On 6 January , theological academia around the world was rocked by the sudden and unexpected passing of Professor Lamin Sanneh. Born in an ancient African royal family in , in Gambia, a small country in the westernmost part of Africa, Sanneh grew up as a Muslim and converted to Christianity in his late teenage years. Throughout his life, he held an impressive portfolio of academic achievements and appointments. At the time of his passing, he was the D. Willis James Professor of Missions and World Christianity at Yale Divinity School, a position he had held since He led numerous other initiatives, one being a flagship project on Religious Freedom and Society in Africa. The Sanneh Institute at the University of Ghana in Accra was founded in and named in his honor. It seeks to resource academic institutions in the advanced study of religion through curricular design, faculty development and research.[1]
Sanneh also had an impressive record of publications as author, editor, or co-editor of books, monographs, and peer-reviewed journal articles.
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Remembering Lamin Sanneh, the World’s Leading Expert on Christianity and Islam in Africa
Lamin Sanneh, the Gambian scholar who shaped contemporary discourse around World Christianity and missions in Africa, died Sunday at age
As Sanneh wrote in his autobiography, he was “summoned from the margins,” a convert from Islam to Christianity raised in the tiny West African nation.
Over his year career at Yale Divinity School as well as stints at the University of London and two Pontifical Commissions, he brought World Christianity to the forefront, drawing a global network of scholars and friends around his scholarship in the fields of African history, abolitionism, and Christian-Muslim relations.
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CT heard from some of these colleagues as they grieved Sanneh’s sudden passing. Their tributes appear below.
Andrew F. Walls, founder of the Centre for the Study of Christianity in the Non-Western World at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland:
All members of [the Yale-Edinburgh network of World Christianity scholars] will have learned with
The legacy of Lamin Sanneh
On 6 January , theological academia around the world was rocked by the sudden and unexpected passing of Professor Lamin Sanneh.
Born in an ancient African royal family in , in Gambia, a small country in the westernmost part of Africa, Sanneh grew up as a Muslim and converted to Christianity in his late teenage years.
Throughout his life, he held an impressive portfolio of academic achievements and appointments. At the time of his passing, he was the D. Willis James Professor of Missions and World Christianity at Yale Divinity School, a position he had held since
He led numerous other initiatives, one being a flagship project on Religious Freedom and Society in Africa. The Sanneh Institute at the University of Ghana in Accra was founded in and named in his honor.
It seeks to resource academic institutions in the advanced study of religion through curricular design, faculty development and research.i
Sanneh also had an impressive record of publications as author, editor, or co-editor of books, monographs, and peer-reviewed journal articles.
One of his landmark writings, published by Orbis Books in the American Society of Missiology Series
Lamin Sanneh, Scholar of Islam and Christianity, Dies at 76
His son, Kelefa, said the cause was complications of a stroke.
Sanneh was born a Muslim but converted to Christianity as a teenager and became a practicing Roman Catholic, giving him experience in both Islam and Christianity and an unusual perspective for a scholar of religion.
Even more striking, he alone of his large rural family managed to migrate across continents and attend prominent universities. He ended up as a professor at Yale University, where he taught for 30 years. He was the D. Willis James professor of missions and world Christianity at Yale Divinity School and a professor of history at Yale.
His memoir, “Summoned From the Margin: Homecoming of an African” (), relates how, even as a youth, he was consumed with theological questions about the nature of God and human suffering; that passion led to his religious conversion and academic career.
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