Cohabitation Among Young Adults Of The Global Evangelical Church In Ghana

ABSTRACT

For most Churches, human sexual relationship and its legitimacy is an issue of concern. Among the diversity of these human sexual relationships is cohabitation. It is a sexual practice where people live together as though they are married. From African perspective, sexual intercourse is allowed only within marriage, because it is considered to be sacred, especially, in all the tribes of Ghana. The Global Evangelical Church (GEC) also considers the sacredness of sex only within marriage. Hence, the GEC introduces a teaching known as ‘Family life,’ which is about legitimate marriage among GEC members. The teaching offers grounds for making marriage legitimate in the concept of the practices of the Ghanaian Christian. Despite the teaching and reprimanding those involved in the practice of cohabitation, some young adults still cohabit. The problem that prompts this study is the phenomenon of cohabitation within the GEC. This leads to the aims and objectives of the study to find out why the young adults cohabit. In order to achieve the set objectives, the study blends Christian ethical and phenomenological methods as it adopts qualitative technique in data collection and analysis. Both primary and secondary sources have been employed. This study focuses on the GEC’s leadership, samples of resident pastors, presbyters and young adults as informants. Individual in-depth interviews and group discussions have been conducted in addition to questionnaires in data collection. It also takes inspiration from the lead provided by some African Christian scholars such as Samuel Wage Kunhiyop, John Mbiti and Bame Nsamenang. Data collected and analysed reveals that while some cohabit due to economic difficulties and lack of accommodation, others cohabit as a trial marriage. Regarding the teaching of ‘Family life,’ the young adults indicated that the lesson is not taught as often as they expected. Above all, the position of the GEC on cohabitation is unknown to the majority of the young adults. However, the GEC’s leadership seems to be doing her best to promote sanctity in the church for spiritual growth, as far as marriage is concerned. Though the GEC acknowledges customary marriage, the church appreciates that marriages are brought to the altar for God’s blessing. This requires intensive teaching of the GEC, regarding the morality of sexual intercourse and family life. Again, there is the realisation that since the ‘Family life’ lessons are very technical subject areas; there is the need that trained ministers handle this type of lessons. On this basis, there is the need for the GEC to come up with proper teaching document on cohabitation, because there seems to be no teaching material prepared by the GEC on the subject, ‘cohabitation.’ To achieve this aim, resource personnel, such as psychologists, ethicists, theologians, sociologists, and philosophers have to come together in order to brainstorm ways the GEC could come up with the teaching document. The call goes out to all Ghanaian Christians to recognise the good things which are divinely provided in their cultural traditions and be proud to give meaning to the Christian revelation in them.