Just about half a week into my trip to Ghana, a few of my other group members and I decided to take a walk to kind of get used to the area. So we started walking down the main street by our house in Ghana that’s densely populated with stores and other bustling places. We happened to walk by this big white tent that said “church” over the entrance, but we didn’t think much of it and kept walking. The roads in Ghana are very narrow, and there are no sidewalks anywhere, so we all had to hug the edge of the road while walking. We continued just past the church, and were stopped by a man in a long-sleeve white shirt and black tie. He stopped us and invited us towards the church, or more accurately insited we check it out, and we sort of nervously accepted and followed him. Inside the white church tent, we saw a few groups of people being preached to and I had an idea of what was coming next. The man sat us down and began to explain that he was a pastor at this church and he started his process to convert all of us to Christianity. I had seen evangelism moves like this in the US but nothing as aggressive as this instance. He started asking all of us questions outright like “What does love mean to you?” “Are you a Christian?,” and “What do you know about God?” Etc. All these questions were so jarring, and one after the other was a little overwhelming, but we answered them as best we could. He was a nice guy, and there was nothing to fear to be in that situation, but after about 15 minutes our professor called me, and I used that as an excuse to get us out of there. We all shortly reflected on the experience after the fact, and we all thought it was interesting but overall a fresh and fun experience and something that we weren’t used too.

My answers to the questions this pastor asked came quickly to me because I am Christian and have grown up in that religion my whole life. I applaud this pastor for his courageous and bold behavior to ask those questions because Christian or not some of those questions are crucial food-for-thought that all of us should ponder and come to conclusions on. We eventually got back to the house and told everyone about our experience, and we had a nice chat and laughed about it and then moved on to our days. Fast forward a few days and the lot of us took a trip to Cape Coast in Ghana, which is about 2 and half hours out of Accra. Our instructor brought us there to show us several sites, but the most prominent had to be the slave castle in Elmina. This castle was the most massive slave trade castle in all of Ghana and was used for horrific acts committed generations ago that often go unnoticed. I remember learning about the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade growing up in school, but it was never really talked about too much in-depth for fear of it being “too graphic” for young kids. Reflecting on that time though it was more of a detriment to not share more about this horrific time in history that was 100 times worse than any conflict with the total number of lives lost. Walking through that castle in Elmina was heart-wrenching. I had no idea what to do except have a feeling of disgust and wonder why anything like this could have ever happened. The worst part of the whole tour of the castle was when I was told that they built a church above the dungeons where they kept the hundreds of starving and sick Africans. The British and Dutch were up above praising Jesus while they were torturing, raping, and killing hundreds of human lives just below their feet. As a Christian, that disgusted me and left a sick feeling in my stomach the rest of the day and onwards. I liked seeing the actual castle, but the fact that God’s name was used in such a horrific manner makes me never want to visit that place again. Of course, I will carry on the history and be sure to remind everyone of this so it can never be repeated, but the fact that God was used in such a horrible way I never want to see again.

So what is the correlation I’ve found between these two completely separate events? It’s crazy to me how Christianity and the idea of God is so prevalent in Ghanaian culture today, yet within their history, in their country, it was used for such horrible atrocities. For me, it’s just shown me that throughout history the idea of God is constant. The factor that can make this idea flawed are the people who use it. Are the people who proclaim to be Christians going to look at the life of Jesus and follow his teachings and how he lived? Or are people going to take Bible verses one at a time and without context and accuracy justify horrible acts in God’s name? People always have bent religion to what their goals or agendas are throughout history, and some have used it right their whole lives. What I see in the US today at least is a generation up and coming striving for loving one another and being respectful regardless of class, race, or gender. Our world is far from over when it comes to representation of religion. Some people may be too forward and aggressive with their religion, and some might downright use God as a powerful tool for tyranny, and it’s up to us and generations to come to change that outlook to show religion as the bright light it was meant to be.