Announcer:          Welcome to the Beeson podcast coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. Now your host, Timothy George.

Timothy George:     Welcome to today's Beeson podcast. My guest today on the podcast is Dr. Brian C. Stiller. He's a remarkable global ambassador for the World Evangelical Alliance. He's been a friend of mine for a number of years. We work together in theological education, and it's just a pleasure to have him with us here at Beeson Divinity School. Thank you, Brian, for this conversation.

Brian Stiller:      Dean, it's good to be with you, to see you again.

Timothy George:     Thank you. I remember one time we were together was in the Holy Land, and our wives, your wife Lily and my wife Denise, along with a number of other presidents and leaders of seminaries, went to the Holy Land and that was a remarkable experience. I'll never forget it.

Brian Stiller:      It was. There's nothing like walking the Holy Land world to know how the Scriptures unfold because it's a geographic theology, isn't it?

Timothy George:     It is.

Brian Stiller:      It emerged out of a geography and so to walk that geography gives you a sense of how the theology unfolded.

Timothy George:     Absolutely. Let's talk about your background. You're a Canadian and you grew up in a pastor's family, didn't you?

Brian Stiller:      I did, out in the prairies of Saskatchewan, five kids in the family in the early '40s and '50s, was greatly influenced by our small Pentecostal church, which at that point was really integrated with the larger evangelical world in our community, Baptist, Mennonite, Christian Missionary Alliance, so forth. Then out of that world, I was influenced by Youth for Christ as a boy. I loved my Pentecostal world, but I really enjoyed the larger Youth for Christ community that gathered on a Saturday night, and that was an enormous influence on my life.

Timothy George:     That was a movement that Billy Graham also was involved in.

Brian Stiller:      In the US, Billy Graham was the first staff member and in Canada, Chuck Templeton, who was a famous, infamous evangelist who then turned atheist, but this was following the Second World War. There was a bursting of interest among young people for the Gospel. A Greek professor by the name of Torrey Johnson started it in Chicago, and from there unfolded many parachurch agencies that that flourished worldwide.

Timothy George:     So were you an evangelist, a preacher, like Billy Graham?

Brian Stiller:      I graduated from our denominational school. Then Lily and I were married. We went to the University of Toronto. For a year, I did travel with our denomination and with Youth for Christ doing some events. But then Lily was expecting our first child, and I realized that my role as an evangelist was an idea, but it wasn't a vocation.

Timothy George:     Well, I'd say you are an evangelist. Maybe not in that traditional way. You're gift has been in other areas, but you are a proclaimer and you are a winsome witness for the Gospel and have been in so many different venues. So somehow you got from Youth for Christ to the World Evangelical Alliance. That's a big step. Kind of tell us about it.

Brian Stiller:      Well, after university I started with Youth for Christ in Montreal and was with Youth for Christ as President for 16 years. Greatly influenced by many of the people in InterVarsity and Youth for Christ. Jay Kesler, who was Youth for Christ president of the US was a mentor of mine, as was Paul Little. In fact, I assisted Paul Little as program director at the Lausanne Congress in 1974.

Timothy George:     Some people don't know that name, Paul Little. He was a Methodist, right?

Brian Stiller:      No, he was a Brethren.

Timothy George:     From the brethren tradition.

Brian Stiller:      And he was involved with InterVarsity and was a writer, Know How to Give Away Your Faith, Know Why You Believe, so forth.

Timothy George:     One of the very important figures, I think, in encouraging the sharing of the Gospel with the whole generation. So you were in that era of formation.

Brian Stiller:      So that was my Youth for Christ experience, and then I became president of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, which is a member of the world body, the NAE, the National Association of Evangelicals, in the US is the American Association. I spent 14 years there as a national voice doing television and creating a national voice for evangelicals in a community that was at that point overtaken by kind of an American fundamentalism, and that fundamentalism sounded tinny in Canada. Evangelicals wanted something that was more indigenous to our own thinking and our own Christian evangelical traditions. And so we built a strong Alliance and did that for 14 years. Then in 1995 a school, now called Tyndale University College and Seminary had gone bankrupt, and I stepped in as a volunteer for a year, went full time. We eventually turned it around, turned it into a university and bought a new campus and built a large seminary. So that was my role up until I came into this current role.

