A Threefold Purpose
A Threefold Purpose
Rediscovering the Heart of SIL
About the Book
When the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) was established in 1934, its founder, William Cameron Townsend, articulated a threefold purpose which wove together the strands of scholarly research, Bible translation, and integral development in service of language communities on the margins of society. When he launched the Wycliffe Bible Translators in 1942 as a branding strategy for supporting the work of SIL through fund raising and recruiting among churches in the United States, the strand of Bible translation is what received the focus. That strategy has been so successful that 80 years later SIL has engaged with thousands of language communities around the world. But it is Wycliffe which is widely known within the Christian public. SIL lies in its shadow, virtually unknown to that public. Obscured in the shadows, as well, are the strands of scholarly research and integral development.
The aim of this book is to help the public rediscover the heart of SIL by examining those less familiar strands of the threefold purpose, especially the strand of scholarly research. The book is a collection of essays by three scholars who are long-time members of SIL—Gary F. Simons, Frederick A. (Boone) Aldridge, and M. Paul Lewis:
- Chapter 1 by Simons introduces the threefold purpose of SIL as originally articulated by its founder and explains how the three strands form a unity of purpose which can be summarized as: “Extending the bounds of knowledge so that language communities on the margins may flourish.”
The remaining chapters touch on the three purposes in the order Townsend originally laid them out: research, translation, development.
- Chapter 2 by Aldridge is about the early history of the “linguistic approach” (which was the founder’s way of naming the research strand of the threefold purpose).
- Chapter 3 by Simons examines the scholarly legacy of Kenneth Pike as he led SIL in the call to academic community.
- Chapter 4 by Aldridge looks at the Bible translation strand and sketches the early history of how scholarship has contributed to better practice through the the development of better theory and strategy.
- Chapter 5 by Lewis considers the development strand, looking specifically at what we can learn about holistic service from the example of Townsend’s early work in the community of Tetelcingo.
This book has its genesis in the efforts to found the Pike Center for Integrative Scholarship. The Pike Center is an initiative supported by the Kenneth Pike Endowment for Integrative Scholarship. While we are pleased to share this book free of charge as a way of spreading the word about our cause, we also invite you to consider making a donation to the cause by paying for the book. All of the publisher earnings are directed to the Pike Endowment fund to support activities of the Pike Center. You may also make an online donation by following the above link to the Endowment web page. A donation made there will allow you to receive a tax-deductible receipt.
Table of Contents
- Foreword
- Preface
- About the Authors
-
1. Extending the Boundaries of Knowledge and the Threefold Purpose of SIL
- What is Scholarship?
- The Threefold Purpose of SIL
- Scholarship That Is Integrated with God and Neighbor
- The Unity of the SIL Ends
- The Research Mission of SIL
- Integrative scholarship: SIL’s Blue Ocean Strategy
- References
-
2. The Summer Institute of Linguistics and the ‘Linguistic Approach’
- The Religious Background
- SIL in the Making
- Growing Pains
- SIL as a Scholarly Institution
- With Heart and Mind?
- Conclusion
- References
-
3. The Call to Academic Community
- Ken Pike: Christian and Scholar
- SIL Distinctives: Bible Translation and Science
- Science: Cornerstone or Stumbling Block?
- Acting in Community: The Essence of Science
- OLAC: An Emerging Community
- Conclusion: The Call to Academic Community
- References
-
4. Theory and Strategy of Bible Translation in SIL: The First Fifty Years
- Historical Background
- Translation Troubles
- The Beekman Revolution
- The SIL and ABS Debate
- Examining the Bible Translation Strategy
- Conclusion
- References
-
5. Back to Tetelcingo: Rediscovering SIL’s Roots in Holistic Service
- The Tetelcingo Experiment
- Distilling the Foundational Principles of the Tetelcingo Experiment
- On to Tetelcingo
- References
- Appendix 1: Original SIL Letterhead
- Appendix 2: Letter from Townsend to Ambassador Daniels
- Notes
About the Publisher

This book is published on Leanpub by Pike Center
Pike Center for Integrative Scholarship is an initiative of SIL International that builds capacity for language development through scholarship. SIL works alongside ethnolinguistic communities as they discover how language development addresses the challenging areas of their daily lives—social, cultural, political, economic and spiritual.
