E. Stanley Jones biography of Mahatma Gandhi

Mike Childs
Mike Childs Member Posts: 3,116 ✭✭✭
edited November 20 in English Forum

1781.Gandhi.docx

Mahatma Gandhi - An Interpretation by E. Stanley Jones

E. Stanley Jones was a famous Methodist missionary to India.  He went to India in 1907 and served there through the 1950's.  He became a close friend of Mahatma Gandhi, and wrote this book about him.  Stanley Jones is one of the very few ministers to have been elected a Bishop in the Methodist Church but refused to accept the office, preferring to remain a missionary.  He was a confidant of leaders of the USA and India, worked hard for world peace.  He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.  Above all, he was always an evangelist, trying to share Jesus Christ with those who did not know him.

Stanley Jones greatly admired Mahatma Gandhi, and considered Gandhi the greatest man that he ever knew.  He tried unsuccessfully to convert Gandhi to Christ, but also Stanley Jones said that he learned very much from Gandhi.

Here is an excerpt about the greatness of Gandhi:

"Take the Cross. Mahatma Gandhi did not see in the Cross what the convinced Christian sees, namely, that God was in Christ recon­ciling the world unto himself and that he was bearing our sins in his body on a tree. Gandhi did not see that. But he did see that you can take on yourself suffering, and not give it, and thus conquer the heart of another. That he did see in the Cross, and that he put into practice, and put it into practice on a national scale. The difference then is this: we as Christians saw more in the Cross than Gandhi and put it into operation less; Gandhi saw less in the Cross than we and put it into practice more. We left the Cross a doctrine; Gandhi left it a deed. Therefore Gandhi, with his half-light and fuller prac­tice, goes in power beyond us who have fuller light and half-practice. God therefore accepts his operative deed and entrusts him with pow­er, while God can use in only a limited way our faith which is minus the operative deed. God apparently has to pass by the orthodoxy and use the orthopraxy. Do not misunderstand me. I do not minimize right belief; it is necessary. But 'not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.'"

I obtained a scanned PDF of this book from archive.org, which I assume is out of copyright.  Or at least it is freely distributed and available by permission, as that is a requirement of archive, org.  If this is not correct please inform me, and it will be removed.  I converted the book to text - added two pictures - and made this docx file for the purpose of freely making it available for Logos personal books.

UNDER NO CONDITIONS SHOULD ANYONE CHARGE FOR THIS FILE OR USE IT FOR PORFIT.

 


"In all cases, the Church is to be judged by the Scripture, not the Scripture by the Church," John Wesley

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