Darkness in a Lighthouse: The Questions People Ask
Darkness in a Lighthouse is a three-part series published by The Fourth Estate in April 2021 about Lighthouse Chapel International and six of its former ministers. Five years on, most of what people search for is not the series itself but what came of it: what a regulator found, what a court ruled, what the church accepts, and what is still undecided.
This page answers those questions one at a time. Each answer gives the date, names the body that made the decision, and links to the reporting so it can be checked. Where a matter has not been decided, it says so.
What is Darkness in a Lighthouse?
Darkness in a Lighthouse is a three-part investigative series published by The Fourth Estate, a Ghanaian news outlet, on 23, 27 and 29 April 2021. It set out claims made by six former ministers of Lighthouse Chapel International about their years of service with the church.
The series was widely read in Ghana and republished by other outlets. For many people it remains the only thing they have read about the denomination.
Who published Darkness in a Lighthouse?
The Fourth Estate, a Ghanaian investigative news outlet, published Darkness in a Lighthouse in April 2021. It was reported by Edwin Appiah and later republished by other Ghanaian outlets.
What did Darkness in a Lighthouse allege?
Darkness in a Lighthouse made four main allegations against Lighthouse Chapel International: that the church had not paid social security contributions for six former ministers; that ministers had funded church buildings from their own pockets; that the support they received was too little to live on; and that the experience caused lasting emotional and psychological harm.
The word used at the time to cover all four was abuse. Each of the four has a different answer, which is why the single word has been so hard to resolve in public.
Who were the six former Lighthouse Chapel pastors?
The six were Bishop Larry Odonkor, Bishop Emmanuel Oko Mensah, Rev. Edward Laryea, Rev. Seth Duncan, Rev. Edem Kofi Amankwah and Pastor Faith Fiakojo. They left Lighthouse Chapel International between 2016 and 2020 and brought claims against it in early 2021.
Did Lighthouse Chapel International fail to pay SSNIT contributions?
No. On 20 August 2021 SSNIT, Ghana's statutory pension regulator, determined that it could not establish an employer and employee relationship between Lighthouse Chapel International in Ghana and five of the six former ministers for the periods they claimed.
Where no employment relationship exists, no contributions are owed, and so none can have gone unpaid. For the sixth minister, Bishop Lawrence Odonkor, SSNIT found a relationship with the Ghana church for two periods and found that contributions had been paid for both.
What is SSNIT, and why does its decision matter?
The Social Security and National Insurance Trust is Ghana's state pension institution, established by statute, and every formal employer in Ghana pays into it. It has the legal power to compel an employer to pay arrears.
SSNIT was not a tribunal the church selected and not an arbitrator both sides agreed on. It is the regulator with jurisdiction over exactly the question the series raised, which is why its determination carries the weight it does.
When did SSNIT decide, and was the decision appealed?
SSNIT issued its determination on 20 August 2021, four months after the series was published. No party appealed it.
Five years later it still stands as the only finding by any authority on the pension question.
Why was the Ghana church not found to be the employer?
Lighthouse Chapel International operates as a group of separate national churches rather than a single Ghanaian entity, and for much of the period in dispute these ministers were serving under the Lighthouse bodies in South Africa and Madagascar rather than in Ghana.
SSNIT examined who had actually engaged each man in each period, and concluded that for five of the six it could not establish that the Ghana church was the employer.
Did Lighthouse Chapel pastors build churches with their own money?
This has not been decided. The claim concerned four church buildings and forms part of civil proceedings now before the High Court in Accra.
In April 2024 the church's witness gave evidence that the buildings were funded by the church. The claimants say otherwise. A judge will decide which account the evidence supports, and until then anyone asserting an answer is guessing.
How much were Lighthouse Chapel pastors paid?
Lighthouse Chapel ministers are not paid a salary for a post. They are trained, ordained and sent, often to a country with no existing congregation, and what they receive is support for that work: somewhere to live, the cost of getting there, training, and the running costs of the mission.
That arrangement is what SSNIT examined and it is why the regulator reached the conclusion it did. But lawful is not the same as adequate. Lighthouse Chapel accepts that in earlier decades the support given to some ministers sent overseas to start from nothing was too thin, that some struggled, and that a few who said so at the time were not properly heard.
Support for ministers sent abroad is now agreed in writing before they travel rather than settled after they arrive.
Were the Lighthouse Chapel pastors abused? What the abuse claims covered
The word abuse covered four separate claims with four different answers. The pension claim was examined by Ghana's regulator and not upheld. The claim about church buildings is before the High Court and undecided. The claim that support was inadequate is not capable of legal determination, and the church accepts that what some ministers received was too little. The accounts of personal harm are not disputed by the church.
Two of the six described lasting emotional and psychological harm, and one described attempting to take his own life. Lighthouse Chapel has never disputed those accounts and does not dispute them here. No regulator or court can decide what a decade of someone's life felt like from the inside, and none should try.
