An overnight e-mail from a friend in Wales informed us that Ghanian theologian Kwame Bediako passed away this week. Bediako was a brilliant scholar with doctorates in French literature and in theology. He fostered the development of a genuinely African theology (distinct from the Black liberation theology that developed in South Africa). Bediako used the models of Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria to argue that just as they used the Greco-Roman cultural categories of their time to contextualize the Gospel and create a Christian identity, so should African Christians use their own cultural heritage in forming their Christian identity.
Chris Wright, International Director of the Langham Partnership International (John Stott Ministries in the US), has written a brief tribute to Bediako that is posted on the Zondervan blog. The blog features a video clip of Bediako preaching at Zondervan’s chapel just last month, and a link to the Africa Bible Commentary, for which Bediako was one of the three theological advisers.
