Features
Rap, reggae, the church
Evangelsing to the youth should preserve the sanctity of the temple
The young Guatemalan Catholic priest has gone far in changing the face of Catholic worship in his homeland, using rap preaching, rap music and rap prophecies. Obviously, the man is in the wrong profession.
Many of his countrymen think that the man who behaves like Tic Tac should have been Guatemala’s award-winning top hip-hop artiste and not a minister of the word. Imagine Gyedu-Blay Ambolley doing the ‘Zimigwado’ on the pulpit and administering the communion.
When he first introduced rap into Christian worship, many in his congregation thought the Guatemalan priest had gone ‘ment,’ precisely gone ‘mental.’ Far from it, the man is pretty sane and is drawing youngsters from far and near with his rap delivery, the staccato power-packed gospel message.
TEMPTATION
First of all, some in his congregation were tempted to think that God and Jesus did not understand rap and anyone who rattled in rap language was merely wasting his time. God wasn’t going to understand what he (or she) was saying, much more answers his prayers.
But of course, rap prayers are being answered in Guatemala and the rap mass celebrations still go on. The Guatemalan revolution in Catholicism is fast catching up but the conservative hardliners don’t ‘dig’ the idea.
They reckon that if the young priest had been born in the last two centuries, the Catholic Church room would today be exactly like a rock concert hall with the mass servers break-dancing behind the Catholic Father, while he is offering the communion for the forgiveness of sins.
One really would wonder what type of music Jesus would like if he was alive today. Probably he’d take a liking to traditional Sikaman gospel highlife. That would be the nearest to what is sang in heaven.
No doubt Peter would go in for funk, may be gospel funk, and by all means Judas would stick to reggae. That in no way means that reggae is evil music, but taking the profile of Judas, he’d be someone who’d thump his feet to the Jah rendition, “One Love.”
The man’s betrayal of Jesus was merely business as far as he was concerned. Music had nothing to do with it. Thirty pieces of silver, if melted into cedis today is a fortune the disciple’s greed couldn’t resist. Today, people are doing exactly what the man did – selling their own children, their nephews and nieces for pittance. I hear someone was even going to sell his own mother until the law caught up with him. To sell your own mother? Leave her alone and come and sell Kwame Alomele!
The world is going pieces but if Jesus were alive today, his disciple James would have chosen between jazz and burgher highlife. John would go for the cool numbers just like Andrew. Certainly, Bartholomew and Thomas would go for Congo!
In centuries past, composers of renowned songs performed to hail Jesus, notably George Frederich Handel composed “Unto Us A Child Is Born” and songs like “Every Valley Shall Be Exalted in praise of the Lord Jesus, called the Christ.
Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Jesus Joy of Man’s Desiring” was another classic gospel tune of the time which probably earned him the Father of Modern Music accolade. Talk about Beethoven (arguably the most talented composer), Mozart (the most intelligent), and you’ll understand the celestial and Halleluyah inspiration of their compositions.
FAITHFULS
Those were the days when fellowship was a solemn occasion of hymn singing, choral music and sober sermons preached on morals.
Penteco-charismatism began when some faithfuls saw that what happened on Pentecost Day as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles was totally sidelined.
On that day, those present spoke in varied tongues, many rattling in Ada-Krobo, Ewe and Gomoa-Fanti when they hailed from Judea, Jerusalem, Nazareth and the rest.
It was a phenomenon unprecedented in Christian history, yet totally ignored by emerging churches like Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist, and Evangelical Presbyterian.
One of the reasons why we have two Evangelical Presbys is the fact that one believes in tongue- speaking and other attributes and manifestations of the Holy Spirit and the other doesn’t. In other words, one is charismatically inclined, the other traditionally enshrined.
HOLY SPIRIT
One sticks to traditional hymn singing, the other takes to fervent praise-and-worship sessions to literally invoke the Holy Spirit. The issue of doctrine is central to the split, and so long as doctrinal differences cannot be reconciled, coming together can only be a pipe-dream.
