ABSTRACT
The work of Ghanaian theologian Kwame Bediako seeks to identify and reappropriate the unique theological contributions of African Christianity for the shaping African Christianity identity. To do so, Bediako appeals to African culture and African traditional religion in order to assert distinctive indigenous emphases over and against the understandings of Christian identity foisted upon Africans by colonial European missionaries. In sum, this chapter argues that based on Bediako’s belief that God created Africans as human beings in the image of God, he claims that Jesus Christ is the cultural heritage of Africans just as much as Europeans. Bediako’s act of theological négritude then identifies a past for African Christians that articulates an African Christian identity based on a direct connection between Africans and God in Jesus Christ, not an identity mediated by Europeans.
