Lamin Sanneh Explained

Lamin Sanneh
Birth Date:24 May 1942
Birth Place:Abuko, Gambia Colony and Protectorate
Death Place:United States
Occupation:Scholar of missions and religious studies
Known For:History of African Christianity and a pioneer in the academic field of world Christianity
Spouse:Sandra Sanneh
Discipline:Missiology, religious studies
Workplaces:University of Ghana, University of Aberdeen, Harvard, Yale University, Yale Divinity School

Lamin Sanneh (May 24, 1942 – January 6, 2019) was the D. Willis James Professor of Missions and World Christianity at Yale Divinity School and Professor of History at Yale University.

Biography

Sanneh was born and raised in Gambia as part of an ancient African royal family, and was a naturalized United States citizen. After studying at the University of Birmingham and the Near East School of Theology, Beirut, he earned his doctorate in Islamic History at the University of London. Sanneh taught and worked at the University of Ghana, the University of Aberdeen, Harvard, and, from 1989–2019, at Yale. He was an editor-at-large of The Christian Century, and served on the board of several other journals. Sanneh had honorary doctorates from University of Edinburgh and Liverpool Hope University.[1]

He was a Commandeur de l'Ordre National du Lion, Senegal's highest national honor. He was a member of the Pontifical Commission of the Historical Sciences and of the Pontifical Commission on Religious Relations with Muslims.[1] In 2018, a new institute was created in his name, the Sanneh Institute at the University of Ghana.[2] The Overseas Ministry Study Center (OMSC) at Princeton Theological Seminary created a research grant named in honor of Sanneh.[3]

Sanneh suffered a stroke and died on January 6, 2019.[4] [5] He was survived by his wife, Sandra Sanneh, a professor of isiZulu at Yale University, and their children Sia Sanneh, a senior attorney at the Equal Justice Initiative, and Kelefa Sanneh, staff writer for The New Yorker.[6]

Christianity and Islam

Sanneh converted to Christianity from Islam and was a practicing Roman Catholic. Much of his scholarship related to the relationship between Christianity and Islam, especially in Africa and what he understood as "African Islam."[7] [8]

World Christianity

Another major area of Sanneh's academic work was in the study of World Christianity. In his Translating the Message (1989), Sanneh wrote about the significance of the translation of the Christian message into mother-tongue languages in places like Africa and Asia. Instead of the dominant view that Christian mission primarily propagated "cosmopolitan values of an ascendant West," he argues, "The translation role of missionaries cast them as unwitting allies of mother-tongue speakers and as reluctant opponents of colonial domination."[9] He continued to develop these reflections in his Disciples of All Nations (2008).

Selected books

References

  1. Web site: Lamin Sanneh. Yale Divinity School. 3 October 2018.
  2. News: New institute named for Lamin Sanneh to focus on study of religion and society in Africa. 27 September 2018. Yale MacMillan Center. 3 October 2018. en.
  3. Web site: Lamin Sanneh Research Prizes . OMSC . 14 August 2022.
  4. Web site: Sterling . Greg . Professor Lamin Sanneh, 1942-2019 . Yale Divinity School . 8 January 2019 . 7 January 2019.
  5. Web site: Walls . Andrew . Andrew Walls . Professor Lamin Sanneh: In Memoriam . Centre for the Study of World Christianity . 8 January 2019 . 8 January 2019.
  6. News: Smith . Harrison . Lamin Sanneh, pioneering historian who studied Christianity's spread, dies at 76 . Washington Post . 13 January 2019.
  7. Bonk. Jonathan J.. October 2003. The Defender of the Good News: Questioning Lamin Sanneh. Christianity Today. 112–113.
  8. Harrak. Fatima. Piety and Power: Muslims and Christians in West Africa by Lamin Sanneh. Journal of the American Academy of Religion. September 2000. 68. 3. 668–670. 10.1093/jaarel/68.3.668.
  9. Lamin Sanneh, Translating the Message, 2nd ed. (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 2009), 94–5.

External links

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