The Managing Editor of The Insight newspaper has described as �useless�, a planned Christian pilgrimage to Israel which is being facilitated by the Government of Ghana for some 200 selected Christians.
Kwesi Pratt Jnr told XYZ news on Wednesday March 20, 2013 that: ��This trip is particularly useless; I mean it has nothing, there�s nothing in it, it offers us nothing�.
He said the belief that praying in Israel has superior spiritual benefits than praying in Ghana or any other part of the world betrays an inferiority complex of the Ghanaian Christian.
�There�s a certain assumption that prayers in Jerusalem are worth more than perhaps prayers in Kenyase or prayers from Obosomase or Apam. That for me betrays an inferiority complex�, he stressed.
Borrowing from the Holy Bible to buttress his point, Mr Kwesi Pratt said: �The Scriptures say very clearly that Jesus, in an answer to a woman, said that it was not necessary to pray in Jerusalem for God to hear ones prayers.�
He said it was about time Ghanaian Christians had a change of mentality as far as the practice of their religion is concerned, noting that: �When we were little boys, we were made to believe that Israel was hanging somewhere in Heaven, now we do know that Israel is a land space which is even poorer than the land space in Accra or in the Afram plains and so on�.
�Israel is not the Garden of God through which He walks occasionally�, Kwesi Pratt asserted, adding that: �I think this trip is particularly useless and not beneficial to the people of Ghana at all.�
Kwesi Pratt also said the geopolitics of Israel also makes the trip a bit problematic in his views.
�I think it�s also important for us to understand that Jerusalem has geopolitical significance and that dealing with Jerusalem or for that matter Israel raises several issues about geopolitics and I�m not so sure that our leaders or at least those who are sponsoring this trip are minded by the geopolitics of the Middle East. That is my problem�.
The trip generated a lot of media discussion on the Ghanaian media scene until the President on Tuesday March 19, 2013 came out to clarify that it was being sponsored by private groups rather than from the public purse.
The trip is estimated to cost 600,000 dollars.
Some of the Churches have already rejected the offer.
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