Christianity in Ghana

Map of Ghana

Wesley Methodist Cathedral, Kumasi

Christianity (from the Ancient Greek word Χριστός, Khristos, "Christ", literally "anointed one") is a monotheistic religion^[1] based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings.^[2] Adherents of the Christian faith are known as Christians.^[3] According to the Bible, it was at Antioch that the believers of Jesus Christ were first called Christians.^[4] Christianity teaches that Jesus is the Son of God, God having become human and the savior of humanity. Because of this, Christians commonly refer to Jesus as Christ or Messiah.^[5] The word Christianity is the label that has been widely accepted by the secular and church-world to describe the practice of faith by the followers or disciples of Jesus Christ.

Ghana is a sovereign country in West Africa. It was a British colony until the 6th of March, 1957 when it became the first country south of the Sahara to gain independence. Up until the arrival of the Europeans on the coasts of Ghana in the 15th century,^[6] the religion that was practiced in Ghana was Traditional African religion. As the Europeans explored and took control of parts of the country during the colonial days, so did their religion - Christianity spread. Christianity is the religion with the largest following in Ghana. Christian denominations include Catholics, Methodists, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Seventh-Day Adventists, Pentecostals, Baptists etc.

According to the census figures of the year 2000, out of Ghana's 18.8 million people, Christians made up 69 per cent of the population of Ghana.^[7] Ghana is the only West African country with a Christian population being more than 50% of its entire population, making the country a Christian nation, though there is no official state region in the country.

Arrival of Western Missionaries in Ghana

Western European interest in the land they christened the “Gold Coast,” due to the abundance of the precious mineral, was primarily trade. Trade in gold and later in human beings became foremost in their minds and consumed their energies. The propagation of the Gospel, which was one of the reasons for their journey to Africa, was for a long time neglected and showed little success.^[8] The earliest attempt to make any impact in Gospel propagation was by some Portuguese Roman Catholic monks in the 15th century. They are believed to have established a school at Elmina in 1529.^[8] They had so little success that by the beginning of the 18th century, there was hardly any trace of Christianity in the Gold Coast. These attempts were later to be followed by the Church of England Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG). Following at the heels of the SPG was the Basel Evangelical Missionary Society. The Wesleyan Christian Mission followed and was also followed by the Bremen Mission. The seeds that were sowed by these gallant men and women from Europe are what have today produced a demography of Ghana, which is predominantly Christian.^[8]

Motivation for Missionary Work in Africa

Towards the end of the 17th century, a movement known as Pietism (from Latin “pious” meaning devout) began in Germany. Tracing its roots, Peter A. Schweizer points to a German theologian by name Philipp Jakop Spener (1635–1705). According to Schweizer, Pietism took inspiration from Spener’s book Pious Desires written in 1675. Spener was a reformer of the reformed Lutheran congregation to which he belonged. He castigated the retained Episcopal hierarchy of his Church and favored a greater involvement of the laity in Church government. This brought his movement closer to the mainstream Protestantism of Zwingli and Calvin, which practiced a rigorous decentralization and democratization of Church government which had by this time spread from Switzerland to France, to the Netherlands, Scotland and North America.^[9] The Pietistic Movement opposed the cynical rationalism, the liberal pantheism and the outright atheism of the Era of Enlightenment.[xiii] To demonstrate the authenticity of the Christian faith and the reality of their Christian experience, they aimed at expressing their Christian convictions through positive deeds and exemplary life styles, including the spread of the Gospel to other countries. The Pietists believed in the inherent goodness of all people regardless of race. They, however, also believed that such inherent qualities did not surface by themselves but had to be brought forth and harnessed through persistent educational efforts. Their hands were strengthened by the American Constitution of 1776, which recognized the rights of humans, as well as the egalitarian ideas of the French Revolution of 1789.

The Pietists, who at this time crossed the spectrum of Protestant denominations (Lutheran, Anglican, Wesleyan, Calvinistic), were at odds with many aspects of the Church politics of their time. They hit very hard against what they considered to be an unnecessary emphasis on dogmatism and formalism in the Church when pressing needs of society such as slavery, poverty and social injustices, in general, were left unattended to by the Church. They did their work with such zeal that only an enormous faith in the fact of God’s call could sustain it. This belief explains their relentless perseverance in pursuing missionary goals, despite so many setbacks.

The freedom of slaves and the reintegration of former slaves into societies of their origin bundled the spiritual energies of the Pietists into an organizational network all over Europe and North America. This was helped by the passing of the law against selling slaves (though keeping them was allowed) by the British Parliament in 1807, and the formation of Bible reading clubs, as well as, the formation of interdenominational missionary societies in Europe, all emphasizing the need for missionary work.

