Kumasi, Oct. 5, GNA - Miss Joyce Aryee, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana Chamber of Mines, has stressed the need for Ghanaians to use religion as a tool to promote social harmony, unity and economic development.

"We should not let our doctrinal differences, beliefs and practices divide us or generate into conflicts to the detriment of the nation's advancement and stability".

Miss Aryee was delivering a paper on "Peace and Stability for National Growth- The role of God's word", at a public lecture to mark Vice-Chancellor's Week of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi.

She counselled against the use of religion for hate campaign and pursuit of selfish ambition and said this had been the root cause of the vandalism, bloodshed and enmity among some religious groupings. Miss Aryee said it was important to draw a line between "devotion to religion" and "devotion to God" and that the two are not the same. Therefore, people of different religious beliefs should resist doctrines that pitch them against one another. Miss Aryee said God appreciated diversity in unity and progress of mankind and for that matter it behoved on religious bodies to educate their members to be tolerant of each other.

Prof Kwasi Kwafo Adarkwa, Vice-Chancellor of KNUST, said in a speech read on his behalf that Christian-based student unions should focus their activities on salvaging the youth from evil. He said they should not use the unions as avenues to engage in practices that had the potential to tarnish the image of Christendom.