THE THEOLOGY OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD IN
E. STANLEY JONES
by
David Bundy
"Kingdom of God" was a recurring theme of the
writing and preaching of E. Stanley Jones (1884-1973) throughout his life as a missionary.
His various concerns were expressed in twenty-eight books and more than 300 articles, many
of which take a conceptualization of "Kingdom of God" as their organizing
principle. It is the purpose of this essay to examine the development of the concept of
"Kingdom of God" in Jones' work.
E. Stanley Jones was perhaps the best known of the
thousands of Anglo-Saxon missionaries active in India in modern times. He is one of very
few persons from the Wesleyan-Holiness movement to have made a major impact outside that
movement during the twentieth century. The myth of Jones as missionary, revolutionary
statesman, charismatic speaker, best-selling author, and spiritual giant remains
unexamined. Perhaps because of the superhuman image, Jones has been the subject of very
little critical reflection and research. Study has been hampered by lack of access to the
papers and records of Jones whose heirs have not yet made them available to scholars. Even
after access is eventually given, we may know little more since Jones himself went through
his papers destroying many. For the moment, we are left with only the printed works,
hundreds of sermons on tape, a few letters found in the papers of recipients, and the
interviews granted to C. Chacko Thomas during the early 1950's.
Since little research has been undertaken, the status
quaestionis can be quite brief. The earliest dissertation on Jones is that of C. Chacko
Thomas presented at the University of Iowa in 1955. He focused on the period 1918-1930
with brief narrative summaries of the earlier periods and of the 1930's and 1940's. He
describes Jones' missionary activity and methods and attempts to suggest their
significance in the context of India. While the result is a superficial analysis, his work
was, for more than three decades, the only serious scholarly treatment of Jones. It is
particularly valuable for the interviews recorded with Jones and several of the people who
knew him best. He noted the centrality of the "Kingdom of God" to Jones' thought
but was forced to conclude, "the term 'Kingdom of God' seems to have no definite
meaning in his mind. He uses it indiscriminately to refer to something mystical which he
cannot explain.'(1)
The dissertation of Martin Ross Johnson, presented in
1978, was a major advance. Giving up any effort to detail the work of the "historical
Jones," Johnson focused on the "Christian Vision of E. Stanley Jones: Missionary
Evangelist, Prophet, and Statesman." Despite the drawbacks in critical perspective
suggested already by the title, Johnson presents an extensive, though uncritical summary
of Jones' teaching and theoretical structures. He argues that the "Kingdom of
God" was a central concern for Jones but fails to understand the significance of
Jones' experience and context for his theological development.(2)
Richard W. Taylor, in an article in the International
Bulletin of Missionary Research, published in 1982, took quite another approach. He placed
Jones in his Indian context and recognized elements of Jones' thought and method which
drew upon Indian culture and which were therefore innovative missiological practices.(3)
The most recent dissertation, and by far the most significant, is that of Sigfrid
Deminger, defended in 1985 at Uppsala, who builds upon suggestions in Taylor's all too
brief article. As Thomas, Deminger limits his discussion primarily to the period 1918-1930
when, influenced by Indian Christian theologians centered at Madras, Jones sought to
rethink mission method and the forms of Christian faith. Deminger notes that he did so in
terms of " Kingdom of God. " The analysis is helpful in that it establishes
Jones firmly in the context of the discussion of inter-religious encounter and dialogue
which was developing in India during the 1920's.(4)
Deminger was asking the right question when he began to
move the theological questions into the context of biography. The drawback to his method
was to treat the published works as classical theological treatises. In his writings,
Jones recounts and reflects on his activities and discussions with various people, usually
with several years' hindsight and normally while on trips continents away from his files
and acquaintances. Many of his books were produced quickly at the request of publishers
and tailored for their audiences. One has no idea as to the identity of persons cited in
his works and described as "an Indian boy," or "a certain Hindu
judge," or "a Hindu teacher," or "an Indian businessman." Jones
was a folk theologian, an evangelist with virtually no serious theological or
missiological education. His vision of Christian life developed through the telling and
retelling of stories and experiences as well as through his sensitive involvement with a
wide variety of people of diverse backgrounds. As the important projects and persons in
his life changed for various reasons, and as mind-changing events occurred, his theology
reflected those changes. Jones was no "ivory tower" theologian and made no
pretense of being an academic theologian. To attempt to see a coherent system or
perspective in his works is counterproductive and patently unfair.
At this point, we are confronted with a
historiographical problem: traditional scholarly tools available offer scarce results from
the analysis of folk or narrative theologians. How then is one to use the ocuments
produced by Jones so that they may be drawn upon for our own reflection? The method of
this essay draws upon the insights of French structuralism, especially Martial Gueroult
and Michel Foucault.(5) Out of the narrative structures of the life of Jones, we will
establish the socio-economic nexus, explore various relationships and experiences, noting
both disjunction and conjunction when that is the agenda, and offer an interpretation of
"Kingdom of God." It is not an effort at biography or traditional historical
theology, but rather an investigation of a concept as it is variously articulated in life
structures. Thus, this essay does not attempt to systematize but to suggest the complexity
of life and thought.
The Making of a Missionary
E. Stanley Jones was born into a middle class family
which struggled throughout his early years to maintain that status. His father worked as a
bailiff, shoemaker and toll collector, his mother as a teacher in public school.(6) At age
fifteen, Jones experienced an initial conversion. Two years later, attracted by the style
and person of Robert J. Bateman, a converted alcoholic, he became integrated into the
Methodist class-meeting structure: "My estrangement, my sense of orphanage were
gone."(7) A year later, aged eighteen, he had a subsequent religious experience which
he interpreted in light of Hannah Whitall Smith's The Christian's Secret of a Happy
Life.(8)
After his conversion he dreamed of studying law, having
dropped out of public school. He secured employment in a law library "getting books
and putting them back on the shelves for rich lawyers!"(9) He lost interest in law
and decided to enter the ministry on the model of Bateman, much to the anxiety of his
mother.(10) He managed to save enough for a year of college when "calamity struck us
as a family. My father lost his political job; court cases swept away the home we owned
and the beds we slept on.''(11) Jones sold insurance for a year to maintain the family and
was able to secure his mother's blessing to attend Asbury College only when he promised to
send home enough money each month to cover the rent.(12) He remembered: "I knew what
poverty meant, knew it for myself, and had to listen to tales of poverty from people not
being able to pay."(13)
Jones' recollections of his father and mother in A Song
of Ascents are few. He remembered his mother's strictness,(14) his father is mentioned
only in conjunction with the loss of his "political job."(15) His brother is
mentioned in terms of the relief felt when as a medical doctor, heir to an established
practice, he was able to take over the support of the family.(16)
His strongest relationship was with Miss Nellie Logan, a
single school teacher, a Methodist who had prayed with him at his first conversion, and
who was the object of perhaps Jones' most intense affections.(17) Jones wrote "Miss
Nellie," as he called her, frequently for many years and she preserved many of those
missives. They provide an intimate view of Jones and of his struggles.
At the time Jones was ready for college, we find a
sensitive youth alienated from his social and economic structures who found meaningful
relationships only in the context of the revivalist wing of the Methodist church. In that
group the only name we have is Nellie Logan.
