FROM INDIA WITH APPRECIATIONS

- A TRIBUTE TO PAUL G. HIEBERT -

Roger Hedlund & Paul Joshua Bhakiaraj

Mylapore Institute For Indigenous Studies (http://www.dharmadeepika.org)

Paul is from India, his writing was of India, and we owe much to his gracious, brilliant engagements with the cultures and people of India. A few years ago when we were putting together a textbook on missiology, Paul Hiebert was most responsive and cooperative in providing two chapters on important themes. Those chapters, as all his writings were both lively and interactive as they were shaped by lessons learnt from his time in India. Paul’s India experience shaped him in more ways than one, which then influenced the way he carried out his teaching ministry that impacted the world. World Christianity found in Paul an able scholar and a vocal advocate. His creative scholarship, for example his views on the ‘excluded middle’ have enriched the study of mission and world Christianity. In his scholarship Paul was modeling how a genuine theologian/missiologist of world Christianity can contribute to the study of Christianity worldwide. As a result he was a man before his time.          

Besides that, Paul Hiebert was a great person and will be missed by all who knew him.  

Published in the special issue “A Memoriam of Paul G. Hiebert”

www.globalmissiology.org April 1, 2007