Why are we so helpless?
If you saw a rat pop out of its hole one hot afternoon, eyes bulging, sensory whiskers vibrating, you can be sure something is the matter deep down that hole. In like manner, the human eye never gets yellowish green unless there is something wrong with the liver.
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Why in the world would the Chief Executive of a state enterprise refuse to keep his words in his head when his minister makes a policy declaration he the (CEO) disagrees with?
The policy statement by the Energy Minister, Mr Boakye Agyarko about plans to turn the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) into a tank-farm and the swift reaction of Mr Isaac Osei, CEO of TOR, openly objecting to it are, for me, symptoms of trouble down the rat’s hole. What is wrong is not that the minister flew all the way to the United States of America(USA)to announce the policy. What is wrong is that at the time he spoke, the CEO of TOR did not know about it.
Was it a Cabinet decision? Did the President know about it? Is there a snake in the hole?
There is another symptom, this time, of an evil which this nation has tolerated for too long. Religious fraud.
I saw a video the other day in which a Ghanaian ‘Man of God’ spoke in an unknown language to an invisible being for upwards of 20 minutes. He then announced to his awestruck congregation that he was speaking to God in protest against certain acts by his “colleague angels”. Momentarily, in English, he was heard telling ‘God’: “I went with (angel) Gabriel.” Then he asked God, “Didn’t you ask Gabriel?” Speaking for the benefit of the congregation, he then said, “After all, we (he and the unseen beings) are all angels”.
A study I conducted shocked me. I found that many of the people who follow these “prophets” are not necessarily looking for salvation through Jesus Christ: they can’t be bothered if the pastor is proved to be a Satanist. God does not matter. They are in ‘church’ for a miracle, a prophecy, for visa or for a child.
For those of us who believe that there is a supreme being called God, who is the creator of all things, I have a question? Will this all knowing, all seeing and holy God who hates sin and whose commandments forbid unnatural carnal knowledge, including adultery, prescribe a sinful act as a cure for a disease or deliverance from so-called satanic attack”?
In one of the East African countries, a pastor is seen on video having sex with a young woman in a swimming pool as other members of the congregation look on. Their brains have been washed with information that sex with the pastor is God’s prescription!
Inside our own country, Ghana, a video has gone viral in which a popular “man of God” is kissing a female congregation member in full view of all. What type of democracy or freedom permits this?
Why would Ghanaians, including and led by the Right Honourable Speaker of Parliament, shout with such vehemence against one unnatural carnal knowledge called homosexuality only to seal our lips when this other type of unnatural carnal knowledge is on open display?
Why is everybody so quiet? The Christian Council can only wring its hands in desperate agony and name-calling; the Ghana Pentecostal and Charismatic Council (GPCC) is impotent in these matters. Two years ago, it was suggested that there should be a law bringing all churches under one ecumenical body. Two members of the Spiritual Council of Ghana spewed such venom and threats on radio that the proposal was pronounced dead on arrival.
Now they are doubling money in church and at the shrine. Nobody can convince me that the Police have not seen the signboards of Mallams and traditional priests advertising their powers, including the power to make money? Glaringly on television, ‘fetish’ priests and Christian prophets are “doubling” money. If democracy is rule of the law, am I being told that there are no laws regulating religion?
While we are so loud against persons perceived to be atheists or anti-Christian, why are we quiet when people who parade in the name of God, openly engage in acts that make God unattractive?
Men of God? Pooh!
Before the Jonestown Massacre occurred on November 18, 1978, when a total of 918 Americans died from drinking cyanide - in Guyana, - an act ordered by their church leader, Rev Jim Jones, this ‘Man of God’ was considered genuine. He moved with the powerful in politics and business. His political influence started when his association with a politician led to the election of this politician into office as a Mayor.
Why am I saying all these? Simply this: that not all who come in the name of God are godly; that some human beings called “Men of God” are taking advantage of gullible, ignorant, superstitious and desperate sections of the populace and seeking protection under the banner of religious freedom.
In Rwanda, President Kagame is going through Parliament to have a law that says that without a certain basic educational qualification, you can’t be a pastor. He has closed down noisy churches and mosques.
Why do we vote governments into power if they cannot protect the citizens from fraud perpetrated in the name of religion?
I thought the President must know this.
