John Stott

During much of my college years I was convinced that God was calling me to an academic life rather than to pastoral ministry in a local church.  I enjoyed study and was decent at it, and this aspect of my personality seemed so different than the few pastors I knew.  But then a couple of books changed my perspective.  The first was Preaching and Preachers by Martyn Lloyd-Jones.  I can't remember where or why I bought this book but I'm so thankful I did.  Here I saw a great preacher--one of the greatest of the 20th century--who was devoted to study.  I don't know how many times I read the section on what books preachers should be reading (just the kind of books I liked to read anyway).  Lloyd-Jones showed me that I could be bookish and intellectual and still be a pastor.

So I decided to audit a class on preaching.  Our main text was Between Two Worlds:  The Challenge of Preaching Today by John R. W. Stott.  Here I saw much of what I had seen in Lloyd-Jones, only more of it.  He irreversibly convinced me that there is only one legitimate way to preach, what is called expository preaching.  Expository preaching is to take a text of Scripture (usually one text, but not always) and simply explain it and apply to the hearts of the congregation.  This means that what the preacher says is what God has already said in his Word, not the preacher's personal thoughts and opinions on (fill in the blank).  Between Two Worlds explained with wonderful clarity and conviction how to preach God's Word (and, happily for me, it meant the pastor had to read widely and voluminously).

John Stott was born in London in 1921.  He was converted while a student at Rugby School and soon felt called to pastoral ministry.  A few years later he became a curate (Anglican-speak for "intern") at All Souls, Langham Place, the central London church where he was raised.  His obvious gifting propelled him to a larger leadership role when the pastor's health declined.  At the pastor's death he became the rector (pastor) of All Souls.  This was in 1950, and he served the congregation until 1975, when he took the title rector emeritus in order to devote himself to his now global ministry.

And he wrote lots of books.  Many people have found encouragement or even conversion in his great work in defense of the credibility of the Christian faith Basic Christianity, oddly one of Stott's books I haven't read.  In grad school I read The Cross of Christ, a fantastic exposition of the penal substitutionary view of the atonement, the idea that Jesus' death on the cross was penal--it paid the penalty for sin against God--and that Jesus died as the substitute for sinners.  I don't know of a better book that explains why Jesus died.

Stott never married.  He wanted to and always assumed he would (doesn't everybody?), but one day he looked around and realized that it just wasn't going to happen.  It was God's way of calling him to celibacy.  The good news about his singleness was that it afforded him so much time to write and travel all over the world for various preaching engagements.  These travels made him increasingly concerned for the Third World (I guess that's not the right term anymore--"Global South," is it?).  He created a foundation to train pastors from these countries in English and American universities and seminaries for ministry and then send them back home.

On one of his many travels he came to speak at a retirement home in Carol Stream, Illinois.  This was in 2007 I think.  I was in school in Wheaton, just a few minutes drive away.  I sat with a hundred or so people much older than me and listened as Stott preached God's Word and encouraged everyone to support international missionary work.  He had to be helped onto the speaking platform, and at one point lost his train of thought (which he turned into a bit of self-effacing humor), but otherwise it was clear and compelling exposition.  I still have the sermon notes.  Afterwards I went up to him and told him how influential he had been to me.  "Are you a pastor?" he asked.  "Not yet, but I hope so one day," I said, or something like that.  Then I asked him to sign my copy of Between the Two Worlds, which he humbly obliged.  I felt like a kid getting a favorite star's baseball card autographed.

A few years later, when trying to decide what to name our first son, my wife and I easily settled on the middle name:  Stott.

John Stott died today.  He was 90 years old.  He wasn't a perfect man, but he was faithful.  He loved the gospel of Jesus Christ, and was the exemplary preacher of God's Word.  I thank God for him.

Colonel Mustard did it

Someone told me once, or maybe I read it somewhere, that Oxford and Cambridge professors dabbled in mystery stories so as to have something to read while in bed with the flu.  My memory of this fact is no doubt highly suspect.  I'm not positive that Oxford and Cambridge were specified.  It might have been a broader term like "English academics."  And I can't remember if these academics were supposed to be writing mystery books or just reading them.  And perhaps the type of illness which would afford reading opportunities wasn't limited to influenza.  My point in recounting this dubious memory is merely to make an observation:  the mystery genre is very English.  Or at least that's how it seems to me.

