Where has Critical Appreciation Gone?

The death of John Stott has led to a veritable flood of accolades and uncritical adulation over the last few months. A recent example was the memorial service for him at Wheaton College which raised a number of questions in my mind. One was the issue of what Stott himself would have thought of it. I never met him but he seems to have been a modest and unassuming man by all accounts; it was thus probably a relief to him not to have to be there and listen to the hyperbolic claims being made for him and his ministry by others.  We can presumably assume that one who did not live for the praise of men during his lifetime is probably not too bothered about it afterwards either. 

 

The second question, or perhaps better, observation, was why the art of critical appreciation seems to have disappeared from the culture of the modern world, especially the modern evangelical (for want of a better term) world.

Even as I write, I have just been passed an article from USA Today in which Stott is described as one of the Christian church's `most universally beloved figures.'  Only an American could have written that.  Back home in Britain, Stott was a more ambiguous figure, great man though he undoubtedly was.  Like all great men, his faults were as dramatic as his virtues, from his conscientious objection to war service in World War II to aspects of his theology to his ecclesiastical strategy.   Keep Reading >>>