Accra, Feb. 27, GNA – The Very Reverend Professor Johnson Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, President, Trinity Theological Seminary (TTS) has applauded the Police for their efforts at checking “false prophesies” by some Ghanaian pastors.
He said unguarded prophetic pronouncements had created panic and put the lives of many in danger and cautioned pastors and other Christian leaders to be wary of such misleading prophecies some of, which boarded on national security.
Prof Asamoah-Gyadu, speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency on the sidelines of the inauguration of the 80th Anniversary Planning Committee of the Seminary, said there had been a public outcry about the operations of such “errant pastors and prophets” necessitating the need for the Police to act.
The Ghana Police Service in a statement in December 2021 cautioned religious leaders in the country to be measured in their utterances, particularly the way they communicated prophecies.
“You cannot hide under the guise of a prophetic gift to insult people and exploit the vulnerable and gullible all in the name of prophecies,” he said, stressing that “the police have a mandate to put them to order and that is what they are doing”.
He said: “If God has revealed to you that someone is going to die, did He also tell you to make the revelation on radio and Television and put his or her entire family in a state of panic and fear?”
Prof Asamoah-Gyadu noted that after the Police had cautioned them, they had quietened, and said “if it was really God who was speaking through them, they would have spoken nonetheless.”
He said though there were some “charlatans” parading as prophets and dishouring ministry, there were some honest prophets with true prophetic giftings in the country.
Touching on the strides the Seminary had chalked in the last 80 years, he said it had produced most of the chaplains in the country’s Senior High schools, Universities and other educational institutions, regimental organisations, including the security services.
He said nearly all the senior pastors and clergies in the Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian Churches, among others had been trained at the Seminary with most of them having stints as lecturers at the Seminary.
As a faith-based educational institution, Prof Asamoah-Gyadu said, TTS continued to play a key role in the moral upbringing of the populace even at a time when moral decadence had sunk low in society.
He said through the training of the clergy, Ghanaians, especially the youth, were encouraged to be responsible and spiritually sound adults to contribute meaningfully to nation building.
The Rt. Rev. Dr Paul Boafo, Chairman of the Governing Council, TTS, who inaugurated the Committee, called on the members to work assiduously for the good of the Seminary and carry out their mandate with diligence.
The Rt. Rev. Samuel Kofi Osabutey, Immediate Past Methodist Bishop of Accra and Chairman of the 17-member Anniversary Committee, said as part of activities earmarked for the year-long celebration, a legacy project, to be immortalised, would be undertaken with a thanksgiving service in December.
The Trinity Theological Seminary, founded in 1942 in Kumasi, is the premier and leading ecumenical theological tertiary institution in Ghana and the West African sub-region.
GNA