Eli Stanley Jones (1884–1973) was an American Methodist Christian missionary, theologian, and author.
His seminal work, The Christ of the Indian Road (ISBN 0-687-06377-9), sold more than a million copies worldwide after its publication in 1925.
[1][6] He was on the faculty of Asbury College when he was called to missionary service in India in 1907 under the Board of Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
[10] In 1925, while home on furlough, he wrote a report of his years of service - what he had taught and what he had learned in India.
He helped to re-establish the Indian “Ashram” (or forest retreat) as a means of drawing men and women together for days at a time to study in depth their own spiritual natures and quest, and what the different faiths offered individuals.
This opening up of nations to receiving Christ within their own framework marked a new approach in missions called "indigenization").
This institution became known as the ”Christian Ashram.”[12] In the months prior to December 7, 1941, he was a confidant of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Japanese leaders trying to avert war.
[1] Stranded in the United States during World War II with his family in India (because the only overseas travel allowed was for the military), he transplanted the Christian Ashram in the United States and Canada, where it has become a strong spiritual growth ministry.
[1][18][19] In December 1971, at the age of 88, while leading the Oklahoma Christian Ashram, Jones suffered a stroke[20] that seriously impaired him physically, including his speech.
In spite of that, he dictated onto a tape recorder his last book "The Divine Yes"[12] and preached from his wheelchair at the First Christian Ashram World Congress in Jerusalem in June 1972.