This week, we have made attempts to speak on the topic “Rastafarianism and the Christian Youth”. From our discussion so far, we have established the fact that Rastafarianism isn’t just a fashion, but rather a religion that sprang from the Judeo-Christian Religions. Many youths in Ghana are now following the trend of having dreadlocks without a full understanding of what it is. Having received the word of God in much tribulation with the joy of the Holy Spirit, let us be imitators of the Lord (1 Thessalonians 1:6) and not of any deceitful philosophy.
We also understood that Rastafarianism has a different perception of Jesus Christ and His work for the salvation of humanity. For Rastafarians, the redemptive role of Jesus is not necessary: existence and salvation are seen, as in Buddhist or Hindu practice, as being dependent on knowledge and wisdom, and not on the elimination of sin. Thus, no redemptive death is necessary to atone for the sins of all humanity. Rather, a process of the development of inner knowledge is required to dissolve the false conceptions and lethargy imposed by the idea of an external redeemer. Jah, as the Rastafari have named their supreme being, is immanent in the material world.
Finally, the Rastafarians believe that Christians are denying the black man his true destiny by daily representing to him a God who expects them to be humble and to bear suffering and shame in this life for imaginary heaven somewhere in the sky after death. To the Rastafarians, eternal life is here and now. This doctrine is a total farce that Christians must not accept. They believe that Ethiopia is the holy land, a Heaven on Earth where true Rastas live eternally as bodily and spiritual immortals, negating the need for an afterlife.
With their varied teachings, we care therefore to brace ourselves very well with the word of God, approach them in love so that we will win them at all cost into the kingdom of God.