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Criminals In Cassocks

By Daily Guide
Opinion Criminals In Cassocks
OCT 7, 2015 LISTEN

Today I am not going to be economical with the truth.  I am going to be my iconoclastic self and I don't care if you call me an irreverent angel.  Since I do not have anyone to join me fight this battle, I will dare the devil and declare myself a self-appointed crusader against religious fanatics no matter whose ox is gored.  And mind you, no Jupiter can stop me from unleashing the pitcher within.

A few months ago when Mr. Rawlings met a certain chief in the Volta Region he did not hide his anger when he railed at 'Bishop'  'Dr.' Obinim and Kumchacha. He wondered why Ghanaians are silent on the activities of these so called men of God and their likes in the society. What is more serious about these charlatans is that their members increase in their numbers as the days roll by.  They start practicing in classrooms with few women who are made to understand that all their troubles will vanish if they only believe.

From the classrooms, they try to acquire a piece of land on which they build wooden structures and buy a few musical instruments.  Young men who are good at playing such instruments are recruited to join the church so that they would play the instruments for unsuspecting women to dance 'to the glory of God'.  As they dance around, these so called men of God who in most cases are bachelors feast their eyes on the women and target one of them.  The opportunity normally comes their way during counseling days.  The 'man of God' will go round and round during the counseling and land with a simple question to the woman who may be taken unawares:  'Are you married?'  When the woman replies in the negative, the 'man of God' will do the sign of the cross because the trap has caught a rat.

From that day onwards, this particular woman is always commissioned to cook for the 'man of God' and wash his clothes. Your guess as to what follows next is as good as mine. In no time the woman is introduced to church members as the would-be wife of the 'man of God' and a date is fixed for the wedding.  After the wedding, the woman carries the title 'Sofo Maame.' It is her who will later form the 'Mmaa Kuo' (Women's Group). There is no need for the 'Sofo Maame' to go to the market to shop for foodstuffs because it is the duty of church members to supply 'Sofo Maame' with foodstuffs, firewood and meat. In no time 'Sofo Maame' starts to grow Epicurean with protruding cheeks and bleached face.

As the number of church members increases so also is the purse of the 'man of God' and 'Sofo Maame'.  As they start tasting the good things of life their appetite for luxurious goods also increase.  Somebody in the church will moot the idea that the 'man of God' must ride in a car like his counterparts in other churches.  When the idea is sold to the church members, it is unanimously accepted. Now that the 'man of God' is riding in a luxurious car, his dressing will change overnight.  He goes shopping for custom made clothes and shoes and starts to bleach like his wife.  Then the titles will follow.  Some bestow on themselves the following titles: Reverend, Overseer, Bishop, Evangelist, Pastor, Doctor, Prophet etc.

Even though you saw them living in a single room with their wife and children, in no time they build mansions and travel abroad with their families.  If you complain about their ostentatious lifestyle, they will tell you Jesus Christ used to wear designer clothes.  Any church member who tries to rebel against the 'man of God' is told to be careful because the Bible says: 'Touch not my anointed'.  As to who anointed them, only they and their congregants know.

The Business Of 'Anointing Oil' And 'Magic' Stickers

To make more money, the 'man of God' will start introducing 'anointing oil' which can cure almost every disease in the world and also fight evil spirits.  It is very simple to make 'anointing oil'.  All what you need is some bottles of Frytol or Dinor cooking oil and lavender.  Mix them with water and fill small bottles with the concoction and you have your 'anointing oil' which the 'man of God; will sell to you.  Advertising your 'anointing oil' is also very simple.  You chose some men and women in the church and coach them on how to testify during 'Testimony Time.'  These men and women will tell the church members the wonderful things the 'anointing oil' has done to them when they used it, to the amazement of church members. Because women in particular are very gullible and easily fall into traps, they line up after church service to buy them. These poor women allow themselves to be deceived by the charlatans' pretence of piety.

