The President of the Northern Ghana Union of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church has called for a national discourse on the exploitation of the vulnerable in the name of religion.
Pastor Kwame Kwanin Boakye advocates severe punishment for people whose activities breach the laws of the state to serve as a deterrent.
He says the growing tendency for some pastors to hide behind the cassock to amass wealth and perpetrate sexual and other forms of abuse against the citizenry must stop.
According to Pastor Kwanin, the modern self-seeking minister of the gospel has instituted a system which lures and preys on church members into accepting deceit for prophecy.
Some pastors, he notes are even resorting to occultism to dupe their own congregation.
Pastor Kwanin Boakye says Ghanaians must be concerned about the present state of the church.
“I’m much worried about how people are abusing themselves in the ministry because of wealth; because of sex and because of power…Christ must be internalized in the minister.
“Pastors can go to the extent of taking water from even the mortuary for their congregation to grow. Is that the gospel? he quizzed.
He adds, “in a way they [fake pastors] put systems in place such that they can lure you by telling you that I have a vision concerning you”.
Pastor Kwanin Boakye spoke with Joynews on the sidelines of church leaders’ retreat and ordination at Ntonso in the Ashanti Region.
Though he is against state regulation of church, he wants ministers of the gospel who flout the law to be seriously dealt with.
According to him, reverend ministers should be held responsible for actions that run contrary to state laws.
“ If as a pastor, I commit any crime, the state would have to deal with me according to the state laws but not coming to manage how I do my ministry. There’s religious liberty fine; everybody will have the right and the opportunity to worship his God or her God but if any minister, any pastor commits crime against the state, then the state has the audacity to come and make some arrests,” Pastor Kwanin Boakye stressed.