AbstractThe 13th Kwame Bediako Memorial Lecture 2021 delivered by Rev. Dr. Femi B. Adeleye (ICI & ACI) on the topic “The Gospel and Christian Witness in the Public Sphere: Perspectives from the Thought of Kwame Bediako”

AbstractKwame Bediako of the Akrofi-Christaller Memorial Institute of Theology, Mission and Culture based in Akropong-Akwapim in Ghana, was a stalwart in the field of African Christianity and Theology. He was called home to glory in June 2008 at the age of 63 years. Converted from atheism whilst studying for a doctorate degree in French and African literature at the University of Bordeaux in France, Bediako embraced a conservative evangelical faith. He went on to do a second PhD in Theology under the tutelage of Andrew F. Walls in Aberdeen. Bediako returned to Ghana in 1984 to found the then Akrofi-Christaller Memorial Center for Mission Research and Applied Theology. Through that initiative, now a fully accredited tertiary theological educational institute, Bediako pioneered a new way of doing theology through his emphasis on mother-tongue hermeneutics, oral or grassroots theology, and the study of primal religions as the sub-structure of Christian expression in the majority Two Thirds World. These ideas are outlined in his major publications, Theology and Identity, Christianity in Africa, Jesus of Africa, and the many forceful and insightful articles scattered in local and international journals in religion and theology. For many years to come, although living in glory, Bediako's evangelical intellectual heritage will continue as a leading reference point for all those seeking to understand Africa's place in the history of world Christianity.

AbstractExtra interview bites (unused) from Dr. Kwame Bediako for a documentary film project on African Christianity produced and directed by James Ault. Dr Bediako, founder of the Akrofi-Christaller Institute in Ghana (acighana.org), was one of modern Africa's leading theologians and students of church history and of culture and religion before he passed away in 2008. He was a lead consultant and on-camera commentator in this documentary film series, just completed, entitled “African Christianity Rising—Part 1: Stories from Ghana” and “Part 2: Stories from Zimbabwe.” His profound insights helped shape this project from the outset and assistance from his Akrofi-Christaller Institute in Akropong, Ghana, supported it throughout.

AbstractExtra interview bites from Dr. Kwame Bediako for a documentary film project on African Christianity produced and directed by James Ault. Dr Bediako, founder of the Akrofi-Christaller Institute in Ghana (acighana.org), was one of modern Africa's leading theologians and students of church history and of culture and religion before he passed away in 2008. He was a lead consultant and on-camera commentator in this documentary film series, just completed, entitled “African Christianity Rising—Part 1: Stories from Ghana” and “Part 2: Stories from Zimbabwe.” His profound insights helped shape this project from the outset and assistance from his Akrofi-Christaller Institute in Akropong, Ghana, supported it throughout.

AbstractA documentary carrying telling illustrations of some of Dr. Bediako’s profound insights on issues of culture, faith and church history, along with dramatic lessons from his own faith journey. This film also portrays his legacy in the ongoing exemplary educational work of his Akrofi-Christaller Institute of Theology, Mission and Culture in Akropong, Ghana

AbstractChapter 5: "Kwame Bediako and African Christian Identity", pp. 166-219.

AbstractKwame Bediako is at the present one of the leading African theologians. This article attempts a systematic presentation of thevarious aspects of Bediako’s Christology, the major key to inter-preting his theology. Bediako writes as an African scholar and a Christian theolo-gian. For him, that implies a non-negotiable belief in the truth ofJesus Christ. He therefore never joins the debate over the historical Jesus versus the Christ of faith. He states that Jesus Christ is ahistorical reality and that the testimony of the Church to JesusChrist as true God and true man is a testimony to a given reality.

AbstractThis thesis presents a systematisation of the theology, and in particular the Christology, of Kwame Bediako. Bediako, an Akan scholar from Ghana, is referred to as one of the leading contemporary African theologians. In addition, the thesis shows how his personal religious experience and the context influence his theology. One of the concerns that have been confirmed in the study is that "the person matters". Therefore, before his theology is presented, the main points of Bediako''s life story are highlighted. Bediako is a global theologian, but it is the African context that he acknowledges as determining his theology. An extensive presentation of relevant historical spots, an outline of African traditional religions (ATR) and draft over African Christianity and theology is given. The Christology, as the interpretative key to Bediako''s theology, is dealt with at length, and a number of Christological epithets discussed. The most prominent African epithet for Bediako is Jesus as Ancestor. The ancestor epithet is taken from the Akan traditional religion, and Bediako wants to make Christ, the centre of Christianity, also the centre of an Akan expression of Christianity by replacing the ancestors with Christ. Built on the Akan concept of ancestorship Bediako develops a Christian concept of ancestorship. In addition to the Bible and ATR, the thesis identifies other sources for his theology, one of them being grassroots theology. The thesis also presents other elements of Bediako''s theology, like his focus on Christianity as a universal, a non-Western and an African religion and the primal outlook as an African contribution to Christianity. A characteristic of the method used in this thesis, is the process of a combining critical reading, interpretation and interviews with Bediako and others in his context. Finally, the theology of Bediako is seen in perspective, and I show that Bediako''s Christology, although specifically African, is also within the broad mainline Christological tradition.

