it could be very uncomfortable.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he he could be quite sort of you know ruthless in terms of um insisting on high standards, and um both personally, you know, and if he felt that you had had failed him in some way, or you know, he he he wasn't just incredibly soft and no, it doesn't matter, you know.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: He he could you really you know, salt is is salt, and and and I'm sure meeting Christ was like that too, you know.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um so one shouldn't get the idea that that that being Christ-like means that you're just fluffy and and gentle.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: And and certainly, you know, when he when he felt that he had to call out error, arrogance, uh, particularly amongst Christian leaders, he he could be very um strong, but uh but but in a gentle way.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: He you know, he all and that again I think is a Christ-like thing.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if you look back in the Gospels, Jesus says some incredibly hard things, some incredibly painful, um, incisive things, and yet you sense he says it in such a gentle, gracious, godly way.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: And it's that interesting combination that I saw quite often in Stott.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you preached a sermon at All Souls Langer Place on Sunday morning, um, which I found incredibly helpful.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: And uh you were taking us to Ephesians chapter four.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, John Stott's commentary on Ephesians is just a preacher's dream, really.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you just you just feel like you should preach the the commentary, basically.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: He's just so crystal clear and everything uh sort of jumps off the page at you.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um and you were drawing our attention to the fact that Christ gives us the gifts of apostles, prophets, pastor teachers, and evangelists to equip God's people for their works of ministry.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um can you can you tell us why that has been such um a powerful message of John Stotts and why it spoke to you um over these years?
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, this was a major emphasis on Stock, which was the importance of quote lay ministry.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, lay, that term lay is uh lay people is something that the established church uses a lot.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: And what it actually means is if you're a lay person, it means you're really weird because you're not ordained.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I mean, you know, there are the the elite, the ordained, and then there are other ranks, and they are lay people.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: I know they're important, but but they're lay.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: And the extraordinary thing is that Stott reversed that because he says that's what Paul says.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: Paul says that the sole purpose of The ordained, those who are pastors and teachers and evangelists are to equip the real ministry team for the work of service, for the work of ministry.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: And they are ordinary people, people who don't have a theological qualification, people who are the ordinary uh members of the church community, and that it's the ordinary members who do the work of service.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: And and our job is to be equipped by the um by the actual church leadership team.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: And that that way of thinking is is very radical.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: But he didn't just preach it, he believed it, which was why, whenever um people like me, and I did, I I discussed with him whether or not I I should give up medicine and become a preacher, because you know, it seemed the obvious thing to do.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: He was, you know, he was serving Christ as a preacher, and and that seemed to be the obvious thing to do.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: And and and rather to my surprise, instead of saying, Yes, great, John, you know, I'm you'd be a great creature, he said, you know, having discussed it and listened, and we shared and I shared my confusions.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I and then he said something like, I can't help feeling that God has called you into the world of medicine, and really what you should do is stay there and be a witness for him in the place that God has put you.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, and it wasn't just me, there were so many other people who he gave the same kind of advice to.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: So he encouraged people to stay in business, to stay in law, he encouraged Christian artists to use their art and musicians, he encouraged scientists and uh he he he conservationists and people involved in creation care and so on.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: He he really believed that that if they were the people who were serving Christ in the world and who were being salt and light.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, that vision, I feel, is actually it's gone backwards since Stotzheim.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: I I think it these days it seems more obvious that if you really want to serve Christ, well then you'll go to theological college and you'll get um, you know, you'll get some proper qualifications and you'll join a church and you'll start evangelizing and you'll start church planting and so on.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: Isn't that what people who really mean business with the Lord, isn't that what they do?