Jones arrival at Asbury was less than auspicious. He was
embarrassed by the loudness of President J. W. Hughes on the train from Lexington to
Wilmore.(18) He was frustrated by the curriculum and instruction: "The curriculum
isn't hardly what I had expected although I might find out that it is really better than I
expect at the present time."(l9) Two weeks later, he had somewhat revised his
opinions: "Prof. Hughes teaches Butler's Analogy and theology . . . he is one of the
finest theologians of the South being a graduate of Vanderbilt University and he isn't all
shout."(20) He was also frustrated by his fellow students whose competition for
preaching appointments forced him to accept a distant and not very desirable assignment,
"(We are) going . . . for with all these young preachers just panting to let the
world know how much they know, preaching assignments are scarce."(21)
Each successive letter reveals a further cooptation by
the Asbury style, language, and an increased involvement in that community. The letters
reflect his struggle with the perfectionist goal of "self- control."
"Self-control" became a recurring rhetorical feature of the letters throughout
his Asbury experience as did the exhortations to Miss Nellie that she experience
sanctification. Otherwise the letters are filled with schoolboy bragging about his grades,
observations of his professors,(22) and narrations of his exploits.
Despite the slow start, he adapted at Asbury. He became
student body president, achieved success on the preaching circuit, and was invited to
remain as an instructor. However, he was still unable to adapt to the larger social
context. He narrated with the bravado of self-righteous indignation a social mishap:(23)
On Thanksgiving day they gave a social for the students.
The teachers superintended the affair and every five minutes (so it seemed) they changed
partners and we were truly driven "like dumb cattle." Several times I was in the
middle of a sentence and had to break it off when it was announced or rather asked who I
would like to go to next. Well my independent spirit revolted and I (was) actually left .
. . to talk to one of these fair Southern girls . . . I was invited out to supper with
several young ladies and what do you think? I got into a fight-with the devil. Several
young men from Lexington were there-the flip kind-and began to talk all kinds of
worldliness when they were rebuked by a young lady who said that there was a preacher in
the room (meaning me). They then began to talk what rascals they were, of course I wasn't
supposed to hear for I was talking to someone else-but I heard. And oh how the fire burned
within me while I mused and when my chance came-well I hope it "soaked" in.
In Song of Ascents he remembered the time at Asbury in
light of its emphasis on experience. It clearly did not teach him to think as a classical
theologian. It did not teach him about missiology. The Methodist Mission Board did not
help. His acceptance as a missionary was brief and impersonal. The appointment was to
India. He was provided "a Hindustani grammar, forty pounds in British gold, a ticket
to Bombay via Britain, a handshake and sent off." (24) He reflected:(25)
As I look back I see that the most valuable thing about
me in those days was my colossal ignorance. I had no knowledge of what to do and not to
do, for I had gone through no course in Indian evangelism or briefing. So I had no
inhibitions. All I knew was evangelism-people needed to be converted, to be hanged. So I
proceeded to act on that faith.
The Personul Kingdom, 1907-1916
The blissfully unaware missionary from Wilmore arrived
in Bombay on 13 November 1907. He proceeded to Lucknow where he was assigned to be pastor
of the large English-language church.(26) Jones was immediately amazed at the
"inertia ' of India and at the imposing presence of Methodism in Luck now: '
Methodism is here to stay."(27) He threw himself into the assigned pastoral role and
because of his energy and enthusiasm the church's report to the Annual Conference was that
"Lucknow has had a splendid year under the pastorate of E. S. Jones and conversions
are continually receiving, while the congregations have been built up."(28) During
every evening church service, altar calls were given as opportunities for individual
conversion.(29)
However, despite the successes in the English church,
Jones was frustrated. He was eager to be part of the larger process of converting India to
Christianity, an expectation which was regarded as inevitable by the majority of
missionaries in India during this period. Jones was realistic enough to realize that the
"inevitable" would not happen without intense work, and so he began to hold
evangelistic services in the villages, especially among the lower classes. Notices of
these meetings and the attendant successes are frequently described in the Methodist
paper, The Indian Witness. The converts were being invited into an individualistic and
perfectionistic Kingdom of God. Jones maintained the American Wesleyan-Holiness ascetical
rigorism into which he had been acculturated in Baltimore and Wilmore. He argued that all
believers, and especially the missionaries, should conform to this spirituality, stating
that a personal experience of Christ (as he defined it) and an irreproachable lifestyle
were necessary for evangelism. In a series of articles in The Indian Witness (1911) Jones
developed his model of Christian spirituality. It used the language of athletics, personal
striving and renunciation.(30)
The recurring term in Jones' essays about life and
mission in India during this period is "souls."(31) As the people of India
became increasingly aware of the need for change in and relief from the sociopolitical
structures imposed by the British empire and lived most fully by those who became part of
the imperial governing structures and/or the church, the "souls" became harder
to enlist for the Kingdom. Christian India was, by 1915, becoming a fading vision.(32)
Jones perceived the changing attitudes toward Christian conversion as a failure of mission
in general and of his own life and spirituality in particular. His frustration with his
own limitations and those of his fellow missionaries was reflected in the poignant
plea:(33)
We left America for souls. Are we now content to live
without them? Are we willing the missionary should be lost in the administrator? God
forbid. Then, oh, for a passionate passion for souls! A passion that will eat up lesser
passions until the soul shall cry out like the Master, "The zeal of thine house hath
eaten me up." We must see a revival. Lord send it.
This was largely autobiographical. After four years
Jones left the pastorate in Lucknow for the nearby city of Sitapur. He was appointed
Conference Evangelist and placed in charge of the Methodist work in Sitapur. Jones was
frequently absent evangelizing in the villages and so responsibility for the Sitapur Boys'
Boarding School fell increasingly to his wife, Mabel Lossing Jones (1887-1978).(34) He
could not escape administrative duties, however, as he became increasingly responsible for
Methodist ecclesial structures in India. He was named District Superintendent of the
Sitapur District and soon his responsibilities were extended, because of a lack of
missionaries to include the Lucknow, Hardoi and Bareilli Districts. He was also made the
Agent for the Methodist Publishing House. There was little time for evangelism and the
stress combined with internal conflict frequently provoked his temper.(35) During this
period, he sought with his personal efforts to energize the Methodist Church in India and
to turn each pastor into an equally ambitious American-style evangelist. He himself
recalled two decades later,"I was more of a boss than a brother."(36) Jones
reported to Miss Nellie that his wife professed to have "found a fitting phrase to
describe me . . . 'a chased rabbit.' "(37)
He later reflected,(38)
Physically I lacked poise, but mentally too I was not at
rest. I came to India out of a very conservative training. There were no doubts because I
had closed out all problems. I had a closed mind, closed upon the fact of the satisfying
Christ within. If walls shut out other things they also shut within one this precious
Fact. But as the first disconcerting years of a missionary went by and my contacts with
educated non-Christians became more intimate, my walls began to be assailed . . . only my
experience of Christ held me steady.
The demands on him, complicated by tetanus and
depression, led to a mental breakdown, and a furlough. He wrote Miss Nellie:(39)
I think it is finally decided now that we are to go home
next year. As much as I long to see you dear people again, I feel a strange sadness in
dropping the work. Perhaps it is because I have not been all I should have been in these
years of opportunity.
By the end of 1915, Jones and his understanding of the
Kingdom of God had collapsed. He had come to the hard-earned realization that an
imperialistic alien Christianity rooted in disdain for India and for the Indian
intelligensia would not lead Indians to an experience of Christ. He had also begun to
realize that the social structures of India had to be taken seriously and respected. Jones
found new direction in the discussions of Indian Christianity taking place in the context
of the National Missionary Society. Specially significant at this point were the (never
acknowledged) suggestions of H. A.Popley(l911)and G.E. Phillips(1912)in their National
Missionary Intelligencer articles about the need and desirability of "the
evangelisation of the middle classes of India"(40) and the reports of successful
lectures to "educated Hindus" in the same periodical by P. O. Phillip.(41)
Drawing on these theologians, Jones developed a missionary agenda but had not yet arrived
at a theoretical framework. He remained unsure of himself and uncertain of how to
transform his pattern of failure into success.