AbstractKwame Bediako was one of the great African theologians of his generation. Challenging the assumption that Christianity is a Western religion, he presented a non-Western foundation for theological reflection, expanded the Christian theological imagination, and offered a path forward for post-Christendom theologies. Kwame Bediako: African Theology for a World Christianity is the first full-length introduction to Bediako’s theology. It engages Bediako’s central concerns with identity – specifically what it means to be African and Christian in the aftermath of the failures of colonialism – the relationship of theology and culture, and the need of indigenous expressions of Christian faith for the health of theological reflection worldwide. Challenging stereotypical perceptions of African Christianity and pressing readers to interrogate their own theological convictions in light of cultural and societal presuppositions, this book examines the gift of Bediako’s work not just for Africa but for the world.

AbstractThe work of Ghanaian theologian Kwame Bediako seeks to identify and reappropriate the unique theological contributions of African Christianity for the shaping African Christianity identity. To do so, Bediako appeals to African culture and African traditional religion in order to assert distinctive indigenous emphases over and against the understandings of Christian identity foisted upon Africans by colonial European missionaries. In sum, this chapter argues that based on Bediako’s belief that God created Africans as human beings in the image of God, he claims that Jesus Christ is the cultural heritage of Africans just as much as Europeans. Bediako’s act of theological négritude then identifies a past for African Christians that articulates an African Christian identity based on a direct connection between Africans and God in Jesus Christ, not an identity mediated by Europeans.

AbstractIn this dissertation, I analyze the comprehensive work of Ghanaian theologian Kwame Bediako (1945-2008) and place the themes that arise—revelation, religion, and culture—in constructive dialogue with the mature Christology of Swiss-German theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968) in his Church Dogmatics IV.3, §69. In doing so, the dissertation performs its major claim: I argue for the necessity of cross-cultural theological comparisons to navigate contemporary theological and religious questions, including the complex nature of Christianity in the world today.

AbstractTim Hartman's Theology after Colonization uses a comparative approach to examine two theologians, one from Europe and one from Africa, to gain insight into our contemporary theological situation. Hartman examines how the loss of cultural hegemony through rising pluralism and secularization has undermined the interconnection of the Christian faith with political power and how globalization undermined the expansive (and expanding) mindset of colonialization. Hartman engages Swiss-German theologian Karl Barth (1886–1968), whose work responded to the challenges of Christendom and the increasing secularization of Europe by articulating an early post-Christendom theology based on God's self-revelation in Jesus Christ, not on official institutional structures (including the church) or societal consensus. In a similar way, Ghanaian theologian Kwame Bediako (1945–2008) offered a post-colonial theology. He wrote from the perspective of the global South while the Christian faith was growing exponentially following the departure of Western missionaries from Africa. For Bediako, the infinite translatability of the gospel of Jesus Christ leads to the renewal of Christianity as a non-Western religion, not a product of colonialization. Many Western theologies find themselves unable to respond to increasing secularization and intensifying globalization because they are based on the very assumptions of uniformity and parochialism (sometimes called "orthodoxy") that are being challenged. Hartman claims Bediako and Barth can serve as helpful guides for contemporary theological reflection as the consensus surrounding this theological complex disintegrates further. Collectively, their work points the way toward contemporary theological reflection that is Christological, contextual, cultural, constructive, and collaborative. As one of the first books to examine the work of Bediako, this study will interest students and scholars of Christian theology, African studies, and postcolonial studies.

AbstractBook reviw of Christianity in Africa: the Renewal of a Non-Western Religion by Kwame Bediako

AbstractSome African Christians continue to rely on traditional spiritual powers as a means of addressing their spiritual insecurity. In their perception Christ is regarded as being foreign to African spirituality and treated accordingly with the gospel seen as a predominantly western phenomenon. This raises the question regarding their understanding of Christ’s incarnation. This article critically analyses the ancestral incarnational Christological model of Bediako as a response to the foreignness of Christ in African Christianity. Bediako’s ancestral incarnational Christological model is his enterprise of deforeignising Christ in African Christianity by treating Christ under the African traditional ancestral category. This article demonstrates various theological aspects (i.e. the uncompounded divine-human nature of Christ in the one eternal person of the Son of God) that Bediako brings together in order to configure his ancestral incarnational Christological framework in deforeignising Christ. In breaking away from Bediako’s ancestral incarnational Christological perspective, the article concludes by identifying the weaknesses associated with the proposed concept of Bediako, and then suggests that there is a need for an alternative biblical-theological model that best describes Christ’s complete identification with African Christians. This is done without diminishing the actuality of Christ as God incarnate, or encouraging syncretism in African Christianity, or reducing the validity of African contextual needs.

AbstractThis article examines four theologies of identity and community from Africa and their relevance in combating ethnocentrism in Africa. The article focuses on the works of Vincent Mulago, John S. Mbiti, Kwame Bediako, and J. N. K. Mugambi - the key proponents of the schools of thought that we examine. The themes of identity and community have practical implications. For example, a people’s perception of themselves and their communities (social identity) affects how they perceive and relate to others. Therefore, considering the challenge of ethnocentrism worldwide, the themes of identity and community must always be examined. This article has two major sections. Foremost, it explores the relationship of these concepts. Second, it examines and critiques African theologies of identity and community and their consequent theological implications for social cohesion of communities. Finally, it proposes a way forward utilizing contributions from each theologian.

AbstractA critical analysis of Kwame Bediako’s theology from a Frisian perspective.[1]  (1999) Introduction. One of the central themes in the theological work of Dr. Kwame Bediako, director of the Akrofi-C…