Some years ago I discovered Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey stories.  This woman impresses me.  She also wrote advertisements for Guinness (ever seen old posters of zoo animals enticing you to pint or two?), and she's most well known for her translation of Dante's Divine Comedy.  And she enjoyed a personal friendship with C. S. Lewis.

Agatha Christie audiobooks are a staple of our family road trips.  The venerable Masterpiece Theatre (Sunday evenings on PBS) has produced many excellent TV adaptations.  When the murderer's true identity is finally revealed it's always the last person I suspected, but, after seeing the facts laid bare and interpreted rightly, the only person it possibly could have been.  This is why the stories are so fun.

In the past few weeks I've managed to read two books that have been sitting idly on my shelf for years, both mysteries:  Sir Arthur Conan Doyles' The Hound of the Baskervilles (a Sherlock Holmes story) and G. K. Chesterton's The Scandal of Father Brown, a collection of short stories featuring the crime solving Roman Catholic priest Father Brown.  Both lots of fun.

All these stories share three patterns:  (1) The stories don't just revolve around the plot twists and solutions to the crimes but the eccentricities of the main protagonist as well.  Christie's Hercule Poirot seems to stand out in particular.  (2) The protagonist solves the crime by observing facts which anyone could have seen, if only he had eyes to see.  (3) The protagonist usually figures out the murderer's identity well before he reveals his/her identity, but chooses to keep his discovery secret until the final opportune moment.

Not all mystery books and stories are equally enjoyable, but if you've got the flu they're a great way to spend your convalescence.

Highlighting

Nothing like going under 40' latitude and over 5,000 feet elevation to balance the humors and steady the mind for blogging.

A few book reviews are in line, but until then consider this curiosity:

Evangelicals highlight Kindle books more than any other segment of the population.

HT:  Crossway 

I tried to call but you didn't answer

"Hello blog."

"Hello yourself."

"Don't do that to me.  You know how busy I've been these past two weeks."

"Not too busy to hang out with all your other friends."

"You're really bringing my son's birthday party into this?  That's cold, man.  Cold."

"Whatever.  It just gets lonely out here all by myself.  Nothing to do but smile when a few people stop by to have a look around--which isn't that often by the way."

"Alright, alright.  Well, I've got some blog post ideas, if you want to hear them."

"Yeah, sure, go ahead."

"Love the enthusiasm.  For starters, I've got two books to review."

"Ooh, two books.  You're a reading wonder."

"I'll ignore your sarcasm.  I also saw an interesting story about how evangelicals are the biggest highlighters on Kindle."

"And, pray you, where did you hear of this story?"

"On a blog."

"So your blog post will just be a link to another blog post?"

"No, well, um, I'll, you know, put my own comments and stuff."

"Your creativity astonishes me.  A real Picasso.  The Frank Gehry of the blogosphere."

"Who?"

"Look him up."

"I'm getting tired of this.  I tried to say I'm sorry, but you're obviously not having any of it.  Which reminds me of an idea I had for another blog altogether."

"What!?"

"A blog on life in the city.  Urban criticism, or something like that."

"Hold on.  Wait a minute.  I'm sorry for my tone."

"That's ok."

"I just hate the thought of you running off with some new hussy blog."

"I don't think my own idea that came from my own head could really be called a 'new hussy blog.'"

"You know what I mean!  Let's just put this behind us, ok?"

"That's what I've been trying to do the whole time!"

"Well, I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry too."

Independence Day

It was unintentional, but I finished E. B. Sledge's War War II memoir With the Old Breed:  At Peleliu and Okinawa July 3 and now post this July 4.  Sledge, aka "Sledgehammer," of Mobile, Alabama, enlisted in the Marines in 1942.  With the Old Breed guides us through his experiences of basic training, traveling to the South Pacific, and his two combat experiences at Peleliu and Okinawa with the 1st Division, 3d Battalion, 5th Marines, K Company.  Sledge survived combat and eventually became a professor of biology at the University of Montevallo, just south of Birmingham, Alabama.

Many rank With the Old Breed among the best war memoirs ever written.  It became one of the sources for the HBO miniseries The Pacific as well as Studs Terkel's The Good War.  I suspect this acclaim is due in large part to Sledge's cynicism and his depictions of the horror of war.  The reader will find no glory of war in this account.  At one point as Sledge's company is bogged down on a ridge in Okinawa under unending rain Sledge must endure the terrible view of the body of a Marine, in sitting position whose face seems to gaze directly at Sledge, slowly decomposing out in no man's land.

