Native Knowing, Western Knowing, and Biblical Knowing: Developing an Integrated Epistemology for Missions

Abstract

Since the last half of the twentieth century, missiologists have recognized the need to shift away from Enlightenment epistemologies in order to develop contextualized missionary practices. Prominent missiologists Lesslie Newbigin, David Bosch, and Paul Hiebert applied Michael Polanyi’s shifts in scientific epistemology to missiology’s epistemology, but an explicitly biblical epistemology was not forthcoming. Dru Johnson has proposed an epistemology derived directly from Scripture which also corresponds to Polanyian principles. Though Johnson gives some general application of his epistemology to ministry, his work has not yet been specifically applied to missions and cross-cultural ministry. During this shift in missiological and biblical epistemologies, Native American, Alaska Native, and First Nations scholars have been developing Native epistemologies to counter the West’s colonizing influence on their cultures. This dissertation seeks to integrate principles from Native knowledge systems with principles from Johnson’s biblical epistemology in order to develop an epistemological model that can be used in indigenous ministries worldwide. This culturally appropriate, biblically faithful model goes beyond the rationalism and empiricism of Western epistemology. Instead, it is founded upon the nature of humans as relational beings and extends to actions, beliefs, and values to create a holistic approach to knowing.