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: And um and and this is called clericalism, and you know, it's got a name, and it and it says that it is church religious activities which are the most important, and it is the church establishment and the church hierarchy, and this is what God is most interested in, because God thinks religion is great, and and it's just wrong.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, almost one could say it's a heresy.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it it is very wrong, yeah, and it's certainly not the way that the church was, especially, but I think going back to the early church, because if you go back and look at that, it is completely different.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I wonder whether it's it's quite old covenant in that in the old covenant, you worked for six days and everything headed towards the Sabbath, and everything you know went towards the Lord's Day, and then what do you get in the resurrection is that is that Christ rests on the seventh day in the tomb, rises up on the first day of the week, and then that becomes the Sabbath.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then the whole point is not that you work towards the Lord's Day, work towards rest, work towards the priest.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, actually, on the Lord's Day, you get your day off, and then you're sent out into the week, out into the world.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it seems to me that a new covenant impetus is not, it doesn't suck you into clericalism, but that actually the the job of those who would minister to you in the Lord's name on the Lord's day, that their job is actually to send you out into the week and out into the world.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I think John Stopp modeled that that beautifully, really.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's definitely that's definitely something in that.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: Although I would one and Stock would also point out, of course, that the God of the Old Testament wasn't just interested in what happened on the Sabbath.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: That was that was the whole point.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: He was just as interested in what was happening in the marketplace, he was just as interested in what was happening in the bedroom, he was interested in absolutely every aspect of life, you know, because he said everything is mine.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I'm not just interested in what happens in the tabernacle in the temple.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm interested in what happens in every aspect of society.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: So so that engagement in the whole of life and the whole of the world is something which you can really trace right throughout the biblical message.
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• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I wonder uh I wonder as well, um if we look at some distinctives of John Stott.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I think one massive distinctive is that anti-clericalism, that all of life uhness to him.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um in terms of some other real distinctives of um John Stott, I I wonder whether the cross of Christ, obviously, um for me, that's that's you know my favorite of his of his 50 books, not that I've read all 50, but uh I've read a good number, and I it's hard to get past um the cross of Christ as a heartwarming um theology of atonement.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: But for me, what made that all the more heartwarming is that I saw in him and in his leadership style a kind of uh uh uh embodiment of that theology of the cross as well.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh did you notice something similar uh with Uncle John?
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: And um he one undoubtedly one of his enormous emphases, which which just came time and time again, was that he was Christocentric.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: It was all about Jesus.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: And almost in every sermon he brought it back in some way to Jesus and to the grace of Jesus and and and to the cross.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: So that was the heartbeat, his own personal relationship with Christ, his own adoration before the cross, um, that was his heartbeat.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: And everything that came from that, you know, his ethics, his creation care, his his involvement in social justice, uh, everything, uh actually it's its heart was in Christ.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: And and that was a great influence for me because I feel the same about medical ethics, you know, that whenever as a medic I try to get involved in ethics, I I remember Stott's emphasis that I it's got to be Christocentric.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: I it's got to be, and so I've I've tried to say that you know, in in medicine, I'm trying to be Jesus to my patients, and I'm trying to see Jesus in my patients.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's that kind of Christocentricity, um, which is something I learned from him, and which I do think is the heartbeat, has to be the heartbeat.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: We you know, as soon as we stray away from Jesus into something else, uh we're we're starting to lose the heart.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: But in in many ways, he's his teaching in the cross of Christ is a brilliant restatement of what is very orthodox, reformed, um teaching, tracing all the way back to the to the church fathers, you know, to thousands of years ago.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: So in that sense, he's absolutely in the mainstream of Orthodox Christianity.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: What's so extraordinary is that he marries that utter orthodoxy with this really radical questioning.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: So this idea of I like this idea that he he he's described as a as a conservative radical.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: So he was conservative when it with in quotes when it came to the centrality of the Bible and of the cross of Christ and the Orthodox Christian faith.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: But he was radical in everything else, in terms of how it applied, where it applied, uh, what the consequences were.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: He he was radical in the sense that he was cutting to the roots, he he was getting rid of superficial stuff.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: He was prepared to break and remake and and to and to think new thoughts.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: And that was the thing that drew us to him, so many of us, certainly those of us who like to think we were our sort of little radicals of our own.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes he he really surprised me.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I can remember one anecdote.