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Opinions of Friday, 28 August 2020

Columnist: Emmanuel Owusu Agyei Ampem

The church and our society: The church must arise

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While flipping through pages on social media, I recounted the infamous videos of final year high school students lambasting leaders and griping about the difficulty passing their university entrance exams, WASSCE. Thereafter, I followed a live interview of His Excellency Dr. Bawumia on Peace fm with Chairman General Kwame Sefa Kai.

It was a sore sight as young people threw jabs and degrading remarks targeted at themselves and the Vice President in the comments. Indeed, one would have joined in peacefully to just hear the good works of the government, trace the progress made to make informed decision in the approaching elections but what you may see is very disturbing. In the discussion of the morals and cultural preservation issues, I would always as a believer admonish and urge the church in this national agenda.

As the late Kofi Annan asserts, from the dawn of time, and at the four corners of the earth, religion and faith have provided humanity with ethical codes and spiritual guidance and comfort. As its best, religion has indeed been the driving force for personal and social progress.

Indeed, we do not undermine the impact of globalization and its baby technology on our lives, both social and economic. Greatly, it has impacted and integrated our world economies, societies and people more than ever, and creating unprecedented wealth across the globe. I Agree with Pastor Mensa Otabil when he says some people see the church as a nuisance. Most people clearly in our part of the world now speaks ill of the church, in other developed places like most of the European Countries, the church doesn’t seem to have any part in the emergence of their development.

I believe that critically, without the church, human history will be primitive. The story of humanity is the story of the church, that is why I write to urge the church. In this era, the nation approaches a major election, the atmosphere is a bit heated, politics of insults, young against old, immoral act and primitive actions to gain relevance and power will definitely be seen. It may not be surprising because these actions(Animalistic) may be part of our human nature. That is why the church must wake up to restore and shape the society we live in.

Indeed, throughout history major centers of learning were set up by the church, the church has been the center for academia, Arts, culture and the pillars of the society were shaped by the Church. It has been clear that if you remove the church from our society, we shall return to a primitive society.

One of my biggest belief about the shaping of our society is through education and through governments policy Free Senior High school. I believe that it will be better achieved through the inclusion and the involvement of the church. It is an undisputed fact the good role the church has played in our second cycle institutions. The Catholic faith based, Methodist, Pentecostal, Presbytarian and other faith based movements have best shaped and inculcated in our youths good morals and ethics. Regardless of the isolated activities of some church leaders now prevalent in our society, it should not be over generalized to dispute the importance of the role the church has played and will play in our society.

I believe that the church can do more with coming up with strategies to better shape our society, using the pulpits to criticize these current behaviors of the social media youths, the Politicians and citizenry at large. The church should tighten the moral belt used to correct and shape students in the high schools because it is the messages of the church that creates a visionary and aspirational society.