Kenneth L. Pike: An Evangelical Mind

“Boone Aldridge’s biography of Kenneth Pike tells the astonishing story of an evangelical Christian mind that became truly innovative. How many anthropologists, scholars of religion, or linguists know that one of the basic tools of their intellectual analysis, the distinction between etic and emic views of cultural systems, owes its origins to an American missionary reared in fundamentalist circles? This book will explode preconceptions, widen horizons, and inspire deep reflection.”


—Brian Stanley, Professor of World Christianity, University of Edinburgh





“We have needed an intellectual biography of Kenneth Pike, and now we have one, carefully researched and engagingly written. I am pleased to recommend this work, especially in the way that it provides further insights into the life and thought of a great and unusual Christian pioneer.”


—Vern S. Poythress, Distinguished Professor of New Testament, Biblical Interpretation, and Systematic Theology, Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia





“Kenneth Pike occupied multiple worlds: he was a man of deeply held evangelical faith, and also a gifted intellectual and scholar in the field of linguistics. Along the way, Aldridge broadens our understanding of twentieth-century evangelicalism, and adds a gentle hero to its pantheon of stars.”


—John A. D’Elia, president of The New Theological Seminary of the West and author of A Place at the Table: George Eldon Ladd and the Rehabilitation of Evangelical Scholarship in America





“Aldridge tells the compelling story of a young Ken Pike, gifted by God with an ear and a mind for phonetics, discovering the wonderful world of Mixtec languages in Mexico, and using those gifts to become one of a handful of world-renowned linguistic scholar-philosophers in the twentieth century. . . . Pike mentored and influenced hundreds of young men and women to careers of academic scholarship for the kingdom of God. I was one among so many that responded to God’s invitation through Ken Pike.”


—Sherwood Lingenfelter, Senior Professor of Anthropology, Fuller Theological Seminary