Christians Urged to Ensure Simple Lifestyles

By Alberto Mario Noretti

Jasikan — THE Chairman of the Christian Council of Ghana (CCG), Rt. Rev. Dr. S. S. Agidi, has entreated Christians to initiate urgent and vigorous crusade to promote simple lifestyles among Ghanaians, for the country to move forward.

He said Ghana was now stagnant as the citizenry, especially politicians, were more concerned about the acquisition of individual material wealth, to the neglect of national development needs.

Rev. Agidi was preaching the sermon on 'Wealth and the kingdom of God' at the service to formally induct Rev. Samuel K. Gadeka, Synod Moderator of the Northern Presbytery of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, Ghana (EPCG), into office at Jasikan, in the Volta Region on Sunday.

He said that the country had enough wealth and resource to cater for the needs of the entire population, but greed and corruption on the part of some people in authority in contemporary Ghanaian society had left many people marginalised.

"In times when some people go to bed hungry, others have three or four V8 vehicles and own mansions with swimming pools," Rev Agidi observed.

Rev. Agidi, who is also the Moderator of the General Assembly of the EPCG, observed that the craving for money among Ghanaians had relegated the virtues of kindness and love for one another to the background, posing a bleak future for the country.

"What shall it promise us if we gain the whole world and lose our souls?" Rev. Agidi asked.

He said that the lack of wisdom in the reckless quest for wealth among Ghanaians had rather brought about hunger, joblessness, pain, diseases and widespread sleeplessness in the country, all of which could all be avoided if the people adopted simple lifestyles.

The clergyman mentioned the late Mother Theresa, who looked after thousands of children and made highly responsible world figures out of them in spite of her simple lifestyle and won global honour from her service to humanity.

He compared her to President Mobutu of the then Zaire, who looted his country's wealth 'into his personal pocket' and was buried miserably with no honour after he died in misery.

Rev. Agidi paid glowing tribute to the late former President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, and urged Ghanaian leaders and citizens to emulate his exemplary spirit of forgiveness.

Still on simplicity, the CCG chairman asked, "if Christ who owned everything wore only one lose gown on earth, why then do we humans desire to put on the whole world?"

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