Professor Allan Aubrey Boesak studied theology at the Theological Seminary of the Dutch Reformed Mission Church at the University of the Western Cape, was ordained in Immanuel Dutch Reformed Mission Church in Paarl in 1968 at age 22. In 1970 he started advanced studies at the Theological University at Kampen in the Netherlands, and was awarded the doctoral degree in theology in June 1976. A week after the Soweto Uprisings, he returned to South Africa to become chaplain to students at the University of the Western Cape, Peninsula Technicon, and Bellville Teachers College, and then minister at Bellville Dutch Reformed Mission Church.

Boesak served the church in various ecumenical positions, including as moderator of his church, senior vice president of the South African Council of Churches, and president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, representing over 70 million Reformed Christians in 150 countries. Under his leadership the WARC declared apartheid a sin and a heresy and suspended the two white Dutch Reformed churches in South Africa for their moral and theological justification of the apartheid system. Over the years, Boesak became a world-renowned liberation theologian and a coveted speaker at global ecumenical events. He was keynote speaker at the World Council of Churches Assembly in Vancouver, Canada in 1983, and in 2015, keynote presenter at the Parliament of World Religions in Salt Lake City, Utah. In October 2017 ,Yale University Divinity School hosted him as the Lyman Beecher Lecturer, its most prestigious lectureship series.

Boesak’s involvement in public life and South Africa’s freedom struggle began in 1976 with his leading role in resistance politics in South Africa. In 1983 he called for the formation of the United Democratic Front which would grow into the largest, nonviolent, non-racial anti-apartheid formation in the history of the struggle. A fervent believer in direct, militant, nonviolent action, he became its most visible leader at home and abroad. He worked with President Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Tutu, Reverand Frank Chikane, Reveramd Beyers Naudé and a whole array of African and world leaders to end apartheid.

Boesak is recipient of fourteen honorary doctoral degrees and more than twenty international awards. Among those are the Robert Kennedy Human Rights Award, the Champion for Justice Award from the Indiana Centre for Middle East Peace, the Martin Luther King Jr. Peace Award from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the King Hintsa Bravery Award from the Xhosa Royal House. Recently he was inducted into the Martin Luther King Jr. International Board of Preachers at Morehouse College, Atlanta, Georgia, the only African thus far to have been afforded that honor.

Boesak is an award-winning author of twenty-nine books. His most recent publications include Pharaohs on Both Sides of the Blood-red Waters, Prophetic Critique on Empire - Resistance, Justice and the Power of the Hopeful Sizwe (2017); Children of the Waters of Meribah - Black Liberation Theology, the Miriamic Tradition, and the Challenges of 21st Century Empire (2019), Selfless Revolutionaries: Biko, Black Consciousness, Black Theology, and a Global Ethic of Solidarity and Resistance (2021), and, co-authored with Reverand Judge Wendell Griffen, Parables, Politics, and Prophetic Faith, Hope and Perseverance in Times of Peril (2023). His most recent work, The Fire, the River, and the Scorched Earth Between: Fifty Years of Black Liberation Theology through the Lens of Allan Aubrey Boesak  (2024) is a four-volume set containing the texts of a series of public lectures on Black Liberation Theology, essays, and sermons.

Boesak has taught across the world, and continues his teaching and preaching while remaining active in global struggles for human rights. He is especially active in the advocacy of Palestinian rights and freedom. Having served as professor of theology at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, Indiana, from 2012–2016, he is now Professor Emeritus of Black liberation theology and ethics at the University of Pretoria, Theologian in Residence for the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, Chicago, chairperson of the Walter and Albertina Sisulu Foundation for Social Justice, and the president of the Sankofa Institute for Pan African Leadership and Prophetic Ministry. He is married to renowned investigative journalist Elna Boesak.