The Gospel as a Life to Live: Tokunboh Adeyemo and the Evangelical Debate on Mission

Abstract This article analyzes the theological legacy of Tokunboh Adeyemo, a leading voice in African evangelical circles. In academic literature on African Christianity, African evangelical theologians are often accused of endorsing a biblicist or Westernized form of theology that fails to deeply engage with African realities. This study retraces Adeyemo’s contribution to the evangelical debates on mission after the International Congress on World Evangelization held in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1974. It will be argued that, while Adeyemo undoubtedly was influenced by North American dualism, he increasingly distanced himself from Western theological concepts, advocating for a broad, holistic, contextual, and transformational understanding of mission. Thus, this study shows that categories commonly used to describe African evangelicalism, such as “biblicist,” “conservative,” “dogmatic,” and so on, do not do justice to the complexity, heterogeneity, and contextuality of African evangelicalism.