In Memoriam
Kwame Bediako, a member of the governing board of the Nagel Institute who had many friends at Calvin College and Calvin Theological Seminary, passed away on June 10, 2008, in Ghana.
Dr. Bediako was the founder and director of the Akrofi-Christaller Institute of Theology, Mission and Culture) in Akropong-Akuapem, Ghana. His brilliant work in African Christian Theology, afforded him many honors, including induction as a fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was a minister of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana. Dr. Bediako was he educated (French Honours) at the University of Ghana, Legon, and pursued postgraduate studies in French Literature and African Literature in French, in the University of Bordeaux, France.
During his studies in France he came to a deep conviction regarding the spiritual and intellectual coherence of the Christian Faith, and he discovered the crucial significance of personal faith in Christ for pursuing an intellectual calling. Subsequently, he studied Theology at the London School of Theology, England, and later undertook doctoral research in the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. He held doctorate degrees in French Literature from the University of Bordeaux, and in Divinity from the University of Aberdeen.
Beginning in 1984, he served for three years as Resident and Presbyterian Minister at the Ridge Church, Accra, an international, interdenominational English-speaking congregation.
In 1987, he became Director of Akrofi-Christaller Centre for Mission Research and Applied Theology (now Akrofi-Christaller Institute of Theology, Mission and Culture) in Akropong-Akuapem, Ghana, an initiative of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana to study the relationship of the Christian Church to African thought and culture. Bediako’s main task since that time has been to establish the Institute as an academic and pastoral center, serving the churches in Ghana, Africa and further afield through research and Christian scholarship, and to help develop a network of similar institutions elsewhere in Africa through the African Theological Fellowship (ATF), in which he serves as General Secretary.
For twelve years he was the Alexander Duff Visiting Lecturer in African Theology in the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, where he lectured and gave postgraduate supervision for a term each year. He is also a member of the Board of the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies (OCMS), Oxford, England. He has lectured also in many theological faculties in Europe, the USA and Africa.
In 1998 Dr. Bediako was made an honorary Professor in the School of Theology, University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, in recognition of the postgraduate programmes in African Christianity that ACI runs on behalf of the ATF in conjunction with the School of Religion and Theology, University of KwaZulu-Natal (as it is now known).
He has written extensively in the fields of Gospel, culture and Christian identity, and in the development of new contextual theologies in Africa. His publications include Theology and Identity—The Impact of Culture upon Christian Thought in the Second Century and Modern Africa (Regnum Books, 1992, reprinted 1999), Christianity in Africa—The Renewal of a Non-Western Religion (Edinburgh University Press; Orbis Books, 1995; reprinted 1997), and Jesus and the Gospel in Africa, History and Experience (Orbis Books, 2004).
To the Bediako Family
Dear Bediako Family:
Please accept the heartfelt love and sympathy of your friends here at the Nagel Institute at this time of loss. Professor Bediako—our dear colleague and brother, Kwame—was revered here, and we feel his loss deeply. He was a man of great vision and discernment, and there is no one whose counsel has meant more to us here as we seek to link scholars worldwide in promoting a deeper understanding of world Christianity.
In Christ’s love,
Joel A. Carpenter
Director, Nagel Institute
Memorial Service for Professor Bediako
September 18, 2008
11:00 AM
Greenside Church
1 Royal Terrace
Edinburgh, Scottland-