At its best, Ghana is a living example of interfaith harmony. In the same neighborhood, the call to prayer can drift from a mosque while church bells ring from a chapel, and neither sound is treated as a threat. Families share weddings, funerals, festivals, and struggles across the line of faith. Over the years, Christians and Muslims have built a culture of respect that many other nations admire. That is why it stings so deeply when a few loud, reckless voices now try to spoil the peace. In the run-up to the last elections, some personalities made a public show of religious intolerance and bigotry, using sermons, interviews, and social media posts to attack people who did not share their political or spiritual enthusiasm. They tried to create a wedge between the two largest Abrahamic faiths, Christianity and Islam, and in doing so, they injured not only their own credibility but the soul of the nation. These are not the actions of holy people. They are the actions of people who have surrendered their moral authority to something far less noble: the desire to be seen, feared, and obeyed. We should be honest about what this is. It is bullying dressed in religious clothing. It is one thing to disagree about politics; it is entirely another to use God’s name to threaten an entire community. When a man or woman stands before a congregation and begins to deliver prophecies that describe death, curses, and political destruction, they are not in the presence of the Almighty; they are performing for themselves. They are trying to force God to fit their agenda. And too often, they get away with it because people are afraid to question someone who claims to speak for heaven. But true faith does not need fear to sustain it. In Ghana, we have seen the alternative: a Christian can wish a Muslim neighbor a blessed Eid, and a Muslim can join a church harvest without compromising his own belief. That is not a threat to anyone. It is a blessing. The threat comes from those who have decided that their narrow, hateful version of religion must be imposed on everyone else. They confuse volume with truth and cruelty with spiritual strength. They have shallow minds, not because they are uneducated, but because they cannot grasp the complexity of a God who refuses to be tamed by human politics. Their error is not merely theological. It is practical, because it puts the precious interfaith harmony of Ghana in danger.
There have always been charlatans in every faith, but in recent times Ghana has watched them multiply as if prophecy had become a business empire. Some are sincere but misguided; too many are liars who have learned that the easiest way to live well is to convince desperate people that they can peek into God’s calendar. They say God has told them which politician will win, which nation will win a football match, who will die, who will be lifted up, and who must be thrown down. When their words turn out to be wrong, they simply move on, waiting for the next opportunity. We saw this during the last World Cup tournaments, when so-called men of God sent betting addicts to stake money on teams that went on to lose. Did they refund the lost money? Did they apologize? No. They invented new prophecies. Their integrities were bloodied, and yet they remained in business. The reason is simple: they are filling a market. Desperate politicians, frightened business people, and anxious citizens will pay for certainty. They will crowd into crusades and prayer services hoping to hear a promising word. But the God who created the heavens and the earth does not run on rumors. The scriptures tell us that God’s ways are not our ways, and that no soul knows what it will earn tomorrow. Ultimate knowledge of the future belongs only to God. Anyone who claims to control curses and blessings is not a prophet; he or she is a player. And because they are playing with people’s lives, they deserve not praise but shame. There are many trusted men and women of God in Ghana who serve with humility and care for the poor. It is unfair to the faithful to keep silent while these impostors use their altars to rob the nation of its sanity. The answer is not to abandon religion; the answer is to distinguish between those who serve God and those who use God.
Consider the recent project of Pastor Owusu Bempah. He is not new to this stage. In 2019, he prophesied the death of the National Chief Imam. That prophecy did not come to pass. The Chief Imam remained alive, and the pastor moved on without any serious apology. Now, it seems, he has repeated the same kind of performance, perhaps with new layers and new threats. This is not prophecy; it is a threat, and it is ugly. A nation that respects both faiths must not tolerate a religious leader who uses his public position to declare the death of a revered Muslim cleric. It is not a coincidence that this comes during an election period. It is a project designed to divide and distract. Some politicians, desperate for power, have joined hands with these religious agitators, hoping that fear will do what persuasion cannot. They have been identified, and that is enough to stifle their project. The good thing is that Pastor Owusu Bempah and those like him will fail, because their prophecy is based not on the will of God but on the calculations of men. Ghana shall triumph over this unworthy tendency. But we should not pretend that it is harmless. When a so-called Islamic cleric, sharing the same extremist tendencies, threatens death to those who insult the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, he is doing exactly the same thing. He is feeding the fire. He is telling his followers that violence is an acceptable answer to offense. This can only add to religious bigotry. We must be equally willing to call out that ugliness, no matter which faith it comes from. The Spokesperson for the National Chief Imam was right to condemn the nonsense and to demand that Pastor Owusu Bempah be made to answer for it. This is not persecution. It is accountability. It is also the duty of everyone who loves Ghana to stand behind such sensible voices.
