Stott's Basic Christianity

I was at the Evangelical Library today for the third and final lecture in a short series we have been having this Spring. This time Chris Idle spoke on the global best seller by John Stott Basic Christianity. It was written down in the Hookses in Wales in 1958, in preparation for the first of some 50 missions held in various universities over the years.

Chris had some criticisms of the book (chiefly in terms of how it would work today - gender specificity, lay out, assumptions of Bible knowledge, etc) and confessed that he had not really used it for its original evangelistic purpose in the last 30 years (apart from the Bible, is it the best selling but least read evangelical book?). A new edition appeared in 1971 where some of the problems raised were addressed (sloth becomes apathy, egocentric - self-centred and references to 'the mission field' and 'Lent' go, it is more critical of the church, etc) but not the questionable use (ie in an evangelistic context) of Revelation 3:20 with references to Holman Hunt's famous picture. He also mentioned that the resurrection comes well before the death of Christ in the book.

IVP are bringing out a 50th anniversary edition shortly and it may well be that there are further changes to come. (Incidentally I notice that this new edition will be using a cover similar to my own new book with EP. When that will be out I do not know.)

This was an excellent paper. Audio recordings are available through the Library.