Of course, the role of music in the spread of the word cannot be denied. But more and more, the idea of bringing in floating youths to worship is also distilling the notion that the kind of secular music in vogue must be ‘christianised’ as a way of magnetising the youngsters.
The question here is, if rap or hip-hop is used to draw in the youth, would they be coming to fellowship because they genuinely want their souls to be saved or because they want to do their ‘monkey- things’ also in church as they do elsewhere?
If we do not present the gospel to the youth exactly as it is, then very soon, the latest dance style of very dubious origins will be released in the church room rather than in the dance hall.
The enthusiasm of evangelising the youth must be tempered with the need to preserve the sanctity of the temple, reverence for order, the comportment and deportment of those who leave their homes to go and worship. Greetings!
This article was first published on February 1, 2003
Features
Tears of Ghanaman, home and abroad
The typical native of Sikaman is by nature a hospitable creature, a social animal with a big heart, a soul full of the milk of earthly goodness, and a spirit too loving for its own comfort.
Ghanaman hosts a foreign pal and he spends a fortune to make him very happy and comfortable-good food, clean booze, excellent accommodation and a woman for the night.
Sometimes the pal leaves without saying a “thank you but Ghanaman is not offended. He’d host another idiot even more splendidly. His nature is warm, his spirit benevolent. That is the typical Ghanaian and no wonder that many African-Americans say, “If you haven’t visited Ghana. Then you’ve not come to Africa.
You can even enter the country without a passport and a visa and you’ll be welcomed with a pot of palm wine.
If Ghanaman wants to go abroad, especially to an European country or the United States, it is often after an ordeal.
He has to doze in a queue at dawn at the embassy for days and if he is lucky to get through to being interviewed, he is confronted by someone who claims he or she has the power of discerning truth from lie.
In short Ghanaman must undergo a lie-detector test and has to answer questions that are either nonsensical or have no relevance to the trip at hand. When Joseph Kwame Korkorti wanted a visa to an European country, the attache studied Korkorti’s nose for a while and pronounced judgment.
“The way I see you, you won’t return to Ghana if I allow you to go. Korkorti nearly dislocated her jaw; Kwasiasem akwaakwa. In any case what had Korkorti’s nose got to do with the trip?
If Ghanaman, after several attempts, manages to get the visa and lands in the whiteman’s land, he is seen as another monkey uptown, a new arrival of a degenerate ape coming to invade civilized society. He is sneered at, mocked at and avoided like a plague. Some landlords abroad will not hire their rooms to blacks because they feel their presence in itself is bad business.
When a Sikaman publisher landed overseas and was riding in a public bus, an urchin who had the impudence and notoriety of a dead cockroach told his colleagues he was sure the black man had a tail which he was hiding in his pair of trousers. He didn’t end there. He said he was in fact going to pull out the tail for everyone to see.
True to his word he went and put his hand into the backside of the bewildered publisher, intent on grabbing his imaginary tail and pulling it out. It took a lot of patience on the part of the publisher to avert murder. He practically pinned the white miscreant on the floor by the neck and only let go when others intervene. Next time too…
The way we treat our foreign guests in comparison with the way they treat us is polar contrasting-two disparate extremes, one totally incomparable to the other. They hound us for immigration papers, deport us for overstaying and skinheads either target homes to perpetrate mayhem or attack black immigrants to gratify their racial madness
When these same people come here we accept them even more hospitably than our own kin. They enter without visas, overstay, impregnate our women and run away.
About half of foreigners in this country do not have valid resident permits and was not a bother until recently when fire was put under the buttocks of the Immigration Service
In fact, until recently I never knew Sikaman had an Immigration Service. The problem is that although their staff look resplendent in their green outfit, you never really see them anywhere. You’d think they are hidden from the public eye.
