Churches urged to conform to state laws

The President of the Trinity Theological Seminary, Rev. Professor Johnson Asamoah-Gyadu, has called on ecumenical bodies in the country to ensure that their operations and practices conformed with the laws of the state and teachings of the Bible.

According to him, there was clear demonstration of weak supervision and no check on the activities of some churches, especially with regard to the way they displayed their Christian beliefs.

He said the failure of ecumenical bodies to ensure that their members acted within bounds might serve as grounds for the government to set up a regulatory framework for churches.

"My opinion in terms of regulating churches in the country is that, if the church is not regulating itself, then the government must regulate it," He said.

Rev. Prof. Asamoah-Gyadu was speaking in an interview with the Daily Graphic following a public lecture organised by the Catholic Institute of Business and Technology (CIBT) in Accra last Thursday.

The lecture was on the topic, ‘Developments in Christianity, the media and public life in Ghana today’.

Action

He called on the Ghana Pentecostal and Charismatic Council (GPCC), the National Association of Charismatic and Christian Churches (NACCC), Council of Independent Churches of Ghana (CICG), and the Christian Council of Ghana (CGG) to ensure that the activities and doctrines of their member churches were regulated in conformity with accepted standards and norms of the Christian religion.

Media and Christian intersection

With regards to the theme for the lecture, Rev. Prof. Asamoah-Gyadu said the use of the media in facilitating religious communication in the country had gone very well over the years.

However, he said, it was also necessary to take stock of challenges that the media posed to Christian worship in general, particularly in its use as a tool for spreading the gospel.

He described as a concern, the competitive twist among some churches due to the advent and wasteful expenditure on the media.