Anthropology has two tasks: the scientific task of studying human beings and the instrumental task of promoting human flourishing. To date, the scientific task has been constrained by secularism, and the instrumental task by the philosophy and values of liberalism. These constraints have caused religiously based scholarship to be excluded from anthropology's discourse, to the detriment of both tasks. The call for papers for the 2009 meetings of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) recognized the need to "push the field's epistemological and presentational conventions" in order to reach anthropology's various publics. Religious thought has much to say about the human condition. It can expand the discourse in ways that provide explanatory value as well as moral purpose and hope. We propose an epistemology of witness for dialogue between anthropologists and theologians, and we demonstrate the value added with an example: the problem of violence.Since its inception, anthropology has been engaged in two main tasks. The first is the scientific task of seeking to understand the full dimensions of the nature and expressions of humankind. The second, based on the first, is the instrumental task of using those understandings to press for processes, projects, and policies that will protect and nourish the best of that nature and its expressions.It is our contention that the depth of anthropology's perspective on humanity, and therefore the relevance of its instrumental uses, has been constrained by the modernist epistemological assumptions and commitments that have generally governed Western academic discourse. In particular, the commitments to secularism and to liberalism, operating in the background of the discourse, have led to the exclusion of religiously based perspectives as intellectually coequal. That exclusion has resulted in a limiting of the theoretical and practical insights available for the advancement of anthropology's perspective in the contemporary world.
Coming out of mission efforts focused on evangelism, the rising Business as Mission movement stakes a claim to effective holistic mission by focusing on profit, evangelism, and development. Research indicates, however, that the development aspect of this 'triple bottom line' is significantly weak. If, in fact, Business as Mission efforts were to incorporate the social and political dimensions of development, there would be great potential for a partnership with grassroots organizations to bring about deep-reaching social transformation.
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