Basic Christian: The Inside Story of John Stott

Did you know. . . . . . John Stott's father stood strongly against his desire to be ordained in the Church of England and his pacifist leanings during World War II? . . . John Stott once got lost following birds in the Amazon rainforest? . . . John Stott once dressed up as a street urchin, fashioned a "strong Cockney accent" and lived under a bridge near the Thames in London in order to see how others lived--and whether or not the good Christians of the city reached out to them? (They did not.) . . . John Stott and the late D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones had a major breach in their relationship over Stott's refusal to leave the Church of England? In the engaging story of this remarkable life, Roger Steer takes you from John Stott's lifelong association with the parish church of All Souls in London to every continent on the planet. The account of Stott's ministry strikingly parallels the record of the rise of evangelical Christianity during the same years. You'll see the early influences on his life unfold into Stott's profound impact on the Church of England and the church worldwide. His associations with the British Inter-Varsity, Billy Graham, the Keswick Convention and the Urbana Conventions are woven together with the story of the landmark books he wrote--Basic Christianity,The Cross of Christ and more. Included is the dramatic confrontation with Martyn Lloyd-Jones over the place of evangelicals in the Church of England. You'll witness the critical role Stott's leadership played in the framing of the Lausanne Covenant and how his plea for a new understanding of the balance between evangelism and social action shaped the decades to come. This completely new biography tells the full tale of why he was, as Time magazine noted in 2005, one of the hundred most influential people in the world.