The Indian Kingdom, 1917-1933
Furlough to North America relieved the tension but did
not resolve the issues. Jones returned to India somewhat against his will and better
judgment. On route, he confessed to Miss Nellie that, "I did not want to come back to
India at this time."(42) At an evangelistic crusade during a stopover in the
Philippines, Jones suffered another mental and physical collapse. Once in India, Jones
spent considerable time "in the hills" recovering from the recurring breakdowns.
He confided again in a letter to Nellie Logan, dated 17 August 1917: "I am sorry that
I did not take another year at home, my head is troubling me and I must go off tomorrow
for a rest in the hills again, though I just came down a little over a month
ago."(43)
During this period of adjustment, Jones experienced a
major reorientation of his theological categories. He wrote:(44)
I knew my message was Jesus Christ, but since I had been
brought up conservatively, I was out to defend everything I held. I was on the defensive.
My theology was neat and tied up with a blue ribbon-unchanging.... I inwardly turned pale
as I let go of the securities of blocked-off faith to follow truth to unknown
destinations.
About a year later he reflected:(45)
After about a year, I began to take stock of where I had
come out. I had offered the securities of my faith on the altar of freedom and found to my
surprise and delight that all I had offered had come back to me, now no longer nervously
held; they held me.... I was free-free to explore, to appropriate any good, any truth
found anywhere....
This allowed several other perspectives to change. Most
importantly, Jones came to love rather than pity India. This permitted him to look
critically at his own North American political and religious heritage. The agenda proposed
by Popley and Phillips was revised and elaborated. They had argued, inter alia, that
evangelism should take Indian forms, be undertaken in "homely and sympathetic"
contexts avoiding all subterfuge, refrain from western formulated dogmatism but tell of
the "humanity of our Lord" emphasizing the who not the what, maintain a
respectful attitude toward those being evangelized, and seek to communicate that God is
love.'(43)
Acting on this model, Jones transformed his ministry.
Invitations were numerous and the crowds enormous. In a letter to Miss Nellie written
sometime late in 1917, Jones could say:(47)
I have begun my work among the educated and it is going
beyond my highest anticipations. Everywhere there are calls and doors wide open. I really
did not know there was such an opportunity. I am not sorry that I came back when I did.
Never till now have I felt that I was really where God wanted me.
The theoretical structure for this new pattern was not
sought until the early 1920's when there was time to reflect. Once again, Jones turned to
the National Missionary Intelligencer! An article by D. M. evasahayam (1922), based on an
address delivered at the Pasulamai Christian Ministers' Conference, discussed "Indian
Characteristics That Should Be Preserved in the Indian Church."(48) Devasahayam
argued for a breaking of the bond between Western cultural structures and the Gospel and a
search for Hindu values and "correctives to some of its (Christianity's) perversions
and aberrations, and that Christianity as an Eastern religion may be better understood
through Indian spectacles.'(49) He stressed the religious sensitivity of Indian culture,
the seriousness of the Indian religious consciousness, the emphasis on passive virtues,
the rejection of materialism and personal power by the religious person, the freedom of
Hindu religion from denominational politics, the freedom of the spirit by the
subordination of professional religious officials, the spirit of toleration of
differences, the catholicity, and the sophisticated understanding of the function of
religious imagery.(50)
Jones used this analysis as the basis of his 1923
address to the North India Conference and published, in serialized form in The Indian
Witness, his essay entitled "The Influence of the Indian Heritage upon
Christianity." Jones' dependence on Devasahayam is clear (often quoted or thinly
paraphrased) and undocumented. However, Jones was even more assertive in arguing that
Indian philosophical structures were as valid as Graeco-Roman philosophy for framing an
articulation of the Gospel.(5l) Jones had found a new way of thinking about the Kingdom of
God. It was no longer North American or British culture.
As well, Jones had two formative experiences during
1923. The first was an initial meeting with Gandhi at the Poona Hospital immediately
following Gandhi's release from his first imprisonment in India. Jones discussed the
similarities of Gandhi's and Jesus' methods and ministries, agreed with him on the values
of the spiritual Kingdom as opposed to physical militaristic kingdoms, and pleaded with
him to develop a clear witness and allegiance to Christ.(52) Gandhi became for Jones a
paradigm of what the new Indian participant in the Kingdom of God would be like. Gandhi,
he said, "has taught me more of the spirit of Christ than perhaps any other man in
East or West."(53)
The second experience was a visit to the Shantineketan
Ashram of Rabindranath Tagore and C. F. Andrews, a former Anglican missionary. K. T. Paul
first suggested (1912) the Ashram idea to the National Missionary Society as a possible
Indian form for theological reflection, but it was not until 1920, when the suggestion
came again from Sa&u Sundar Singh, that the National Missionary Society-sponsored
Ashram at Tirupattur was organized (1921).(54) The article following the announcement
discussed "Methods in the King-dom of God" which developed Hindu values of
Ashram in Christian terms.(55) Another article, by Dr. S. Jesudason permanent resident at
Tirupattur, published in the National Missionary Intelligencer (1922) described the
Tirupattur Ashram as "An Effort for the Fulfillment of a Vision of the Kingdom of
God."(56)
Jones described his first Ashram experience:(57)
If the keystone were a clear witness to Jesus Christ and
a clear making of Him central, then I could ask for nothing finer, as an expression of
Indian Christianity.... The spirit that breathes here, the loving friendliness of every
one, the communion with nature, the simplicity of life and dress, and the spirituality of
it all-if these were crowned with Christ, as they are now saturated with His spirit, then
I begin to see what Indian Christianity would be, when it begins to gather up within
itself all the best in India's past and reinterprets Christ through Indian genius and
forms. That will be a day worth waiting for and a product worth having. It will be no
hybrid thing, but a fresh, living expression of the Son of Man.
The component parts of a revised theology of the Kingdom
of God were in place. The Kingdom of God in India was to be Indian in form, style and
philosophical structure as it sought allegiance to the person of Jesus with-out Western
theological trappings. The Ashram was an exemplary communitarian structure which allowed
Kingdom values to be lived, as Gandhi was demonstrating in his Ashram. Gandhi was
perceived to personify Christ/Kingdom life and considered to be on the verge of conversion
and world leadership. Interestingly, the efforts of the National Missionary Society in the
creation of Christian Ashrams and the theological work done to articulate the Christian
significance of the experiment, although obviously seminal for Jones, were never
acknowledged. In fact the assertion that his "Christian Ashram movement . . . did not
come into being as an of ficial product of the Church"(58) has contributed to the
widely held misconception that Jones founded the first Christian Ashram.
Jones articulated the new theological synthesis and its
practical missiological implications, during his April 1924 to January 1926 furlough, in
The Christ of the Indian Road (1925). This book catapulted Jones into international fame
and was widely read on all sides of the emerging debate within North America over
structures appropriate for mission. He returned to India for two and one half years and
chronicled the results of his evangelistic efforts in Christ at the Round Table (1928),
written during his next furlough (May 1928 to April 1929). During this time he continued
his efforts to communicate with the "educated Hindus," and, as the tome reveals,
continued to wrestle with the concept of the Indian Kingdom of God.(59) The "Kingdom
of God" was still essentially personal, individualistic and separate from the social
context of human development. At the same time, Jones was becoming aware that the
Christian was obligated to seek the redemption of society. There were social dimensions to
the "Kingdom of God:"(60)
Jesus believed in life and its redemption. Not only was
the soul to be saved-the whole of life was to be redeemed. The kingdom of God coming on
earth is the expression of that collective redemption. The entrance to the kingdom of God
is by personal conversion, but the nature of that kingdom is social. The kingdom of God is
the most astonishingly radical proposal ever presented to the human race. It means nothing
less than the replacing of the present world-order by the kingdom of God. It is the
endeavor to call men back from the present unnatural, unworkable world-order to a new one
based on new principles, embodying a new spirit and led by a new person.
