Presiding Bishop condemns use of abusive language

The Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church of Ghana, Most Rev. Dr Robert Aboagye-Mensah, has condemned the use of abusive language and other acts of indiscipline in the country.

Rev. Dr Aboagye-Mensah, who attributed these vices to lack of moral training and good cultural values, therefore, stressed the need for intensified public education to instill discipline in the people.

He said this at the launch of the 2009 Methodist Church Education Week celebration on the theme: "The Bible in the life of the school", in Accra.

He said the high incidence of crime, corruption, rape of innocent children and women, and other acts of indiscipline were clear demonstrations of the neglect of proper and balanced education infused with the living word of God.

Dr Aboagye-Mensah said it was in this view that the Methodist Church had realised that "Education should not only concentrate on the acquisition of cognitive and psychomotive skills which could easily be tested through series of examinations but also focus on instilling morality and discipline in students".

He said the church, therefore, sought to use the education week to "draw the attention of the entire citizenry, especially teachers, parents and the government, to the need to embark on holistic education that had a place in the Bible to develop the moral values of our people without neglecting the other two aspects".

He noted that the church at its last conference recommended that all their schools use the Sunday School Church syllabus to support school worship in order to encourage the schools to take their worship lives seriously and instill the word of God in the students.

A representative of the Bible Society of Ghana, Mrs Elizabeth Taylor, said the society was faced with several challenges of indiscipline, corruption and the negative influence of technology.

She said it was in that light that the society launched a programme on May 16, 2007 to distribute 1,000,000 Bibles to public junior high school (JHS) students all over the country from 2007 to 2010.

She said the programme sought to help remove all forms of negative vices in the upcoming generation and make them be of good service to the country.

She said as of December 2007, 400,000 Bibles had been distributed to most of the JHSs across the country.

Mrs Taylor expressed the hope that the initiative would help transform the lives of people especially the youth in the country.

The General Manager of the Methodist Education Unit, Very Rev. Stephen Asher, said the week-long celebration would be characterised by a float, symposium, debates, Bible quiz, community work, fund-raising and a thanksgiving service.