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William A. Smalley, “Doctoral Dissertations on Mission: Ten-Year • Vol. 17, No.3 nternattona July 1993 ettn• Doctoral Dissertations on Mission: Ten-Year Update, 1982-1991 William A. Smalley Ten years ago the INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY erate ever more rapidly, again reflecting change in the church RESEARCH published a directory of 934 doctoral dissertations on and in mission. Most of the topics indexed in the earlier bibliog­ mission-related subjects attheological schools anduniversities inthe raphy are to be found again in the pages that follow, but this United States and Canada. Almost four decades of research were decade also shows a distinct increase, especially in dissertations covered, from 1945 through 1982. In this issue we are pleased to dealing with theological issues in the younger churches, most present another directory of 512 North American dissertations for notably with non-traditional theologies. Liberation theology thedecade 1982-1991. predominatesamongthesenon-traditionaltheologies,butAsian, The compiler of thedirectory andauthor of thearticle below is African, black, and feminist theologies recur as well, as the William A. Smalley, afriend andcolleague ofmanyyears' standing. following summary indicates:" Now retired in Hamden, Connecticut, he is a near neighbor of the Overseas Ministries Study Center. For twenty-three years Dr. Smalley wasa translation consultant with theUnited Bible Societ­ ies, serving primarily in Southeast Asia.Duringpartofthatperiod he also edited Practical Anthropology, and for a time he was On Page principal of the Toronto Institute of Linguistics, which prepares missionary candidates for language and culture learning. Earlier 97 Doctoral Dissertations on Mission: Ten-Year Smalley wasa missionary linguistwith theChristian andMission­ Update, 1982-1991 aryAlliance in Laos andVietnam. Hismostrecent book isTransla­ William A. Smalley tion as Mission: Bible Translation in the Modern Missionary 100 Degree-Granting Institutions Here Repre­ Movement (Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 1991). sented, with Abbreviations and Number of The Editors Doctoral Dissertations from Each 104 Dissertations Listed Alphabetically by Author n July 1983 the INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY I RESEARCH published a bibliography of North American 118 Index of Subjects dissertations on mission that had appeared since the end of 126 The Legacy of Lewis Bevan Jones World War 11.1 E.Theodore Bachmannbegan his introduction to Clinton Bennett :heworkby noting the radical wayin whichtheChristianchurch waschanging as it spread throughout the world in this era. He 130 Mission and Democracy in Africa: The Prob­ cited Kenneth Scott Latourette's emphasis' on rising "global lem of Ethnocentrism outreach, the imminent rise of indigenous churches, and the Robert K. Aboagye-Mensah mobilization of persons in many lands who were volunteering 134 Book Reviews forthe missionary task." Bachmann mentioned how his bibliog­ raphy of dissertations reflected those changes. 144 Book Notes As Bachmann also pointed out, research on mission is far ]eommoribund. Ten years later, dissertations on mission prolif­ of issionaryResearch 1945-1981 (37 years) 1982-1991 (10 years) about the same number of dissertations per year in the 1980s, the Liberation theology 15 (0.4/year) 89 (8.9/year) new leaders dramatically increased the numbers of dissertations IJ African theology 3 (0.08/year) 32 (3.2/year) accepted annually. oj Asian theology o 17 (1.7/year) Black theology 4 (O.l/year) 11 (l.1/year) 1945-1981 (37 years) 1982-1991 (10 years) Est Political theology 2 (0.05/year) 11 (l.1/year) Total dissertations 934 (25/year) 512 (51.2/year) ~ Feminist theology o 3 (0.3/year) listed Rei Institutions granting 145 (O.2/year avg.) 114 (O.4/year avg.)' 19E All non-traditional 24 (0.65/year) 163 (16.3/year) degrees Leaders in 1982-1991 Pul Judging again by the respective indexes, some other topics Fuller Theol. Sem. 10 (O.3/year) 61 (6.1/year) Ov have correspondingly decreased in the past ten years. Mission DrewUniv. 11 (O.3/year) 25 (2.5/year) 49( sending agencies, for example, received less attention in the Princeton Theol. 32 (0.9/year) 22 (2.2/year) Tel 1980s. Treatment of most major countries went up or down Sem. FaJ slightly, but Japan dropped sharply from 1.1 dissertations per Leaders in 1945-1981 year to 0.3, perhaps because the American post-war interest in Boston Univ. 54 (1.5/year) 14 (1.4/year) Ed occupied Japan has lessened. In contrast, the treatment of Korea Univ. of Chicago 49 (1.3/year) 13 (1.3/year) Ge rose even more sharply from 0.8 dissertations per year to 3.2, Columbia Univ. 44 (1.2/year) 7 (0.7/year) perhaps due in part to the large number of Korean doctoral Ca candidates in the United States. Increased interest in issues of Many dissertations in the bibliography were apparently Da cultural sensitivity and appropriateness is clearly reflected in the written by Asians, Africans, and Latin Americans, that is, by SaJ number of dissertations dealing with indigenization and people from the traditional "mission