Reform, Renewal and Revival: Lamin O. Sanneh and the Place of Africa in World Christianity

Lamin O. Sanneh of the Yale Divinity School passed on in January 2019 at the age of seventy-six years. He would go down in history as one of the pioneering authors in the field of World Christianity. Sanneh's impressive legacy of Christian scholarship includes his being a co-founder with Andrew F. Walls of the Yale-Edinburgh Conference that is held annually, alternating between the Yale and Edinburgh schools of divinity. Lamin Sanneh wrote a lot on both Christianity and Islam and this reflection on his legacy focuses on how Africa is presented in his works. The translation of the Scriptures, Lamin Sanneh noted, enhanced the place of Christianity in Africa and contributed directly to the reform, renewal and revival of the faith on the continent. He celebrated western missionaries for their work in promoting translation, but what purpose would that have served without indigenous assimilation of Christianity? In this work, we discuss the place of Africa in World Christianity as the continent and her Christians appear in Sanneh's writings on World Christianity.