Our Story
The Woodberry Institute has its roots in the life and scholarship and example of J. Dudley Woodberry, whose bridge-building “respectful understanding and witness” approach represents a watershed in the history of Evangelical scholarly engagement with Islam and Muslims. Much of past Evangelical scholarship has prioritized polemics over mutual understanding. And although some before Dudley Woodberry (e.g. Samuel Zwemer, J. Windrow Sweetman, Montgomery Watt, Kenneth Cragg) demonstrated similarly respectful attitudes, Dudley Woodberry’s teaching career produced a new generation of Evangelical scholars with a similar commitment to loving respect and to listening before speaking.
Two of Woodberry’s graduate students – Joseph and Michele Cumming – co-founded and co-led a humanitarian organization named Doulos Community that from 1985 until the early 2000’s focused primarily on public health, community development programs, and humanitarian relief projects in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania in North Africa. In the early 2000’s, while continuing the humanitarian program in Mauritania, Doulos began gradually devoting more of its work and focus to bridge-building scholarship and to peace-making partnerships and dialogue with leading Muslim scholars and Islamic institutions, including both Sunni institutions like Al-Azhar in Cairo and Shi’i institutions in Karbala and elsewhere.
Gradually, over the course of the 2010’s and early 2020’s, a community of peace-oriented Evangelical scholars came together to partner – formally and informally – with Doulos and with Joseph and Michele Cumming in this work with Muslim leaders and institutions. Most of these scholars had studied under Dudley Woodberry or had been profoundly influenced by him. Many of these scholars expressed interest in an organizational platform that might carry forward the legacy of Dudley Woodberry.
In 2024 the Board of Doulos Community decided to change the name of the organization (founded in 1985) to the Woodberry Intercultural Institute, in order to reflect our focus on bridge-building, peace-oriented Evangelical scholarship in the tradition of Dudley Woodberry.