General News of Sunday, 14 December 2003

Source: GNA

Four-day convention of Jehovah's Witnesses ends

Accra, Dec. 14, GNA - The four-day "Give God Glory" International Convention of the Jehovah's Witnesses (ICJW) on Sunday ended in Accra, Kumasi, Takoradi, Koforidua and Ho with a peak attendance of 126,473 delegates.

Earlier expectation was that only about 30,000 of them would attend the convention at the Accra Sports Stadium. There was a spillover and some of them had to find attendance in the other four centres.

In all 1,858 delegates symbolised their dedication publicly by water baptism on Saturday at the various centres with the Accra Sport stadium recording 466 new converts, Texpo at Baatsonaa 459, Koforidua 116, Ho 114, Takoradi 98 and Kumasi 605.

About 7,000 of the foreign delegates came from across Africa, Europe and the Americas.

During the convention, delegates paid attention to spiritually up-building talks and shared experiences from foreign delegates and missionaries.

Speaking on the topic: " Who are Giving God Glory Today," Mr. Paul W. Frohmiller, a Watchtower Representative in Ghana said it was unfortunate that the scientific community and organised religious groups had dissuaded some people from giving glory to God.

He said "atheists and those who believe in evolution, blind force driven by chance, do not give glory to God. Even though some scientists may praise the order, beauty and design of creation, they fail to give credit to Jehovah God and that the human specie is just a ghastly biological blunder."

"However the starry heavens and the creation of animals are all evidence of a wise creator and those who do not believe in God are rightly pronounced inexcusable."

Mr. Frohmiller also said what was even worse was the role of organised religions that have prevented billions from giving glory to God through their false teachings.

" They teach them to blame God for all that happens in the World today even though Satan is the ruler of the world."

He cited an example of the first anniversary of the September 11 tragedy in the USA, where the most publicised question was "Where was God on September 11."

According to Frohmiller many have also confused Christianity with Christendom and have allowed their love for God to cool off. He said people could glorify God today by sanctifying his name Jehovah and reject all false teachings about him.

This was the second time that the International Convention of the Jehovah's Witnesses had been held in Ghana.

The first Convention of the Jehovah's Witnesses took place in Ghana in 1975.