FLASHBACK: Stop 'christianising' Val's Day celebrations - Lutterodt to churches

Counsellor Cyril George Carstensen Lutterodt had observed that a number of churches organise programs on Valentine's Day for the youth with the aim of preventing them from engaging in immoral acts in commemoration of the day.

These programs, mostly organised in the night, according to the counsellor, are waste of resources considering that sexual immorality is not only practised on Valentine's Day.

"When they close, they go back and do the silly things we want them to stop doing. Let's let the word of God work on them not only on Valnetine's Day," he said.

Below is the full story as published on GhanaWeb in 2018:

Controversial counsellor George Lutterodt has warned churches to desist from using Valentine’s Day as an opportune time to heal the youth of promiscuity.

“I don’t know what is wrong with some of our churches. The churches now are making this Valentine thing become another form of celebration in the sense of it being christianised,” he fumed.

In an interview with Ghanaweb, the counsellor expressed his distaste for the way churches were organizing activities in their quest to keep the youth away from promiscuity on Valentine’s Day.

He said he did not see the motive behind forcing the day to become one for Christian activities, “thinking that, when you do that for them, they will not go and do what they are supposed to do”, he added, referring to the high rate of sexual immorality during Valentine’s day; a pattern the day has become known for.

Instead, the counsellor advised that the word of God be used all year round to impact people and “stop wasting our resources on this one day.” Counsellor Lutterodt topped it off with a caution to married women to lead exemplary lives for the unmarried to have something to look up to.

He suggested that events be organized for both married and singles “so that we will treat the couples for the single to see the importance of marriage,” he said.

According to him, “this is what Valentine brought.”

For the most part of the past two years, the Counsellor Lutterodt’s name has become a household one and is easily linked to marriage and relationship counselling in Ghana.