Kofi Kinaata’s popular song ‘Things Fall Apart’ has been used as a reference point in advising members of the Church of Pentecost at the just ended Ministers and Wives Conference at Gomoa Fetteh in the Western Region.
Delivering the closing sermon for the week-long event, Chairman of the largest Pentecostal denomination in Ghana, Apostle Eric Nyamekye said members of the church cannot live as ‘part-time’ Christians and expect to fight the devil who is on a ‘full time’ mission of destruction.
Making reference to the song which poses critical questions to the church in particular and exposes the hypocritical attitudes of religious people, the Pentecost Chairman said: “the devil is on full time and you are a part-time Christian.”
The Pentecost Chairman said he listened to the song over and over after a recommendation from one elder of the church and thought it was “good” that he listened.
“There’s too much play in the system and Christianity today is so much in the pre-referral. It is too artificial, and somebody has sung a song. One of my elders ‘whatsapped’ it to me and then the person said ‘please chairman, make sure that you listen to the song, I was wondering why he said I should listen. When I started listening, I realized that maybe its just any other song but I kept listening…but when the music was going on, it got to a place and the singer was saying that you are a part-time Christian, how can a part-time Christian fight a full-time devil? And it was good that I listened because the devil is on full time and you are a part-time Christian.”
“Many people say that the Christianity that we are seeing now is part-time Christianity so we don’t qualify to fight a full-time devil,” he said at the Conference held at the Pentecost Convention Centre (PCC).
Many Ghanaians have described the lyrics of the song released in December last year, as a wake-up call for all Christians not to be lukewarm but live the life expected from the religion in all their dealings.
The song caused a stir during a supreme court vetting last year, after a nominee Justice Gertrude Torkonoo, acknowledged the song as one which has an impact on contemporary Christianity.
The song also found its way into academia as students of the Department for the Study of Religion were tasked in their first-semester examination to examine Kofi Kinaata’s questioning of the religious life of the contemporary Ghanaian in his song in relation to social change.
In addition, some students of the Department for the Study of Religions at the University of Ghana, Legon, in their end of the first-semester examination had to answer a question on ‘Things Fall Apart’.
While acknowledging the song as a reflection of modern-day Christianity, Apostle Nyamekye admonished the Church, to “lift high his royal banner” as soldiers of the cross as “it must not suffer loss.”