One of Pike Center’s strategies for building capacity is to grow the needed bodies of knowledge through its Agile Publishing program. We are using this lean publishing platform to give our affiliated scholars a platform for developing and refining new contributions to growing bodies of knowledge that support the language development movement. Many of our titles are still in a preliminary stage of development. Others are finished but have such a narrow audience that we have not elected to turn them into print books. Still others have reached the maturity of becoming a print book; in such cases, this is indicated by a link on the landing page for the book.
All of the revenues generated through sales on this site are directed to the Pike Center to support the on-going research activities of its affiliated scholars. Naming a higher price when you purchase one of our books is a way of contributing to this cause. Or you may go to the Pike Center website to make a donation that will receive a tax-deductible receipt.
The Leanpub 60-day 100% Happiness Guarantee
Within 60 days of purchase you can get a 100% refund on any Leanpub purchase, in two clicks.
See full terms
80% Royalties. Earn $16 on a $20 book.
We pay 80% royalties. That's not a typo: you earn $16 on a $20 sale. If we sell 5000 non-refunded copies of your book or course for $20, you'll earn $80,000.
(Yes, some authors have already earned much more than that on Leanpub.)
In fact, authors have earned$12,307,240writing, publishing and selling on Leanpub.
Learn more about writing on Leanpub
Free Updates. DRM Free.
If you buy a Leanpub book, you get free updates for as long as the author updates the book! Many authors use Leanpub to publish their books in-progress, while they are writing them. All readers get free updates, regardless of when they bought the book or how much they paid (including free).
Most Leanpub books are available in PDF (for computers) and EPUB (for phones, tablets and Kindle). The formats that a book includes are shown at the top right corner of this page.
Finally, Leanpub books don't have any DRM copy-protection nonsense, so you can easily read them on any supported device.
Learn more about Leanpub's ebook formats and where to read them
Top Books
OpenIntro Statistics
David Diez, Christopher Barr, Mine Cetinkaya-Rundel, and OpenIntroA complete foundation for Statistics, also serving as a foundation for Data Science.
Leanpub revenue supports OpenIntro (US-based nonprofit) so we can provide free desk copies to teachers interested in using OpenIntro Statistics in the classroom and expand the project to support free textbooks in other subjects.
More resources: openintro.org.
Personal Finance
Jason AndersonThis textbook provides an in-depth analysis on personal finance that is both practical and straightforward in its approach. It has been written in such a way that the readers can gain knowledge without getting overwhelmed by the technical terms. Suitable for both beginners and advanced learners.
Getting to Know IntelliJ IDEA
Trisha Gee and Helen ScottIf we treat our IDE as a text editor, we are doing ourselves a disservice. Using a combination of tutorials and a questions-and-answers approach, Getting to Know IntelliJ IDEA will help you find ways to use IntelliJ IDEA that enable you to work comfortably and productively as a professional developer.
C++20 - The Complete Guide
Nicolai M. JosuttisAll new language and library features of C++20 (for those who know previous C++ versions).
The book presents all new language and library features of C++20. Learn how this impacts day-to-day programming, to benefit in practice, to combine new features, and to avoid all new traps.
Buy early, pay less, free updates.
Other books:
Mastering STM32 - Second Edition
Carmine NovielloWith more than 1200 microcontrollers, STM32 is probably the most complete ARM Cortex-M platform on the market. This book aims to be the most complete guide around introducing the reader to this exciting MCU portfolio from ST Microelectronics and its official CubeHAL and STM32CubeIDE development environment.
R Programming for Data Science
Roger D. PengThis book brings the fundamentals of R programming to you, using the same material developed as part of the industry-leading Johns Hopkins Data Science Specialization. The skills taught in this book will lay the foundation for you to begin your journey learning data science. Printed copies of this book are available through Lulu.
Machine Learning Q and AI
Sebastian Raschka, PhDHave you recently completed a machine learning or deep learning course and wondered what to learn next? With 30 questions and answers on key concepts in machine learning and AI, this book provides bite-sized bits of knowledge for your journey to becoming a machine learning expert.