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: This this was probably in about the 70s again.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the one of his great things, he he really believed in Christian artists, and he wanted to encourage them to use their Christian art, not just evangelistically, that they should be, you know, making evangelistic paintings or but but the fact that they should use their their very artistry as a way to glorify God.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember he was speaking at this at a conference for Christian artists, um, and and you know, they all turned up in and this is the 1970s, so they've got long hair and flares and tie-dye shirts, and they're a bunch of weirdos.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: See, and then Stott turns up with his suit and his, you know, and he looks utterly incongruous.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: But I can still remember one of his um uh in his keynote talk, I can still remember one of his points, and he leaned over his pulpit and he looked at this bunch of weirdos and he said, Take risks for Christ.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to take risks for Christ.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm thinking, this is the last bunch you should say to take risks.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: It was something about you know that extraordinarily unexpected um uh view uh of what it meant to serve Christ.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, a radical, a radical.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: And and I just wonder um uh as well, as we think about the issues of his radical nature, um, we've had a question in um uh the comments.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Ali has said, uh, I wonder what his legacy will be in the light of abuse scandals that we're currently in.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I I I don't know what Ali's um thinking of in particular, but I wonder, you know, you've mentioned about uh Nash and and the human camps that um I I guess John Stott was converted on sort of on more of these camps and then went to have a role in in shaping them.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um obviously, in the light of current events and Fletcher reviews and uh some reports into uh Smythe have come out and and future ones are coming out.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly, UN camps are very much under the spotlight.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um what part did John Stott have to play in UN camps back in the day?
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: And what do you think he would say into this current crisis?
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it's a it's a deeply troubling and uh and uh and uh fascinating time, isn't it?
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um I the the history is that he was he went to one of the elite public schools, uh he went along to one of the uh I think actually Nash visited his school.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: That was what that was what happened, and he heard Nash talk, he was deeply uh impressed.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: He went along to one of the camps and he was converted, I think at the age of 16, something like that.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: And uh he Nash was definitely a kind of spiritual father for for him.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um and Nash clearly saw Stott as a uh a very promising young man in terms of of leadership, so he invested a lot of time in him.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: Stott said that I think in the first seven years, Nash wrote a letter to him once a week for seven years.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: And and they weren't just uh little ditties, hello, how are you?
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um they were often quite sort of strong, encouraging, but also that's right.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: Stott said sometimes, you know, when when the envelope plopped through the door with a with a familiar thud, he had to prepare himself on his knees before he could open the letter.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: So they they must have been pretty intense.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and there was a period when Stott was a um in his 1819 when he was very much Nash's right-hand man and was organizing, helping him organize the camps and so on.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: But it's very interesting to me that from 1945, um Stott went to Cambridge, he decided to get ordained, and 1945, he was ordained just at the end of the war, and he starts at All Souls as a curate, uh, and he's 24.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: And what's very clear to me from reading the um the accounts is that from the time he arrives at in at all souls, he quite consciously separates himself from that elite public school environment, which was his natural habitat.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: And from the time he comes to London, and of course, this is London 1945, it's post-war, there is immense poverty and hardship.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: There are homeless, there are bond houses, there are and Stott right from the beginning sets about a ministry of caring for homeless people in the parish, for poor people.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: He sets up a clubhouse ministry, and he doesn't, he, he, he doesn't go back to UN camps, he doesn't recruit a lot of elite public schoolboys.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, in fact, his whole focus from 1945, from the age of 24, is on uh almost in his quietly understated way, he's going in exactly the opposite direction.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: He he's wanting uh to focus on the nobodies in his parish.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: And um and it it is very interesting to me that if you look at the people who who became his his close friends and confidants over the years, of whom, by God's grace, I was one of them, virtually none of us came from that elite public school background.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I was a grammar school lad.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: There were many people from different, quite humble uh social origins, many people from around the world, um from poor countries.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it was a completely different clientele.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: So the extraordinary thing about Stott was that although he came from this very elite um class background, he was able to completely transcend it.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't see that as something that he wanted to pursue.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: And and he almost distanced himself, which which I think is quite fascinating and is certainly a very strong contrast when one looks at the stories of people like Fletcher.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_03: John, if uh if Stock was around today, what do you think he would say coming to our current situation of uh Conservative Evangelical Church in the UK?
