The Radical Disciple

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BOOK REVIEW. The Radical Disciple. Author: John Stott. Published: 2010, IVP, Nottingham. John Stott's final book written before his death in 2011 is a ...
BOOK REVIEW

The Radical Disciple Author: John Stott Published: 2010, IVP, Nottingham John Stott’s final book written before his death in 2011 is a straightforward guide to Christian discipleship, easily accessed and aimed at intelligent readers, but also at those without great experience of exploring faith. It would make a useful resource for House Groups and those following up courses aimed at explorers and beginners, although leaders will have to set out their own questions for any group discussion. Much of the book is relatively conventional and what one might expect from the pen of this much respected Christian writer, but two chapters stand out for their unexpected and, indeed, moving intensity. One is chapter 4 on Creation Care, a topic on which Stott has written elsewhere, and which his own standing as a very competent and enthusiastic ornithologist qualifies him to engage with. He rightly emphasises that discipleship should ‘be concerned with the wider perspective of our duties to God and our neighbour’ (p. 55) and he lucidly sketches the basis for a genuinely Christian understanding of environmental concerns, flowing out of two statements found in the Psalms: ‘The earth is the Lord’s’ (Ps 24:1) and ‘The earth he has given to the human race’ (Ps 115:16), neither of which should be emphasised to the detriment of the other. Chapter 7, in contrast, is on Dependence and is deeply personal. If Stott has sometimes appeared as the archetypal ‘stiff upper lip’ Englishman, that is blown away by his revealing of the experience of illness in old age. He draws especially on John Wyatt’s work on dependence as an essential element in healthy living, but also on the pain of allowing such dependence to become a reality. He is unsparing in allowing others to describe something of what they had seen in him after he fell and broke his hip, and the surgery and rehabilitation that followed. In a culture that prizes ‘independence’ and in which the mantra ‘I don’t want to become dependent on anyone else’ is so often repeated, this chapter is a challenge – it underlines that discipleship is a call to ‘non-conformity’ as Stott, the good Anglican, states in his first chapter.

His emphasis on dependence and account of his own experience in old age leads naturally into a final chapter on Death and again it is refreshing to read a work on discipleship that embraces the end of life so positively. So this is a book that will act as a good foundation on which to build further reading around the theme of discipleship. But be prepared to be surprised and moved on the way! The Revd Canon William Challis, Diocesan Director of Ordinands NOVEMBER 2013