Jones was beginning to understand the consequence of the
intellectual positions at which he was arriving. To have an Indian rather than a North
American kingdom did not mean withdrawing from a confrontation of society. It merely meant
that the confrontation was to be on a different level, a critique from inside Indian
culture. For that critique to be meaningful, an Indian style of living the new model, the
Kingdom of God, was essential. Gandhi's paradigm for struggle with the British Empire was
adapted to the struggle against "the present world-order."
The period April 1929 to February 1933, back in India,
framed the implementation and some major setbacks for the new synthesis. In 1930, Jones
established the Ashram at Sat Tal as an experiment and manifestation of the
"Kingdom."(61)It was this quest for a Kingdom-of-God order that drove some of us
to adopt the Ashram as a possible mold in which this order might be expressed."(62)
It was situated in the foothills of the Himalayas on a large estate and functioned from
April to June each summer. Despite the short-term arrangements, interesting discussions
took place between persons representing a number of perspectives and traditions. The rest
of the year saw Jones continuing his evangelistic ministry.
However, Jones was confronted with a number of
disappointments. By 1931, his dream of converting Gandhi was gone as Gandhi reaffirmed his
Hinduism.(63) The Sat Tal Ashram came under attack(64) as a two month "vacation
Ashram" removed from the real world in which Christians must struggle, and he was
beginning to incur the wrath of missionaries for his strong stance on the validity of
Indian intellectual and religious structures as well as his stand favoring Indian
independence.
The Kingdom: Liberation and Economic
Restructuring (1934-1940)
Jones spent the year February 1933 to February 1934 in
North America and England. He returned to India via Moscow. The visit to Moscow was a life
changing experience and provided an agenda for the next six years. He remembered the
experience in A Song of Ascents:(65) I had to go outside my native land to make a major
discovery-the discovery of the Kingdom of God. I found it, of all places in Russia! . . .
I had always known it, but there it became vital and all compelling. It possessed me.
Russia had inwardly hit me hard.
What did Jones see? In Russia, he saw people
energetically revising the social order with the goal of achieving socio-economic justice
and equality. The commitment of the people to that purpose, the appeal of the rhetoric and
the almost immediate resulting improvement in the lot of the exploited peasant classes was
clear. It was also clear that the Russian church was out of touch with the crucial
socio-economic and political issues and excluded from the program of social
reconstruction. He also noted that because of the lack of involvement on the part of the
church in the struggle for socioeconomic justice during the revolution, "religion had
collapsed like a house of cards."(66) The Russians were endeavoring to establish the
quality of life about which the church had talked but never produced. The new order was
not without its faults, but, Jones warned:(67)
Object to it as we may, and as I do, on the basis of its
lack of liberty, of its compulsions, of its ruthlessness, and its materialistic atheism,
nevertheless it has founded society on a higher principle, namely that of co-operation . .
. the end of selfishly striving to be rich when to be rich means that other people become
poor.... We may hate it and cast it from us, but in the end it will judge us, for it is a
higher ideal.
Jones was quick to see the attractiveness of Marxism and
the Russian experiment for the impoverished and disenfranchized of the world:
"Every-where this issue is arising in one form or another."(68) The effort to
achieve economic democracy would be carefully observed in a world which is
"half-starved."(69) The Christian community he noted, was in a position of
dangerous opportunity. It would experience, and, he argued, should experience, a crumbling
of systems which negatively influence the reception of the Gospel and which tie it closely
to Western competitive capitalist structures. Positively, the church needed to
"provide something better than Marxian Communism or succumb to it. The issue will not
be settled by argument but by the actual production of a better order. The only way to
beat them is to beat them to it."(70)
Many missionaries and churchmen had visited
revolutionary Russia. Few were as strongly affected.(71) Few instantaneously realized the
magic of the Russian agenda for the disinherited. That Jones did has to be understood in
light of his disenfranchized youth, the family financial reverses, his increasing
alienation from the various ecclesiastical structures, and his identification with India's
struggle against foreign domination and poverty.
Despite, or perhaps because of, this alienation, Jones
remained committed to a Christian vision. The promise of the atheistic kingdom required a
response from the perspective of the "Kingdom of God." Jones took up the
challenge represented by Communism on different but related fronts. On the one hand he
wrote extensively attempting to articulate a Christian alternative, a vision of the
"Kingdom of God." The proceeds of the sale of these books were devoted, at least
in part, to subsidizing the practical aspect of his program, the development of another
ashram, not in the mountains but in the city of Lucknow. He also began to reflect on the
unity of the Church. Let us examine these responses.
A Theoretical Frameworh for the Kingdom of God On his
return to India Jones withdrew to Sat Tal Ashram to reflect. He began to read the Bible in
light of Marxist social analysis and Marxist social analysis in light of the Bible. He
adopted a critical stance toward the received interpretations of both systems. The result
was the volume Christ's Alternative to Communism which drew heavily upon Marxist social
theory and Jones' experience in India as it endeavored to describe the "Kingdom of
God." Christ's Alternative to Communism was a radical document calling for the
abolition of repressive structures and the reformation of the world social and economic
orders. He urged that alternatives to exploitative capitalist competition be found, noting
that "if Christianity were really applied again, it would result in some form of
collective sharing closely akin to Communism."(72) Jones also called upon the Church
to reform its goals and structures and to take a more prophetic stance over against
injustice and its worldly self-interest.
Jones found the structure of the new order ("the
unshakable kingdom") in the "Sermon on the Mount." On the basis of Luke
4:18-21 (what he called the "Nazareth Manifesto"), Jones sought to describe the
parameters of a Christian social agenda It is the task of the Christian community to
declare, as did Jesus:(73)
1. Good news to the poor-the economically disinherited.
2. Release to the captives-the socially and politically
disinherited.
3. The opening of the eyes of the blind-the physically
disinherited.
4. The setting at liberty the bruised-the morally and
spiritually disinherited.
5. The Lord's year of Jubilee-a new beginning on a world
scale.
6. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me-the dynamic behind
it all.
This is the program for the "Kingdom. of God."
It was a present agenda, not an eschatological future agenda. There was no longer a
distinction between personal and social salvation. Jones argued against both sides of the
"Social Gospel versus Individual Gospel" controversy that life is a unity, a
coherent structure. Persons cannot be separated from their life experiences. To be
coherent the Gospel must simultaneously be individual and social.
How would the "Kingdom of God" be instituted?
It would not be actualized by the churches or by nationalistic interests which identify
their system or perspective with the Kingdom of God. Typically Jones proposed
prerequisites and processes, painted in broad impressionistic strokes unencumbered by
detail, necessary to the realization of the "Kingdom of God. "He proposed ten
steps:(74)
1. We can say, "As far as I am concerned it begins
right now."
2. We can form groups for the practice and study of the
new Kingdom life.
3. While we shall look on the church as the probable
center of the Kingdom, we shall not confine the Kingdom to the church, even if we could.
4. We can help develop the co-operative spirit instead
of the competitive by organizing cooperatives of various types and kinds.
5. Christian businssmen can change the basis of their
business from competition to cooperation.
6. We can teach this New Order.
7. We must teach it as though we believed in the
inevitability of the Kingdom of God.
8. One of the first steps is the uniting of the
Christian forces of the world into a Christian International.
9. When we have a sufficient majority to make this
Christian program effective, we should not hesitate to put it through the political order.
