He was ordained a church minister in 1936. He was a participant at the 1938 International Missionary Council (IMC) meeting held in Tambaram, India.[1][2][3] He was elected the Synod Clerk of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast, serving from 1945 to 1949.[1][2][3] Baëta chaired both the Ghana Christian Council and the Ghana Church Union Negotiations Committee.[1][2][3] In 1958, he was elected the vice-chairman of the IMC in 1958 and oversaw the merger of the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the IMC. He was a member of the Bible Society of Ghana and helped translate the Holy Bible into the Ewe language.[1][2][3] Christian Baëta was a member of a number of committees: the Anglican-Reformed Commission on Church Unity, the Central and Executive Committees of the WCC and the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs.[1][2][3]
Academia
Christian Baëta joined the faculty at the department of divinity and the study of religions at the University of Ghana, Legon, retiring in 1971 as a professor.[1][2][3] During his time at Legon, through his initiative, the focus of the department shifted from an emphasis on Christian theology to the Study of religions in general and its theological link to an increasingly globalized world.[1][2][3] At the university, Baëta taught Old Testatment, Hebrew, African Religions and Islam.[11] From 1965 to 1971, he was also the Henry W. Luce Visiting Professor at Selly Oak Colleges in Birmingham, England.[1][2][3] An advocate of missiology as a local phenomenon, he championed the role of younger African church missions, focusing on common experiences and co-existing peacefully with adherents of other faiths while maintaining the free expression of ecumenical Christianity. In his view, the two philosophies were connected through a shared belief in the sovereignty of a supreme being.[1][2][3]
Higher education fundraising
He played a prominent role in raising funds for the establishment of the country’s first university, the University of Ghana, then known as the University College of the Gold Coast.[5][6][7] Through his efforts, an initial capital of £897,000 was raised from donations by cocoa farmers, represented by the Cocoa Marketing Board, now known as Cocobod.[1][2][3] Other important groups that petitioned the colonial government between December 1945 and July 1946, to establish a university, include the Advisory Committee on Education, the Achimota Council, the Standing Committee of the Joint Provincial Council of Chiefs, the Asante Confederacy Council, the Gold Coast Bar Association, the Old Students Associations, the Rodger Club, Accra; the Hudson Club, Kumasi; and the Gold Coast Teachers Union.[1][2][3] The Bradley Committee kicked off the motion through deliberation and subsequent legislation to establish the university.[1][2][3] The chieftain of Ashanti, the Asantehene, accepted the recommendation of the committee to have the nation's premier university constructed in Accra using financial assistance from farmers whose farms were located in the Ashanti jurisdiction, contingent on the establishment of another university in Kumasi which came to fruition in 1952 when the Kumasi College of Technology, now known as the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology was opened.[1][2][3]
Baëta, C. G. K. (1963) "Prophetism in Ghana" London
Baëta, C. G. K. (1968) "Christianity in Tropical Africa"
Baëta, C. G. K. (1971) "The Relationship of Christians with Men of Other Living Faiths"
Baëta, C. G. K. (1984) "My Pilgrimage in Mission," IBMR 12 (4): 165-168.
Personal life
He was married to Victoria Essie van Lare (born in 1908) who died on 6 September 1999 and they had children.[13]
Death
Christian Baëta died in 1994 at the age of eighty-six.[1][2][3]
Bibliography
Pobee, J. S. (1976), "Religion in a Pluralistic Society: Essays in Honour of Prof. C.G. Baeta"ISBN9004045562, 9789004045569
Ringwald, W. (1963), "Christian Baeta Fuhrender Christ seiner Afrikanischen Kirche," in "Ökumenische Profile Brückenbauer der Einen Kirche II," Gunter Gloede
Sudermeier, T. (1982) "Auf dem Weg zu einer Afrikanischen Kirche, Christian G. Baeta, Ghana," in Theologen der Dritten Welt
^ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwAnderson, Gerald H. (1998). "Christian Baëta". Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions. W. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
^
Prah, Mansah (2002). "Jiagge, Annie (1918–1996)". In Commire, Anne (ed.). Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Waterford, Connecticut: Yorkin Publications. ISBN978-0-7876-4074-3. Archived from the original on 9 April 2016. Retrieved 27 May 2018.