Abstract
Tim Hartman’s Theology After Colonization transcends the limits of a tit-for-tat comparison between two figures, Karl Barth and Kwame Bediako, who never met nor engaged with each other, by introducing a compelling tertium quid: theological reflection. The main argument is that the situation we find ourselves in, with the decline of Christendom and the rise of secularism and globalization, demands a decentering of Western authority. White males such as Barth, Hartman, and myself need to stop speaking and instead listen deeply to voices from the Global South, indigenous peoples, oppressed groups, and female authors (188). Hartman sees Barth challenging accepted authorities in his European context and Bediako constructively engaging with the Christian Gospel as an African faith, both of which decenter in ways that promote a wide theological reflection. This would be platitudinous except Hartman proceeds to reflect theologically through these two iconoclastic thinkers, demonstrating while advocating. Neither Bediako nor Barth sit comfortably in prevailing theological reflection and in that are perfect conversation partners for a new way of proceeding.
After two introductory chapters that set the contemporary context, the first focusing on the big picture of Christendom, secularization, and globalization, and the second turning toward transcultural theological methodology, Hartman gets into the meat of his comparison. Each of the following chapters is a reflection using one of five heuristics that Hartman discerns: Christological, contextual, cultural, constructive, and collaborative. Because Barth’s written corpus is much larger than Bediako’s, Hartman largely limits his discussion to Church Dogmatics IV/3 and even more specifically §69 which focuses on Jesus’ office of prophet. For Bediako, Hartman draws on all of his major works, including Christianity in Africa: The Renewal of a Non-Western Religion and Theology and Identity, as well as extensive archival research carried out in Ghana. In the end, this book is not about Barth nor Bediako, although readers will benefit from Hartman’s placing Barth as a contextual theologian and, for those not already familiar with him, introducing the West to Bediako, a major African theologian.
This book is the inaugural volume in the Notre Dame Studies in African Theology series, and bodes well for the future of that line. Positively, Hartman’s writing is accessible but still academic. For those interested in learning more about African theology and who already have some grounding in the Western tradition, Hartman is a very able guide. Bediako lends himself to Hartman’s analysis in part because he did write so much. Other African theological traditions, such as the oral or aphoristic, are less amenable to Hartman’s kind of analysis. For those invested in Barthian studies, Hartman challenges some conventions (Barth as a contextual theologian) while maintaining a close reading of parts of the Church Dogmatics.
The real audience is wider than African theologians or Barthians, however. There is a danger that because this book was published within the academy and as part of Western theological education institutions, its everyday importance will be missed. In these days of global pandemic and civil unrest, Hartman offers those involved in theological reflection a way to have conversations that are generative across divisions. In a global pandemic there seems to be a focus on its effects in relation to the West, making the crisis more national than global. Likewise, racial tensions are most often interpreted within a domestic context thus missing a cross-cultural component. Hartman moves past the ideological certainties that lead to shouting matches and to a place where the object that both Barth and Bediako wrestled with, namely God as revealed in Jesus Christ, becomes clearer. Christendom, secularism, and globalization distort the truth about God found in Jesus Christ. On this, both Barth and Bediako were clear. What Hartman does is provide a nuanced and productive approach that offers the possibility of finding a universal truth within particular contexts.