Stats One
William FooteThe Rails 7 Way
Obie Fernandez, Lucas Dohmen, and Tom Henrik AadlandThe Rails™ 7 Way is the comprehensive, authoritative reference guide for professionals delivering production-quality code using modern Ruby on Rails. It illuminates the entire Rails 7 API, its most powerful idioms, design approaches, and libraries. Building on the previous editions, this edition has been heavily refactored and updated.
Gradual Modularization for Ruby and Rails
Stephan HagemannGet yourself a new tool to manage your Rails application and your growing engineering organization! Prevent the ball-of-mud (and fix it!). Go for microservices or SOA if it makes sense not just because you don't have any other tool. Do all this through a low-overhead tool: packages. Enable better conversations to make practical changes today.
Top Bundles
- #1
Software Architecture
2 Books
"Software Architecture for Developers" is a practical and pragmatic guide to modern, lightweight software architecture, specifically aimed at developers. You'll learn:The essence of software architecture.Why the software architecture role should include coding, coaching and collaboration.The things that you really need to think about before... - #2
CCIE Service Provider Ultimate Study Bundle
2 Books
Piotr Jablonski, Lukasz Bromirski, and Nick Russo have joined forces to deliver the only CCIE Service Provider training resource you'll ever need. This bundle contains a detailed and challenging collection of workbook labs, plus an extensively detailed technical reference guide. All of us have earned the CCIE Service Provider certification... - #3
1500 QUIZ COMMENTATI (3 libri)
3 Books
Tre libri dei QUIZ MMG Commentati al prezzo di DUE! I QUIZ dei concorsi ufficiali di Medicina Generale relativi agli anni: 2000-2001-2003-2012-2013-2014-2015-2016-2017-2018-2019-2020-2021 +100 inediti Raccolti in unico bundle per aiutarvi nello studio e nella preparazione al concorso. All'interno di ogni libro i quiz sono stati suddivisi per... - #4
Pattern-Oriented Memory Forensics and Malware Detection
2 Books
This training bundle for security engineers and researchers, malware and memory forensics analysts includes two accelerated training courses for Windows memory dump analysis using WinDbg. It is also useful for technical support and escalation engineers who analyze memory dumps from complex software environments and need to check for possible... - #5
Practical FP in Scala + Functional event-driven architecture
2 Books
Practical FP in Scala (A hands-on approach) & Functional event-driven architecture, aka FEDA, (Powered by Scala 3), together as a bundle! The content of PFP in Scala is a requirement to understand FEDA so why not take advantage of this bundle!? - #6
Modern C++ Collection
3 Books
Get All about Modern C++C++ Standard Library, including C++20Concurrency with Modern C++, including C++20C++20Each book has about 200 complete code examples. Updates are included. When I update one of the books, you immediately get the updated bundle. You can expect significant updates to each new C++ standard (C++23, C++26, .. ) and also... - #7
Linux Administration Complet
4 Books
Ce lot comprend les quatre volumes du Guide Linux Administration :Linux Administration, Volume 1, Administration fondamentale : Guide pratique de préparation aux examens de certification LPIC 1, Linux Essentials, RHCSA et LFCS. Administration fondamentale. Introduction à Linux. Le Shell. Traitement du texte. Arborescence de fichiers. Sécurité... - #9
Development and Deployment of Multiplayer Online Games, Part ARCH. Architecture (Vol. I-III)
3 Books
What's the Big Idea? The idea behind this book is to summarize the body of knowledge that already exists on multiplayer games but is not available in one single place.And quite a fewof the issues discussed within this series (planned as three nine volumes ~300 pages each), while known in the industry, have not been published at all (except for... - #10
Growing Agile: The Complete Coach's Guide
7 Books
Growing Agile: Coach's Guide Series This bundle provides a collection of training and workshop plans for a variety of agile topics. The series is aimed at agile coaches, trainers and ScrumMasters who often find themselves needing to help teams understand agile concepts. Each book in the series provides the plans, slides, handouts and activity...