Rethinking Christian Identity after 'Christendom': Revelation, Religion, and Culture in Kwame Bediako and Karl Barth

Team Members/Contributors

Tim Hartman University of Virginia Contact Me

About this dissertation fellowship

American Christianity has entered an unprecedented era: secularization and globalization have undermined the power of Christianity within American society. Little scholarship has been done to offer theological resources to help American Christians navigate this new religiously pluralistic context where individual identities are shaped by multiple sources. This dissertation discusses theological resources to add to an ongoing conversation about rethinking Christian identity in a post-Christendom society—through an exposition of two theologians from outside the U.S., from Africa and Europe. The dissertation offers the first comprehensive analysis of the work of Kwame Bediako placed in comparison with Karl Barth’s work on revelation, religion, and culture in Church Dogmatics IV/3, §69. In Germany and Switzerland, Barth criticized the particular combination of theology and culture as religion, expressed through “culture Protestantism” and the “German Christians.” In Ghana, Bediako criticized the intensification of religion that sought to civilize Africans through colonialism, conveyed by European missionaries. Both authors appealed to an understanding of divine revelation. Bediako articulated a universal gospel of Jesus Christ that can be translated into any culture, has continuities with African traditional religions, and contains his Ancestor Christology. By articulating the possibilities of the God-man Jesus Christ as universal prophet, Barth hears Christ’s “true words” through contemporary “secular parables.” Barth rejects the typical divine-human binary that characterizes Christological reflection and opens the way for Christians to consider their hybridized identities. These converging insights on revelation, religion, and identity can transform how American Christians respond to diverse changes in the present and future that affect our cultural and religious landscape.

Image Title Year Type Contributor(s) Other Info
  Revelation, Religion and Culture in Kwame Bediako and Karl Barth 2014 Dissertation Tim Hartman