Dr. Kwame Bediako In Memory

Dr. Kwame Bediako passed away this week. Kwame was one of the most remarkable senior African leaders I have ever met. He had a surpassing level of scholarship (two doctorates - one in English and one in French). He had a range of knowledge of the history of the church in Africa (and Europe) that could keep us spell-bound for hours just listening to his stories. And he had a most profound understanding of the relationship between the gospel and African culture. He also had a huge passion to bring African Christians together to affirm their Christian identity in authentic ways that would overcome some of the worst legacies of the colonial era. And yet he wore all this learning with such a light touch. His twinkling eyes and sparkling humour and laughter were a constant tonic. It has been such a joy and privilege to know him for many years.

The Akrofi Christaller Memorial Centre for Mission Studies, that he established at Akropong, Ghana, has a fine record of research and publication in African Christianity and contextual theology, and just recently got its charter from the government of Ghana for the awarding of degrees including doctorates.

So we shall miss him greatly. He is a sad loss to Ghana, to Africa, and indeed to the world church.

Please pray for his wife (known to some as Gillian and to others as Mary), who has been totally involved in all the work that Kwame did, and is herself a writer and editor of immense experience.

It is hard at a time like this to understand the ways of the Lord. But the legacy that Kwame Bediako leaves is simply enormous, and we pray that his ministry and contribution will now be multiplied even further through those whom he has mentored and inspired over the years.

Rev Dr CHRIS Christopher J H Wright
International Director
Langham Partnership International

Dr. Kwame Bediako graciously spoke at Zondervan on May 7, 2008.  Below is a video of Dr. Bediako speaking on the topic of "Understanding the Unity of the Church."

Dr. Kwame Bediako, a historian and theologian from Ghana, was one of three theological advisors for the Africa Bible Commentary. Dr. Kwame Bediako held doctorates from the Universities of Bordeaux (French Literature) and Aberdeen. He was an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, Founder/Director of the Akrofi-Christaller Memorial Centre for Mission Research and Applied Theology, Akropong-Akuapem, Ghana, and Founder Secretary of the Africa Theological Fraternity. He was a Director of the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies and Honorary fellow of the Centre for the Study of Christianity in the Non-Western World, New College, Edinburgh. He was also Honorary Professor in the School of Theology, University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. Dr. Bediako was author of Christianity in Africa: The Renewal of a Non-Western Religion; Jesus in Africa: The Christian Gospel in African History and Experience; and Theology and Identity: The Impact of Culture upon Christian Thought in the Second Century and Modern Africa.

Comments

[Dave Carrol]

Wow... amazing post guys

[Rev. Robert van Essen]

What a loss for the Church at wide! I met Kwame several times in Europe and once at his home and he was a humble and learned example for me. May God comfort and keep his wife and children and may his work bear fruit in our churches.
Robert van Essen, The Netherlands

[YAW TWEREFOUR]

indeed a great tree has fallen..i meet Prof.Bediako way back in 1997 through to 2000 in akosombo whe he used to visits his children.he is true humility personified..God keep him safe till we all meet again..to Yaw and Kwabena "mo she den"

[Daniel & Florence Dei and family]

The Bediako family have been our family friends since we met them in Akuse, Ghana about 20 years ago when he and Auntie Mary took us through a marriage seminar. Professor Bediako was like a big brother to us and a big uncle to our children. His love for God and humility was there for all to see. We would truly miss him and pray that our good Lord would surround Auntie Mary, Yaw and Kwabena with His love at this time.

[Daniel A.Smith- Montreal,Canada]

I met Dr.Bediako in 1997 at Akropong-Ghana when i was preparing for my M.Th degree in the U.K.
That day he had so much impression on me that i had to change my dessertation topic to reflect my africaness.To this day i still keep good memories of our interaction.His death was a shock to me but we all take consolation in the fact that he is resting with the Lord.
My heart goes out to his family:Gilian and the boys as well as all students he is mentoring and the staff at ACMC.

