Kwame Bediako’s Christianity without domination

Theologian Kwame Bediako, who died in 2008, explored the intersections of identity, culture, and gospel by challenging long-standing assumptions about how to write theology. He modeled an African theology not beholden to Western Christianity, inaugurating a way of doing theology after imperialism. He was one of the most significant theological voices of his lifetime, not just in Africa but in the world—a distinction only necessary because Western theology’s habit of operating as a self-enclosed discourse remains hard to shake.

Tim Hartman’s book is an extraordinary introduction to Bediako’s theology. He portrays the contours of Bediako’s thought and carefully puts them within a wide framing, thereby illuminating Bediako’s singular contributions. Bediako wrote mostly essays, aside from his published dissertation, and the specificity of theological essays can make such writers difficult to summarize. Yet Hartman’s careful research ensures that we see a full picture of a profound theologian. Hartman also shares with Bediako an ebullient style that makes theology come alive, so this book is a joy to read.

As Hartman guides readers through prominent themes in Bediako’s thought, we especially see Bediako’s distinct contributions to methodology, how we approach theological discourse. Studying culture and identity was so central to Bediako because he saw them as thoroughly wrapped up in the theological enterprise. There is no pure, context-free gospel for Bediako, since we always receive the gospel as culture-bearing humans. God is outside creation, but divine revelation takes cultural forms.