Timothy George:     Yeah, I visited you, I think when you were the president of Tyndale and saw the wonderful work that God was doing there, and how you were leading them to a new campus and a new kind of mission and new era in their lives. So all of these things, you've been an institution builder, you've been a networker. But I think as I know you and hear you even talk about what you've done, at your heart, you are a witness, a witness for evangelicalism, but more importantly for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Brian Stiller:      Interesting. When you make that comment, it causes self-reflection, and I guess I have never known a time in my life when I didn't love the Lord Jesus. I was nurtured by my parents. I loved to read the Bible when I was a boy. I loved to read about the Gospel. I love the missionary stories. Jim Elliott when he died, he had such an impact on my life. So all my life, I've loved that and I loved the witness of Christ in its various ways. Articulate, compassionate, revolutionary well, however it's expressed, I love that witness of Christ.

Timothy George:     Now you come from a Pentecostal tradition. I'm a Southern Baptist. Both of our traditions have been known sometimes for being sort of narrow and turned in on themselves. But your experience has led you in another way.

Brian Stiller:      Well, I did go to an Anglican seminary. That's where I did my graduate work at the UofT, and I went there, I wanted to get a breadth of the Gospel. I wanted to understand historically some of the great ideas and movements and people of the past, and so that kind of historical, broader theological experience out of an evangelical Anglican community provided that for me.

Timothy George:     And that served you well in your work that you've done with the World Evangelical Alliance. Talk about that. That will not be known to all of our listeners. What is it? How did it come to be and what's your role in it?

Brian Stiller:      Let me come at it two ways. First of all, what it is. In the world today, there are three world Christian associations, and that's out of 2.4 billion people. The Vatican, Roman Catholics, are 1.2 billion. That's half of the 2.4. The World Council of Churches is 500 million, and that includes 300 million Orthodox. And the World Evangelical Alliance represents 640 million. So there's the global composition of organizations.

Brian Stiller:      The World Evangelical Alliance was formed in 1846. It was in England. It was after the Second Great Awakening, after Wilberforce and the slavery issues. There were matters of religious persecution in Eastern Europe. So a number of people got together in London interested in breaking down denominational barriers and creating a fellowship and a unity among believers, and that's where WEA began in 1846. It's had a variety of histories, of course, over 150 years. But in 1942 the National Association of Evangelicals was formed here in the US, and that seemed to trigger globally the formation of other national alliances.

Brian Stiller:      So today there's 130 countries that have national alliances. We are really a world networking of national alliances in all of these countries. Then also we have special status at the UN. We have an office in Geneva and much of our work is devoted towards religious persecution and religious freedom. So both in the UN in New York and the UN in Geneva. So it's a world body. It has a number of task forces and commissions, but our real focus is enabling these 130 national alliances to be vehicles of unity, of witness, of spiritual and physical activity. You may have some kind of disaster, it's a way of bringing people together to speak to the disaster. It may be a issue of religious persecution pushing back against that, a variety of issues, but what it allows is these local national alliances to format response and activity in their own respective countries.

Timothy George:     And you are a global ambassador for the World Evangelical Alliance. What is that?

Brian Stiller:      Well, interesting. In a sense, it means what I do and I do what it means, which is to travel the world, encouraging younger leaders. I do a lot of networking with the Vatican and the World Council of Churches and with Muslims to help them understand who we are, because to understand where we are today and where we were I think is important to the conversation. So in 1960, 60 years ago, there were 19 million evangelicals. So 60 years ago, 19 million evangelicals. Today, 640 million. No other religious community of any kind has ever grown that fast in the history of the world.

