Taber explores the interaction in recent history between the modern missionary movement (especially its Protestant expressions) and concurrent developments in the social sciences, specifically the emergence of the concept of culture. To begin, he traces the prehistory of the concept of culture from antiquity through the Enlightenment, and up to the dawn of the modern Protestant missionary movement. He then describes the historical context of the nineteenth century in terms of processes such as the industrial revolution, the abolitionist movement, the colonial enterprise, and in terms of key...

Christian missionaries generally head out to the field with a single assessment of the human condition--humans are fallen, sinful creatures in need of salvation. Yet, as the history of missiology developed it found itself confronting other models of the human condition in anthropology and sociology that it had to incorporate into its theological models.

Taber offers a brief history of the interface between missiology and the social sciences. He contends that this relationship has been largely superficial and uncritical, even though it has brought a number of helpful dimensions to...