Thursday, July 17, 2008

The Bible and Languages

From the book, Disciples of All Nations, by historian Lamin Sanneh:
More people pray and worship in more languages and with more differences in styles of worship in Christianity than in any other religion. Well over three thousand of the world’s languages are embraced by Christianity through Bible translation, prayer, liturgy, hymns, and literature. More than 90 percent of these languages have a grammar and a dictionary at all only because the Western missionary movement provided them, thus pioneering arguably the largest, most diverse and most vigorous movement of cultural renewal in history. (p. xx)
Cited in Harold Netland's essay for the ESV Study Bible, "Evangelical Protestantism and Global Christianity"