It is, therefore, the determination of the Pietists, other Protestant groups and Protestant countries and, sporadically, Catholic countries, to do humanitarian work, especially, the spiritual uplifting of indigenous populations in the non-western world, which motivated European missionaries to leave the comfort of their countries to venture into unfamiliar lands of wild animals and insects to live among unfamiliar people, sometime savage, to do missionary work.

Roman Catholic Missionaries in Ghana

The fruits of Roman Catholicism which is seen in Ghana today is as a result of the seeds sowed by the second Roman Catholic Church’s attempt at evangelization by two products of the Society of Africa Missions (SMA), Father Eugene Morat and Augustus Morean who arrived in Elmina in 1880. An earlier first attempt in the 15th century by chaplains who accompanied the Portuguese explorers had very little to show in terms of natives evangelized for about four centuries. The only signs of Roman Catholicism that survived the Portuguese era were a small group of Efutus (tribe along the coast) and their chief, probably converted by Augustinian Fathers in 1572, and an unrecognizable stump of a statue of St. Anthony in Padua in Elmina.^[10] However, when the SMA arrived in the Gold Coast, the Protestant missionaries who preceded them were already evangelizing around Accra, Akropong-Akwapim, Cape Coast, and Keta (towns along the coast of Ghana and further inland), and making converts in the Gold Coast colony. And since the SMA had come at the invitation of Sir James Marshall, (the then Governor of the God Coast) who had himself converted to Roman Catholicism, it was allowed to freely work and evangelize in the colony. In 1883, the Sisters of our Lady of Apostles Society also arrived in Elmina to take care of the education of girls side by side the SMA. By 1901, the Church had spread from Elmina to over forty townships. In addition, the church was running 17 schools with about 1700 boys and girls. In the same year, the Prefecture of Gold Coast was raised to a Vicariate with Father Maximillan Albert as its first Bishop supervising 18 priests, 8 sisters and about 40 teachers from his seat in Cape Coast. In 1906, the White Fathers entered the Northern Prefecture of Gold Coast from Ouagadougou (now Burkina Faso) to start missionary work in the northern part of the Gold Coast. Not long after their arrival, they showed signs of success among the Dagartis of Jirapa, Nandom and other towns in the north. The period immediately preceding the beginning of the First World War saw a slowing down of missionary expansion of the Roman Catholic Church. That was because a number of her missionaries were of German descent and were held in suspicion by the British Colonialists. After 40 years of missionary work, Bishop Ignace Hummel of the SMA, the third Vicar Apostolic of the Gold Coast gave the following picture of the strength of the Catholic Church to the congregation for the propagation of the faith in Rome: 35,000 baptized, 25000 catechumens, 10 parishes, 364 out stations chapels, 22 priests, 301 chapels, 22 priests, 13 sisters and 85 schools with 4,734 boys and girls on roll. In 1922 father Anastasius Odaye Dogli was ordained the first indigenous priests from Gold Coast. John Kojo Amissah, on the eve of Ghana’s independence also became the first indigenous priest to be elevated to the rank of a Bishop.

The Moravian Missionaries in Ghana

After the apparently unsuccessful attempt by the earliest Roman Catholic missionaries in gaining a foothold in the colonies, the Moravian United Brethren Mission sent out two missionaries in what was to become the first serious attempt at evangelizing the natives. In the 1730s, two Moravian missionaries Chretein Protten and Henrich Huckuff arrived in the Gold Coast. Protten was actually of both Dane and Ghanaian descent. Born in 1715 in Christianborg to a Dane father and a Ghanaian mother, he was educated first in Christianborg castle and later in Denmark. Protten worked till his death in 1769 but did not win many converts. In 1742 another mulatto, Jacobus Elisa Johannes Capitein, was sent by Moravians in Holland to Ghana. Born to an Ivorian mother, he was sent as a young boy to Holland and educated at the University of Leyden. He became the first African to be ordained into the Protestant priesthood since the Reformation. In Ghana, he started two schools in Elmina in 1742 for mulattos and one for black natives but both collapsed after his death in 1747.

Anglican Missionaries in Ghana

Next to follow the Moravians to the Gold Coast was the Church of England Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. In 1754, the Society sent Rev. Thomson to Cape Coast. After five years of hard work with little success, he returned home an invalid. What he is best remembered for, nevertheless, was the sponsoring of three Cape Coast boys to be educated in Britain. Unfortunately, two of them died in Britain, leaving Philip Quacoe the only survivor. He successfully completed his education in Britain and returned a fully ordained priest of the Anglican Church to work in Cape Coast in 1766. He also could not convert many natives in cape Coast where he worked till his death in 1816. His main contribution, however, was the school he established and ran till his death. From 1828, the representative of the Colonial Administration revived the school and was continued by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel till their activities ceased in Ghana in 1904.