Politics and religion can mix in healthy ways. Religious people are citizens too, and they have every right to vote, to speak, and to seek justice. But when religious leaders become the puppets of political parties, they destroy their own integrity. The problem is not that they support a candidate. The problem is that they pretend God is a campaign manager. They stand before altars and publicly claim that the Almighty has chosen their party, their candidate, and their political agenda. Anyone who doubts them is treated as an enemy of God. This spiritual narcissism, dressed in party colours, is intended to advance the cause of a political grouping, not to feed the hungry or comfort the grieving. It is a betrayal of the sacred trust that ordinary people place in them. It is also a lie. As known to all true men of God, regardless of their faith, what God has destined shall come to pass regardless of the wishes and declarations of any individual. A politician does not win an election because a pastor said so; he or she wins because voters made a choice, and ultimately because God allows it. The role of religious leaders is to pray for the nation, to hold leaders accountable, to speak for the weak, and to support good governance. It is not to run around cursing opponents and blessing allies. When religious leaders kowtow to politicians for a few cedis, a position, or a title, they sell their heavenly birthright for a pittance. And when they use threats and curses to get what they want, they become clowns in a tragedy. We call them out, not because we hate religion, but because we love it too much to see it dragged through the mud.
It is not hard to understand why so many people listen to these prophets. Life is uncertain. People lose their jobs, their children become ill, marriages fail, and they want answers. A prophet who promises a miracle feels better than a doctor who says wait. A curse-wielding cleric who offers enemies to blame feels better than a counselor who asks us to examine our hearts. This is the environment in which spiritual narcissism flourishes. But in the end, false prophecy turns the faithful into fools. People can be hurt, not only emotionally but financially and politically. The charlatan remains rich while the people remain confused. It is like the ancient story of the 850 false prophets of Baal, supported by Queen Jezebel, who shouted and cut themselves and waited for fire to fall on their altar. Their god never answered. They perished. The Bible tells this story not to encourage violence but to warn us about the dangers of following noise instead of truth. The same lesson applies to Ghana today. We need not kill anyone; we simply need to learn to discern. We need to protect the interfaith harmony that has become our national treasure. That means we must be willing to say to every religious leader, no matter how famous, “You are not God. We will not allow you to turn our peaceful country into a battleground for political pride.” It also means we must applaud those religious leaders who remain humble, who visit the sick, who feed the poor, who tell the nation the truth, and who pray for Ghana without trying to control it. These are the true blessings of the pulpit and the mosque. They do not need to predict the future. They are too busy building the present.
In the end, this is not about Pastor Owusu Bempah alone, nor any single Islamic or Christian firebrand. It is about the kind of country we choose to be. Ghana has been blessed with a rare atmosphere of religious tolerance. It would be tragic if we allowed a handful of self-appointed prophets, motivated by greed, hatred, and mischief, to burn that atmosphere down. We must isolate those who preach intolerance. We must condemn those who use their words to wound. We must not give them the microphone out of curiosity, and we must not laugh at them as entertainment. They are not harmless. Their nonsense can start fires that ordinary citizens will have to put out. We need to say loudly, in the name of true faith, “God is not a politician. God is not a magician. God is not a weapon.” No human being, no matter how holy they may appear, has the right to curse another in God’s name. The Divine Majesty is too vast to be squeezed into an electoral campaign or a news sound bite. Those who think otherwise are spiritually doomed and headed for humiliation, because playing God by mere mortals enmeshed in iniquities is unfathomable. It is hubris. But even as we see the danger, we should not despair. Ghana has triumphed over far greater challenges. We have the wisdom of our ancestors, the faith of our people, and the mercy of God. Let us protect the interfaith harmony for which we are known. Let us stand with the National Chief Imam, with the true men of God of every religion, and with all who refuse to turn faith into fear. And let us remember the ancient warning, not with bitterness but with humility: the false prophets of Baal perished because they trusted in a lie. We, on the other hand, can trust in the living God, whose ways are greater than ours, and whose justice will never be mocked. With that trust, Ghana will remain an example not of perfection, but of peace.