Brian Stiller:      So when you look at that growth, you ask, what then can we do? What are the needs? What are the responsibilities? What kinds of things might we do collectively as an evangelical community in issues of religious persecution, in issues of disaster, other other matters that concern the public? How can we work together and in what ways can we enable each other as faithful witnesses of Christ to assist society?

Timothy George:     You've written a wonderful book. I want us to talk about it for a little bit called From Jerusalem to Timbuktu, A World Tour of the Spread of Christianity. Well, you've just been talking about this enormous surge in the number of evangelical Christians around the world. Why did you write this book and what do you mean, From Jerusalem to Timbuktu?

Brian Stiller:      Why I wrote the book, well, as I traveled about, I would be asked to speak at mission conferences and churches and they would just say, "Okay, don't give us a sermon, tell us what's going on in the world." And I would begin to put on my scholarly hat that I would borrow from someone else and look at the issues globally, talk to missiologists and identify reasons for the growth, both accelerators for growth and the and the shaping of this growing community called evangelicals. So that led me to write the book.

Brian Stiller:      But I guess the key question was how did we get from 90 million evangelicals 60 years ago to 600 and some today? I wanted to know why did so many people say yes to Jesus. So that drove me to write it.

Timothy George:     What do you mean by From Jerusalem to Timbuktu? That's an interesting title.

Brian Stiller:      As I was working on the book, I had edited a book called Evangelicals Around the World, which you were a contributor to. Todd Johnson, who is the Center of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell, we were talking about a number of things and he was one of my co-editors, and as I was working on it, he came up with a map that showed the movement, the center of density, and this is important, the center of density of Christians, which of course began in Jerusalem in 33, that's where the church began. So that would be the center of the density of Christians. But as the Christians move out across through Europe over the next few hundred years, and then as eventually as they moved down through Africa, up into England, across to America, Latin American, and so forth, that center of density began to move out across Europe, eventually out through Spain, and in 2012 it landed in Timbuktu Mali. That's the actual center of density of Christians.

Brian Stiller:      What it does, it shows that the church has exploded in what we call the global self, which is Africa, Latin America, and Asia. So when he showed me the map, it just clicked, From Jerusalem to Timbuktu.

Timothy George:     That's the story of how the Gospel has spread. Now you talk about the fact that we are living now in an age of the Spirit. One of the things I want to ask you about, this explosive growth, you've mentioned it. Much of it seems to me to be a kind of Spirit-led Pentecostal, really, reality. That's your tradition, though you've gone much broader than that in your work and ministry. Why is that true, number one, the strong Pentecostal flavor of this growth? And why is that true, if it is?

Brian Stiller:      My sense, my thesis is this, that by the end of the 1800s, 1900, the Christian understanding of the Trinity was shaded so that the Spirit was caught under the shadow of the Father and the Son. You know, all the early creeds dealt with the divinity and the humanity of Jesus. The Spirit is always mentioned, but very seldom as his person, his gifting, and his anointing. That was never really a part of much of the history of the church. You have Luther and Calvin talk about the Spirit as being the revealer of the truth, so he is more within what he does with the Word than who he is and what his gifts, his gifting and anointing is. You have periodic outbursts like with the Wesleyan brothers and the Waldensians. You have moments where there is a kind of a bursting forth of Spirit activity, but it took until the 20th century. So you have movements in India, in Wales, and then America, you have the Pentecostal breaking through.

Brian Stiller:      What it did, it gave people an understanding that the Spirit is a person, he is a member of the Trinity, he is active, he gifts his people, and he anoints his people. I think what it did, and this is the thesis that I think has relevance, is that when the laity of the Church of God understood that they were anointed and gifted by the Spirit as much as a clergy, it released them to be the body, to be the Church of God in their world, in their vocation, in their various countries. You didn't have to have a a degree or a clergy anointing to preach or to raise the sick or to minister in some particular way.