10. The next step that each of us can take is to lay
hold of the resources of the Spirit of the Lord-the dynamic behind the whole program.
Bringing in the Kingdom. Jones set out immediately to
demonstrate the vision. He noted, "It was while studying the Nazareth Manifesto of
Jesus at Sat Tal that the Lucknow Ashram was born . . . an attempt to make that Manifesto
real. The economic basis had to be faced at once."(75) Structures were developed
which were intended to model "Kingdom" principles. Distribution of resources was
based on need. Community consensus was sought on all policy and administrative issues.
Each was expected to contribute to the Ashram's effort to minister to the needs of the
surrounding city of Lucknow.(76) Jones continued his reflection and published Victorious
Living (1936) (used as a devotional volume in North America but, read in the context of
1935-1936, it is a call to radical Christian discipleship), The Choice Before Us (1937)
which expanded the social analysis to National Socialism/Fascism, Along the Indian Road
(1939) in which he reflected on the significance of the "Kingdom of God" concept
for India, and the volume Is the Kingdom of God Realism? in which he presented a vigorous
response to criticism and questions directed at his position.(77)
The "Christian International" also received
attention. Jones had long been committed to an ecumenical Christianity. He began to
realize that understanding between denominations did not diminish the problems which the
competitive programs and rhetoric posed for evangelism. A united front was perceived as
essential. In a series of articles in The Indian Witness, Jones developed ideas which had
long been discussed in the National Missionary Intelligencer.(78) He took the idea one
step further and advocated a sort of "federal union" of churches, a plan not
unlike the one he would later advocate for Pakistan and India. He saw that the union would
acknowledge the primacy of the "Kingdom of God" of which they were reflections
but not the "Kingdom" itself. This understanding brought him into conflict with
the North American and European inspired ecumenical movement as he experienced it in the
Tambaram International Missionary Conference in Madras. Jones' critique of the Conference
was scathing:(79)
It blazed no great way. Why? Because of its basic
starting point-the Church. It began there and worked out to aU its problems from the
Church standpoint.... "The Church is the world's greatest hope!" That is not a
chance sentence. It sums up the presuppositions of Madras.... Is the Church the hope of
the world? If so, God help us! . . . God is laying hold of other instruments besides the
Church to realize the Kingdom of God . . . the Kingdom is a demand upon the total life-the
whole of life, personal, devotional, economic, social, international-comes its way.
There was immediate and condescending response from both
the North American theological left and right, from Henry P. van Dusen and Walter Horton
as well as James R. Graham, Jr. and Robert C. McQuiLkin.(80) Jones later reflected,
"I have never been forgiven by the hierarchy for that (Christian Century) article. I
cut across the prevailing accepted emphasis of the ecumenical church as the supreme
emphasis. But I am unrepentant."(81)
Finally, Jones became more involved in India's struggle
for independence. Since 1923, he had understood that the revolution in India was serious
and that empire was a hindrance to evangelism. From the time of his initial interview with
Gandhi until his death, Jones watched, offered advice, moral and vocal support as well as
friendship to the Congress Party. He was also a persuasive witness of Indian heritage and
values to the Anglo-Saxon world. After 1934, Jones had a reasoned basis for his position.
By striving for the freedom of India (and in India) he was working to bring the
"Kingdom of God" into being.
In January 1940 Jones left India. He expected a furlough
but from 1941 to 1946, Jones was not allowed to return to India by British colonial
authorities who feared his influence. The Lucknow Ashram was closed in 1940 during the
missionary pledge and Kristagraha controversies which developed after Jones had turned
over the leadership of the Ashram to Dr. J. Holmes Smith.(82) From this time onward, Jones
would continue to draw personal strength from his Indian experience. He continued, in some
senses, to view the world from an Indian perspective. However the focus of his energy and
the efforts to interpret and actualize his vision shifted to a different world.
Restructuring the World and the Church,
1940-1973
This commitment to liberation and economic justice
combined with a concern for the "Christian International" propelled Jones into
the role of international statesman (briefly) and ecumenical crusader in North America.
The historiographical problems for this phase of Jones' life are enormous. Almost
everything we know is from Jones' own writing, and the independent data we have tends to
relativize the significance of Jones' impact during this period. For example, the vaunted
correspondence with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, if the available materials are
any indication, were the kind of letters that American clergy have often directed to
political figures.(83) Perhaps, when Jones' papers are made available for scholars, a
different picture will emerge. However, for the moment it would appear that he was an
"extra" rather than an "actor."
That is not to disparage his impact on the North
American church. His meetings were well attended and Jones' reformist agenda was received
gladly by the populace of the nation while at war and later adjusting to a post-war
economy. Jones was never able to develop his concept of the "Kingdom of God"
into a program, and like many "new ideas," supported neither by a solid
philosophical structure or a program for action, the "new idea" faded. Let us
look briefly at Jones' reflections on "Kingdom of God" as it related to North
America.
Avoiding War in Asia. Jones' concern for the conflict in
Asia began in the late 1930's after a preaching mission to China. His strategy was
three-fold: first, apply Gandhi's non-violent non-cooperation method to Japan; second,
isolate Japan economically; third, give New Guinea to Japan thus allowing Japan to
"save face;" fourth, work throughout the world to equally distribute resource;
fifth, give freely of American resources to right economic wrongs; sixth, strive toward
world political self-determination.(84) Jones' irenic but forceful suggestions were soon
lost in the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor. For the purpose of our essay it is
important to note the continuation of two influences on Jones: India/Gandhi and his
Marxist economic and geopolitical analysis.
Federal Union Plan. Jones had noted that most church
union programs focused on the hierarchies of the churches and that they had little impact
on the local churches. Furthermore, union efforts had been accompanied by rhetoric about
the consolidation of the "Kingdom of God." Jones believed that church union
needed to be reconceptualized on the basis of local experiments and experience. The model
for Jones' federal plan became the structure of the American constitution, which led to
union through the surrender of some individual prerogatives but which, he believed, drew
its force from the local practice of government. Such a restructuring, accompanied by
cooperation rather than competition, would allow for the development of the "Kingdom
of God" within the context of the church. Jones was not able to define the vision in
terms of processes and procedures. The most coherent attempt was the 1970 volume
Reconstruction of the Church-On What Pattern? Here on the basis of an analysis of the New
Testament church in Antioch he proposed that the church must: (1) look to one head, Jesus
Christ; (2) become a church of the laity; (3) be a society characterized by particular and
universal caring- (4) be an opponent of injustice and evil; (5) be multi-racial and
non-racist; (6) not be legalistic; (7) hold together strong persons of differing views;
(8) use its oppositions rather than merely tolerating (bearing) them.(85) The language of
the "Christian International" was gone, and there were few references to Western
economic imperialism, but the essential vision was similar, albeit, expressed in terms
more congenial to North American Christians.
America, Model for the Kingdom of God. Jones moved from
an appreciation of American governmental structures (federal union) to becoming tantalized
with the possibilities of America as an experiment in "Kingdom of God." He
wrote:(86)
What and where is America? America is a
dream-unfulfilled. A dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property widely
distributed- a dream of a place where class is abolished and man is a man, a place where
race and birth and color are transcended by the fact of a common brotherhood, a place
where humanity as humanity can begin again a fresh experiment in human brotherhood that
will be a new beginning for the race as a whole, a place where all our gifts and resources
are held not for ourselves alone but as instruments of service for the rest of
humanity-that is the dream.
