Resources

Dr. Lamin Sanneh was born in MacCarthy Island in the River Gambia, a small West African country that shares a boundary with Senegal and the Atlantic coastline. Though a descendant of an African royal family, Lamin was raised in poverty. He was one of eleven children, and he grew up watching his parents work tirelessly to provide for their family.

Sanneh began life in a Muslim household, as 95% of Gambia’s two million residents are practicing Muslims. Less than four percent of his nation of origin practices Christianity. Sanneh’s teenaged conversion to Christianity occurred thanks to the Methodist missionaries who made their mission his ancestral home.

Sanneh studied at the University of Birmingham and the Near East School of Theology in Beirut, accumulating a global perspective on life and doctrine. He has utilized his doctorate in Islamic history as a professor at the University of Ghana and the University of Aberdeen abroad, and Yale and Harvard stateside (where he is a naturalized citizen).

He was a co-editor of twenty books, several essays, and over two hundred journal articles. His notable works include, Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture, Abolitionists Abroad: American Blacks and the Making of Modern West Africa, Whose Religion is Christianity? The Gospel Beyond the West, Disciples of All Nations: Pillars of World Christianity, Beyond Jihad: Pacifist Impetus in Muslim West Africa and Beyond, and The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to World Christianity, co-edited with Michael McClymond.