Missiologist’s works to be published

CMF Executive Director Doug Priest used his recuperation time from two foot surgeries last year to revive a 25-year-old year dream of seeing many of the unpublished works of well-known missiologist Alan R. Tippett on the bookshelves. Doug, who served as Tippett’s assistant in the 1970’s while at Fuller Theological Seminary, initiated the project with publisher William Carey Library. The publisher was more than happy to “publish anything of Alan Tippett’s that we can get.”

The first book slated for publication, “The Jesus Documents,” was edited by CMF recruit Shawn Redford. This book is an anthropological look at the four gospels, and will be available in March 2010. The second book, co-edited by Doug Priest, “The Ways of the People,” is a reader in missionary anthropology. It is slated to be published in June.

Two more books on mission history in the South Pacific have been prepared and sent to William Carey Library. One is a missionary biography of John Hunt and the second is an autobiography of Fijian evangelist Joeli Bulu. Another volume of Tippett’s best writing in ethnohistory is close to completion.

Since these books were all written before computers, they must be scanned and then digitized, followed by the lengthy process of correcting and editing the scanned copy.