Shared Presuppositions? The CAMEL Method and the Insider Movement

This Article Explores Whether The CAMEL Method And The Insider Movement (IM) Paradigm Share Similar Philosophies, Approaches, And Underlying Presuppositions. After A Brief Overview Of The CAMEL Method And Its Contexts (twentieth-century Missions, The International Mission Board, And The Bangladeshi Context), I Will Discuss Four Themes Common To CAMEL And IM. We Will See That CAMEL And IM Share Similar Assumptions Yet With Different Outworkings. Both Seem To Share The Sentiment Of The Catholic Louis Massignon, Chief Architect Of Vatican II’s Approach To Non-Christian Religions: “Rather Than Destroy Islam, Might It Then Not Be Better To Expand It? … If A Moslem Followed His Soul’s Promptings To The End, He Would Come To Christ.” KEYWORDS: Camel Method, Insider Movement, mission, Islam, Bangladesh

An Overview of the Missions Activities of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Foreign Mission Board in Iran

This paper overviews the American missionary activity in Iran from the Southern Baptist Convention’s Foreign Mission Board. Much of the research is based on the Board of Trustee minutes of the Foreign Mission Board, as well as archival material from the International Mission Board, the new name for the Foreign Mission Board that includes personal correspondences, letters, communications, statistics of churches in Iran, strategies for missions, and other documents. Academic papers, diaries, composed and written oral histories, and other information from Foreign Mission Board missionaries of this period also are used. Therefore, the significance of this paper lies, I hope, at least in presenting documents previously unknown and inaccessible.