It seems the Churches have failed us as a country because, though there has been a sudden increase in the number of Christian Faith Organisations with its attendant buildings in the country over the past two decades, this has not shown any effect on our morals. One would have expected that with this growth, there will be a proportional change in our way of doing things. This is why we continue to complain about corruption and its associated vices in society and no one cares.
Therefore, what are the Churches teaching? I don’t want to believe that our Pastors are just preaching the “Prosperity Gospel” and concentrating on making money. But making money should not be in a vacuum, there must be some integrity in how people create wealth!
If we only teach people daily that money is good and do not make them see that it is not every way that wealth is made that is good, we can only create thieves and rogues. The fact is some people have come to believe that money has no colour, that is, there is nothing like good or bad money. For this reason, we have Pastors who pray for Drug Barons to travel safely without being caught by the law enforcement agencies.
It is not for nothing that it is written that, “dishonest money dwindles away, but whoever gathers money little by little makes it grow in Proverbs 13:11. The lives of people who used drugs and other forms of deceit to make money may be very glamorous but over time, when the law catches up with them, they become hopeless. These are things that Men of God should be preaching to their congregation. These Pastors have forgotten in their quest to live like Kings and Princes without toiling for it, the admonishment in Hebrew 13:5 that, “keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”
Even though there are no statistics, everything points to the fact that we have more Churches in Ghana than before. And if we must use this as a guide, we should have more righteous people than we have ever known. That is if the right doctrine is taught in these Churches. Sadly, it looks like most of the Men of God have forgotten that the Bible teaches that, “The integrity of the upright guides them, but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity” (Proverb 11:3). It is not the duplicity of the Church members that is worrying but the so-called Pastors. In the past, before any person comes out to say, he/she is a Man or Woman of God, it is taken for granted that, such a person had the Call from God. These days, we see all sorts of people leading Churches which they should not be doing in the first place.
Some of these Church leaders preach and teach doctrines that will make even the heathen question their lying tongues. But what do you expect if these people with the Bible have not read it well to know that somewhere hidden in Psalm 34:13 is “Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from telling lies.”
These are the Men of God who use trickery to enslave their congregation and they are those who misuse the Word of God to set families against each other. There are some children who do not talk to their parents today because some Man or Woman of God has told them their parents are witches. It is surprising too, how gullible we have all become to believe these so-called Preacher-men who are using the House of God to cheat and confuse people. Sometimes l wonder how a mother, who has kept a pregnancy for nine months, could be said to be the cause of a child’s misery in life.
A true man of God, should be the kind of person that the Bible says is the “one whose walk is blameless, who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from their heart; whose tongue utters no slander, who does no wrong to a neighbour, and casts no slur on others—(Psalm 15:2-3).
Again, it looks like the Bible is talking about these fake Pastors when it says, “If we claim have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth,” as we find in 1 John: 1:6.
In addition, it is these people that the Scripture speaks about in Proverb16:28 when it says, “A perverse person stirs up conflict, and a gossip separates close friends.” We may not be able to know the number of families that have been destroyed by these fake Pastors because some of the people they have lied to have been conditioned in their minds so much that they would never listen to words of reason. Why should it be so?
At the national level, some of them describe themselves as General Overseers and Prophets of various kinds and have been able to find favour in the corridors of power. Through trickery, they are the most listened to and some political leaders would never do anything without seeking the opinions and advice of these people. As a result, these fake personalities decide our national fate based on what they think is good for them and not for the population.
The kind of teachings they sell on radio and television are laughable. Unfortunately, no one challenges them. If in academia, there is peer review of whatever research that one carries out and writes about, what don’t we allow peer reviews to cover Theological thoughts.
In fact, some explanations of the Bible put out by these fake pastors are so dangerous that one wonders where they were taught.
A friend says becoming a Man of God in Ghana these days is just like how some people get their academic PhDs these days from back street schools. In addition to this, from some adverts that we read in the media, there are schools and colleges—and one wonders if there is any authority that supervises them—that train Pastors and Prophets, some for as little as ten weeks.
It is thus not wrong to suggest that most of the problems we face as a country, especially in the area of moral degeneration, is due to the Churches. The Orthodox Churches cannot avoid blame because some of their Pastors have started copying the ways of the wayward Churches. They must be seen to be leading the way but because of fears of losing their congregations to the charlatans, some Orthodox Priests have also become “lost” and are doing things that they should not do.
I guess it may not be out of place if the Christian Council, the Catholic Bishops Conference and the Pentecostal Churches Association put in place a mechanism that will follow up preachings in the media and then point out those who are out of tune. It is true that no human being can detect the anointing of another, so also is it true that all of us cannot read between the lines to know when we are being misled.
Perspectives
…With Francis Kokutse
