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Anthropology, Missiological Anthropology. the Relationship

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Anthropology, Missiological Anthropology. the Relationship Anthropology, Missiological Anthropology Anthropology, Missiological Anthropology. sions, where Willoughby taught from 1919 and The relationship between anthropology and Smith lectured from 1939 to 1943, little was world missions has been a long and profitable done to provide anthropological instruction for one with the benefits flowing both ways. Though missionaries before World War II. Wheaton Col- for philosophical reasons recent generations of lege (Illinois) had begun an anthropology depart- anthropologists have tended to be very critical of ment, and the WYCLIFFE BIBLE TRANSLATORS’ Sum- missionaries, much of the data used by profes- mer Institute of Linguistics, though primarily sional anthropologists from earliest days has focused on LINGUISTICS, was serving to alert come from missionaries. Anthropological pio- many to the need to take culture seriously. neers such as E. B. Tylor (1832–1917) and J. G. Though Gordon Hedderly Smith had pub- Frazer (1854–1954) in England, L. H. Morgan lished The Missionary and Anthropology in 1945, (1818–82) in the United States, and Wilhelm it was EUGENE NIDA who sparked the movement Schmidt (1868–1954) in Austria were greatly in- to make anthropology a major component in debted to missionaries for the data from which missionary thinking. He used his position as sec- they constructed their theories. Such early an- retary for translations of the American Bible So- thropological pioneers as R. H. Codrington (1830– ciety to demonstrate to missionaries and their 1922), Lorimer Fison (1832–1907), Diedrich Wes- leaders the value of anthropological insight. His termann (1875–1956), H. A. Junod (1863–1934), lectures on anthropological topics in the 1940s and Edwin Smith (1876–1957) were missionaries and early 1950s, published as Customs and Cul- for part or all of their careers. tures in 1954, contributed greatly to an awaken- The first of the numerous Protestant mission- ing within the missionary community to the ary conferences in the English-speaking world to need for and benefits of anthropological insight. include formal discussion of anthropological By the mid-1950s Nida had surrounded himself matters was the WORLD MISSIONARY CONFERENCE at the Bible society with four very perceptive, an- in Edinburgh (1910). Roman Catholics led the thropologically oriented translation consultants, way on the Continent, sponsoring several work- W. A. SMALLEY, W. D. Reyburn, W. L. Wonderly, shops on missions and ethnology. A notable cen- and J. A. LOEWEN. As these men worked with ter for ethnological research was established in translators around the world, they demonstrated Vienna by Schmidt, who devoted his professional the value of anthropology. In 1955, Smalley took life to researching, teaching, and writing on lan- over the editorship of the bimonthly journal guages and cultures in order to help missionar- Practical Anthropology (PA), which Robert Taylor ies. For this purpose he founded the journal An- had started in 1953 at Wheaton with the aim of thropos in 1906 and the Anthropos Institute in applying anthropology to missions. The writings 1932. of Nida, Smalley, Reyburn, Wonderly, and Loe- Though the influence of professional anthro- wen in PA were formative for a generation of an- pology on missionaries was small during this thropologically oriented missionaries working in era, some impressive anthropological writing the 1950s and 1960s. by missionaries emerged. Fison with A. W. From 1965 on, another stream of missiological Howitt published The Kamileroi and the Kurnai, anthropology was developing under DONALD MC- still considered a basic work on Australian ab- GAVRAN at Fuller Seminary’s School of World originals. Codrington’s Melanesians contributed Mission. McGavran’s first faculty appointee was to anthro pology its understanding of mana. Ju- ALAN TIPPETT, an Australian anthropologist who nod’s two-volume Life of a South African Tribe had worked for two decades in Fiji. The Nida was years later still regarded as one of the finest stream merged with this stream under Mc- anthropological monographs. And Schmidt’s Gavran’s next two appointees, RALPH WINTER and twelve-volume study of the origin of religion Charles Kraft, both anthropologists strongly in- did much to dissuade the academic community fluenced by Nida and the other PA contributors. from their commitment to an evolutionary These events of the 1950s and 1960s laid the explanation. foundations for validating missiological anthro- The most notable early British advocate for pology within the professional subdiscipline of missiological anthropology was EDWIN SMITH. applied anthropology. Important publications of Born in Africa of missionary parents, Smith for