Christians and Animists Face Off Over Loud Worship in Ghana

We shall not remain silent, say Christians in Ghana

Now that the center of Christianity has shifted away from Europe and the West to Africa, Asia, and Latin America, a lot of folks are worried about syncretism. As Weblog has earlier noted, such concerns tend to de-emphasize how much the West has syncretized Christianity with local values and customs and overlook the animosity that Christians often hold toward the beliefs they or their ancestors used to hold. The latter is currently being illustrated in Accra, Ghana, where Homowo, the harvest festival, has begun. Homowo is practiced by the Ga, a mostly animist people who constitute about 10 percent of Ghana's population but are most common in the capital city of Accra. Depending on who you ask, Homowo either means "hooting or jeering at hunger," or "hunger tomorrow," but in practice what it means is the outlawing of drums and loud music for a month. That's a problem for Accra's Christian churches, which regularly use loud music and drums in Sunday morning worship.

In most past years, the Ga Traditional Council (the ruling body of elders) simply ignored the churches, which in turn tried not to antagonize. But according to The Daily Mail and Guardian of Johannesburg, South Africa, this year is different. "The Ga people will not allow widespread violation of the ban," even in churches, acting Traditional Council president Nii Adottey Obuo said.

Sam Koranchie Ankrah, a leader of the Charismatic Churches Association, responds, "We will not be intimidated by the threat from the Ga Traditional Council. We have the right to worship and we would go ahead. It is up to the security authorities to ensure that a group of people under the name of tradition do not infringe our constitutional right to worship freely." But the security authorities are themselves worried that this year will see greater confrontation than in 1999, when violence broke out between Christians and animists (The U.S. State Department's 2000 Report on Religious Freedom in Ghana noted the incidents). "We have been receiving reports of the churches forming what they call 'warrior squads' to fight the Ga youth who may be attacking them for drumming within the churches," says an unnamed senior police officer. "Security wise, it doesn't look too good."

Liberia wants divine intervention in World Cup We get some wacky sports-and-religion stories here in the U.S., but usually it's not taken all that seriously. In the qualifying rounds for the World Cup, however, Liberia and Nigeria are deadly serious about using prayer to ensure victory as they face each other. Liberia has formed at 57-man praying party, headed by the religious adviser to the Liberian government, to pray for victory at the matches. Team prayers have also been mandated. Nigeria has responded by organizing both Muslim and Christian prayer sessions, and team chairman Alhaji Waheed Yusuf has called for the whole country to pray for victory, saying "it is important at this crucial period."

Other articles about Africa:

Churches drop bid on Ghai's group | Evangelical churches yesterday dropped their attempt to have the operations of the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission halted. (The Nation, Nairobi)
Reform plea flops | High Court judge refuses bid by church leaders to paralyse the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission (The Nation, Nairobi)
Zamfara State amputates man's wrist for theft | Second such punishment since Shari'ah law was introduced in the state in 1999. (Panafrican News Agency)

More stories

Church and state:

Inmate denied Bible tapes | The defense attorney is appealing the ruling, with support from religious-freedom experts and television evangelists who support the death penalty. (San Jose Mercury News)
Court hears challenge to silent minute law | Student plaintiffs get First Amendment lesson (The Washington Post)
Church wins appeal, restaurant can't serve alcohol | Church plans expansion into 1,500-foot "buffer zone" (WJXT, Jacksonville, Florida)
'Jesus Loves You,' 'For All the Unborn Children' bricks returned to Woodman Park | Newburyport, Connecticut will also erect disclaimer sign (The Daily News, Newburyport)
Also: Massachusetts city returns religious bricks to park sidewalk (Associated Press)
Halt cohabiting or no bail, judge tells defendants | Some suspects choose marriage when Horn enforces 1805 N.C. law (The Charlotte Observer)
Amish ask Senate panel to loosen child-labor rules | The centuries-old Amish tradition of allowing teen-agers to serve apprenticeships in sawmills and woodworking shops clashed May 3 at a Senate hearing with the government's desire to ensure workplace safety. (Associated Press)
Also: Amish seek child labour exemption (BBC)
A religious exception | Churches have a special place in American history for a very good reason. (Editorial, The Denver Post)
Atlanta church sues suburb for denying request for land-use permit | Complaint says officials violated the First Amendment and a federal land-use law by refusing to allow the church to occupy property in a commercial district (Freedom Forum)
Oklahoma school district reaches settlement in lawsuit over Bible club | Students who were denied ability to start club will get settlement, principals may get training about Equal Access Act (Associated Press)
Prophet warning | Is nothing sacred? In Singapore, even God meets government opposition (Far East Economic Review)

Religion and politics:

