James R. Krabill, PhD
Visiting Professor of Church and Mission; MDiv Program Director; DMin Faculty Mentor
About James
James R. Krabill, PhD, is retired from full employment, having served for 42 years as a mission worker and administrator with Mennonite Mission Network, 1976-2018. However, he continues to teach around the world.
For fourteen of those years, Krabill lived and worked with his family in West Africa as a Bible and Church History teacher among African Initiated Churches (AICs) in various village settings, Bible institutes and theological faculties, including eight years with members of the Harrist Church among Ivory Coast鈥檚 Dida people, collecting, recording, transcribing, and publishing over 500 original Harrist hymns for use in literacy and music training. Many of these hymns appeared in Krabill鈥檚 published PhD thesis, The Hymnody of the Harrist Church (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1995).
Krabill has been a frequent speaker in various church and academic settings across the United States and has lectured or taught courses in over twenty countries, currently serving as an adjunct professor at Eastern Mennonite Seminary, Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Dallas International University, and Bethesda Khankho Institute (Manipur, India).
Krabill is a member of Prairie Street Mennonite Church in Elkhart, Ind. He and his wife, Jeanette, have three adult children and five grandchildren.
Publications
He is the editor of Missio Dei (a quarterly missiological journal) and the senior editor for the journal, Ethnodoxology: Global Forum on Arts and Christian Faith.
Krabill has authored or edited/co-edited numerous other books and articles, including, 鈥淪cripture Use in AIC Hymnody,鈥� in Afro-Christian Religion at the Grassroots in Southern Africa (1991), 293-331; Nos racines racont茅es (1996); Anabaptism and Mission: A Bibliography, 1859-2000 (2002); 鈥淓ine Theologie der Mission f眉r heute,鈥� in Mission im Zeichen des Friedens (2003), 183-195; Anabaptists Meeting Muslims (2005); Is It Insensitive to Share Your Faith? (2005); Evangelical, Ecumenical and Anabaptist Missiologies in Conversation (2006); Even the Demons Submit: Continuing Jesus鈥� Ministry of Deliverance (2006); Music in the Life of the African Church (2008); Jesus Matters: Good News for the 21st Century (2009); Mission from the Margins (2010); Forming Christian Habits in Post-Christendom (2011); Worship and Mission for the Global Church (2013); Fully Engaged: Missional Church in an Anabaptist Voice (2015), and Unless a Grain of Wheat (2021).
Memberships and Associations
Krabill holds memberships in the African Studies Association, the Association of Anabaptist Missiologists, the Global Ethnodoxology Network (trustee and board chair), the Association of Mission Professors (president, 2009-10), the Evangelical Missiological Society, and the American Society of Missiology (current chair of Scholarly Monograph Series).
Courses
- God鈥檚 Shalom and the Church鈥檚 Witness
- The Spirit World and the Global Church
- The History of Christianity in Africa.