Basel Missionaries in Ghana

The lack of success of earlier missionaries in the Gold Coast was evidenced by the fact that by the beginning of the 19th century, very little headway had been made in the evangelization of natives. It was only from 1828 onwards when the Basel Evangelical Missionary Society sent out a team of four missionaries to Christianborg[xvi] in Accra that Christianity and western education could be said to have begun in southern Ghana. The Basel Evangelical Missionary Society was invited by the Danish Government to Christianborg to help meet the educational and spiritual needs of the mixture of mulatto and white population that was growing in Christianborg. The interest of the Basel missionaries, however, seemed to be in the indigenous population rather than on the issues of European soldiers’ promiscuity. A compromise on the two interests, nevertheless, became a necessary condition for permission by the Danish authority for inland work. In 1828, four missionaries arrived in Christianborg from the Basel Missionary Society in Basel, Switzerland. They were Karl F. Salbad, Gotlieb Holzwarth and Johannes Henke all German and Johannes Schmidt a Swiss. The slowness of communication in the 19th century delayed the relay of the information concerning their early deaths so much so that before news of the death of the last one reached the headquarters of the Mission Board, a decision had been made to send reinforcement. In 1832, three others arrived in the Gold Coast. They were Andreas Riss and Peter Jager from Denmark and Christian Friedrich Heinze, a medical doctor from Saxony. Dr. Heinze was to study the greatest risk to survival of western missionaries – tropical diseases – and make recommendations for preventive measures. Incidentally, he was the first of his team to die, leaving the two Danes. Not too long after that, Riss became a lone Basel missionary when he buried Jager after his death through illness. He himself nearly followed if a native herbalist who saw him in his initial convulsions had not saved him. Undaunted Riss penetrated inland and built the Basel Mission’s first inland station in the Gold Coast at Akropong, the capital of the Akwapim State. By dint of Riss’ hard work, in Akropong, it soon grew to become the nerve center of the Basel Mission in Ghana. With the help of freed slaves from Jamaica who were brought in on the advice of Riss, the Basel Missionary work began expanding to nearby towns such as Aburi and in eight years positive signs of growth had begun appearing. At this time, about forty native Christians, besides the West Indians were gathering for service both at Akropong and at Aburi. From the 1850s, considerable progress was achieved in the spread of the Christian faith far inland to Kwahu, Akim and Asante^[11] to the extent that in 1869 the total membership of the Basel Mission was 1,851 from 8 mission districts and 24 congregations. This great achievement was through the additional effort of later missionaries like Ramseyer and his wife and a host of native who were trained and ordained catechists and priests of the Basel Mission. Chief among these were Mohenu, a former fetish priest, Boakye, Reindorf (a mulatto and a historian), Ablo, Quist, P. Hall, Koranteng and Date, In 1917, after the 1st World War, Britain’s, suspicious of the Basel Missionaries resulted in the replacement of the Basel missionaries by Scottish ones. This became significant in setting the stage for the missionary work began by the Basel Mission to become the Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast

Bremen Missionaries in Ghana

Another Missionary Society, which worked in close collaboration with the Basel Evangelical Missionary Society, was the Bremen Mission (Northern German Lutheran Mission.)^[8] From 1847 onwards, Bremen missionaries settled and worked among the Ewes at the eastern side of the Gold Coast, an area, which covered what was later to be, designated “Dutch Togoland.” Out of the Bremen Mission emerged the present day Evangelical Presbyterian Church. This has lately been split into “The Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Ghana” and “The Evangelical Presbyterian Church, Ghana.”