Ralph Reed takes reins | It's inconceivable that Reed could shape the party to his previous organization's politics or would gain any advantage from doing so. (Jim Wooten, The Atlanta Journal)
Charities want tax credit expanded | Catholic Charities USA, Lutheran Social Services in America, Volunteers of America and the Salvation Army want Congress to expand the program to include families with more than two children (Religion News Service)
Bush leads with faith and prayer | Not since Carter has a President been so openly devout about his faith. (New York Daily News)
Will the religious right make the tech slump even worse? | Bush administration promises to crackdown on the American porn industry, but porn sites are worth hundreds of millions, if not billions, to the Web-hosting industry (Eroticabiz.com)

Persecution:

Catholic body condemns India church attack | Disruptive explosions aimed at intimidating the Christian community. (The Times of India)
Two arrested over Muzaffarpur church blast | Hindus blamed in destruction of Catholic church's windows, doors, and statues (AFP/The Times of India)
Christian Lawyers' Association seeks change in blasphemy law | Sacrilege of all the prophets should be declared a penal offence, say Christians (Dawn, Karachi, Pakistan)
Bush assails China over religious repression | President says spiritual liberty must be 'a guiding doctrine' in U.S. dealings with foreign nations. (Los Angeles Times)
U.S. China policy advances despite confusion | President Bush says Beijing repression is on rise because of 'weakness' and 'fear' within leadership (Cox/Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Dara Singh trial for murder of missionary Graham Staines:

Dara Singh's bail plea rejected (The Times of India)
'Dara sought my help to assault missionaries' | "He wanted to teach the Christian missionaries a lesson," says witness (Rediff.com)
Dara Singh was enlisting people against Staines: witness (Rediff.com)
Key witness identifies Dara Singh | 24-year-old says he saw Singh, with an axe in his hand, instructing miscreants to attack the vehicle near the church in which missionary Graham Staines and his sons were sleeping before setting it on fire. (Rediff.com)

Sudan:

Focus on Sudan seems about-face in Bush diplomacy | Broad coalition turns up pressure (The Boston Globe)
George W. discovers Sudan | The fire of freedom can no longer be extinguished (Nat Hentoff, The Village Voice)
What to do about Sudan | Steps the Bush administration can take against one of the world's most brutal regimes. (Elliott Abrams, The Weekly Standard)
The am-I-dreaming team | Anybody who can get Ken Starr, Johnnie Cochran, Dick Armey, Charlie Rangel, Sam Brownback and Al Sharpton on the same team shouldn't worry about launching a major movement. It's the government in Khartoum that ought to start worrying. (William Raspberry, The Washington Post)
Bush rips Sudan, China on human rights (New York Post)
U.S. to press Sudan to halt war on Christians | President Names AID chief as envoy, urges greater religious freedom globally (The Washington Post)
Also: Bush taps humanitarian envoy to Sudan (UPI)
Talisman fuelling Sudanese war, Canada's foreign minister admits | But Canadian government can't do anything about firm's involvement, Manley says (Canadian Press)
Canada sees no sanctions for Talisman role in Sudan (Reuters)

Energy and environmentalism:

Congregations plan campaign to save energy | Goal to persuade 1,000 churches to join movement (San Francisco Chronicle)
Churches, temples join conservation effort (San Jose Mercury News)
Nonprofit tax in bad faith, clergy say | Religious leaders decry proposed city energy charge; 'To tax us is no solution'; News conference, show of strength planned (The Sun, Baltimore)

Other stories of interest:

A prayer for tech stocks | Two men who spend their lives preaching about faith also embraced the great American pastime of the last decade, the stock market. (The New York Times)
'That's what girls are for' | Investigations into two alleged rapes on Pitcairn Island, famous as the paradise haven of the Bounty mutineers, have exposed a society that treats women as sex objects (The Times, London)
Earlier: Mutiny and Redemption | The rarely told story of new life after the destruction of the H.M.S. Bounty. (Christianity Today's Christian History Corner, Apr. 27)
4 killed, 8 hurt in church van accident (Associated Press)
Earlier: U.S. warns of rollover risk in vans | NHTSA slaps consumer advisory warning on vehicle popular among churches (Associated Press)
God loves you, especially your haircut | Welcome to Los Angeles, where the quest for beauty, always a matter of religious intensity, now involves the invocation of a higher order. (The New York Times)
Luther biographer Heiko Oberman dies at age 70 | Saw Reformer as soul in torment (The Daily Telegraph/The National Post)
Also: Heiko Oberman; history professor, biographer of Martin Luther (Los Angeles Times)
Ex-Chicagoan keeping eye on key holy site | Encountering echoes of the South Side in the Middle East (Chicago Tribune)

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