Christian History Home > 2005 > The Man Behind the Missions
The Man Behind the Missions
A. T. Pierson who? Dana Robert's biography sheds light on a forgotten ancestor of the modern evangelical missionary movement.
Reviewed by Sarah Johnson | posted 8/08/2008 12:33PM
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This book is part of the Eerdmans Library of Religious Biography—biographies written by respected scholars for both general readers and other scholars. Readers of this biography will find much detail, good analysis—but no footnotes. Like all books in this series, Occupy Until I Come has a "Note on Sources" rather than citations. The absence of footnotes means that readers must trust the author to make good use of sources. Such trust is justified in Robert's case. She is Truman Collins Professor of World Mission at Boston University and has written extensively on evangelical missions. In this book she proves herself a good storyteller as well.
Only one word of caution: If you are looking for a personal history of Pierson, this is not the book for you. Pierson's family life appears when it touches upon his public life. While this can, at times, make Pierson appear a little one-sided, it does make for a more manageable story. And given the role Pierson played in the creation of both the modern missions movement and modern evangelicalism, it is a story worth knowing.
Sarah Johnson is a Ph.D. student in American religious history at Duke University specializing in the history of missions.
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