William Cameron Townsend (July 9, 1896 – April 23, 1982) was a prominent American Christian missionary whose ministry began in the early twentieth century. The organizations he founded, Wycliffe Bible Translators and Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL International), both remain active and focused on producing translations of the Bible in minority languages, and on facilitating literacy in minority languages.
The ethos of these organizations is that once the Bible is available to a culture, the Christians of that culture can become far more autonomous, and the locals should be the leaders of their church. Local Christians should be freed from depending on other organizations or cultures for training and leadership.
Not many sources report the details of William “Cam” Townsend before he began work as a foreign missionary. Born in 1896 into a lower-middle-class family of Southern California, Townsend attended Occidental College in Los Angeles but dropped out to serve several years as a salesman for the Los Angeles Bible House.
Read more about William Cameron Townsend: Work in Guatemala, Peru, Adapting Management
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