America had potential, he argued, as a model, but his
was not a Reagan or New-Right-Moral Majority style model. The vision was the radical
Indian and Marxist inspired Christian vision of the redeemed society. Little wonder that
the 1944 volume, The Christ of the American Road, was not reprinted and has received
little hearing. Only in the North American Civil Rights struggles of the 1960's did Jones'
social vision bear fruit-in the work of Martin Luther King who found in Jones' analysis of
Gandhi a paradigm for action, and in Jones' "Kingdom of God" a program.
Throughout the rest of his life, Jones struggled to
articulate a vision of the "Kingdom of God" to North American Christianity. He
organized ashrams, preached, lectured and wrote. The writings were usually understood to
be primarily devotional in nature and were widely thus read. However, it would appear that
these were intended to engage persons in the style of radical Christianity which he
understood as normative "Kingdom" lifestyle. Many of these volumes reflect
specifically Hindu and Buddhist (rather than North American) values and practice of
spirituality. In addition to the volume on the reconstruction of the church mentioned
above, the most systematic, if it can be called that, presentation of his perspective was
The Unshakable Kingdom and the Unchanging Person (1972). (87) Here Jones reiterated
central themes which had occupied him since the visit to Gandhi in 1923 and to Moscow in
1934. The pattern remained the "Sermon on the Mount. "The goal was the
redemption of the totality of humanity and human social structures.
Interpreting E. Stanley Jones
Sidney Alstrom interpreted Jones as an example of
American "harmonial religion."(88) He missed the radical socio-economic,
political and religious agenda of Jones as well as Jones' disregard for American cultural
comfort and his call for revolution. Thomas and Johnson understood Jones as a prophetic
figure, but did not discover the contextual and personal sources of Jones thought.(89)
Deminger attempted to interpret Jones in light of Piaget's assimilation theory, but missed
the criticism of systems from within which Jones spoke.(90)
As has been argued above, Jones is better understood in
light of his own social history, an analysis which Jones, because of his Marxist
tendencies, may have found congenial. He was propelled by a passion for political and
socio-economic justice as well as personal salvation fueled by his personal experience of
social alienation, economic victimization and failure to find meaningful ministry in the
established ecclesiological programs.
Jones' controlling hermeneutic was his experience. In
adapting forms to articulate that experience, Jones was eclectic . . . and only too ready
to borrow (plagiarize) the thoughts of others. The lack of theological training and
academic discipline, while it left him open to explore possibilities and accept
opportunities which his more educated and socially integrated (into the missionary
structures) colleagues were unable to comprehend, hampered him in his efforts to clearly
articulate his vision and define a persuasive program for accomplishing the ideal.
Those inside the Wesleyan/Holiness traditions which
formed Jones have tended to read Jones as Ahlstrom understood him. It would be more
appropriate to recognize Jones as the proto-liberation theologian of the tradition, and to
celebrate him as such.
NOTES
1 C. Chacko Thomas, The Work and
Thought of Eli Stanley Jones with Special Reference to India, Ph.D. Diss. State University
of Iowa,1955,262.
2 Martin Ross Johnson, The
Christian Vision of E. Stanley Jones: Missionary Evangelist, Prophet and Statesman, Ph.D.
Diss. Florida State University, 1978. There is also the work of Kenneth Ralph Thompson,
The Ethics of Eli Stanley Jones, Ph.D. Diss. Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminarv.
1960.
3 Richard W. Taylor, "The
Legacy of E. Stanley Jones," International Bulletin of Missionary Research 6(1982),
102-107.
4 Sigfrid Deminger, Evangelistpa
indiska villkor. Stanley Jones och den indiska renassansen 1918-1930 (Studia Missionalia
Uppsaliensia,42; Orebro: Bokforlaget I.ibris, 1985). Cf. review by D. Bundy, International
Review of Mission 75(1986), 329-331.
5 Martial Gueroult,
Dianoematique, Livre II: Philosophie de l'histoire de Iaphilosophie (Collection analyse et
raisons; Paris: Aubier Montaigne,1979), and Michel Foucault, Le Mot et les choses
(Bibliotheque des sciences humaines; Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1966); idem, Language,
Counter Memory, Practice. Selected Essays and Interviews ed. D. F. Bouchard, Trans. D. F.
Bouchard and S. Simon (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1977).
6 Thomas, Work and Thought of
Eli Stanley Jones, 1.
7 Stanley Jones, A Song of
Ascents. A Spiritual Biography (Nashville: Abingdon, 1968), 28.
8 Jones, A Song of Ascents, 52.
9 Jones, A Song of Ascents, 63.
10 Jones, A Song of Ascents, 63.
11 Jones, A Song of Ascents, 64.
12 Jones, A Song of Ascents, 64.
Later (A Song of Ascents, 72) when Jones wrote his mother of his becoming a missionary,
she become so depressed that his brother, fearing imminent death, called him home.
13 Jones, A Song of Ascents, 64.
14 Jones, A Song of Ascents, 45.
15 Jones, A Song of Ascents, 64.
16 Jones, A Song of Ascents, 64.
17 See Jones' effusive comments
in A Song of Ascents, 43-44.
18 E. Stanley Jones to Nellie
Logan, 3 Sept. 1903, Jeff Blake Collection, Archives, Asbury Theological Seminary,
Wilmore, KY, p. 1.
19 E. Stanley Jones to Nellie
Logan, 3 Sept. 1903, Jeff Blake Collection, Archives, Asbury Theological Seminary,
Wilmore, KY, pp. 4-5.
20 E. Stanley Jones to Nellie
Logan, ll Sept.1903, Jeff Blake Collection,Archives, Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore,
KY, p. 6.
21 E. Stanley Jones to Nellie
Logan, 3 Oct. 1903, Jeff Blake Collection,Archives, Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore,
KY, p. 2.
22 See, for example, E. Stanley
Jones to Nellie Logan, 23 Jan. 1904, Jeff Blake Collection, Archives, Asbury Theological
Seminary, Wilmore, KY.
23 E. Stanley Jones to Nellie
Logan,30 Nov. 1904, Jeff Blake Collection, Archives, Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore,
KY, 2-3.
24 Jones, A Song of Ascents, 75.
For the text of the completed form, see, Thomas, Work and Thought of Eli Stanley Jones,
287-288.
25 Jones, A Song of Ascents, 80.
26 Jones. A Song of Ascents, 79.
27 E. Stanley Jones, Along the
Indian Road, 29; E. Stanley Jones to Nellie Logan, 18 Dec. 1907, Jeff Blake Collection,
Archives, Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, KY.
28 J. W. Robinson, Annual Report
of the North India Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1909, 17. The subsequent
reports show that Jones' increasingly frequent absences on evangelistic tours had a
deleterious effect on church attendance.
29 Jones, A Song of Ascents,
80-81.
30 E. Stanley Jones,
"Thought for the Month-Progress in Character: The Supreme Motive Power," The
Indian Witness 42(22 Aug. 1911), 696; idem, "Thought for the Month-Progress in
Character: Christian Athletics," The Indian Witness 42(29 Aug. 1911), 696; idem,
"Thought for the Month Progress in Character: Numerous and Disastrous Foes," The
Indian Witness 42(5 Sept. 1911), 716; idem, "Thought for the Month-Progress in
Character: The Exemplary Life," The Indian Witness 42(12 Sept. 1911),736.
31 E. Stanley Jones,
"Conditions Necessary for a Great Revival," The Indian Witness 43(27 Feb.
1912),167-168; idem, "The Revival Month-Some Thoughts," The Indian Witness 46(4
Feb. 1915), 96; idem, "Soul Winning Emphasized," The Indian Witness 47(10 Feb.
1916), 103.
32 Graham Whitfield Houghton,
The Development of the Protestant Missionary Church in Madras 1870-1920: The
Impoverishment of Dependency, Ph.D. Diss. UniversitY of California, Los An~eles. 1981.