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's I mean, who am I to say really?
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I it I I I I'm very loath to to be too dogmatic about that.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: I I think I think he would be very distressed about the clericalism.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: I do think that.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: I think uh even at All Souls, which has been, you know, which which has carried his name and his reputation, and which is involved in uh some really wonderful social mysteries, Tamar working with traffic women, Aslan working with the homeless, uh various other uh activities in the parish, and so on.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um there is there is less of an emphasis on quote lay people and lay ministry and involvement in the world than there was in the time of stock.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: And and I'm afraid that clericalism does seem to be um resurgent in many ways in many areas of the uh conservative evangelical world.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think he'd be deeply distressed about that.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_01: I think he would be deeply distressed about the fact that we don't be, you know, in in 2005, he put creation care at the at the top of the list of issues that creation, including climate change, he put that at the top of the list of 2005 of issues that Christians should be specifically engaged in.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I think 15 years later, I think he'd be deeply saddened that evangelicals are not known that uh for their primary concern about the environment and about creation care, that evangelicals are not known about their primary concern to stand up for the poor and the disadvantaged.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: He also mentioned women and children's rights as being things that evangelical leaders should particularly focus on.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: And again, um I so I I I suspect it would be things like that.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: He would be deeply concerned about the tribalism.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he he because he was a big man and and people trusted him, people would come together and say, Well, I can't I don't agree about this.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_01: But I but I agree with John Stott.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'll I'll I'll I'll agree with him by and large.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they didn't always agree with him.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes they thought he'd completely lost the plot.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_01: But um I I think that there isn't uh we don't have many people today who who have that bringing people together uh from different from our different evangelical tribes.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: It seems that we've all we've all got our own little tribes, our own little heroes, our own little conferences and circuits and reading lists.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_01: And um I think he'd be deeply distressed about that.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we we don't want to merely do um kind of hagiography, and we don't want to um uh but is his birthday, so we should absolutely celebrate um John Stock and all that he's meant to us.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_00: But I wonder if you could reflect on either one of these um kind of question marks that I've got.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because I I wonder whether when it comes to preaching and when it comes to the way in which we coordinate um evangelism and social action, I wonder about the paradigms um that we've taken from John Stott.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: And on preaching, um he's written a great book, which I you know recommended between two worlds, and and um uh the bridge builder is the the sort of the paradigm of the preacher, and there's the there's the ancient text and there's a modern world, and the preacher is the bridge builder between the two.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: My worry with that is that if that's the only paradigm we we're dealing with, it's quite a it's quite a horizontal practice at that stage, um, which I know John Stott had other paradigms, and and you know, perhaps perhaps that's um uh how we can deal with that objection.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: But and then the other thing about social action and evangelism, um, like two wings of the bird is obviously a you know famous um statement that John Stott made, which I think was a necessary correction to forgetting about the need for this world and you know a clericalism that was rife.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I just wonder whether two wings of the bird is the right paradigm or whether sort of tree and fruit um might hold those two things together.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now I've thrown a lot I've thrown a lot at you there, John.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_00: Either of those you can comment on.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think I mean on the preaching bit and on the bridge building, I I think he could be accused of being too cerebral and too too having too much faith in um the power of rational persuasion.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I think to that extent he he had an enormous confidence that it was it would be possible for Christians but by marshalling arguments.