The defender of the good news: questioning Lamin Sanneh

Lamin Sanneh is the D. Willis James Professor of Missions and World Christianity and professor of history at Yale Divinity School. Gambian born, Sanneh is descended from the Nyanchos, an ancient African royal line. As such, his earliest education, in the Gambia, was with fellow chiefs’ sons. Following graduation from the University of London with a Ph.D. in Islamic History, he taught at the University of Ghana and at the University of Aberdeen, in Scotland. He served for eight years as Assistant and Associate Professor of the History of Religion at Harvard University, before moving to Yale University in 1989. The author of a dozen books and scores of articles, he is an editor-at-large for The Christian Century and a contributing editor for the International Bulletin of Missionary Research.