Media Aide to one of Ghana’s most controversial pastors who is being criticized for subjecting two adults in his church to public lashing, says the bishop punished the two to serve as a deterrent.
Joseph Osei Oppong Brenya said Bishop Daniel Obinim was incensed at the behavior of the young boy and his girlfriend both of whom he has adopted and treats as his own.
Speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show, Mr Brenya told host, Kojo Yankson that fathers reserve the right to discipline their children when they go wrong, and that was what the pastor did.
He said, “As a father if your child goes wrong you have to discipline them to serve as a deterrent to others.”
Mr Brenya’s comments were a reaction to a barrage of intense criticism Bishop Obinim has come under after a video of him assaulting two members of his church surfaced on social media.
The Bishop, who is not new to controversy, is seen in the video whipping a young man named only as Eliasu and a young lady, named only as Gyasiwaa, repeatedly with a belt during a church service.
As the young woman, about 19 years old, tries to escape from the beating and is captured and brought back to be beaten upon orders of the Bishop, the young man, between the ages of 20-25 years remains seated on the bare floor and being flogged with the belt.
Although the bishop is being criticized for assaulting the two, Mr Brenya says he had every right to because the bible says “spare the rod and you spoil the child. Beating your child is in the bible, Prov. 13: 24,” he stressed.
He said the two engaged in fornication and proceeded with an abortion when the lady became pregnant, something that is totally unacceptable in the house of God.
A behavior like that, he noted, also goes against the beliefs of Bishop Obinim and “the man of God cannot tolerate that attitude.”
“Impregnating the lady is not the problem but terminating it, which is very bad. And as a man of God he [Obinim] will not tolerate such action in his church or even among his children and that is why he called and punished them to serve as a deterrent to others who will want to engage in things like that.
“He [the boy] bought drugs and gave it to the young lady to terminate the pregnancy; any father on this earth will take that action. The girl nearly lost her life,” he claimed.
In response to whether the two were not adult enough to engage in such acts, Mr Brenya said regardless of their age, they were still the Bishops children.
And once they are under the bishop’s care he has the right to choose any form of punishment to be metered out to them when they go wrong, he added.
Mr Brenya indicated that the bishop “pays their bills and everything they need is provided for by the pastor and their family is aware of this.”
He said the Bishop deserves commendation not condemnation.
“We should condemn what triggered the bishop’s action not what he did. The earlier we try to see things the right way, the better for us.
“We should avoid negative agenda and propaganda to destroy the man of God but rather what triggered his action,” Mr Brenya noted.
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