Wesleyan Missionaries in Ghana

The introduction of Methodism was the second most serious attempt at evangelizing the natives of Gold Coast, the first one being the efforts of the Basel Evangelical Society. The Roman Catholic had made an unsuccessful attempt earlier while the Bremen effort began sometime after the Methodists had began work in earnest.^[8] Before the Wesleyan Missionary society sent the first mission to the Gold Coast, what was later to become the Methodist Church of Ghana had began as a Bible Band called the “Society for the promoting of Christian knowledge” by two natives, Joseph Smith and William de Graft at Cape Coast. The first missionary sent by Wesleyan Missionary Society in London to the Gold Coast was Joseph Dunwell. He arrived in the Gold Coast in 1835 and died the same year after some tremendous work. Joseph Smith and William de Graft continued the work until two more missionary couples arrived. They also died shortly after their arrival but did work hard while they lasted. The successor, Thomas Birth Freeman, who was a mulatto, was the person who pushed Wesleyan missionary work from Cape coast and its surroundings far inland, reaching as far as to Asante. No wander he is referred to as the father of Methodism in Ghana. The death of his wife only 6 months did not deter him. His warm heart for Africans caused him to push for the expansion of the Church in Ghana. In 1838, a chapel was built in Cape Coast and within two years, there had been additional hundred members. Through one of the graduates of the Cape Coast castle schools by name James Hayford, Methodism reached the Asante State. After graduation, he worked for the British Administration in Kumasi. He first began by holding services with the Fantes in Kumase. Freeman used this contact to open a mission station for the whole of the Asante State. Political antagonism between the British and the Asantes caused a suspension of activities in 1872, which was later, resumed. By 1900, the mission in Kumasi had become fully established and enlarged with a European missionary station there. By 1919, Methodist congregations were found in most towns in the south as well as in the north towards Asante and Brong Ahafo States. With much difficulty due to opposition from the Chief Commissioner, Wesleyan expansion began in 1919 and reached parts of northern Ghana. Conversion to the Methodist church was given a great boost by the evangelistic preaching of two African Evangelists, William Harris who preached along the coast from Liberia through Ivory Coast to Ghana, and Samson Oppong who also preached in Asante and Brong Ahafo.

Denominations

Methodism in Ghana

Main article: Methodism

The Methodist Church Ghana came into existence as a result of the missionary activities of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, inaugurated with the arrival of Joseph Rhodes Dunwell to the Gold Coast (Ghana) in 1835. Like the mother church, the Methodist Church in Ghana was established by people of Anglican background. Roman Catholic and Anglican missionaries came to the Gold Coast from the 15th century. A school was established in Cape Coast by the Anglicans during the time of Philip Quaque, a Ghanaian priest. Those who came out of this school had scriptural knowledge and scriptural materials supplied by the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge. A member a resulting Bible study groups, William De-Graft, requested Bibles through captain Potter of the ship Congo. Not only were Bibles sent, but also a Methodist missionary. In the first eight years of the Church’s life, 11 out of 21 missionaries who worked in the Gold Coast died. Thomas Birch Freeman, who arrived at the Gold Coast in 1838 was a pioneer of missionary expansion. Between 1838 and 1857 he carried Methodism from the coastal areas to Kumasi in the Asante hinterland of the Gold Coast. He also established Methodist Societies in Badagry and AbeoKuta in Nigeria with the assistance of William De-Graft. By 1854, the church was organized into circuits constituting a district with T.B. Freeman as chairman. Freeman was replaced in 1856 by William West. The district was divided and extended to include areas in the then Gold Coast and Nigeria by the synod in 1878, a move confirmed at the British Conference. The district were Gold Coast (Ghana) District, with T.R. Picot as chairman and Yoruba and Popo District, with John Milum as chairman. Methodist evangelization of northern Ghana began in 1910. After a long period of conflict with the colonial government, missionary work was established in 1955. Paul Adu was the first indigenous missionary to northern Ghana. In July 1961, the Methodist Church in Ghana became autonomous, and was called the Methodist Church Ghana, based on a deed of foundation, part of the church's Constitution and Standing Orders. The Methodist Church Ghana has a total membership of close to 600,000. The church has 15 dioceses, 3,814 societies, 1,066 pastors, 15,920 local preachers, 24,100 lay leaders, many schools, an orphanage, hospitals and clinics.

Christian Council of Ghana

The Christian Council of Ghana (CCG) was founded on 30 October 1929 by five churches namely African Methodist Episcopal (AME), Zion Church, English Church Mission (Anglican), Ewe Presbyterian Church (now Evangelical Presbyterian Church); Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast (now Ghana) and Wesleyan Methodist Church (now the Methodist Church Ghana). The purpose was the search for unity and to work with members on issues of social concern and be the voice of the voiceless in society. Currently the CCG comprises fifteen member churches and two Christian Organizations (see annex three). The CCG has over the years gone through a series of restructuring and renewal processes in a bid to develop a relevant, efficient and effective organisation that is pro-active and responsive to challenges facing the member churches. In the search for relevance and common witness, the determining factors have been global and national macro socio - economic and political trends such as political governance ranging from military rule to multi-party democracy.^[12]

Impact of Christianity

In various aspects of Ghanaian development, nation building etc. have all been impacted upon due to the role Christianity plays. From education to health, there are visible structures and services that the Christian community of Ghana offers not only to Christians alone but to all irrespective of religion.

