FOREWORD
FOREWORD
I have no doubt, as Archbishop of Canterbury, that the greatest and most important task we have as Christians today, whatever our denomination, is to name the Name, and to do so not only with the greatest of courtesy for the beliefs of others, but also with a conviction that the person of Christ continues to meet the longings and hopes of every human heart.
Dr John Stott has made the subject of Jesus Christ the centre of his life’s work and study. From his pen have flowed penetrating works that combine scholarship with years of passionate commitment to the pastoral and evangelistic work of the church. From his mouth have flowed powerful and convincing expositions of the relevance of Christ for today.
But while John is a brilliant and well-read scholar, he has never been an ivory-tower theologian. He falls into the classic Anglican tradition of the ‘teaching pastor’. His classroom has been first the parish and second the world. He has not sought academic position or ecclesiastical preferment. And yet, according to no less an authority than David Edwards, ‘With the exception of William Temple, John Stott is the most influential clergyman in the Church of England of the twentieth century.’
John, being the humble man of God he is, will shift uncomfortably at these words. But I too want to pay tribute to this remarkable ministry in the contemporary church.
The four main objectives of the London Lectures are: ‘to expound some aspect of historic biblical Christianity; to relate it to a contemporary issue in the church or the world; to be scholarly in content, yet popular enough in appeal and style to attract the educated public; and to present each topic in such a way as to be of interest to the secular as well as the Christian public’.
These four objectives are, in my opinion, an exact outline of John’s own ministry, from the earliest days when he was a curate here at All Souls, Langham Place, to his current role as an international ambassador for Jesus Christ. His biographer, Bishop Timothy Dudley-Smith, sums up his ministry with these words: ‘no one can read John Stott’s writings without being aware that his concern is to teach and expound a revealed faith, and to interpret the authoritative and timeless Scriptures for a contemporary world’. John, as pastor, preacher, scholar, writer, apologist, evangelist and brother Christian, we thank God for you, and your long and graced ministry.
The London Lectures in Contemporary Christianity, which John himself founded in 1974, have apparently never had the founder as a lecturer until now. It is most fitting, therefore, that in this millennium year he should be the one to deliver the series. It is also most fitting that in this millennium year the theme should be the one that has always been the centre of John’s ministry: the incomparable Christ.
Dr George Carey
Archbishop of Canterbury