E. Stanley Jones was perhaps the most significant missionary

of the twentieth century. He was certainly the most influential

Methodist missionary since Francis Asbury. While he is a relatively

unknown figure today outside Methodist and missionary circles, from

the 1920s through the 1960s he was a towering religious figure in

many countries around the world, most notably the United States,

Japan, and India.

Born in 1884 Jones experienced a conversion to Christianity

when he was seventeen years old. Following graduation from Asbury

College, Jones landed in India in 1907, at the age of twenty-three,

as a missionary with the Methodist-Episcopal Church. His work as a

missionary began as the English-speaking pastor of the Methodist

Church in Lucknow. By the end of the 1930s his preaching ministry

expanded to Iraq, Palestine, Egypt, Burma, Malaya, the Philippines,

China, and Singapore. He was elected to the episcopacy of the

Methodist-Episcopal Church in 1928 but withdrew his name the

morning after his election.