[Alister] Chapman’s observations about [John] Stott’s global turn make the most sense. His frequent overseas travels revealed God at work in powerful, exciting ways. All Souls thrived, but national revival did not appear to be imminent. Students no longer responded so enthusiastically to his evangelistic messages. The prophet found little honor in his native land. His hopes for comprehensive reform in the Church of England ran aground in the 1960s and 1970s, according to Chapman, who devotes considerable space to church politics and controversy. Chapman says Stott wasn’t yet prepared in 1966 to follow the famed Welsh preacher Martyn Lloyd-Jones into the “cultural wilderness” and forsake his hopes for the Church of England.
But Stott couldn’t keep the evangelical coalition together. Apparent uneasiness with Stott’s leadership was among the reasons J. I. Packer left Britain in 1979 for Regent College in Vancouver. Stott’s influence reached its climax as drafter of the landmark 1974 Lausanne Covenant, which affirmed sociopolitical involvement as a Christian duty. Graham deferred to Stott but never agreed, Chapman writes. Graham eventually shifted his focus toward supporting evangelists.
Chapman raises an important question about the difficulty of evangelical leadership: What could Stott have done differently? What incentives could he offer, what threats could he make to impose his views on divided evangelicals? Chapman writes, “Others might refer to him as the bishop, or archbishop, or cardinal, or patriarch or even the pope of the evangelicals, but he had none of the tangible means of power and control associated with any of those offices.”
One gets the impression that the biographer really doesn’t understand where Stott was coming from, in the sense of why he was committed to evangelism. However,
[blockquote] “The prophet found little honor in his native land. His hopes for comprehensive reform in the Church of England ran aground in the 1960s and 1970s, according to Chapman, who devotes considerable space to church politics and controversy.” [/blockquote]
That sounds like a reasonable assessment. Stott’s influence remains very strong throughout the ‘Global South’, yet in England the evangelicalism which he championed has been marginalised. It is no coincidence that the CofE and the See of Canterbury have seen their influence and prestige among the Global South decrease in recent years. That decreasing trend will continue, until the CofE starts to listen to Stott’s message and apply it, instead of just praising him and building monuments to him.