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Kwame
Bediako, Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, is a minister
of
the Presbyterian Church of Ghana. After secondary education, he
read 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 discovered the crucial significance
of personal faith in Christ in the pursuit of the intellectual life.
Subsequently, he
studied Theology at the London School of Theology,
England, and later undertook
doctoral research in the University of
Aberdeen, Scotland.
He
holds doctorate degrees in French Literature from the University of
Bordeaux, and
in Divinity from the University of
Aberdeen.
From
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 in
research and advanced studies in the
fields of Christian Faith and Thought and in the
relationship of the
Christian Church to society. His main task since that time has
been to
establish the Institute as an academic and pastoral institution 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 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 he 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).
He is
married to Dr. Gillian Mary Bediako, who is Documentation and Publications
Officer and Editor at the Institute, and they have two young adult
sons, Timothy Yaw
(23) and Daniel Kwabena (20).
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