The council stressed that false prophecies from false prophets were not only dragging Christianity in the mud but were also posing a serious threat to national security.

Speaking at a ceremony in Accra yesterday during which new national executive members of the Evangelical Church of Ghana (ECG) were sworn into office, the General Secretary of CCG, Rev. Dr Cyril Gershon Fayose, said it was time bold steps were taken to clamp down on the activities of false prophets.

“Recently, there was this wild prediction that some prominent people in this country will die and it almost caused mayhem for us all.

If it had not taken the maturity of the leadership of our religious bodies, there would have been chaos.

 So-called prophets are delivering all kinds of prophecies only to apologise later when the prophecies turn out to be false, so I wonder where those prophecies came from in the first place.

 We must all rise up and deal with it,” he said.

Handover

At the ceremony, Rev. Daniel Gbande, who has served as the General Overseer of the church for the past eight years, handed over to Rev. Maxwell K.K Liwangol, who was the General Treasurer within the same period.

Rev. James Aluruba Amoah, who was the National Coordinator of the Youth Ministry, took over as the new General Treasurer while Rev. Zakariah Mahama was sworn in as the General Secretary for a second term.

The three will form the core of the national executive of the church for the next four years.

Action

Rev. Fayose said the CCG was in talks with other Christian religious bodies to roll out a consultative forum of key stakeholders to find a way to clamp down on bad elements.

He said even though false prophecies in a way threatened the country’s security, that did not warrant the state to regulate the activities of churches.

“We of the CCG are engaging with other Christian religious group to self-regulate and set standards that will hold our activities in check,” he said.

Nevertheless, Rev. Dr Fayose urged the law enforcement agencies, especially the police, to deal with people who hide behind religious freedom and freedom of speech to engage in activities that threaten the peace of the country.

Godliness

For his part, Rev. Maxwell Liwangol said the way to hold false prophets in check was for the well-established churches to focus on teaching the real word of God so that people would not turn to false teachings and non-existent miracles.

“For me, I ask that we do not allow the bad elements to infiltrate the system with bad messages that twist the word of God.

 I will focus my tenure on helping members of my church and Christianity in general to tackle the challenge of falsehood,” he said.

While underscoring the need for concerted effort to tackle false prophets and their teachings, Rev. Gbande said the time had come for churches to go back to teaching the basics of Christianity.

“We need to know that as Christians we are called to be the light and salt of the world, therefore we should strive to maintain this principle despite the challenges we come up against,” he said.

He further urged the new leadership of the church to take steps to build a new generation of followers who would be God-fearing and keep to the principles of piety.