Allan Boesak February 5 – 7, 2013

Click here to download a printable event poster. (pdf)

DR. ALLAN BOESAK
will visit Yale Divinity School February 5 – 7, 2013

During his time on campus, there will be three
opportunities to hear him speak.

Tuesday, February 5 – Public Lecture – 5:30 pm

“Reconciliation, Justice, and the Spirit of Ubuntu”

Thursday, February 7 – Chapel preacher – 10:30 am
Marquand Chapel

Thursday, February 7 – Pastor’s Study Conversation – 12:30 pm
Latourette Hall

RSVP for lunch to william.goettler@yale.edu

For more information about his visit, contact Rebekah Menning: 432-4791 or rebekah.menning@yale.edu

Allan Aubrey Boesak was born in Kakamas, Northern Cape, South Africa, in 1946, the second youngest of eight children. He grew up and finished high school in Somerset West, studied at the University of the Western Cape and received his PhD in Theology from the Protestant Theological University in Kampen, the Netherlands, in 1976.

1976 also marks the Soweto Uprisings and Allan Boesak’s entry into public life in South Africa. Dr Boesak has served the church and the ecumenical movement in various senior capacities since 1978, including as President of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, the first third world person and youngest ever to be elected to that position. Under his leadership the world body adopted the “apartheid is a heresy” declaration and suspended the two Dutch Reformed Churches from membership for their theological and moral support and justification of the apartheid system. In 1983 Allan Boesak called for the formation of the United Democratic Front, which became the largest organised, non-racial anti-apartheid movement in the history of South Africa. Allan Boesak became its most visible leader and spokesperson until its closure by the ANC in 1991. Although he has retired from active party politics, Dr. Boesak still is deeply and passionately involved in global struggles for human rights, social, economic and ecological justice, and gender and sexual justice across the world.

Dr. Boesak is the author of 17 books, and co-author and editor of four. His most recent publication, Radical Reconciliation: Beyond Political Pietism and Christian Quietism, published by Orbis, is co-authored with Curtiss Paul DeYoung. Allan Boesak’s 2005 work, Die Vlug van Gods Verbeelding, Bybelverhale van die Onderkant, (The Flight of God’s Imagination: Biblical Stories from the Underside), received the Andrew Murray/Desmond Tutu Prize, South Africa’s highest award for theological publications. Boesak is recipient of numerous awards including the Robert Kennedy Human Rights Award, the Martin Luther King Jr. Peace Award, and the King Hintsa Bravery Award from the Royal Xhosa House. He is also the recipient of twelve honorary degrees from such institutions as Yale University and the University of Geneva.

Dr. Boesak is Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Religion, Philosophy and Classics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Currently he is Visiting Professor at Butler University and Christian Theological Seminary in the United States.