the 1960s included Nida’s Message and Mission three decades wrote and taught widely on Afri- and LOUIS LUZBETAK’S Church and Cultures, can cultures. His most famous book is The which focused helpfully on the dynamics of cul- Golden Stool. Two other British missionary an- tural change. Tippett’s Solomon Islands Christi- thropologists to note are W. C. Willoughby, who anity showed how competent anthropology published The Soul of the Bantu, and Denys could be used to analyze Christian witness and Shropshire, who wrote The Church and Primitive practice. KENNETH PIKE’S Language in Relation to Peoples. a Unified Theory of the Structure of Human Be- In America, with the exception of Hartford havior, though long and technical, contributed Seminary Foundation’s Kennedy School of Mis- important insights concerning the relationships 1 Behavior Patterns of language and culture. Many of the PA articles brought this topic forcefully to our attention. were collected by Smalley in Readings in Mis- MARVIN MAYERS, a Wycliffe translator who sionary Anthropology, which was followed by taught at Wheaton and later at Biola, both high- Culture and Human Values, a collection of per- lighted and broadened this theme in his import- ceptive articles by Loewen. ant book Christianity Confronts Culture. A third In 1973, PA, then edited by Charles Taber, an important area of application is the contextual- anthropologist teaching at Emmanuel School of ization or inculturation of Christianity. Kraft in Religion, was merged into Missiology, the fledg- Christianity in Culture creatively used linguistic ling journal of the newly formed AMERICAN SOCI- and Bible translation theory as well as basic an- ETY OF MISSIOLOGY. Tippett became the first edi- thropology and COMMUNICATION theory to pro- tor. This journal has maintained a strong focus duce a cross-cultural perspective on theology. on anthropology. This book did much to show both that an an- Currently, anthropology plays an important thropological approach can positively influence part in the majority of missionary training pro- theologizing and that CONTEXTUALIZATION should grams in evangelical institutions. The primary be an evangelical issue, not merely an ecumeni- attention of missiological anthropology is di- cal theory. A fourth important area presently in rected toward understanding the nature of CUL- focus is that of WORLDVIEW. TURE and the pervasiveness of its influence on In addition, we should mention Homer Bar- those we approach with the gospel. A second nett’s psychological anthropology and especially concern is to understand the influence of culture his ideas on cultural change, which have had a on the missionaries themselves. To this has been strong influence on Tippett and Luzbetak. More added the recognition that since the Bible is a recently, the symbolic anthropology of Clifford cross-cultural book, those who would under- Geertz and Mary Douglas has influenced the per- stand and interpret it correctly need cultural in- spectives of Paul Hiebert and Sherwood Lingen- sight. The articles in PA provided understanding felter. Important recent books by missiological of these and many other important areas. anthropologists include Tippett’s Introduction to Over the years, missiological anthropology has Missiology, Darrell Whiteman’s Melanesians and sometimes followed the vogues of secular an- Missionaries, Hiebert’s Anthropological Insights thropology, sometimes resisted them. Missionary for Missionaries and Anthropological Reflections anthropologists have found congenial such secu- on Missiological Issues, Daniel Shaw’s Transcul- lar anthropological insights as the focus on spe- turation (1988), Lingenfelter’s Transforming Cul- cific cultures, the strengths of research based on ture (1992) and Agents of Transformation (1996), participant observation, certain aspects of the Hiebert and Eloise Meneses’ Incarnational Min- functionalist emphasis on the internal workings istry (1995) and Kraft’s Anthropology for Chris- of culture, the dynamics of cultural change, and tian Witness (1996). A lifetime of dealing with the the necessity to understand WORLDVIEW. On the Bible in cross-cultural perspective is summa- other hand, certain secular emphases have rized in Jacob Loewen’s masterful The Bible in stirred up the opposition of Christian anthropol- Cross-Cultural Perspective (1997). ogists. Among them are the overextension of evo- CHARLES H. KRAFT lutionary and relativistic thinking. Early on, one of Schmidt’s motivations was to combat the sim- Bibliography. E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Social Anthro- plistic evolutionary theory concerning the origin pology and Other Essays; S. A. Grunlan and M. K. May- and development of religion. His Origin of the ers, Cultural Anthropology: A Christian Perspective; P. G. Idea of God was so successful that most secular Hiebert,
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