Bishop Botwey addressing the media
Bishop Emmanuel Botwey, General Overseer of Christian Faith Church International of (CFCI), has called on Christians to stand up and courageously and fight against corruption in the church.
He said, “We should also fight against moral decadence in society,” and bemoaned the fact that the once sacred and much revered office of pastor in the body of Christ has been invaded by charlatans and opportunists.
Bishop Botwey stated this when he was delivering his key note address at the opening of the Annual Council of Minister’s Conference of CFCI in Takoradi under the theme “Pastoring the Church the Bible Way”.
The conference is designed to assess the performance of the church in the year under review and also evaluate resolutions, orient the pastors towards the church’s vision for the ensuing year, effect some constitutional amendments and policy reviews or ratify new policies where necessary.
Bishop Botwey said some abominable acts purported to have been orchestrated by some so called men of God “simply transcends the bounds of comprehension.”
He mentioned some of them as “the overt and extravagant display of wealth and affluence, manipulating and cheating of unsuspecting and vulnerable followers and fleecing them mercilessly for selfish dishonest gains.”
He also mentioned “extortions, scandals, immorality, competitions, infightings, ministerial envy, jealousy and inordinate desire to amass material wealth at all cost.”
“Pastors these days find it difficult to talk about sin simply because it makes people uncomfortable,” he said, adding, “This is a serious indictment on the image and integrity of the church.”
He admonished pastors not to deal with church members at what he called the socio-material satisfaction only at the expense of their spiritual maturity and also said the church of today had become so adulterous.
“The church now worships many gods including the gods of materialism, wealth, prestige and egocentrism,” he stressed, adding, “We live in times when Christian values have been strangled and standards watered down in the name of modernism.”
He said “these days the emphasis is shifted and standards are compromised, even within the church,” adding that “the old time religion which was heavenly focused and boarded on spirituality had given way to a religion of convenience, conformity, compromise and competition.”
“Let us boldly fight against LGBTQIA+ activities without massaging it with so-called human rights which are actually ‘human wrongs’,” he stressed.
From Emmanuel Opoku, Takoradi