“Pillars of Christianity in Ghana” book launched

By J. K. Nabary, GNA

Winneba (C/R), Dec. 5, GNA - Apostle Dr Edward Kojo Goldman, Senior Pastor of Chapel of Glory Worldwide Ministry, has called for the establishment of educational funds at all levels to support needy but brilliant students.

Apostle Dr Goldman made the call at the launch of a 79-page book titled: “Pillars of Christianity in Ghana: Forerunners of the Modern Church”, at Winneba.

The book captures the remarkable contributions of a wife of a missionary and five outstanding men of God from 1800s to the mid-1900s which had a profound effect on the spread of Christianity in Gold Coast (now Ghana) and development of modern education.

It is also called on the youth to emulate the examples of pioneers of Christianity in the country to win more souls for Christ and also to contribute their quota towards the development of the country. 

Apostle Dr Goldman, the author of the book, said Ghana, currently with a Christian population of about 70 percent of the population, stands as an enviable Christian mission nation sending out young missionaries to other nations of the world.

The book, he said, was to stimulate missionary enthusiasm and appreciate the toil and sweat of the pioneers who extended the embers of the Christian enlightenment from Axim on the coast to Zurungu near the northern Sahel borders.

He said Reverend Thomas B. Freeman, one of the missionaries captured in the book, started the first school at Winneba in 1843 and yet there was very little exchange of ideas between the ordinary people who lived on the beach in Winneba and its specialized or tertiary educational institutions.

The launch of the book in Winneba was therefore to celebrate the town as an intellectual hub and also the citizens of Effutu for preserving modern educational institutions on their land even though many of her own sons and daughters have not directly profited from them, he said.

He said it is time to demand a greater stake not through radical appropriations but the establishment of common centers of academic facilities, hence the need for the establishment of an educational fund to support the vulnerable youth in the society.

Apostle Dr Goldman said in early June 1939 a spiritual reaction at a meeting held at Winneba between two Pentecostal fathers, Apostle Peter Newman Anim and Reverend James Mckeown of blessed memory, also captured in the book, eventually led to the creation of three colossal Pentecostal bodies (The Church of Pentecost, Christ Apostolic Church and Apostolic Church of Ghana) of which Winneba takes lots of credit for that singular event which culminated in the spread of Evangelical Pentecostalism.

“’The pillars of Christianity: Forerunners of the Modern Church’, has been my humble way of urging Christians to look past the present wind of materialism and focus on the heavenly call as the outstanding men and woman captured in the book laid down their lives towards the spread of Christianity in the country”.

“Like Apostle Paul wrote to the Colossian Christians in the third chapter of the book of Colossians, We must set our affections on things above and not on what is just worldly and mundane”, he added.

Mr Kobina A. Essuman, a retired architect and currently proprietor of Alswel Academy who chaired the event, applauded the author and emphasized the need for Ghanaians especially Christians to go for copies of the book.

“This will enable us to be well informed about the history of Christianity in the country to help us to contribute positively to make Ghana a place of choice to live in” he said.

GNA

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