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_01: I can hear him saying that by by providing evidence, by persuading.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I can remember him saying, look, we have we're a minority, we have no right to impose our views in society, but we do have a democratic right to persuade, to marshal arguments, to to use evidence.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I've often used the same kind of approach myself, and I believe it.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_01: I believe we do have the right to use rational arguments to persuade people towards Christian practice and Christian thinking.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_01: Having said that, I think 50 years later, we're much more aware of the limitations of persuasion, and particularly I find this whole sort of modern thing about conspiracy theories, what's sometimes called truth decay, um, you know, the the the whole uh attack on truth and on reason, uh, mean that this that that some of Stott's uh arguments on persuasion sounds rather quaint and and otherworldly uh in the light of you know the the um the pandemics of misinformation and confusion and uh and truth decay and and all the rest.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_01: So so I I think that's one element where I think um perhaps we need need to learn more and and my own conviction actually is that is that in a in an age of uh where even words start to lose their impact and they start to lose their them them their meeting their meaning then then actually it's it's deeds it's actions it's incarnational living and again by quote lay people that that is going to be the most important way in which the Christian message spreads and is promoted and and and authenticated because the danger in the current age and I say this is someone like you Glenn who's an evangelist the danger is that we live in a world where everybody is spinning everybody is marketing everybody's got something to promote and and yet you're promoting Jesus.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah well of course you're promoting Jesus you're paid to promote Jesus you know but but this guy over here is promoting Amazon or is Apple or or whatever and and in in an age which is utterly saturated by marketing then conventional word evangelism starts to can can really struggle and and ultimately it's it's the authenticity of of lives of people who are living as salt and light which which is going to demonstrate the the truth of Christ and the reality of Christ uh even when words cease to have any meaning.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah and I think if people want to check out um your sermon from um Sunday morning at all souls Langham Place uh that link is in the description of the YouTube video.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_01: But also um on that same channel Rico Tice uh preached on Sunday evening uh from one John chapter four about precisely that issue and it was such a refreshing uh sermon um which was again taken from one of Uncle John's um commentaries from from one john four uh just about the place of of love in evangelism how is God made visible if we you know god no one has ever seen God but if we love one another um then God is God is made known um in the in in our communities which is just yeah such a such an important um such an important message um yeah and John you're speaking later this evening aren't you I think at an an event uh you're speaking publicly about John Stott can you tell us a bit about what that event please yeah that this is at the London Institute of Contemporary Christianity L I C which John Stott founded uh back in the 1980s and I had the enormous privilege of being a founder member uh was on the board of of this organization which which which was the whole vision was to engage in the modern world and and and to use that analogy of of bridge building and um LICC is is having a a celebratory event this evening.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's online only and um if you go on to the website licc.co.uk no sorry licc.org.uk yeah uh then you can uh you can join the the online event and and I I'll be talking some more uh on on these themes and and asking the question you know as we look to the future how can we take the best of John Staw but also uh how do we need to translate it uh and uh uh and and maybe uh develop that that vision uh for the next for the next 50 years you know I I do think those first centuries of the Christian church are so important and it it's it ought to be everybody should know this 101 and yet I I I'm struck and and to be honest saddened that so few christian what happened in those first three centuries because in many ways that was the paradigm to me of the way that the the Christian church should impact society and and the growth was astonishing it it went the church went from a few hundred on the day of Pentecost to something like 20 odd million by 300 AD and I think 30 million by 350 AD and if you reckon that the entire Roman Empire was about 60 million at the time you know it went from this small bunch of weirdos and it didn't spread spread by military prowess by it simply spread because ordinary uh people were living out what they had learned um and and behaving in such an extraordinary way that other people wanted to join in and it and it's fascinating to me that the gospel spreads geographically and not by professional evangelists and church planters it actually spreads down the trade routes wherever there were trade routes Christians spread and little churches spring up and then they spread and so on and people just gossip the gospel.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so I I can't help feeling that in of course ours is a totally different age a post-Christendom age um but I can't help feeling that there are parallels with that ancient world where authentic ordinary people living uh extraordinary lives really makes is the way in which the good news spreads.