Tim Hartman - Kwame Bediako: African Theology for a World Christianity

Praise for Kwame Bediako

Tim Hartman has written a brilliant book interrogating Kwame Bediakos theology of culture, identity, and history in light of the latters use of patristics and twentieth-century African theology. Hartman invites readers to think with Bediako and his interlocutors, and the result is an illuminating theological expos and debate on the Christocentric focus of an iconic African theologian of the twenty-first centuryone who joined his ancestors much too soon.

Elias Kifon Bongmba, Rice University

If we are to take seriously the theological implications of world Christianity, there is no better person to begin consulting than Kwame Bediako. His thoughtful considerations about Indigenous and Christian identity, the translatability of the gospel, the (dis)continuities between historic and local expressions of Christianity, and the contextual relevance of theology resonate deeply with the concerns of todays Christians in so many parts of the world. Tim Hartman has done us a tremendous service by composing this meticulous and readable primer to the foremost theologian produced by Africa in the late twentieth century.

Alexander Chow, University of Edinburgh

This book reflects upon numerous important African theological contributions to world Christianity. First, it offers a comprehensive and textured theological engagement with the person and work of one of Africas most important contemporary theologians, Kwame Bediako. In doing so, Tim Hartman provides a superb engagement with Bediakos work, making it accessible to a much wider theological audience. Second, this book helps African Christian theologians to access a rich and important source of African contextual theology. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wishes to understand the contribution of contemporary African Christian theology in the shaping of world Christianity.

Dion A. Forster, University of Stellenbosch

This is an astonishing, exciting, and important book because it uses the work of Kwame Bediako, confirming that theology is biography. Tim Hartman describes the work of Bediako in an illuminating manner and has been able to weave into it the work of other scholars, including their critiques on Bediakos works. Hartman locates the theology of Bediako in his personal relationship with Christ and shows how that identity in Christ provided Bediako with the tools to navigate the tensions of Christian identity in his own culture. To use the words of Bediako himself, Theology is Gods encounter with a person in and with his/her particular and peculiar identity. Identity is essentially the partner and interlocutor of vibrant theology. This is a way of doing theology that is genuine and contextual, not a prefabricated construct from somewhere else. This book demonstrates how Bediako has shown through his work and life that it is possible to be truly African and truly Christian.

Esther Mombo, St. Pauls University

It has been my observation through the years that the more helpful interpreters of Kwame Bediako have been those who have drawn on a significant number of his works, published or otherwise. The merit of this book is that it identifies succinctly key themes in Bediakos writings and demonstrates exposure to an extensive range of material, making for a more illuminating analysis and a helpful navigation of criticisms that have been leveled against Bediakos ideas. At the same time, the self-acknowledged Westerners perspective points to the potential value of Bediakos insights for Christian self-understanding and theological innovation in the West.

Gillian Mary Bediako, deputy rector, Akrofi-Christaller Institute of Theology, Mission and Culture

In this deeply engaging and accessible book, Tim Hartman offers a comprehensive and critical engagement with the scholarship of Kwame Bediako. While thoroughly reflective throughout of his positioning as a white North American, Hartmans engagement is neither patronizingly hagiographic nor prudently uncritical. While Bediako himself did not characterize his own work as decolonial, in many ways the account that Hartman offers suggests that Bediako may have inadvertently provided discernible direction to the decolonial turn that is gaining increasing scholarly and popular traction. If anything, Bediakos work, as it is presented here, should be considered part of the genealogy of decolonial knowledge production. This is essential reading for scholars and students wanting to understand how Bediakos work theologically repositions power and resistance, beyond Western modernity, by reclaiming epistemologies and theologies that are distinctly African.

Sarojini Nadar, Desmond Tutu Centre for Religion and Social Justice

Kwame Bediako: African Theology for a World Christianity is a cogent summary of Bediakos thought, which also considers the views of his critics. It ably weaves together Bediakos views and captures the themes that were dear to him. The book preserves the freshness and enduring nature of his ideas to the glory of God and the service of the global church. Indeed, Bediako always maintained that the shift in the center of gravity of Christianity to the southern continents, especially Africa, was not to be a basis for triumphalism on the part of Africans but rather an opportunity for service to the global church. This book advances that service, especially to the church in the West. It should be required reading not only for accessing Bediakos thought but also for an initial appreciation of one major African theologians contribution to world Christianity. Tim Hartman thus achieves the twin aims he set out in his preface.

Benhardt Yemo Quarshie, Akrofi-Christaller Institute of Theology, Mission and Culture

The Ghanaian Presbyterian theologian Kwame Bediako was at the same time profoundly African in his cultural perspectives and profoundly evangelical in his theological convictions. That combination, though not unique, is all too rare in academic writing, and Tim Hartmans book is a valuable exposition of why and how Bediako held these two allegiances together. Hartman responds carefully to the criticisms that other African theologians have leveled against Bediako. This book also forms a powerful call to evangelical Christians in the West to heed the serious challenge that Bediakos writings pose to their false assumptions that their own understanding of the faith is somehow free of cultural distortions.

Brian Stanley, University of Edinburgh

Tim Hartmans Kwame Bediako: African Theology for a World Christianity is a timely theological commentary on the life and work of one of Africas most influential late twentieth-century theologians. It is a commendable effort at helping those interested in the contours and trajectories of world Christianity to sustain and memorialize, if not immortalize, the huge contributions that Kwame Bediako made to our understanding of the intersection between the church in Africa and world Christianity. We simply cannot talk about Christianity as a non-Western religion without Bediakos life and work, from his conversion from atheism to Christianity and, subsequently, to the establishment of the Akrofi-Christaller Institute of Theology, Mission and Culture. Hartman offers us an insightful and holistic engagement with Bediakos theological legacy that students, scholars, and ordinary Christians will all find very helpful in understanding Bediako, who brought together in his person what it means to be a conservative evangelical Christian, an African, and an astute theologian, without undermining any of those identities.

J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, PhD FGA, Bata-Grau Professor of Contemporary African Christianity and Pentecostal Theology, president, Trinity Theological Seminary, Legon, Ghana