Brian Stiller:      Now, it created a great chasm within the Evangelical Church between the Pentecostals and the evangelicals. That was bridged over in the '60s and '70s by the charismatic movement. What the charismatic movement did to employ the activity of the Spirit in a broader church, the charismatic movement said tongues is not the evidence of filling of the Spirit and neither are the gifts of the Spirit dead by way of cessationism or because the Bible came together as a unit, as many had said. So the gifts of the Spirit are for today, but you don't have to speak in tongues to be filled with the Spirit. And what that did, it released both Pentecostals and the broader evangelical Catholic and mainline world to be appreciative of the person and the work of the Spirit, invite him into their lives and to allow that presence to empower them in ministry. I think that's really, there are other factors that influenced this growth, but I think at the very core, the 20th century is marked by us knowing the Spirit.

Brian Stiller:      Now you and I were raised in a world where our churches, the Spirit was very much understood, but remember a hundred years ago, at the beginning of the 20th century, that was a very different world. So it took this cataclysmic breakthrough to help us understand, I think at least be introduced to the person and work of the Spirit.

Timothy George:     You know, I'm not a Pentecostal Christian, I don't speak in tongues. I've never had the gift of healing as far as I know. But when I hear and meet with Pentecostal Christians, there is a reality there that cannot be denied. I've often thought, these people are just closer to the Lord than I am. They have something that I don't have and maybe I need. I'm open to that. So I have learned much and have been so grateful for the witness of Pentecostals.

Timothy George:     You know, I'm involved in a movement called Evangelicals and Catholics Together, and one of our finest theologians, Dale Coulter, is a Pentecostal theologian, and he's a very good one, one of our best contributors. So God is at work in lots of different places in the world beyond our little narrow, traditional confines, isn't he?

Brian Stiller:      Yes, but if I could just give a side note to this. I'm very grateful for the moving of the Spirit and the growth of the church. But as I look at the body of Christ in a broader way, while Pentecostals may seem to be more empowered, it doesn't mean that they are as as dutiful spiritual. It doesn't mean that their lives are spiritually enriched in devotion and faithful living. I find often people who are not Pentecostal show to me the deep, the roots of faithfulness and devotion and Christ's likeness. Sometimes I find with my Pentecostal brethren, they talk a lot about empowerment of the Spirit, but it may in contrast not have the depth of personal devotion or of Christ likeness. So just to kind of-

Timothy George:     That's a good word. It's kind of a mirror of my experience, and maybe we need to hold those together, maybe in some tension. But the point is the body of Christ is bigger than any of our denominations, any of our streams that flow throughout it. But you have to say, when you look at the way Pentecostalism has been used since Azusa Street alone, the impact it's had on the world itself, and certainly the world Christian movement is just enormous, and we've got to be grateful for that.

Brian Stiller:      Yes, we are.

Timothy George:     So, wonderful. Now I want to ask you a question about the Bible, Word and Spirit. As I read the Reformation in particular, they wanted to hold these together, not always successful in doing that, but that was their effort. You can go off the track if you have Word without the Spirit, and there are excesses of the Spirit manifestation without the Word that lead to its own error. So how can we together talk about the co-inherence of Word and Spirit in a way that's both faithful to the Reformation, its best instincts, but also open to the new movings of the Spirit that come through Pentecostalism and other avenues.

Brian Stiller:      There's a drift and it can be a tragic drift where the Spirit takes over, and as you and I know, when we talk about the Spirit, often that simply is my self spirit. It's myself. It's my own inclination, intuition, self-interest. That's why the marrying, the activity of the Spirit in the discipline to the Word holds those kinds of so-called Spirit inclinations in tow. There are heresies today that that multiply in many parts of the world, and often those are led by people who are more on the Spirit empowered side than the Christ-like side, if I can use that distinction. There are many instances. You've got the Universal Church out of Brazil, which has a curious hybrid of Old Testament metaphor, actual the building of temples, and they have millions of people around the world that also morph into what we would call prosperity theology.

