Antobam woke up with a terri­ble headache. He checked the time on his mobile phone, 2:30 am. “What! Where is the money?” He asked aloud. “Where are those girls? Why did I drink so much of that whisky? What were those two girls up to?” He sat up on the bed and noticed a bulge close to the pillow.

He lifted the mattress and picked up the newspaper wrappers with the neatly arranged notes. He saw the neatly written record of the value of the notes. No, those girls are not thieves.

“It was my mistake. If I hadn’t drank myself to sleep they would be here in bed with me, giving me the time of my life. Pretty girls, those two. And so loyal and honest. Tomorrow will be different.”

“I will not drink any whisky, and I will show them that I am a real man. Just then he heard the whis­pers. Very soon it will be time, they seemed to be saying. This is an important day.”

The gold dealer will bring lots of money. Give him some of the liquid to drink, and we will prepare him. He will do very big business, and he will give you anything you ask for. There will be more miracles and testimonies today.

Antobam smiled to himself. “I am going to be a very rich man in only a few days man. Money, power, and women. Wow! Antobam got to the grounds at 5, but there were quite a number of people waiting.

Mr Kwame Dofu was among them. He greeted them all, and they came around to shake his hand. “My brothers and sisters, I assure you that whatever your problem is, you will not go home without a solu­tion.” Shouts of “Amen” “thank” you Osofo and “you are a true man of God” responded.

“Please take your seats, and start talking to the great one about what­ever bothers you. Before the service is over, there will be a solution.” He waved Mr Dofu over, and went with him to the wooden structure that serves as a temporary office.

“My brother, I have done quite a lot of work on the issue you came to see me about. I have prepared a special, powerful package for you. Take this, drink it, and go back to your business. I want to see you in two weeks.”

Beaming with smiles, Mr Dofu drank the foul smelling liquid in two gulps, said a big thank you to Anto­bam and took his leave. “I believe you, Papa Osofo. And I assure you that I will reward you, big time.”

Just when Osofo Antubam finished with Mr Dofu, Mary and Suzzie went over to him. “Good Morning ladies. I am very sorry about yesterday. I drank too much of the stuff you gave me. Today will be different, I assure you.”

“Don’t worry, Osofo. Since you are now setting things up, our main concern now is to help you to put things in place, and to make you comfortable. We are always there to serve you. This morning, Osofo, we want to go and clean up your place, and prepare something nice for you when you close.

And before coming to church, we will pass by the bank and collect the forms. After you have signed them, the account will be open. You can check the payments anytime and, of course, issue cheques whenever you need money.”

“Suzzie and Mary, I am happy I picked the two of you from the very start. Listen, I will take good care of you, okay? Here is some money. Buy whatever you need for the er­rands you have mentioned.

And here is the key. Please come back as early as you can. You know I need you here.” The service was very lively. The lively singing of praise songs was followed by one and a half hours of testimonies.

Most of them related to money – big sales, new jobs and overdue debts paid. But there were also testimonies about healing. Barren women had taken seed, and, of course, several men who had lost their bedroom authority had re­gained them, to the delight of their partners.

As he had promised, Antobam preached for only 30 minutes, ex­horting the congregation to attend church regularly, pay their tithes and offerings, and strictly follow his ‘directions’ for securing solutions to their problems.

After another round of prais­es during which the congregation danced to the floor to drop their offering, he closed the service, grabbed the big bowl which was full to the brim with money, and moved to his desk. A long queue was quick­ly formed at the desk.

Meanwhile, Mary and Suzzie had gone to give Antobam’s place quite a decent look. A new bedsheet and pillows, a secondhand carpet and four plastic chairs placed in the verandah had done the trick.

They also prepared two fish and chicken stews. After all these, they rushed to the National Savings Bank and collected application forms for opening current and savings ac­counts.