33 E. Stanley Jones, "The
Revival Month-Some Thoughts," The Indian Witness 46(4 Feb.1915),96, alluding to
Finney, argued, "If we get into line with these laws, revivals will follow. Any
people can have a revival if they want it. Moreover let me say it thoughtfully, everyone
can have as much reuiual as he wants. When we get ready we find an already ready
God." In early 1913 Jones was still optimistic. See E. Stanley Jones to Nellie
Logan,21 Jan. 1913, Jeff Blake Collection, Archives, Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore,
KY.
34 Cf. the discussion by Thomas,
Work and Thought of 131i Stanley Jones,28-44. Jones was married during February 1911.
35 E. Stanley Jones to Nellie
Logan, 18 Nov.1913, Jeff Blake Collection, Archives, Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore,
KY.
36 Jones, Along the Indian Road,
32.
37 E. Stanley Jones to Nellie
Logan, 21 Oct. 1915, Jeff Blake Collection, Archives, Asbury Theolo~ical Seminary,
Wilmore, KY.
38 Jones, Along the Indian Road,
32-33.
39 E. Stanley Jones to Nellie
Logan, 21 Oct. 1915, Jeff Blake Collection, Archives, Asbury Theological Seminary,
Wilmore, KY. In E. Stanley Jones, The Christ of the Indian Road (New York: Abingdon,
1925), 21-23, he recounted his feelings of failure as well as his mental and physical
deterioration. Jones similarly described his breakdowns in his Round Robin Letter, 1 Dec.
1917, Jeff Blake Collection, Archives, Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, KY.
40 H. A. Popley, "The
Evangelisation of the Middle Classes of India. Part 1-The Problem," The National
Missionary Intelligencer5(1911),51-53;idem, "The Evangelisation of the Middle Classes
of India. Part 2-The Possibilities of Indian Music," The National Missionary
Intelligencer 5~1911), 63-66; 5(1911), 75-79; G. E. PhiDips, "The Evangelisation of
the Middle Classes of India. Part 2-The Message," The National Missionary
Intelligencer 6(1912),45-51.
41 G. E. PhiDips, "Work
Among Educated Hindus," The National Missionary Intelligencer 7(1912),45-51. Jones
first mentioned the idea in a letter: E. Stanley Jones to Nellie Logan, 18 Nov. 1913, Jeff
Blake Collection, Archives. Asburv Theoloaical Seminarv. Wilmore. KY.
42 E. Stanley Jones to Nellie
Logan, 8 Jan. 1917, Jeff Blake Collection, Archives, Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore,
KY.
43 E. Stanley Jones to Nellie
Logan, 20 Aug. 1917, Jeff Blake Collection,Archives, Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore,
KY.
44 Jones, A Song of Ascents, 91.
45 Jones, A Song of Ascents, 92.
46 Popley and Philips, The
Euangelisation of the Middle Classes of India. Cf. Jones, Christ of the Indian Road, 26,
162-177.
47 E. Stanley Jones to Nellie
Logan, no date (1917), Jeff Blake Collection, Archives, Asbury Theological Seminary,
Wilmore, KY.
48 D. M. Devashahayam,
"Indian Characteristics That Should Be Preserved in the Indian Church," The
National Missionary Intelligencer 17(1922~. 170-177.
49 Devashahayam, Indian
Characteristics, 171.
50 Devashahayam, Indian
Characteristics, 171-177.
51 E. Stanley Jones, "The
Influence of the Indian Heritage upon Christianity," The Indian Witness 54(1923),
909-910; 927-928; 54(1924), 5, 6, 11. Johnson noted the centrality of this essay for
Jones' thought and based his chapter "III. Jones and Indigenous Indian
Christianity," pp. 37-55, on it. Richard W. Taylor, The Contribution of E. Stanley
Jones (Confessing the Faith in India,9; Madras: Christian Literature Society, 1973),41-57,
reprinted this text as one of the six seminal texts for understanding Jones. Jones
published the material in revised form as Chapter 12 of Christ of the Indian Road,
199-210. Neither Johnson nor Taylor recognized Jones' source.
52 Jones recounted the story of
his first meeting with Gandhi in Alongthe Indian Road, 124-125.
53 E. Stanley Jones, Mahatma
Gandhi, An Interpretation (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury, 1948). Jones recollections of
Gandhi's suggestions for indigenizing Christianity sound remarkably like Popley and
Philips, The Evangelisation of the Middle Classes of India. The entire problem of Jones
and Gandhi is the subject of dissertation research of Paul Martin at the University of
Cambridge. England.
54 K. T. Paul has not been given
the credit due. Benarsidas Chaturvedi and Marjorie Sykes, Charles Freer Andrews, A
Narrative with a forward by M. K. Gandhi (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1949), 73-74,
attributed the idea of a "Christian Ashram" to C. F. Andrews. The text of the
discussion is provided here, in an attempt to correct the historiography, from "Our
First North India Conference," The National Missionary Intelligencer 6(1912),78-79:
"The Ashrama Idea. K. T. Paul then having vacated the Chair in favour of C. F.
Andrews recommenced the discussion of the main topic of the noon session, 'The indigenous
character of our work.' . . . The problem was to develop an indigenous method which will
not be wanting in the advantages of organisation; (5) For this purpose he suggested a
Christian Ashrama which will attract the most spiritual of our Christian youths.. .
." On the role of Sadhu Sundar Singh, see, "Notes" The National Missionary
Intelligencer 14(1920), 62-63.
55 Anonymous, "Methods of
the Kingdom of God," The National Missionary Intelligencer 14(1920), 63-65.
56 S. Jesudason, "The
Tirupattur Ashram: An Effort for the Fulfillment of a Vision of the Kingdom of God,"
The National Missionary Intelligencer 16~1922). 75-79.
57 E. Stanley Jones, "My
Stay at Shantineketan," The Indian Witness 54(5 Sept. 1923), 622.
58 Jones, Along the Indian Road,
181.
59 Jones, Christ of the Indian
Road, idem, Christ at the Round Table (New York: Abingdon, 1928). The former was
designated "missionary book of the year in America" by The Christian Advocate
(NY) 101(7 Oct. 1926), 1370. Cf. James K. Matthews and Eunice Jones, Selections from E.
Stanley Jones: Christ and Human Need (New York: Abingdon, 1972), 15. The criticism of
Jones' position on the "Indian Kingdom" was intense enough to provoke a response
from Jones, "Dr. Jones Answers His Critics," Missionary Review of the World
52(1929), 603-605 (Jones called for his opponents to compare the results of their
evangelistic activity and his), and for the same periodical to publish a report by Paul J.
~Braisted, "With Stanley Jones in India," Missionary Review of the World
53(1930), 411-415.
60 Jones, Christ at the Round
Table, 90. See also E. Stanley Jones, The Christ of the Mount (New York: Abingdon, 1931)
and idem, Christ and Human Suffering (New York: Abin~don, 1933).
6l On the Theory of Sat Tal
Ashram, see E. Stanley Jones, "A Proposed Ashram at Sat Tal," The Indian Witness
60(9 Jan. 1930), 27-28, and idem, "The Ashram Ideal," Indian Church Problems of
Today ed. Bishop Brenton Thoburn Badley (Madras: Methodist Publishing House, 1930), 44-51.
62 Jones, Along the Indian Road,
184.
63 See, "Dr. Stanley
Jones's Open Letter to Mahatma Gandhi," National Missionary Intelligencer 25(1931),
98-101. This was also published in other religious and public newspapers.
64 See, for example,
"Ashrams," The Indian Witness 65(16 May 1935),305-306.
65 Jones, A Song of Ascents,
148.
