





































Ecclesial Futures
2023 – Volume 4 – Issue 2

B O O K  R E V I E W

131
Ecclesial Futures – DOI: 10.54195/ef18341

DOI: 10.54195/ef18341

Flett, John G., and Wrogemann, Henning. 
2020. Questions of Context: Reading a Century 
of German Mission Theology

Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press.
ISBN: 9780830851089

Reviewed by Rein den Hertog

Flett and Wrogemann offer a welcome compilation of German(speaking) missio-
logical literature on the topic of contextualization. In six chapters, each covering a 
particular period, they allow different German missiologists – Hoekendijk being a 
Dutch exception – to speak through articles or excerpts from larger publications. 
Each chapter concludes with an analysis that places the various authors in a larger 
context, and in which Flett and Wrogemann search for the current meaning of the 
texts discussed. The final product is much more than just a collection of texts with 
comments, but also provides an in-depth reflection on the topic of contextualization.

The book owes its existence to a request for a bibliography of German missiolog-
ical texts on the theme of contextualization. This request proved difficult to satisfy. 
However, not because of a lack of attention to the contextual nature of the gospel 
within German missiology of the past century. On the contrary, from the beginning, 
the question of the indigenous embodiment of the gospel played a significant role in 
German missiological reflection.

Flett and Wrogemann begin their compilation with texts by Warneck and Troeltsch. 
Whereas for Troeltsch, mission is fundamentally about spreading the cultural influ-
ence of the West and therefore relates primarily to education and civilization, 
Warneck - the father of contemporary missiology - stands up for the salvific content 
of the gospel that must take root like a native plant in foreign soils. The discussion 
between Warneck en Troeltsch shows that from the outset there was a focus on the 
complex relationship between mission and the cultural embodiment of the gospel 
within German missiology.



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Ecclesial Futures – DOI: 10.54195/ef18341

A generation later, missiologists such as Gutmann, Schomerus and Knak, influenced 
in part by a Romanticist view on the concept of Volk, would emphasize the impor-
tance of the primal ties (Urtümliche Bindungen) and Volkstum of indigenous peoples 
for the mission of the church. While this missiological approach cannot be equated 
one-to-one with the National Socialist emphasis on Volk, it did fit seamlessly into the 
conceptual landscape of Nazi ideology.

Not surprisingly, in response to this problematic entanglement, German missiolo-
gists sought a different approach. At first, missiologists like Hartenstein and Freytag 
found it in a highly eschatological perspective, in which reality came under the 
intense criticism of Divine judgment. However, by choosing this approach contem-
porary history and culture – and consequentially contextualization – lost almost any 
voice in missiology.

Beginning in the 1960s, things changed in ecumenical circles. Attention shifted to 
the existence of world Christianity, and even within German-speaking missiology, 
missiologists such as Hoekendijk, Margull and Hollenweger brought the world into 
focus as the locus of God’s agency, while emphasizing the need for vulnerability and 
dialogue. In the decades that followed, this movement would deepen.

To interpret this development, Flett and Wrogemann refer to Shoki Coe’s ground-
breaking 1973 article, in which he shows that contextualization is a “dynamic process 
that opens up both the interpretation of the gospel and the local culture to the escha-
tological future.” (165) Coe distinguishes between conscientization, contextuality and 
contextualization.

Conscientization refers to “the gaining of a critical awareness of the context in light of 
the missio Dei”. Contextuality refers to the result of this, and concerns “the maturity of 
judgement that instructs the church where and how to participate in the missio Dei”. 
Finally, contextualization is embodiment of this “capacity to respond” (166).

Whereas terms such as contextuality and contextualization have become standard 
in the English missiological vocabulary, this is not the case in the German-speaking 
missiological literature. In German missiology there was an increasing emphasis on 
what Coe called conscientization: the critical awareness of the context. In (contempo-
rary) German missiology there is a great sensitivity to issues of contextual embodi-
ment of the gospel, despite – or, one could argue, because of – the problematic history 
of the 1930s and 1940s. Unlike in the prewar period, however, missiologists realize 
that attention to the local context alone is not enough if the basic framing assump-
tions are still Western, as was the case in pre-war German missiology. One may want 
to be contextual, but if Western standards determine what that exactly means, one 



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Ecclesial Futures – DOI: 10.54195/ef18341

still misses the mark. German missiologists therefore argue for developing a form of 
theologizing that does not assume a one-way traffic from sender to receiver, but in 
which all people involved dialogically seek a credible embodiment of the gospel. By 
taking this approach, missiologists like Sundermeijer, Lienemann-Perrin and Wroge-
mann himself have contributed to the emergence of a so-called intercultural theology.

Flett and Wrogemann’s collection of texts and analyses are very helpful and stim-
ulating in several ways. First, they offer a translation of important German missio-
logical texts and thus function as an introduction to German missiology of the past 
century. In addition, by design, the book also offers a longitudinal introduction to the 
developments within missiology of the past century. Beginning with the colonial era, 
the texts take us via the problematic period of Nazism and the postwar response to 
it, through the era of decolonization to the current situation of world Christianity 
that demands a cross-cultural theology. Throughout the volume, Flett and Wroge-
mann engagingly show how the periods, topics, and themes addressed are still 
relevant today. For example, the problematic emphasis on Volkstum and Primal ties 
resonates even today in Donald McGavran’s still influential Church Growth Move-
ment. Clearly, even the developments in German missiology of the first half of the 
20th century do not belong to a past that is at a safe distance but still represent a 
cautionary tale that should be taken to heart again and again. Finally, the book offers 
an engaging and thoughtful treatment of the concept of contextualization. Contex-
tualization according to Flett and Wrogemann is not an easily applicable step-by-
step plan but requires a dialogical process in which the universality of the gospel’s 
message of salvation is not sought in a uniform embodiment, but rather in a multi-
plicity of cultural expressions interconnected by an ongoing conversation about the 
normative content of the gospel. Furthermore, this process is never finished since it 
is directed toward the discernment of God’s unceasing and often surprising eschato-
logical agency in this world. In the words of Flett and Wrogemann:

Mission is the participation of a community of joy in the ferment of the resurrection, 
which draws that community beyond itself and so into history and context as the 
realm of God’s own acting. The Word remains a word from outside, meaning that the 
community is called to encounter its identity as a matter of continual surprise. If we 
understand the embodiment of the gospel as something that can only come out of 
the local culture, then mission is itself the process of discovering local expression. The 
gospel is not something an individual or community can “bring”—it is only something 
that a community seeks to embody (or is embodied by). (222)

About the author
Dr. Rein den Hertog, Amsterdam, rgdenhertog@gmail.com

mailto:rgdenhertog@gmail.com

