Missiological Implications from Latourette

Several of Latourette’s emphases are outstanding especially when considering the time period that this book was published. At a time when disciplines observed strict boundaries, Latourette was radical in his interdisciplinary approach. Using his training both in history and missions, he integrated secular history into missiology in such a way as to not merely restate church history. Ed Rommen in Missiology and the Social Sciences once said that true missiology utilizes history as a tool to analyze historic missionary activity as a context for understanding the spread of Christianity. Andrew Walls in “Modern Pioneers: Kenneth Scott Latourette,” in the Nov. 2001 edition of Christian History, said that Latourette “redirected Christian scholarship by presenting missions as the history of Christianity itself, not as an appendix to ‘church’ history” (45). This integration has impact on missiology as a true science, because without it we are left with a reductionistic isolation devoid of the fuller picture.

            His emphasis on the interaction between Christianity and the historical or social environment was also revolutionary for his time. Even up until Paul Hiebert began to identify anthropological aspects of missiology, there was arguably very little missiological work being done within a larger socio-economic context. Latourette was innovative in presenting this in a duo-directional mode, how Christianity was impacting secular development and how secular life was impacting Christianity’s development. This has impact in the discipline of missiology, because it raises the validity of missiology to a higher disciplinary level.

            Andrew Walls notes Latourette’s failure to include data from non-western Christian sources, but he quickly forgives his failure on the basis of lack of availability of such data. This failure can also be forgiven as he was a man of his times, and it was truly in vogue to think of the west as leading Christianity’s development. Today’s David Boschs of the missions world are helping to facilitate a broader range of study for world Christianity and especially provide supplemental emphases on non-western Christianity. Latourette can truly be hailed as a pioneer in preparing the Christian history “readers for the situation of the early twenty-first century” (Walls, 45).