After his accounts of each battle Sledge sums up his thoughts.  After Peleliu:

None of us would ever be the same after what we had endured.  To some degree that is true, of course, of all human experience.  But something in me died at Peleliu.  Perhaps it was a childish innocence that accepted as faith the claim that man is basically good.  Possibly I lost faith that politicians in high places who do not have to endure war's savagery will ever stop blundering and sending others to endure it.

But I also learned important things on Peleliu.  A man's ability to depend on his comrades and immediate leadership is absolutely necessary.  I'm convinced that our discipline, esprit de corps, and tough training were the ingredients that equipped me to survive the ordeal physically and mentally--given a lot of good luck, of course.  I learned realism, too.  To defeat an enemy as tough and dedicated as the Japanese, we had to be just as tough.  We had to be just as dedicated to America as they were to their emperor.  I think this was the essence of Marine Corps doctrine in World War II, and that history vindicates this doctrine.

After Okinawa, and the conclusion to his book:

War is brutish, inglorious, and a terrible waste.  Combat leaves an indelible mark on those who are forced to endure it.  The only redeeming factors were my comrades' incredible bravery and their devotion to each other.  Marine Corps training taught us to kill efficiently and to try to survive.  But it also taught us loyalty to each other--and love.  That esprit de corps sustained us.

Until the millenium arrives [this was published in 1981] and countries cease trying to enslave others, it will be necessary to accept one's responsibilities and to be willing to make sacrifices for one's country--as my comrades did.  As the troops used to say, "If the country is good enough to live in, it's good enough to fight for."  With privilege goes responsibility."

Good words for Independence Day.

Alan Jacobs

Alan Jacobs, English prof at Wheaton College in suburban Chicago (where I went to grad school and where, if you're ever giving a graduation commencement address, you need to distinguish from the school of the same name in Massachusetts) is one of my favorite writers.  His newest book, The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, is on my short list of titles I most want to read.

Jacobs, an immensely wide read and greatly learned man, spurns the idea of must read great books.  As the title of his latest book shows, books should be read not only for personal education or making us "cultured" (a word that surely no one who actually fits the description would actually use) but for the simple pleasure of reading.  Check out this speech.


Alan Jacobs discusses 'The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction' from The New Atlantis on Vimeo.

Man of Letters

"I'm sorry my letters are so short compared with yours, but I'm afraid this is an irremovable difference between the sexes--women love letter writing and men loathe it.  And there is so much other writing in my day's work!" (104)

So says C. S. Lewis.  He may have hated it but he sure did a lot of it.  Such a well known author received heaps of letters from admirers, and Lewis was diligent to answer them.  Letters to an American Lady contains his thirteen year correspondence with one particular American woman (who remained anonymous) whom he never met in this life.  These letters, which Lewis obviously never knew would be published, reveal a personal side of the great Medieval and Renaissance literary scholar, children's author, and popular theologian.

At times we see vintage Lewis:

"Sleep is a jade who scorns her suitors but woos her scorners" (23).

"But I have long known that the talk about Brotherhood, wherever it occurs, in America or here, is hypocrisy.  Or rather, the man who talks it means 'I have no superiors':  he does not mean 'I have no inferiors'.  How loathsome it all is!" (43).

"My brother heard a woman on a 'bus say, as the 'bus passed a church with a Crib outside it, 'Oh Lor'!  They bring religion into everything.  Look--they're dragging it even into Christmas now!"  (80).

"But I'm afraid as we grow older life consists more and more in either giving up things or waiting for them to be taken from us . . ." (95).

"Yes, it is strange that anyone should dislike cats.  But cats themselves are the worst offenders in this respect.  They very seldom seem to like one another" (105). 

And then we see letters like this, written two days after his wife's death.

"I've just got your letter of the 12th.  Joy died on the 13th.  I can't describe the apparent unreality of my life since then.  She received absolution and died at peace with God.  I will try to write again when I have more command of myself.  I'm like a sleep-walker at the moment.  God bless" (91).

I for one am thankful for this woman's decision to preserve and share these private letters.