Brian Stiller:      So I am deeply concerned about some of these things. The fact that that the Word has been multiplied by translation into many languages, I think is an indicator that these heresies that have gone off will be towed back by Biblical discipline training. I think one of the great needs globally is Bible training. So I encourage schools here in North America to partner with one or two other schools so that you give them the benefit of your own expertise and your insight, because that's what's needed.

Brian Stiller:      But there is another side to this that interests me and it really comes out of the prosperity theology heresy. Now as we know, heresies always begin with orthodoxy. Orthodoxy is taken and slightly twisted. So, for example, the orthodoxy of the Scriptures, my God will supply all your need. The heresy is taking that which is true and slightly twisting it and saying, yes, my God will supply all your needs, and if you do this, he'll make you rich. So I see this as a global heresy, and I wonder how the Spirit is going to bring this into tow.

Brian Stiller:      But underlying that impulse or that attraction to the impulse of prosperity and wellbeing is a need. So for example, let me use a mother in Sierra Leone, and she doesn't have money to look after her kids going to school that day or the medicine or the proper clothes. And she reads the same Bible that you do. My God will supply all your needs. You and I live in a country where we have social safety nets that if we really get into trouble, we'll probably be looked after. But if you're in this country, there's nothing, there's no job, there's no social program, there's nothing to help you meet your needs. So how does God meet your need there?

Brian Stiller:      Well, it's interesting what some of the IMF and the World Bank and others have been looking at some places where there's been social economic lift, and one went into a country and into a location of a community that was doing well economically and socially. It was really lifting and they said, "You know, what are you doing that we aren't doing? We give you money and nothing happens, but you do your work and something happens?" And they said, "Well, you ask the wrong question." And they said, "Well, what's the wrong question?" They said, "Well, you ask the question, how much money do we need to give you? We ask the question, what is God's will? When we figure out what's God's will, then we begin to work together in creating those jobs and that economy that serves each other and eventually gives an economic structure to the community."

Brian Stiller:      Now, my point of that is that the prosperity theology, it touches on needs around the world. People need socioeconomic help. There's no money coming in from the outside. How do they create it? Well, if they believe that God has a will that I live well economically and socially, then the question is what's the way to it? These prosperity preachers come along and they have self-aggrandizing means of encouraging you to go to a point of self-sufficiency. That's the heresy.

Brian Stiller:      So I'm interested in the broader question. Often I find heresy comes back to orthodoxy, and my hope is that as this prosperity theology wears itself thin, as it runs itself into the ground, that we will recognize increasingly the power of the Gospel in bringing economic and social lift. How it does it, of course, will work with respect to the locale and the dynamics of their own culture. But I see this as a growing reality of the Gospel witness.

Timothy George:     So there is a concern about prosperity gospel, but you use this term whole Gospel. The whole Gospel is not the same as the prosperity gospel, is it?

Brian Stiller:      Not at all. I know that historically in the early to mid part of the 20th century, we divided the world. This is Sunday, this is Monday. This is church, this is work. This is Bill Gaither, this is jazz. We divided the world up, so that false bifurcation of life didn't understand that all of life is the Lord's. But we recognize that in today's, our younger generation are simply recognizing that the Gospel speaks to every part of life. There's not one aspect, as the Reformers said, there's not one square inch of creation that God doesn't say, "Mine." There's not one aspect of my human life that's not of concern to the Father. So the holistic Gospel is the whole Gospel for the whole person.

Timothy George:     Wonderful. Our guest today on the Beeson podcast has been Dr. Brian C. Stiller. He is global ambassador of the World Evangelical Alliance, a good friend, a great minister of the Gospel for many years in Canada and really all around the world. Thank you so much for this conversation, Brian.

Brian Stiller:      Thank you. It's been my joy to be here.

Announcer:          You've been listening to the Beeson podcast, with host Timothy George. You can subscribe to the Beeson podcast at our website, beesondivinity.com. Beeson Divinity School is an interdenominational, evangelical divinity school, training men and women in the service of Jesus Christ. We pray that this podcast will aid and encourage your work, and we hope you will listen to each upcoming edition of the Beeson podcast.