The Church has abandoned its primary message of salvation and now focusing on prosperity, thus breeding a generation of greedy and corrupt people within its fold and, in turn, competing with corrupt politicians for material wealth, former presidential press secretary Andy Awuni has said.

“The church has shirked its responsibility”, he told Moro Awudu on Class91.3FM’s Executive Breakfast Show on Thursday, 12 October during a discussion about various national issues such as bad citing of fuel stations, graft and political patronage amongst others, which to him, are the manifestations of the failings of the church.

In Mr Awuni’s view, a lot of societal rot could be uprooted if the church as an institution focused on the message of salvation.

“They are no longer talking about heaven which is our target, they are no longer talking about salvation which is our target, they are not talking about the salvation of the soul which is our target, they are talking about who will dress well, they themselves are competing with the politicians and they must stop it because they are responsible; all these corrupt people they keep pointing fingers at are sitting on the front pews in the churches and they the leaders are responsible.

“They want to dress better than the businessman, what business are you doing; they want to fly better than the businessman, what business are you doing? And as a result, they are encouraging all their young men to keep collecting bribes,” Mr Awuni said.

He urged pastors to defrock and join the political arena if they so wished.

“If they want to be politicians: ‘get out of the church and go join the queue’. You want to have diplomatic passports, you want to have outriders, you want to drive into Flagstaff House where they will open the gates for you because you are the man of God? Jesus never did that; John the Baptist never did that; Jeremiah never did that; they should stop it, they are responsible for the greed in this country, they must change their message.”

As far as he is concerned, the solution to many of Ghana’s problems lies with the church.

“If the church would change their message because all these people: the police, [etc]… every Sunday they go to church and some of them are on the front pews as church members, all these youths who are extorting money, they all dance in the church every day. If the church will change its message and come back to the basic message of salvation and that every human being will die; whether you are a Steve Jobs, whether you are Despite, whether you are Kofi Annan, whether you are President Atta Mills, whether you are president […], everybody will die, all the money we are chasing and the big houses we are acquiring in which you will never sleep; in the next 50 years you don’t know who will sleep in that house, if the church can come back to the message of salvation and heaven and not continuously talk about prosperity and jobs and who is buying their cars and who is not buying their cars, people will slow down on this greed, greed is the reason for most of the things that are happening in this country,

“I have seen people who just walk out of class, out of lecture halls, take up jobs, and they’ve already started collecting bribes and those people are dancing in churches every Sunday. The church will be held responsible for some of these things that are happening in this country and elsewhere,” he said.