The first time I saw a group of them walking somewhere, I nearly mistook them for some sixth-form going to the library. Their ladies are pretty though.
So after all, Sikaman has an Immigration Service which I hear is now alert 24 hours a day tracking down illegal aliens and making sure they bound the exit via Kotoka International. A pat on their shoulder.
I am glad the Interior Ministry has also realised that the country has been too slack about who goes out or comes into Sikaman.
Now the Ministry has warned foreigners not to take the country’s commitment to its obligations under the various conditions as a sign of weakness or a source for the abuse of her hospitality.
“Ghana will not tolerate any such abuse,” Nii Okaija Adamafio, the Interior Minister said, baring his teeth and twitching his little moustache. He was inaugurating the Ghana Refugee and Immigration Service Boards.
He said some foreigners come in as tourists, investors, consultants, skilled workers or refugees. Others come as ‘charlatans, adventurers or plain criminals. “
Yes, there are many criminals among them. Our courts have tried a good number of them for fraud and misconduct.
It is time we welcome only those who would come and invest or tour and go back peacefully and not those whose criminal intentions are well-hidden but get exposed in due course of time.
This article was first published on Saturday March 14, 1998
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Features
Decisions have consequences
In this world, it is always important to recognise that every action or decision taken, has consequences.
It can result in something good or bad, depending on the quality of the decision, that is, the factors that were taken into account in the decision making.
The problem with a bad decision is that, in some instances, there is no opportunity to correct the result even though you have regretted the decision, which resulted in the unpleasant outcome.
This is what a friend of mine refers to as having regretted an unregretable regret. After church last Sunday, I was watching a programme on TV and a young lady was sharing with the host, how a bad decision she took, had affected her life immensely and adversely.
She narrated how she met a Caucasian and she got married to him. The white man arranged for her to join him after the marriage and processes were initiated for her to join her husband in UK. It took a while for the requisite documentation to be procured and during this period, she took a decision that has haunted her till date.
According to her narration, she met a man, a Ghanaian, who she started dating, even though she was a married woman.
After a while her documents were ready and so she left to join her husband abroad without breaking off the unholy relationship with the man from Ghana.
After she got to UK, this man from Ghana, kept pressuring her to leave the white man and return to him in Ghana. The white man at some point became a bit suspicious and asked about who she has been talking on the phone with for long spells, and she lied to him that it was her cousin.
Then comes the shocker. After the man from Ghana had sweet talked her continuously for a while, she decided to leave her husband and return to Ghana after only three weeks abroad.
She said, she asked the guy to swear to her that he would take care of both her and her mother and the guy swore to take good care of her and her mother as well as rent a 3-bedroom flat for her. She then took the decision to leave her husband and return to Ghana.
She told her mum that she was returning to Ghana to marry the guy in Ghana. According to her, her mother vigorously disagreed with her decision and wept.
She further added that her mum told her brother and they told her that they were going to tell her husband about her intentions.
According to her, she threatened that if they called her husband to inform him, then she would commit suicide, an idea given to her by the boyfriend in Ghana.
Her mum and brother afraid of what she might do, agreed not to tell her husband. She then told her husband that she was returning to Ghana to attend her Grandmother’s funeral.
The husband could not understand why she wanted to go back to Ghana after only three weeks stay so she had to lie that in their tradition, grandchildren are required to be present when the grandmother dies and is to be buried.
She returned to Ghana; the flat turns into a chamber and hall accommodation, the promise to take care of her mother does not materialise and generally she ends up furnishing the accommodation herself. All the promises given her by her boyfriend, turned out to be just mere words.
A phone the husband gave her, she left behind in UK out of guilty conscience knowing she was never coming back to UK.
Through that phone and social media, the husband found out about his boyfriend and that was the end of her marriage.
Meanwhile, things have gone awry here in Ghana and she had regretted and at a point in her narration, was trying desperately to hold back tears. Decisions indeed have consequences.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT’
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