Dr. E. Stanley Jones: Missionary to Communists

In December 1938, Time Magazine called Dr. Eli Stanley Jones the world’s greatest missionary. As the most widely read spiritual author in his lifetime, he published twenty-eight books, two of which sold over one million copies.  Jones, as the ‘Billy Graham’ of India for fifty years, was famous for meeting in Round Table dialogues with Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, and Muslims. Each participant was given an opportunity as equals to share what they had discovered spiritually and how it made their life better. Jones always shared about his encounter with Jesus as his Lord and Saviour.  He wrote in The Christ of the Indian Road, “Jesus appeals to the soul as light appeals to the eye, as truth fits the conscience, as beauty speaks to the aesthetic nature.”

Lesser known was Jones’ missionary work among communists. In 1935, Jones wrote a remarkable book Christ’s Alternative to Communism. During the Great Depression, Russia’s massive industrialization looked very impressive to the struggling masses in India. Jones insightfully wrote, “Russia worships the machine.  The tractor seen on many posters is the new economic messiah.”  Few suspected then that communism would become a world menace, seeking world domination.  No one knew back then of the coverup of four million Ukrainians being starved to death in order to fuel the Russian success story. Alexander Solzhenitsyn had not yet written his book Gulag Archipelago on the torture and murder of millions by Stalin and his communist government.  Communism was very popular in Indian universities in the 1930s.  Even many Indian Christians were getting caught up in the messianic nature of the communist revolution.  

In 1934, Jones went to Russia to see for himself the massive social and economic rebirth. He commented, “I found Russia and communism hitting me very hard.  Here they were building up a new civilization and doing it without God and doing it enthusiastically.” One Russian actress that Jones met on a train asked him if he was an idealist.  When he said that he supposed he was, she flippantly dismissed him, saying that she as a communist was a realist.  

One day during his daily quiet time in Russia, God spoke to Jones through Hebrews 12:28 “Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken.” Jones saw in a flash that all man-made kingdoms were shakable. Communism only held together through purges and force.  They could not relax the oppression or it would all fall apart.

The next day, the Lord spoke again to Jones, this time through Hebrews 13:8 “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”  Only Jesus Christ is the unchanging person.  Jones left Russia with the deep conviction that the unshakable Kingdom was embodied in the unchanging person.  Jesus himself was the kingdom.  Jones commented, “I had to go outside my native land to make a major discovery – the discovery of the kingdom of God.” As Jesus said, “Fear not, little flock, it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Jones spent the rest of his life seeking first the kingdom of God, and encouraging others to do likewise, even the communists.

Russian communism, predicted Jones, would one day be defeated by its own internal contradictions, rather than being externally conquered. He commented, “We expect Christianity to outlast atheistic communism because it has a deeper and a more meaningful universe, and a firmer ground for believing in humanity.”

Jones believed that the alternative to communism is the kingdom of God. This led to him writing the book Is the Kingdom of God Realism? In Jesus, the Word becomes flesh, the ideal becomes real.  God’s kingdom is very practical in its impact on all areas of our lives.  His kingdom order is based on co-operation and service, rather than competition or violence.  Jones saw that the vibrant communal life described in the Book of Acts could only come about freely through kingdom love and service rather than through communist compulsion and class warfare.  In the kingdom, we become great through service, not through domination.  As Jesus said in Mark 10:45, the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.  Jones said, “The kingdom of God is the place where health reigns and hence where human personality is expressed.  The kingdom of God is the great affirmation.”  

In southern India, Jones spoke to over 30,000 people at once about Christ and Communism.  Both communism and the kingdom of God demand our total obedience to a total order.  That is why so many Indian Christians renounced communism, because they knew that they could not serve two masters.  

In western China, many people had read a Chinese translation of Christ’s Alternative to Communism. As the communists took over, they appointed a committee to study the book and write a reply.  As a result, anyone caught with Jones’ book was arrested.  The missionaries were forced by the communists to burn all of Dr. E. Stanley Jones’ books, for he was public enemy number one! 

One of the many ways that communists came to experience the kingdom of God-in-miniature was through attending Jones’ Christian Ashram retreats. Jones stated, “It was this quest for a kingdom-of-God order that drove some of us to adopt the Ashram as a possible mold in which this order might be expressed.” Many communists who came to the Christian Ashram discovered true equality and family in Jesus’ kingdom.  Jones has been used to turn more people from communism to the Christian faith than perhaps any other missionary evangelist.  

Yet when Jones came back to the United States, some people falsely accused him during the McCarthy era of being a ‘red’ communist.  Being one of the first in America to have desegregated meetings, caused some people to gossip about Jones as a communist agitator.  The kingdom of God, he said, is colour blind.  Jones also served on the Advisory Committee for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), which organized the freedom rides of the early 1960’s.  Reader’s Digest published an article entitled “Methodism’s Pink Fringe” (February 1950), portraying Jones as a communist sympathizer, or worse. Jones responded ironically, “Breathes there a man with soul so dead, who never has been called a Red?”  Because of his connection with Gandhi, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had a 117-page FBI file on him.  Jones replied to this, “You say, ‘He tends dangerous towards social equality between the races.’ If this be a crime, then so be it. It is a treason against democracy and against the Christian faith to advocate inequality of treatment between the races.”

Our prayer is that Dr. E. Stanley Jones’ life and witness will continue to cause people to choose the unshakable kingdom of God over any other ideology. Jesus alone is Lord!