Joshua Project
The Joshua Project (formerly part of AD2000) is an organization seeking to highlight the ethnic groups of the world with the least followers of evangelical Christianity. The Joshua Project maintains ethnologic data to support Christian missions and is based in Colorado Springs, United States. The project began in 1995 within the former AD2000 and Beyond Movement. From 2001 through 2005 the Joshua Project was at different times informally connected with Caleb Project, ICTA and World Help. In 2006, the Joshua Project officially became part of the U.S. Center for World Mission.
Focusing on ethnicity, the project maintains a database of "unreached peoples" listed by country and language. As of 2010, they list 9,803 ethnic groups. These are further divided into 16,350 peoples-by-countries, counting national minorities individually for each of 236 countries, of which 6,642 are classified as "unreached peoples". Ethnic groups are organized hierarchically in 251 "People Clusters" which in turn are divided in 16 "Affinity Blocs" (Arab World, East Asians, Eurasians, Horn of Africa-Cushitic, Iranian-Median, Jews, Latin-Caribbean Americans, Malay peoples, North American peoples, Pacific Islanders, South Asians, Southeast Asians, Sub-Saharan Africans, Tibetan / Himalayan peoples, Turkic peoples and Unclassified). Each ethnicity is listed as speaking at least one of 6,510 languages.[1]
Criticism
The Joshua Project, like SIL International, has been cited as possibly contributing to some native anti-Christian rhetoric and violence by people groups who resent Western Christian efforts to evangelize them.[2] They have also been said to exacerbate problems that cause language endangerment by encouraging missionary activities to alternative cultures.
See also
Notes
- ↑ Joshua Project. "Great Commission Statistics". Joshua Project. Retrieved 2010-03-11.
- ↑ Bauman, Chad M. (2015). Pentecostals, Proselytization, and Anti-Christian Violence in Contemporary India. Oxford University Press. pp. 54,175.
References
- Roger W. Stump, The geography of religion: faith, place, and space, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2008, ISBN 978-0-7425-1080-7, 381f.
- Pradip Ninan Thomas, Strong Religion, Zealous Media: Christian Fundamentalism and Communication in India SAGE Publications Ltd, 2008 ISBN 978-81-7829-834-4, 142-145.
- Patrick Johnstone, John Hanna, Marti Smith, Praying Through the Window III: The Unreached Peoples, YWAM Publishing, 1996, ISBN 978-0-927545-98-3.