66 E. Stanley Jones, Christ's
Alternative to Communism (New York:Abingdon, 1935), 33. This volume was published in
England as, Christ and Communism (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1937). Reinhold Niebuhr An
Interpretation of Christian Ethics (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1935), 180, dismissed
Jones' essay as, "the most perfect swan song of liberal politics."
67 Jones, Christ's Alternative
to Communism, 17.
68 Jones, Christ's Alternative
to Communism, 19.
69 Jones, Christ's Alternative
to Communism, 27.
70 Jones, Christ's Alternative
to Communism, 35
71 There were those such as
Jones' fellow missionary Sherwood Eddy who recounted his impressions in Russia Today, What
Can We Learn from It? (New York: Farrar and Rinehart,1934) and the revised perspective in
Eighty Adventurous Years, An Autobiography (New York: Harper and Row, 1955).Jones and Eddy
provide for interesting comparison. Jones was less naively enthusiastic about the Russian
social experiment and therefore less disenchanted when it became widely known that it was
not without its failures. Jones was critical of all systems.
72 Jones, Christ's Alternative
to Communism, 165.
73 Jones, Christ's Alternative
to Communism, 41-42.
74 Jones, Christ's Alternative
to Communism, 267-302.
75 Jones, Along the Indian Road,
205.
76 Jones, Along the Indian Road,
205-213. Jones listed the projects, pp. 208-209: (1) Home management; (2) Medical work
with a local dispensary and a traveling medical bus . . .; (3) Newspaper evangelism; (4)
Postal evangelism in which we send Christian literature to about 3500 leaders of the
depressed classes of India; (5) Women's work; (6) Public contacts through which we get in
touch with national leaders; (7) Literature . . . Christian literature with an Indian
flavor; (8) Student work where there is no Y.M.C.A. or Y.W.C.A.; (9) Training of a new
type of Christian servant for India, the Kristagrahis, "men of Christ-force;"
(10) Literacy Campaign; (11) Dealing with inquirers who come to study Christianity; (12) A
anguage school for new missionaries; (13) Village center and Mohulla center. It is worth
noting that K. T. Paul had sugested in The National Missionary Intelligencer 6(1912), 78,
that the Ashram should train youth in three ways: "(a) affording evangelistic
equipment to meet the best exponents of non-Christian religions on their own ground; (b)
giving sufficient knowledge of medicine so as to alleviate suffering by nursing and to
treat all ordinary diseases; (c) providing the training of an artisan for example either
in carpentry or weaving so as to make self-support possible to every worker."
77 E. Stanley Jones, Victorious
Living (New York: Abingdon,1936); idem, The Choice Before Us (New York: Abingdon, 1937)
published in England as, Christ and Present World Issues (London: Hodder and
toughton,1937); idem, Along the Indian Road; idem, Is the Kingdom of God Realism ? (New
York: Abingdon. 1940).
78 E. Stanley Jones, "The
Church of Christ in India," The Indian Witness 65(26 Sept. 1935),613; idem,
"Christians of America, Unite!" The Christian Century 52( 1935), 1235-1237;
"The Branch-Unity Plan," The Indian Witness 65(7 Nov. 1935), 710. Cf. the
earlier discussions, "Editorial Notes, Freedom," The National Missionary
Intelligencer 26(1932), 81-82, and P. D. Devanandan, "The Foreign Missionary and the
Indian Christian," TheNational Missionary Intelligencer 28(1934), 5-7.
79 E. Stanley Jones, "Where
Madras Missed Its Way," The Indian Witness 69(9 Feb. 1939),86-87, also published in
The Christian Century 56(1939), 351-352.
80 Henry P. Van Dusen,
"What Stanley Jones Missed at Madras," The Christian Century 56(1939), 410-412;
Walter M. Horton, "Walter Horton Pleads Not Guilty," The Christzan Century
56(1939), 517-518; James R. Graham, Jr. "The Need of the Twentieth Century Revival:
The Cult of E. Stanley Jones and the Adulation of Kagawa," Christian Beacon
4(1939),1; Robert C. McQuilkin, "Stanley Jones and the Kingdom of God," The
Sunday School Times 86(1944), 305-306, 316-318, 321-322, 333, 339-340, 353-354. For the
context of this discussion, see, Tomas Shivute, The Theology of Mission and Evangelism in
the International Missionary Council from Edinburgh to New Delhi (Missiologian ja
ekumeniikan seuran julkaisuja/Annals of the Finnish Society of Missiology and Ecumenics,
31; Helsinki: Suomen Lahetysseura/Finnish Missionary Society, 1980), 80-89, et passim.
81' Jones, A Song of Ascents,
154.
82 See Jones' still impassioned
account, A Song of Ascents, 220. For the larger context, see Taylor, The Contribution of
E. Stanley Jones, 15-22.
83 E. Stanley Jones to Franklin
Delano Roosevelt, 10 Aug. 1942, 5 Jan. 1943,30 Dec. 1943, Jeff Blake Collection, Archives,
Asbury Theological Seminarv. Wilmore. KY
84 E. Stanley Jones, "An
Open Letter to the People of Japan," The Christian Century 54(1937),1131-1133- idem,
"The Christian Attitude in the China War," The Indian Witness 67(1i Oct. 1937),
643-644; idem, "An Open Letter: To the Christian People of American and Great
Britain," The Christian Century 54(1937),1386-1388; idem, "Apply Gandhi's Method
to Japan," The Christian Century 55(1938),75-76; idem, "The Only Door to Peace:
An Open Letter to the Japanese People and the Christians of the World," The Christian
Century 55(1938), 203-204.
85 E. Stanley Jones,
Reconstruction of the Church-On What Pattern? (Nashville: Abingdon, 1970).
86 E. Stanley Jones, The Christ
of the American Road (New York: Abigdon 1944), 60. Indicative of different levels of
response to Jones' vision are the letters of B. L. Fisher to Julian C. McPheeters, 26
March 954, 21 June 1954, McPheeters Collection, Archives, Asbury Theological Seminary
Wilmore, KY and the responses, Julian C. McPheeters to B. L. Fisher,12 April 1954, 1 July
1954, McPheeters Collection, Archives, Asbury Theological Seminary Wilmore, KY. Fisher,
President of Lee Telephone Company of Mar-tinsville, VA, stated in the 26 March 1954
letter that, "Stanley Jones is advocating One World Church, does not believe in
private enterprise and various other things. I do not believe it is well for the Seminary
to sell his books, since we know that his theory is contrary to our belief."
McPheeters (12 April 1954), President of Asbury Theological Serninary, at first defended
Jones' integrity and role as a theologian and evangelist. However, after the second letter
from Fisher, McPheeters (1 July 1954) lamented, "Your evaluation of Dr. Jones (sic)
statements were correct. It is distressing indeed that he has been misled in these areas
to a degree that it is distressing and grievous to multitudes of God's people. Some of his
ideas are quite contrary to the scripture as well as being economically unsound." J.
Neal Hughley, Trends in Protestant Social Ethics (Morningside Heights, NY: King's Crown
Press,1948),37, described this volume as "an incredibly sentimental glorification of
American culture."
87 E. Stanley Jones, The
Unshakable Kingdom and the Unchanging Person (Nashville: Abingdon, 1972).
88 Sydney E. Ahlstrom, A
Religious History of the American People (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972),
1019-1036 (on harmonial religion); 1031-1032 (on Jones).
89 Thomas, The Work and Thought
of Eli Stanley Jones; Taylor, The Contribution of E. Stanley Jones; Johnson, The Christian
Vision of E. Stanley .Jones .
90 Deminger, Evangelisk pa
Indiska villkor.
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