Facing the image in the mirror: “whiteness” in South African missional discourse

Abstract

This study is situated within the discipline of missiology and seeks to contribute to missional theology as one important contemporary school of thought within the discipline. Missional theology emerged in the 1990s especially within the Anglophone contexts of the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States of America (USA). Most forms of missional theology build on the insights of Lesslie Newbigin, who in several books, reflected from his cross-cultural missionary experience on the challenges of the gospel to churches within his own cultural context in the UK. Such insights were quickly adopted in the North American context and was further explored by the Gospel and Our Cultural Network which emphasised the local-churchin-mission. Local congregations where missional theology flourished rediscovered that the fundamental reasons for the church’s existence involves an engagement within local communities.