The prophetic voice of the clergy in Ghana on nation-building: an exegesis on Jeremiah 1:5-10

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AUGUST 2014
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In recent times, a section of politicians in particular and some non-politicians have tried to reduce the role of the Clergy in Ghana to ecclesiastical and spiritual matters. They have capitalized on the misinterpretation of Luther‟s two-kingdom theory to mean an absolute separation of church from the state. This has resulted in the vilification of the Clergy that share their views on the governance process of the people. We set out to sensitize the Ghanaian public about the prophetic role of the Clergy in the nation. The study also sought to motivate the Church led by the Clergy to brace themselves up and show the willingness to serve God and mankind by seeking for the well-being of others. The study falls into the Martin Luther‟s two-kingdom theory that has been interpreted to suggest a total separation of church from the state, sacred from the secular and heavenly things from earthly things. An exegesis on Jeremiah 1:5-10 was done to examine the biblical mandate of the Clergy to engage in rhetoric concerning national issues. Questionnaires were distributed to 200 respondents while 10 personalities were interviewed for data collection. The respondents were of Clergy, Laity, Media, Politicians and General Public categories. This was done to provide both internal and external assessment of the prophetic voice of the Clergy in Ghana. At the end of the study, it was realized that majority of both the internal and external respondents agree that the Clergy has the mandate to participate in the governance process of the people. However, a few of the respondents, mostly, the Politicians preferred that the Clergy concentrated on spiritual and clerical matters. Also, majority of the respondents vi advised against the Clergy being partisan on political or national issues. Again, it was discovered that currently, the prophetic voice is essentially silent following the bashings and vilifications. Indeed the study was very significant as it sensitized both the Church and the General Public about the prophetic role of the Clergy in the governance process in Ghana through rhetoric.
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A thesis submitted to Graduate School, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Religious Studies,
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