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John Robert Walmsley Stott (27 April 1921 – 27 July 2011) was a British Evangelical Anglican and theologian who was noted as a leader of the worldwide evangelical movement. He was one of the principal authors of the Lausanne Covenant in 1974. In 2005, Time magazine ranked Stott among the 100 most influential people in the world.
Stott was mentored by Nash, who wrote a weekly letter to him, advising him on how to develop and grow in his Christian life, as well as practicalities such as leading the Christian Union at his school.
At this time, also, Stott was a pacifist and a member of the Anglican Pacifist Fellowship. In later life he withdrew from pacifism, adopting a 'just war' stance.
Stott studied modern languages at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took a double first in French and theology. At university, he was active in the Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union, where the executive committee considered him too invaluable a person to be asked to commit his time by joining the committee. After Trinity he transferred to Ridley Hall Theological College, affiliated to the University of Cambridge, to train for ordination as an Anglican cleric.
He later received a Lambeth degrees Doctorate of Divinity in 1983.
In 1969, he founded Langham Trust, and in 1982 the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity of which he remained honorary president until his death. During his presidency he gathered together leading evangelical intellectuals to shape courses and programmes communicating the Christian faith into a secular context. He was regularly accompanied by a leading paediatrician, John Wyatt, and the institute director, the broadcaster Elaine Storkey, when they spoke across the country to large audiences on "Matters of Life and Death". Following his chairmanship of the second National Evangelical Anglican Congress in April 1977, the Nottingham statement was published which said, "Seeing ourselves and Roman Catholics as fellow-Christians, we repent of attitudes that have seemed to deny it." This aroused controversy amongst some evangelicals at the time.
Stott died on 27 July 2011 at the College of St Barnabas in Lingfield at 3:15 pm local time. He was surrounded by family and close friends and they were reading the Bible and listening to Handel's Messiah when he peacefully died. An obituary in Christianity Today reported that his death was due to age-related complications and that he had been in discomfort for several weeks. The obituary described him as "An architect of 20th-century evangelicalism who shaped the faith of a generation." His status was such that his death was reported in the mainstream media. The BBC referred to him as someone who could "explain complex theology in a way lay people could easily understand". Obituaries were published in The Daily Telegraph and The New York Times.
The American evangelist Billy Graham released a statement saying, "The evangelical world has lost one of its greatest spokesmen, and I have lost one of my close personal friends and advisors. I look forward to seeing him again when I go to heaven." The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, wrote:
Stott's funeral was held on 8 August 2011 at All Souls Church.
A memorial website remembrance book (closed 2017) attracted comments from over one thousand individuals. for Stott were held at St Paul's Cathedral, London; Holy Trinity Cathedral, Auckland, New Zealand; St Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney, Australia; College Church, Wheaton, Illinois, United States; Anglican Network Church of the Good Shepherd, Vancouver, Canada; St. Paul's, Bloor Street, Toronto, Canada; as well as in cities across Africa, Asia and Latin America. Upon his death, he was cremated, his ashes were interred at Dale Cemetery, in Pembrokeshire, Wales.
Frances Whitehead, his secretary since 1956, was the executor of his will and she ensured that all his papers were deposited in the Lambeth Palace archive the year after his death.
One of these is Basic Christianity, a book which seeks to explain the message of Christianity, and convince its readers of its truth and importance.
The Preacher's Portrait: Some New Testament Word Studies, published in 1961, it was an important reference for clergy.
He was also the author of The Cross of Christ (), of which J. I. Packer stated, "No other treatment of this supreme subject says so much so truly and so well."
Other books he wrote include Essentials: A Liberal–Evangelical Dialogue, a dialogue with the liberal cleric and theologian David L. Edwards, over whether what evangelicals hold as essential should be seen as such. In 2005, he produced Evangelical Truth, which summarises what he perceives as being the central claims of Christianity, essential for evangelicalism.
Upon his formal retirement from public engagements, he continued to engage in regular writing until his death. In 2008, he produced The Anglican Evangelical Doctrine of Infant Baptism with J. Alec Motyer.
An introduction to his thought can be found in his two final substantial publications, which act as a summation of his thinking. Both were published by the publishing house with which he had a lifelong association, IVP.
He was chairing the National Assembly of Evangelicals in 1966, a convention organised by the Evangelical Alliance, when Martyn Lloyd-Jones made an unexpected call for evangelicals to unite as evangelicals and no longer stay within their "mixed" denominations. This view was motivated by a belief that true Christian fellowship requires evangelical views on central topics such as the atonement and the inspiration of Scripture. Lloyd-Jones was a key figure to many in the , and evangelical Anglicans regarded Stott similarly. The two leaders publicly disagreed, as Stott, though not scheduled as a speaker that evening, (1998). 9780340641934, Hodder & Stoughton Ltd. ISBN 9780340641934 used his role as chairman to refute Lloyd-Jones, saying that his opinion went against history and the Bible. The following year saw the first National Evangelical Anglican Congress, which was held at Keele University. At this conference, largely due to Stott's influence, evangelical Anglicans committed themselves to full participation in the Church of England, rejecting the separationist approach proposed by Lloyd-Jones.
These two conferences effectively fixed the direction of a large part of the British evangelical community. Although there is an ongoing debate as to the exact nature of Lloyd-Jones's views, they undoubtedly caused the two groupings to adopt diametrically opposed positions. These positions, and the resulting split, continue largely unchanged to this day.
Stott stated his firm opposition to [[Zionism]]: "Political Zionism and Christian Zionism are anathema to Christian faith ... The true Israel today is neither Jews nor Israelis, but believers in the Messiah, even if they are Gentiles ..."
Stott's favourite relaxation was birdwatching; his book The Birds Our Teachers draws on this interest.
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