They joined the service a few minutes before the main session closed. Antobam looked round and saw, to his relief, Mary and Suzzie moving towards him. “Hello ladies. What have you been up to?” “Quite a bit, Osofo. We’ve just collected your drink. Here you are. We’ve made a few changes at your place. I think you will like it. You will also have something nice to eat. Now, here are the forms for the savings and current accounts.

If you will sign them, the bank will open the account. From today, we can pay all monies direct into the account.” ‘How can I thank you, ladies?” “You don’t need to thank us,” Suzzie said. “It is our duty to help a man of God succeed.” “Okay, my ladies, please take the offerings and count them as you did yester­day.

You can add the payments made after the consultations. Will it be possible to pay them into the account today?” “Yes,” Mary said. “The bank closes at four. If we leave here at three, we would be there just in time.”

The two friends started counting, as Osofo Antobam gave his clients his directions for solving their prob­lems. On quite a few occasions he closed his eyes as if he was receiv­ing direction from above on what to do.

But as the fetish priest at the Nana Kofi Broni shrine and the dwarfs had assured him, the solu­tions would certainly be provided. Having heard the huge testimonies earlier in the day, the clients parted with substantial sums of money in expectation.

By Ekow de Heer

 A student was supposed to go to school as the natural cause of events should be when universities or schools in general opens but this was not the case in a certain young man’s life.

He decided to postpone his trip because apparently he could not get to meet his pastor, his spiritual father. The question is, should this spiritual father die, will the young man’s life come to an end?

Does it mean in such an instance, he is going to curtail his education? This is a wor­rying trend in a lot of church­es where the pastors use this notion of spiritual father to manipulate members espe­cially the youth.

Some unscrupulous pastors utilise this spiritual father concept to have affairs with gullible young ladies in their churches.

Now with homosexuality gradually making inroads into some of the churches, young men are becoming vulnerable to pastors who have hidden homosexual inclinations.

This spiritual father con­cept is a Biblical concept that runs through both the Old Testament as well as the New Testament. We see it in 2 Kings 4:12 where Gehazi is serving Elisha and also in the New Testament we see Paul relating to Timothy in 1 Timo­thy 1:2 as a Spiritual Father.

In fact, the concept of spiritual father is a good thing if executed according to the word of God since it helps in guiding the younger ones. However, it becomes prob­lematic when it is being exe­cuted by unscrupulous wolves in sheepskins as described by Jesus in Mathew 7:15.

I see it as a way that these unscrupulous so-called men of God maintain their hold on the congregants so they do not question their unchristian actions.

One of the things I have observed since I got born again many years ago is that, any pastor who often insists that members recognise that he is their spiritual father is a warning sign that he is doing some wrong things or is about to indulge in some wrong things.

A parent complained about how his daughter was being influenced by a pastor of the church she attends and how worried he was. I am sure there are many parents out there with stories to tell about how their wards are be­ing made to see their pastors almost like their Jesus.

These pastors have man­aged to make their congre­gants so loyal to them and to believe in them so much that it is terrifying, as a parent.

The way things are going, an immediate intervention is required otherwise I am not a prophet of doom but I forsee unfortunate instances where parents burst into church auditoriums and star shooting some Pastors out of frustra­tion and anger.

We cannot look on uncon­cerned as a society and allow unscrupulous fraudsters using the name of God to create problems for families. My recommendation is for a cer­tain amount of regulation in order to bring some sanity in religious practices.

I agree that ordinarily regulating religious practices makes it a bit restrictive in terms of freedom of worship as enshrined in our constitu­tion but given the way things are going, a bit of regulation will not be out of place.

Disgusting stuff are being attributed to some men of God. There are cases of ma­nipulation of young ladies and sometimes married women by so called men of God and it is bringing Christianity and therefore the name of the Lord into disrepute.

Christianity is gradually losing its attractiveness as a result of the negative report­age resulting from disgusting stuff happening in Christian circles. The way some pas­tors have been manipulating congregants to take money from them leaves much to be desired to the point where they are convincing some of the youth to give out their phones. May God help us.

By Laud Kissi-Mensah