Stop the craze for T. B. Joshua's "magic"
When the death of four people were reported, with many sustaining various degrees of injuries at the Spintex Road Branch of the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN) founded by Prophet T. B. Joshua on Sunday May 19, 2013, I began to wonder what was really happening when it comes to religion and faith?
According to reports, the tragic incident occurred after a stampede ensued at the church on Sunday when reports emerged there will be free distribution of holy water.
The reports also had it that thousands of people flocked the church in pursuit of healing, spiritual and financial breakthrough.
The holy water, to many T. B Joshua followers, is acclaimed to be the panacea to the many spiritual afflictions.
But before the Sunday May 19 incident, motorists, students, schoolchildren, as well as workers and residents within Spintex and Regimauel, already traffic prone areas, were subjected to various levels of torture through heavy vehicular and human traffic for nearly three continuous days from May 7 to 9.
Not only did the road users experience a very chaotic traffic system, body guards of T. B. Joshua had the audacity to arrest and detain for more than six hours news men who had gone there to report on the traffic situation on the Spintex Road.
Ghanaians are yet to hear from the government on the death of the four persons on that black Sunday and the detention of the newsmen.
The civil society groups that had come out publicly to condemn the acts of T. B. Joshua’s security were the Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), Professor Kwame Karikari and the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) who called for the arrest and prosecution of Prophet T. B Joshua’s uncouth macho men who detained the journalists for hours, while the GJA described the explanation of the detention as lame excuse. 
Professor Karikari told Adom News that “people cannot take the law into their own hands and maltreat journalists in that manner so the police must come in quickly and arrest and prosecute them immediately.”
The GJA said the excuse and apology of the church was lame and weak so the police must act with the ‘speed of light’ in arresting, investigating and prosecuting the culprits. “The church knows who they are so they must give them out to the police for investigations,” GJA President Affail Monney said.
He also insisted that the church would have to compensate the journalists for the unwarranted indignity visited on them by the recalcitrant macho men.
But from hindsight, one could see or say that more than 90 per cent of the people who congregated on the special service to receive the so called anointed holy water for free were people who are less educated, poor, very vulnerable women and children who wanted an easy way to prosperity.
These people are so much sedated with religion so much so that they think their only hope and progress in life is through the intervention of God through any person claiming to be a man of God.
When it comes to this stage where the underprivileged and the very vulnerable put some much faith and hope in religion such that they are prepared to go to any length to have wealth or make any breakthrough in their lives, then one can comfortably say that the nation or the state has failed in its responsibilities.
The state has failed because it has allowed religion to become the next available option to fill the gap that the state has created. Therefore, religion becomes the opium of the masses as it provides an alternative to the deteriorating condition occasioned by mismanagement in governance.
It is, therefore, not unusual to find welfare, counseling, prayer and service, all night services and vigils in communities in our churches and mosques today performing the functions originally assigned to the state.
Churches that preach wealth, prosperity, good living and profess their healing powers for all aliments are all full to the capacity. It is, therefore, not surprising that very innocent Ghanaians can rush to such churches including that of Synagogue Church of All Nations to get free anointed holy water that is supposed to give the users breakthrough.
Because of the failure of the state to provide for its citizens with decent jobs, good, cheap and reliable healthcare,decent accommodation, better avenues for education among others, religious institutions such as that of T. B. Joshuas are beginning to fill in the gaps.
Churches have been in this country for centuries and we have not experienced what we are now noticing with these new churches. We have had the Anglicans, the Roman Catholics, the Methodists, the Presbyterians among others.
All these churches provided and built schools, training colleges and institutions hospitals, clinics to serve the people. These are the schools we normally refer to as “mission schools and colleges”. Most of our leaders today and in the past had been products of some of these institutions.
Can we sincerely say these latter day churches have provided one-tenth of what these orthodox churches have provided or done in the past? The answer is a big no.
Most of these so called churches preaching short cut to riches and prosperity are only playing on the ignorance of the poor and vulnerable people. Listen to the radio and television stations where these churches do most of their broadcast and you will see clearly that they have nothing to offer.
How can a church call on people to come for prayers in order to secure visas if they wished to travel, how can these churches heal people with various degrees of ailment or treat their mental relatives, how can these churches make barren women to get pregnant or help people to get their life partners. Are we now saying that these churches are now the extension of consular sections of foreign missions, hospitals, avenues for dating etc etc.?
Look at the lifestyle of these so called men of God. They have private jets, huge mansions, various fleet of cars that serious mined and legitimate businessmen and women cannot even afford, body guards and wise men and women. One has to book and pay consultation fees for special prayers. These amounts are in several thousands of cedis if not in dollars.
The children of these pastors attend the most expensive private schools in the country and only for them to continue their education in the most privileged and world class universities in the UK or US. Where do they get the resources to fund these kind of education for their children?
Today in Ghana, cinema halls and warehouses have been turned into churches because that is the easiest and quickest way to make money if only one can quote a few portions of the Bible and scream or yell and give your own interpretations or meaingings to the quote.
Just take a look at the various bill boards dotted in some prime areas of the various cities throughout the country. You have the head pastor or the owner of that church and his wife inviting you to the next miracle crusade. Theses churches, which invariably are all “international” are nothing but one-man churches and they do not account to anybody not even to their worshippers or congregations.
Much as the Constitution guarantees freedom of association, worship, movements you name them, the same Constitution provides for the protection of the vulnerable in society. The state has a responsibility to cater for the welfare of its people and not the church.
Article by Lloyd Evans/[email protected]
