Roland Allen

A Missionary Life

by Steven Richard Rutt

Book cover: Roland Allen

Extent: 208 pages

Publisher: The Lutterworth Press

Subject: Religious Studies

Language: English

Paperback (No longer our product)

(April 2018)

ISBN: 9780718894757

6.1 x 9.17 inches

Price: $35.00

On back order

PDF (No longer our product)

(December 2018)

ISBN: 9780718845445

Price: $26.00

A biography of the great Anglican missionary Roland Allen, tying his life and experience to the development of his church-centred theology of mission.


Roland Allen (1868-1947) is remembered as one of the foremost missionaries of the last century. Throughout his life, Allen travelled the world, following his vocation and building his missionary methods centred on a theology of indigenisation. From his early days as a Chaplain in China (during which Allen was forced to flee to the British Legation in Beijing), through to his continued mission to India, Canada and South Africa, he developed as man, missionary and theologian. The first of two volumes, Roland Allen: A Missionary Life is an intellectual biography which explores the people and ideas that influenced Allen while tracing the ways in which his missionary ecclesiology evolved during his life. Through extensive examination of unpublished archival papers, including lesser known letters and sermons, Steven Richard Rutt has uncovered the growth of a forthright, morally indefatigable churchman, who was also a loving family man with close and long-running friendships. Rutt unpacks Allen’s Church-centred missionary ecclesiology and ‘missiology of indigenisation’, which were based on Allen’s knowledge, gained from experience. Roland Allen: A Missionary Life and Roland Allen: A Theology of Mission explore the thought of a Christian whose writings provided farsighted clarity on global Christian missionary work that is still relevant today.

  • By (author) Steven Richard Rutt

"Roland Allen, prophet without honour in his own time, has been overdue a serious intellectual biography, and this is it. Steven Richard Rutt has dug deep into the archival resources, and in so doing sheds new light on this extraordinarily far-seeing missionary thinker."Brian Stanley, Professor of World Christianity, University of Edinburgh"Rev. Dr Rutt has written a careful, meticulously researched, and engaging study that will go a long way to opening Allen's thought to a new generation of Christians."Christopher Partridge, Professor of Religious Studies, Lancaster University
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