Section
Missions and Anthropology

Macaw

ON KNOWING HUMANITY:
Developing a Christian Anthropology
A Series of Colloquia at Eastern University

Anthropology claims to study humanity holistically, in all its inter-cultural varieties and intra-cultural connections.  Yet a truly holistic study must go beyond the natural science view of people as merely a species in nature.  A Christian anthropology must place ethnographic data about people and cultures within the larger framework of God’s purposes for humanity through history.

We propose the incorporation of scholarship from theological anthropology with that of scientific anthropology.  This will require the deconstruction of terms and assumptions in scientific anthropology.  And it will require the broadening of categories and understandings in theological anthropology.  We believe the result will be a truly holistic approach, one with the potential to give a full account of humanity situated in a Christian perspective.

This series of colloquia is designed to investigate the problem from various perspectives:  theological, epistemological, scientific, and historical.  The presenters are members of a team working together, and will read papers, and engage in discussions, that are parts of the whole project.