Education

At every level of eduction in the country, there are mission schools that exists with the purposes of:

• teaching Government of Ghana approved curricula
• imparting moral discipline into students

Almost all churches have schools at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels of eduction in the country. Consistently, over 95% of the countries top second cycle institutions are all mission schools. Notable amongst them are:

• Mfantsipim School - Methodist - Cape Coast
• Wesley Girls High School - Methodist - Cape Coast
• St. Augustine's college - Catholic- Cape coast
• Holy Child School - Catholic - Cape coast
• Prempeh College - Methodist/Presbyterian - Kumasi
• Opoku Ware School - Catholic - Kumasi
• Pope John's Secondary School - Catholic - Nkwatia
• St. Roses Girls Secondary school - Catholic
• Aburi Girls Secondary school - Catholic
• St. Louis Secondary School - Catholic - Kumasi
• Arch Bishop Potter Girls Secondary School - Catholic - Takoradi
• Presbyterian Boys Secondary School - Presbyterian - Accra

Health care delivery

Currently, 42% of all the nation's health care needs are catered for by health establishments belonging to various Christian bodies in the country. The umbrella organization of which the various mission hospitals, clinics and facilities are members of is known as the Christian Health Association of Ghana (CHAG). Some of these facilities are in deprived areas of the country. CHAG serves as a link between Government and its Development Partners and CHAG Member Institutions and provides support to its members through capacity strengthening, coordination of activities, lobbying and advocacy, public relations and translation of government policies. The goal of CHAG is to improve the health status of people living in Ghana, especially the marginalized and the poorest of the poor, in fulfillment of Christ healing ministry. CHAG’s 183 Member Institutions are therefore predominantly located in the rural (underserved) areas. CHAG plays a complementary role to the Ministry of Health (MOH) and the Ghana Health Service (GHS) and is the second largest provider of health services in the country.^[13]

Challenges

References

1. ^ Christianity's status as monotheistic is affirmed in, amongst other sources, the Catholic Encyclopedia (article "Monotheism"); William F. Albright, From the Stone Age to Christianity; H. Richard Niebuhr; About.com, Monotheistic Religion resources; Kirsch, God Against the Gods; Woodhead, An Introduction to Christianity; The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia Monotheism; The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, monotheism; New Dictionary of Theology, Paul, pp. 496–99; Meconi. "Pagan Monotheism in Late Antiquity". p. 111f.
2. ^ BBC, BBC—Religion & Ethics—566, Christianity
3. ^ The term "Christian" (Greek Χριστιανός) was first used in reference to Jesus' disciples in the city of Antioch^{[Acts 11:26]} about 44 AD, meaning "followers of Christ". The name was given by the non-Jewish inhabitants of Antioch, probably in derision, to the disciples of Jesus. In the New Testament the names by which the disciples were known among themselves were "brethren", "the faithful", "elect", "saints", "believers". The earliest recorded use of the term "Christianity" (Greek Χριστιανισμός) was by Ignatius of Antioch, around 100 AD. See Elwell/Comfort. Tyndale Bible Dictionary, pp. 266, 828
4. ^ The Holy Bible, The book of Acts of the Apostles 11:26
5. ^ Briggs, Charles A. The fundamental Christian faith: the origin, history and interpretation of the Apostles' and Nicene creeds. C. Scribner's sons, 1913. Books.Google.com
6. ^ http://www.pctii.org/cyberj/cyberj13/amanor.html
7. ^ http://www.newsfromafrica.org/newsfromafrica/articles/art_7902.html
8. ^ ^{a b c d e} "Pentecostalism in Ghana: An African Reformation". www.pctii.org. http://www.pctii.org/cyberj/cyberj13/amanor.html. Retrieved 6 May 2011. 
9. ^ Schweizer, P. A. (2000). Survivors of the Gold Coast – The Basel Missionaries in Colonial Ghana. Smartline Publishing. pp. 8–12. 
10. ^ Bishop Palmer-Buckle (December 1998). "The Roman Catholic Experience in Ghana". Journal of African Christian Thought 1 (2): 26–33. 
11. ^ Kwahu, Akyem and Asanti are Akan states which are a in the central part f Ghana. They are farther inland and away from the coast. In the past, they were very difficult to reach from the coast due to the non-availability of easy means of communication. Missionaries who found it easier working along the coast due to their easy accessibility and the presence of the European Administrations for protection took sometime to get to these areas of the Gold Coast.
12. ^ http://www.christiancouncilofghana.org/
13. ^ http://www.chagghana.org/chag/