fields." Dissertations by Ba contextualization. The 0.1 per year entries under "context- Koreans seem particularly numerous. I was not able to quantify N< ualization" in 1983 became 1.6 per year ten years later. "Indig- this observation, however, because I could not always determine GI enous," which registered 0.6 entries per year in 1983, shows a an author's nationality. Whereas Samuel Adu-Andoh, writing G, three-fold gain in the present bibliography, to 1.8 per year. on Ghana (1.2), is probably Ghanaian, is Yoshito Anno, writing M Topics as broad as non-traditional theologies illustrate a on a Matthew passage (1.10), a Japanese person or an American Le C. problem for the bibliographer of mission, however. Liberation of Japanese ancestry? I was frequently not able to judge the sex theology has been examined by anthropologists, sociologists, of an author, either, and so did not attempt to tabulate figures on political scientists, psychologists, philosophers, and theologians, the gender of dissertation authors. B< as well as by missiologists. Presumably there is little if any The present bibliography was commissioned by Gerald H. ad missiological content in some of their dissertations. Liberation Anderson, editor of INTERNATIONALBULLETINOF MISSIONARY st theology began in mission and continues in mission, but because RESEARCH,with explicit guidelines. Only dissertations for the of its many ramifications it has also taken on a life .outside of Ph.D., Th.D., S.T.D., and Ed.D. degrees are included, and only S1 mission. I have therefore included some titles and omitted oth- those presented at North American institutions. I have followed J>( ers, depending on my subjective impression of likely missiological the format of the earlier bibliography as closely as possible, using sc relevance as judged from the title or the abstract of the disserta- my best judgment about what is relevant to mission, interpreting 01 bi tion. the topic broadly. 5 Studies of present-day churches in traditional ac The process of selecting dissertations to be included be- mission areas, which are the direct or indirect "fruit" of mission, R! comes subjective for other reasons as well. Sometimes titles do constitute an important element in the biography. not reveal actual mission content. Although "Presbyterian Mis- In his preface to Bachmann's 1983 work, Anderson elabo- sions to Indians in Western Canada" (3.33) is self-evident as a rated on the problem of defining relevance in a bibliography of candidate for inclusion in this bibliography, a title such as "An this kind: Ethnohistory of the Indian People of the San Francisco Bay Area from 1770 to 1810" (13.27) could easily be overlooked; yet it Basically we are concerned with "the church witnessing across discusses the effects of mission work among those Native Ameri- frontiers." These frontiers may be geographical, religious,linguis- A tic, ideological, racial, ethnic, social, cultural, economic, or politi- can peoples. Nor does "Confronting the Quintessential: Singing, cal, but the emphasis is on communicating the gospel with the Dancing, and Everyday Life among Biaka Pygmies" (11.23) intention of Christian witness. The scope of missionary concern is reveal that the dissertation deals with the effects of evangelism "the whole church with the whole gospel for the whole person in on Biaka cultural activities. the whole world." It is primarily in the Third World, however, that After titles are subjectively selected, compiling an index the church is conscious of "crossing frontiers" in its witness. compounds the subjectivity. The full range of major topics cov- ered in a dissertation is not always explicit, even in the published Emphasizing the Third World traditional missionary areas abstract. Terminologies and perspectives of disciplines and of created inevitable distortions in this bibliography, however. ( individuals also differ, lending uncertainties. The bibliographer Titles dealing with liberation theology in Latin America were a overlooks possibilities. Dissertations that actually have topics in often given the benefit of the doubt, and so included, but those common may get separated, and more diverse ones may get dealing with black theology in the United States were screened ( united under the same index entry. more rigorously. Feminist theology in Asia was included auto- In addition to changes over time in subjects studied, com- matically, but feminist theology in the United States had to show S F parison of the two bibliographies also shows some shift in some more compelling association to mission. If this were truly f, relative ranking of institutions in respect to the number of a bibliography of "the whole church with the whole gospel for dissertations written under their auspices. While the universities the whole person in the whole world," it would be enormously I: and seminaries that led in the earlier period tended to accept larger. ii 98 INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY REsEARCH J I used the following sources in compiling this bibliography, International Bulletin extracting from them in the order shown.
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