Anthropological Insights for Missionaries

"This excellent book offers indeed what the title suggests: insights--deep, comprehensive, and very practical. They are offered with great warmth and wisdom by a person who is both an anthropologist and a missionary. . . . With the addition of some questions for further thought and suggestions for reading, this book will make a good textbook in the field of missionary anthropology."
--Gottfried Oosterwal, Religious Studies Review "In this book Paul Hiebert has pulled together an impressive array of insights (from his own missionary experience and from the experience of other missionaries) which anthropology offers the would-be missionary. . . . The book has been written in an easy-to-read, straightforward style. Hiebert provides an abundance of primary sources for those who might want to pursue further individual insights. It is a book that will be valuable to mission executives, missionary candidates, and even experienced missionaries."
--Jacob A. Loewen, Missiology "This is a book that needed to be written. . . . No single volume focuses the insights derived from the study of anthropology so comprehensively and yet so practically on the life and work of the average evangelical missionary as does this one. While ideal as a supplementary text for a course in missionary anthropology, this book can be read with real profit by anyone engaged in or contemplating a cross-cultural ministry. . . . The book is replete with helpful tables, charts, diagrams, and carefully selected excerpts from other writers. . . . This is the kind of book that deserves to be read not only at the beginning of one's missionary career, but at five-year intervals thereafter."
--Kenneth Mulholland, Evangelical Missions Quarterly "A masterful tool. . . . [Hiebert] provides a sound treatment both of culture and the Gospel which denies the complexity of neither. He treats the task of living in another culture with much practical wisdom and a good deal of intellectual sophistication. He presents a thoroughly sound and persuasive approach to contextualization and the communication of the Gospel. . . . This is all done in clear, non-jargony language. Effective charts and diagrams sprinkle the text and go a long way towards illustrating difficult concepts and ideas. . . . This book is believable, convincing, and practical. . . . It would be useful for courses in applied anthropology, missiology and missionary preparation, and the theory of culture."
--Harley Schreck, Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith