E. Stanley Jones

E. Stanley Jones (1884-1973) Eli Stanley Jones was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on January 3, 1884. He studied law briefly at City College before moving to Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky.

In February of 1905, Jones and three other men were having a private prayer meeting when, about 10pm, the Holy Spirit seemed to enter the room. Other students joined them, and revival spread across the Asbury campus and around the town of Wilmore. There were confessions of sin, powerful prayers, and new deeper commitments to the Lord. In his spiritual autobiography, Jones said that this revival liberated him from a sense of superiority, which prepared him for future work as a missionary, opened his ears to the Holy Spirit, and led directly to his calling to the mission field.

Jones graduated from Asbury in 1907 and became a missionary to India under the Board of Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In India he met a fellow missionary, Mabel Lossing, whom he married in 1911.

Jones began his mission work among the lowest class of people. He did not attack the predominant religions of the area, but tried to present the Gospel of Jesus Christ without attaching Western culture to it. As the Methodist Board of Missions’ “Evangelist-at-Large” to India, Jones conducted large meetings in Indian cities. He presided over “round table conferences” where people of all faiths could sit down as equals and share their testimonies of how their religious experiences improved their lives.

Jones’ ministry soon became worldwide in its influence as he stressed that the reconciliation brought through Jesus Christ was intended for the whole world. He helped to re-establish the Indian “Ashram” (forest retreat) where men and women would come together for days at a time to explore each others’ faiths. Jones would later go on to establish Christian Ashrams around the world.

His reputation as a “reconciler” invited him to many political negotiations in India, Africa, and Asia. He was a close confidant of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the time preceding World War II, and after the war he was greeted in Japan as the “Apostle of Peace”. He played an important role in establishing religious freedom in the post-colonial Indian government. He became a close friend of Mahatma Gandhi and even wrote a biography of Gandhi, a book which Martin Luther King said influenced him to adopt strict non-violent methods in the American civil rights movement. Jones had a strong influence in preventing the spread of communism in India.

Jones died in India on January 25, 1973. A prominent Methodist Bishop called E. Stanley Jones “the greatest Christian missionary since St. Paul.”

Listen to a portion of a message by E. Stanley Jones entitled “The Divine Yes”, preached in Hughes Auditorium at Asbury College in 1969:

Books by E. Stanley Jones Available at Kinlaw Library and/or Asbury University Archives:

The Christ of the Indian Road (1925)
Christ at the Round Table (1928)
The Christ of Every Road (1930)
The Christ on the Mount: A Working Philosophy of Life (1931)
Christ and Human Suffering (1933)
Christ’s Alternative to Communism (1935)
Victorious Living (1936)
The Choice Before Us (1937)
Along the Indian Road (1939)
Is the Kingdom of God Realism? (1940)
Abundant Living (1942)
The Christ of the American Road (1944)
When Sorrow Comes (1944)
Evangelize! Why?: A Discussion of the Motives of Evangelism (1946)
The Way (1946)
Gandhi: Portrayal of a Friend (1948)
The Way to Power and Poise (1949)
How to Be a Transformed Person (1951)
Growing Spiritually (1953)
Mastery: The Art of Mastering Life (1955)
Christian Maturity (1957)
Conversion (1959)
In Christ (1961)
The Word Became Flesh (1963)
Victory Through Surrender (1966)
A Song of Ascents: A Spiritual Autobiography (1968)
The Reconstruction of the Church – On What Pattern? (1970)
The Unshakable Kingdom and the Unchanging Person (1972)
The Divine Yes (1975)

Compilations of E. Stanley Jones Available at Kinlaw Library and/or Asbury University Archives:

Radio Talks (1934)
Selections from E. Stanley Jones (1972)
Sayings of E. Stanley Jones (1994)
365 Days with E. Stanley Jones (2000)

Related Information Available at Kinlaw Library and/or Asbury University Archives:

E. Stanley Jones Had a Wife, by Katherine Reese Hendershot

Bio written by Matt Kinnell

References:

A Song of Ascents, by E. Stanley Jones
United Christian Ashrams, “Missionary Extraordinaire”, https://christianashramint.org/featured/e-stanley-jones
Revival Fire, by Wesley Deuwel
E. Stanley Jones Had a Wife, by Katherine Reese Hendershot