EMQ » October–December 2021 » Volume 57 Issue 4
[memberonly folder=”Members, EMQ2YearFolder, EMQ1YearFolder, EMQLibraryInstitution”]By John G. Flett and Henning Wrogemann
Missiological Engagements Series
IVP Academic, 2020
248 pages
US$40.00
Reviewed by Birgit Herppich, Affiliate Assistant Professor of Intercultural Studies Fuller Theological Seminary, International Membership Department Coordinator WEC International, Research Scholar, Angelina Noble Centre, Australian College of Theology.
In Anglophone scholarship, German Mission Theology is an unknown chapter of Missiology because of the language barrier but also because it has taken a different route with a more philosophical theological emphasis. There are few German “Missiologists,” as demonstrated by the authors’ unsuccessful search for German texts on “contextualization” (1). Investigating German missiological thinking requires extracting a missiology from the texts of German theologians.
Both authors have previously published innovative works on theology and mission studies considering the multicultural global context of today’s Christian missionary work. Together they head the Institute of Intercultural Theology and Interreligious Studies, which exists to study Christianity in non-European contexts and interreligious interactions in order to further intercultural understanding and cooperation (iitis.de).
This volume presents an excellent history and analysis of key German theologians. It makes German missiological thinking and a selection of representative texts available in English. For this reason alone, it is an important work.
The introduction poses a multitude of complex and vexing questions raised by the contextuality and universality of the Christian faith. This is followed by six chapters that trace German mission thinking from Gustav Warneck (1834–1910) who held the first chair of missiology in Germany to post-war reorientations of mission theory and current discussions of intercultural hermeneutics within the dominant framework of Intercultural Theology taught in German universities today. There is also a discussion of the link between German cultural theory, theological and missiological thinking, and national socialism.
True to the topic of the book, every scholar’s context is presented. Their background and key life experiences, as well as their reactions to previous approaches, have influenced each scholar’s theology of mission. In this way, the authors illustrate that changing contexts have changed how we think about mission. The trauma of two world wars and the post-colonial widening of horizons as Europeans became aware of the burgeoning Christian communities in Asia, Africa, and Latin America birthed missiologies taking into consideration the plurality of Christian expressions and multiplicity of communication means. Each chapter’s analysis section is highly valuable for its astute evaluation of the developments and representative texts.
However, a major point of critique, from my perspective, is that evangelical voices that would take issue with some of the missiological positions presented are all but silenced in this volume. The few times they are mentioned, it is only to dismiss them. The most striking example is Peter Beyerhaus (1929–2020). The prominent German proponent of an evangelical position from the time of the evangelical split from the WCC in the1960s to the early 2000s is barely given a paragraph (138). While this shows the authors’ own bias, this book is still significant as an introduction to major German mission thinkers of the past century into the present.
It also offers an important critique of simplified definitions of contextualization. Contextualization is an extremely complex process necessitated by “the visible, living, reality of world Christianity and the [multifaceted] nature of its theological discourse” (218). Maybe the most important argument here is that all theology is contextual and no one context is normative. It is a process of mutual learning and transformation, in which difference is not perceived as a dilution of the truth but enriching and “necessary to the fullness of our being in Christ” (223).