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I I I think your sermon uh on Sunday just did a brilliant job of uh exciting people and I and I know people um who are both in full-time pastoral ministry and people who are in the ministry of the business world and in the ministry of academia um who really felt liberated by your message and I I think um you're you're definitely onto something that a rediscovery of um John Stott's all of life message I think could just ignite the the 95% of the church um that gets missed out when we get caught up in the in the clericalism really yeah yeah and I I think you know for me as a 19 year old I I think you know I sometimes wonder what would have happened to me if I hadn't been exposed to this kind of stuff through start and I rather suspect I would have wandered away from the faith as so many young people do because in the end it's a bit boring.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean yes okay I've heard about Jesus died on the cross for our sins yeah bloody blah de blah de blah do I have to go every time to church and I hear the same thing again and again and um the the wonderful liberating vision that that what that Christ affects every aspect of my life and every aspect of the world and um and one of the other things which which uh really inspired me was that Stott used to say don't go for the easy problems don't go for this sort of straightforward conventional problems go for the most difficult the most challenging the most threatening areas those are the areas where we need Christians to to engage and there if you go for those most difficult areas Stott said you will discover the power of Christian truth and that has been a guiding principle for me in my life you know to try to find you know to see well where are the most dangerous areas and threatening areas and for me that's led me into things like artificial intelligence and transhumanism and neuroscience and and so on because and I I have inherited that same kind of robust confidence that Christian truth is so powerful and so profound and so wonderful that it can actually help us as we engage with some of these most threatening and challenging areas.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously uh beginning of life and end of life issues as well um yeah John your your books have been uh profoundly helpful on that and and provocative and uh and I think that it's that radical conservatism it's that was it's that radical Christianity that grips people um I think and it kind of blows for me uh apart the the idea that it's a stepping stone um process to to move someone towards faith and I think that there are radical things that can be said about beginning of life and end of life and transhumanism and AI and all those sorts of things.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah I I think that's right.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact this is interesting I totally agree with you.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think one of the things I've come to realize you know when when you engage in the public square as a Christian there's a there's a very strong tendency and temptation to try to make Christianity seem ordinary and common sense and and and just obvious and the more we do that the more we actually cut the nerve of the real power of the Christian message.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_01: And what I've learned is that rather than to play down the paradoxes uh what I should do is actually blow them up confront people with with the power of the paradox so so for me to say that the god of the universe turns himself into a pathetic little baby who squits down his mother's front and has to have his bottom wiped you know it uh it's that ridiculous it's so ridiculous it's so stupid you know no one would invent that it might just be true and uh it it it it is those constant paradoxes we come across of a God who is infinite and yet makes himself infinitely small of a of a God whose service and in bondage you've we find freedom uh and and in making ourselves nothing we become uh like christ and and so on that it those those paradoxes have fantastic power don't they and and and and just like they did 2000 years ago nobody had heard anything like that right and and I think we need to to come back and and and and emphasize those those paradoxes because that's where the power of Christianity is.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_00: I picked up my the oldest John Stott book that I I own is Christian counterculture um which is very much related to his Sermon on the Mount um sort of commentary but uh I just picked up again this morning his his salt and light um comments which uh exactly that the you know some people all light and just all um here's the fulfillment of your hopes and the full fullness of life that comes in Jesus but where is the preservative action of the salt that has bite to it and I think John Stott's uh beautifully held together that salt and light so that we uh that we might be the counterculture that uh Christ has called us to be um John White you've been really um so very uh generous with your time thank you so much uh we've put uh in the description box uh a link to the event tonight at licsuit.org.uk and I hope uh loads of people check that out.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but uh Professor John White thank you so much for joining us.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you it's been great to be here well that's all for us.
• 55:41
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• 55:43
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• 55:49
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