Kerygma in Crisis? gives a wonderfully vivid sense of a very significant 20th century “kerygmatic movement” that had begun in the 1930’s because many recognized that, even then, Europe was a “quasi-missionary country”.
Reading this book is startling because you are tempted to think, “he has to have read Forming Intentional Disciples” (A book I authored in 2012). Obviously not! But the Catholic Church I’ve known had lost (outside of academic catechetical circles) the memory of this global movement, which came to the remarkably similar conclusions 50 to 60 years ago.
The pre-Vatican II kerygmatic movement was driven by two primary things: the rapid secularization of Europe and the experience of missionaries outside “Christendom”. A Catholic missionary theologian first used the explicit language of “evangelization” in 1936. The recognition of the need for “pre-evangelization” and the first use of the phrase “pre-evangelization” was by a French Dominican in 1954.The kergymatic movement was one of many truly evangelizing initiatives underway among Catholics in the early 20th century that was overwhelmed by the cultural deluge of the 60’s.
We are grateful to our collaborators who made it possible for this reprint to become a reality.
