SACRIFICE

TOPIC: SACRIFICE

MEDIA HOUSE:

DATE: 12-09-2016

Ibrahim: Reverend today happens to be an official occasion for our Muslim brothers and sisters, first of all we want to out a message as a community or Christian Council of Ghana to our brothers and sisters.

Rev Dr. Opuni-Frimpong: let me use this opportunity on behalf of Christian Council of Ghana to wish our friends in Islam who are celebrating this day happy anniversary. Our understanding of the celebration is deeply rooted in sacrifice, a religious value that we also in Christianity and those in other religious body sacrifice and at the moment also in our country, in our west African sub-region and in fact in the bigger international community, if there is any value we must all cry for and work fortowards the issue of sacrifice infact today of that the Muslim friends are celebrating this day in Syria, the bombing, Aleppo, it seems that we are losing our common humanity. We need sacrifice in Syria, we need sacrifice, and people must rise up against their own personal interests and push for our common humanity. We need that in West African, in Nigeria and    even in our own country Ghana as we get closer to election 2016. If there is any societal  value that we all need and must cry, pray for and work towards again is sacrifice and this is where we plead with all religious bodies, our friends in Islam, Christianity, traditional leaders  let us uphold this value of sacrifice and burry our individual pride and differences and be there for the sake of others. We will say the same thing to the international communities, Unites Nations, US, Russia at least let us sacrifice for the people in Syria and so also we do for Ghana and West Africa. So  Today we call our people all those celebrating the day whether Muslim or Christian that we have reached a point where we can sacrifice the word sacrifice and we must  make commitment for sacrifice and be there for others. The religious leaders and political leaders in this country close to election the value we can’t run away, we should not trade sacrifice we need it for free, fair, and credible election 2016 and we pray that the whole world will make commitment to sacrifice at least today.

Ibrahim: well talking about commitment and sacrifice we know in years past you have collaborated well with other religious sects Muslim communities and notwithstanding how have collaboration between you too being so far in terms of trying to ensure that the peace we are enjoying prevails before and after the elections?

Rev Dr. Opuni-Frimpong: The Christian Council of Ghana have over the years collaborated strongly with traditional leaders, Muslim leaders – I must say that in Islam there are different groupings, the Chief Imam’s Office, the Tujania, the Alasuna, the Ahmadiyyawe have collaborated with all of them and we have even collaborated with among the Christians also – the Ghana Catholic Bishop’s Conference, Ghana Pentecostal Charismatic Movement,  Spiritual Prohets’ Council and all that and then also we have collaborated with political leaders. We do these for a reason that we need to mobilize church and community for national transformation. We are all in together,we must value our common humanity and our common good and that is one of the cardinal values of the Christian Council of Ghana. We have had our ups and downs but we have committed ourselves that for the sake of our common goodChristian Council of Ghana will work with others. We know we have had our challenges, we are not perfect, we’ve made mistakes but we are still focused on this we call it ecumenical harmony or spirit is something we want to cherish and push for no matter the price we will have to pay the Council will want to go all out and I maybe I want to plead recently sometimes you will find seemingly tension between political leaders and religious leaders, it is not our agenda. Political leaders are part or us, some of them are our members, we have educators who have been with us in our churches and mosques from birth and we see them as part of us and they are not our enemies. We went to gather with them build this country for today and the generation after as so the collaboration we have had our  ups and downs but we are not leaving any stone upturn and for us that is the way we must go and we must commit ourselves to that.

Ibrahim:alright Reverend, thank you very much and may God bless you.

Rev Dr. Opuni-Frimpong: You are always welcome.