| Paul Hiebert | |
| Nationality: | American |
| Birth Date: | 13 November 1932 |
| Birth Place: | Shamshabad, Telangana (India) |
| Death Place: | Baltimore, Maryland (United States) |
| Years Active: | 1958-2007 (49 years) |
| Occupation: | Pastor-University Teacher-Researcher-Missiologist |
| Education: | |
| Alma Mater: |
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| Known For: | Anthropological inputs in missions |
| Church: | Conference of the Mennonite Brethren Churches in India |
Paul Gordon Hiebert (13 November 1932 – 11 March 2007) was an American missiologist. He was "arguably the world's leading missiological anthropologist."[1]
Hiebert was born in India to missionary parents, and studied at Tabor College, Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary, and the University of Minnesota.
Subsequently, Hiebert went as a missionary to India and was Principal of the Mennonite Brethren Centenary Bible College, Shamshabad. After a period of missionary service, he proceeded to Pasadena, California where he taught at Fuller Theological Seminary before becoming Distinguished Professor of Mission and Anthropology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.[2] Paul became the Chair of the Department of Missions and Evangelism at Trinity in addition to maintaining his Professor duties.[3] From 1974 to 1975, Hiebert lectured at Osmania University, Hyderabad, India on a Fulbright Scholarship.[4]
A Festschrift in his honor, Globalizing Theology: Belief and Practice in an Era of World Christianity was published in 2006.[5]
Hiebert died of cancer in 2007.[6]
Hiebert developed several theories that widely influenced the study and practice of Christian missions. His model of "critical contextualization"[7] describes a process of understanding and evaluating cultural practices in light of biblical teaching. It is one of the most widely cited models in evangelical doctoral dissertations dealing with contextualization.[8]
The concept of the "excluded middle" argued that most Westerners see the universe as consisting of two tiers - the invisible things of the other world, and the visible things of this world. In this way, they exclude the part in between - namely, the invisible things of this world, and in particular the unseen personal beings, such as angels and demons. Hiebert suggested that non-Westerners are much more likely to accept this "excluded middle".[9] [10] [11]
Hiebert, who studied mathematics as an undergraduate, employed the idea of set theory to describe bounded sets versus centered or fuzzy sets as different ways of conceiving Christian community and theology.[12]