The latest craze is the printing of stickers for sale to church members.  These 'men of God' tell their unsuspecting members that when you buy a sticker embossed with the picture of the 'man of God' and paste it on your fridge or anything in your room, no evil will befall you.  Again whatever you do will go right.  Women who want to get pregnant only have to paste the sticker on their belly and everything will be alright.  If you are a trader, all you have to do is to paste the sticker in your shop and customers will throng to your shop to buy.  The 'man of God' will tell you that anytime you decide to travel make sure one of the stickers is in your bag so that you will be saved from any calamity.  And a person whose mother conceived him or her for nine months and delivered him or her believes in this trick!

Instead of people going to work to earn a living, they spend almost all the days in the week attending churches founded by these crooks.  One can imagine the man-hours lost and the damage done to the economy.  In some days, members of these mushroom churches go for 'All Night Prayers' and come home the following day, exhausted.  These criminals profess to have cure for virtually every disease from HIV/AIDS to bareness and infertility.  There was this pastor called 'Bishop' Obinim who opened the zip of a man who had gone to his church to be cured of impotency.  In the full glare of the church members and cameras, he pulled out the man's manhood and started massaging it while he prayed and told the man to go because he had been healed.  I am looking for the day that the same man will visit that church to show the

congregants his erected penis to prove that indeed he is no more impotent! (sic!!).

One day as I was sitting by the television and I saw this same 'man of God' stumping on the belly of a pregnant woman, claiming to be healing her.  Anytime I watched the large crowd in his church I begin to wonder how he has done it.  The sad aspect is that the greater majority of his church members are women who are supposed to work to support their husbands instead of spending precious time in the church dishing out the little they have.

If you should ask me what we should do to stop these charlatans, you should as well ask me why people are trooping to these churches. We have to be careful as a nation and look back like historians do.  If it happened elsewhere it could happen in Ghana.

In the US, there lived this charlatan called Reverend Jim Jones.  He was very charismatic and attracted people who were feeling dejected and rejected by society for whatever reason.  Most of his followers were African-Americans.  He was able to brainwash his followers who followed him to Guyana to settle in a jungle, awaiting the second coming of Christ.  On November 18th 1978, Rev. Jim Jones and more than 900 members of his Peoples Temple Church committed mass suicide in the jungle of Guyana.  Since that time, the event has occupied a grotesque but fringy place in American history.  Jim Jones was able to convince his followers with his outrageous teaching and forced them to drink cyanide-laced Kool

Aid soft drink which led to that unforgettable mass suicide.  We don't have to sit down for such a thing to happen before we take action.

Remember Jesus Christ of Mantukwa?  This criminal also was able to convince his followers to travel all the way from the Volta Region to settle in a forest in the Brong Ahafo Region.  Children were not allowed to go to school and it was he alone who could give a girl to marriage in his church.  Members of his church were made so docile that whatever he said was law.  It took the effort of Mr. Anas Aremeyaw Anas to expose this crook which led to his arrest and the release of his poor followers.  There was this one too called Jesus Christ of Dzorwulu who made his followers drink his urine as a curative medicine for all ailments.

Anytime I listen to real men of God like Right Rev. Professor  Osei Sarfo Kantanka of the Kumasi Presby Church, Duncan Williams, Agyin Asare, Otabil, Heward Mills and a host of good men of God, their words sooth my soul  and drive away my fear.  My problem with these fine gentlemen is that they have refused to condemn what the likes of Obinim are doing to their flocks.

On every Sunday at 6.30 am, I make sure I watch this Missionary  called Bro. Dan Owusu Asiama Snr of the Church of Christ.  He doesn't mince words when it comes to exposing these charlatans.  He consistently warns people to stay away from these criminals because they are out there to fleece them.  He describes them with one word:  AZAA!!  This is a man who really understands the gospel and uses it to change society.  As for the wolves in sheep clothing, they are a disgrace to Christianity.  Oh, Armageddon, when will it come?

Eric Bawah

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