Published: June 2, 2025
In a time when Liberia yearns for moral clarity and principled leadership, the Liberia Council of Churches (LCC) has instead delivered confusion and compromise. By honoring House Speaker Richard Koon—a central figure in a constitutional debacle that paralyzed our legislature and undermined public trust—the LCC has relinquished its moral authority, choosing the comfort of political proximity over its sacred prophetic calling.
The May 30 ceremony at the Liberia Baptist Theological Seminary, where Koon was enshrined in the Bishop George D. Browne Hall of Fame, marked a disheartening departure from the legacy of its namesake. Bishop Browne stood against dictatorship and risked everything to speak truth to power. What the current leadership of the Council has done is speak comfort to power and decorate its excesses.
It is not merely the act of awarding Koon that raises alarm—it is the context. This is a man whose elevation was born out of procedural fraud, driven by a power grab while the rightful Speaker was away. Koon’s claim to the gavel was never grounded in constitutional mandate, but in opportunism, and it cost this country months of deadlock, wasted taxpayer dollars, and irreparable public cynicism.
So why reward such a figure?
That question echoed in the trembling voice of former Foreign Minister Olubanke King-Akerele, who stood up in protest during the ceremony. It reverberated in the principled refusal of former Speaker J. Fonati Koffa to accept his own award—a move that underscored the absurdity of the entire spectacle. And it thundered in the podcast of Cllr. Charlyne Brumskine, who reminded Liberians that the Church’s role is not to anoint power, but to confront it when it strays.
What is most tragic is that the LCC has become complicit in the very impunity it once condemned. It has allowed its altar to be used as a political platform, not for spiritual edification or national healing, but for legitimizing contested authority. When the Church aligns itself with power for the sake of relevance or resources, it ceases to be a prophetic voice—it becomes a pawn.
If there was any doubt about the LCC’s compromised posture, the tepid response to public outrage has confirmed it. No apology. No retraction. Only the announcement of a prayer service, as if incense and hymns can erase the stain of political expediency. Prayer is vital, yes—but prayer cannot replace accountability.
Liberia is not short of heroes. In our clinics, classrooms, and communities, ordinary citizens sacrifice daily for this country. But the Church, with all its reach and influence, chose instead to canonize controversy.
To the individual churches under the LCC umbrella, we say this: your silence now will be interpreted as endorsement. The time has come to reclaim the Council from the grip of political appeasement. Let pastors and parishioners speak out. Let the altar return to its rightful use—not as a stage for ceremony, but as a sanctuary for truth.
To honor illegitimacy is to normalize it. And when the Church does it, the consequences are far more damning. For if the pulpit echoes the rhetoric of power, who then shall speak for the people?
The Liberia Council of Churches may still find redemption. But it must begin with repentance—not ritual. It must recommit to truth, even when that truth is inconvenient. Because in this moment, it is not just the Council’s credibility at stake—it is the soul of the nation’s conscience.
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