[Dr. Jesse Kally-Williams]

When Prof. Dr. Dr. Bediako and Gillian returned to Ghana, I met them at CSUC when he delivered the graduation speech. I was at that time a part-time teaching assistant at CSUC. Bediako and Gillian invited me to stay with them whenever I was in Accra. Later he asked me to consider seriously about joining him and Gillian at the evolving Akrofi-Christaller Centre. He was my referee when I applied for admittance to the erstwhile prestigious Rüschlikon International Baptist Theological Seminary in Zürich, Switzerland.
In 1990, I visited one of the foremost African theologians, Prof. Dr. Mbiti, at home. He has been working as professor and pastor in Switzerland for many years. He showed me a copy of Bediako’s dissertation. Then he remarked: “This is a substantial work, quite rare among evangelical circles.” Yes, Kwame was a rare mind and spirit. Indeed, Kwame Bediako is not just Prof. Dr.; he is Prof. Dr. Dr. in line with continental Europe academic culture. He did not directly supervise my dissertation, but remained my mentor. The method of correlation he employed in his own dissertation, Theology and Identity, guided my own investigation of Paul Tillich’s philosophic-theological constructive work in correlation to the work of the Ghanaian theologian Kwasi Dickson and the Ghanaian philosopher Kwesi Wiredu.
Prof. Dr. Dr. Bediako was not only a great scholar; he combined his deep love for the Lord with a deep love for his fellow human beings. That is unique in an age when all around us we find hubris of all kinds. Today, many Christians in the West, especially evangelicals in America, are worshipping what Paul Tillich calls “self-made gods” or idols by making the Gospel of Christ a means of personal religious pride and political “will-to-power.” These Christians absolutise a small segment of the Gospel into the GOSPEL, while ignoring how they, in opposition to the spirit of Christ, are supporting the very incarnation of those political forces that killed Jesus of Nazareth 2000 years ago.
Bediako radically affirmed the evangelical message, but avoided the grotesque distortions of the Christian Gospel and life by affirming Jesus’ insight that the “Gospel is for the poor”. The “poor”, as rooted in the revealed mind of God, are not some metaphysical or spiritual poor, as the Matthean secondary source holds. The poor are the “wretched of the earth”; they are those people the powerful have pushed into the periphery of material and social existence. This Christ-centred insight led Bediako to put a bumper sticker on his car in the 80s with the statement “Free Mandela”. No minister did that in Ghana in those days, and perhaps also in the West. Again, from the perspective of Jesus’ conception of the poor, Bediako pushed for redemptive categories. He used exclusively and promoted the term “The Two-Thirds World”. For he saw the term “Third-Word” to be a false construct informed solely by the perspective of geo-politics, economic field of power and the mentality of consume societies. Death is no friend; it is an enemy – a conquered enemy. As we say in Ghana: Kwame, de yie, damirifa due, damirifa due, damirifa due! I shall greatly miss you, but we shall meet in the presence of the living LORD

[Anne]

I am very glad to hear such comments about my father Kwame Bediako. He was definetely a brilliant person on the intelectual point of view and has done a great job for Africa.
However, the story should be a bit rectified and written properly. He was a wonderful person with anybody he met and worked with, I have no doubt about it. Nevertheless, he never considered relevant to take care of me, to hear from me, his first child and only daughter.
We (my mother and I) always lived backside, on the second plan and were all his life considered as the mistake of the past. He doesn't have 2 but 3 children. He met my mother much more before his wife.

Don't get me wrong, I don't blame him because I have never been raised with anger (my mother did a wonderful job). I truly loved him and I know he loved me very much. However, I have never been accepted as a member of his family and I feel sadness and disappointment about that because things haven't been set up before his death. I and any member of the Bediako's side had never ever been informed about his terrible sickness.
Now, after all these years and after his death, his wife wants to hear from me, which is very strange and useless because there is nothing more to say.
On the Christian point of view, I won't add any comments.

Anne

[Rumela]

It is indeed a great loss!! A leader and a man of knowledge, Dr. Kwame Bediko was one of the prominent personalities in Ghana, Africa. People will always remember his works for the benefits of mankind.

[dissertations sample]

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