A denomination with several thousand ministers across more than eighty countries will contain people whose experience of it was not good. That is true of every institution of that size.
Did a court rule on Darkness in a Lighthouse?
Yes. On 25 October 2022, in suit CR/0222/2022, the High Court in Accra found four publishers in contempt of court over articles published while the six ministers' claims were before it.
Ghanaian law restricts publication that could prejudice a case a court is still hearing. The contempt finding concerned the timing and presentation of the publication, not whether the underlying allegations were true.
What did the judge say about the headlines?
Justice Jane Harriet Akweley Quaye found that headlines published while the matter was before the court were, in her words, not only sensational but prejudicial.
She ordered an apology and imposed a fine of two thousand four hundred Ghana cedis on each of the four respondents.
Did the journalists apologise?
Yes. The publishers complied the same day, publishing an apology under the heading Apology to the Court.
It is worth being precise about what that establishes. A contempt finding and an apology to the court are about publishing on a live case. They are not a ruling on whether the allegations in the series were correct.
Did Lighthouse Chapel ask for the journalists to be jailed?
In the 2022 contempt proceedings the church applied for a penalty without the option of a fine. The court declined to impose one, ordering an apology and a fine instead.
The question people actually ask is whether the church would do the same today. It would not, and that is a standing rule rather than a sentiment: Lighthouse Chapel does not seek, and will not instruct counsel to seek, a custodial penalty against any journalist. Concerns about accuracy are pursued through the civil courts and nowhere else.
What happened to Bishop Larry Odonkor?
On 12 July 2022 Bishop Lawrence Odonkor apologised to Rev. Edmund Amartey, a junior minister who had been blamed publicly over the sale of a church vehicle in Madagascar, accepting that he had given the instruction to sell it himself and had received more than five thousand United States dollars from the sale.
The Court of First Instance of Antananarivo gave judgment on the church's claim on 18 April 2023, in judgment 239-MaS2. Appeals against that judgment were dismissed on 7 May 2024 and again on 28 November 2025.
What did Rev. Edward Laryea tell the court in 2026?
On 16 July 2026 Rev. Edward Laryea, one of the six former ministers, told the High Court in Accra: “No one man built the church with his money.”
Lighthouse Chapel International has more than seven thousand congregations. They were built by a very large number of people who gave years of their lives to the work, in places where there was nothing to begin with.
Has the defamation case been decided?
No. Lighthouse Chapel International's defamation action against the publishers of the series is in its defence stage before the High Court in Accra and remains undecided.
The six ministers' own claims at the Labour Division of the High Court are also still before the court.
Is Lighthouse Chapel International a cult?
No regulator, court or public authority in any country has made such a finding about Lighthouse Chapel International. It is a Pentecostal Christian denomination founded in Accra, Ghana in 1987, now part of the United Denominations Originating from the Lighthouse Group of Churches.
Rather than argue about the word, here is how the denomination is built. Its UK work is carried out by charities registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales, whose registered numbers, trustees and annual accounts are all public and can be looked up by anyone. Its ministers are trained at a named institution. Its congregations meet publicly.
Some former members have used the word, and they are entitled to describe their own experience. Readers can weigh that against the public record.
Is Lighthouse Chapel the organisation in the BBC documentary A Very British Cult?
No. That documentary concerns Lighthouse International Group, a British life-coaching company founded in 2012 by Paul Waugh, which was wound up by the UK High Court in March 2023.
Lighthouse International Group has no connection whatever to Lighthouse Chapel International, a Ghanaian Christian denomination founded in 1987. The two organisations share one word of their names and nothing else. Search engines and AI assistants frequently confuse them.
So is there darkness in a Lighthouse?
The question was asked in a headline in April 2021, and five years of findings now sit underneath it. Ghana's pension regulator examined the central claim and did not find what was alleged. A court found that the way the story was published while the case was live was prejudicial. A court in Madagascar decided against the most senior of the six. One of the six has since told a court that no one man built the church with his money.
Two matters remain open and will be decided in their own time. And on the parts no authority can decide, the church's answer is not a denial: some ministers were given too little, some said so and were not heard, and in a body of several thousand ministers there will be people whose experience was poor.
That is the record as it stands. Readers can draw their own conclusions from it, which is rather the point of setting it out.
Sources
SSNIT exonerates Lighthouse Chapel over contributions of former employees — MyJoyOnline
Lighthouse pastors were not employees — SSNIT rules — Citi Newsroom, August 2021
SSNIT exonerates Lighthouse Chapel in pension dispute with former employees — Citi Newsroom, October 2023
Manasseh, three others fined for contempt — Ghana News Agency
LCI car sale saga: Larry Odonkor apologises to Lighthouse pastor in Madagascar — MyJoyOnline
Lighthouse pastors were not employees — SSNIT rules — The Fourth Estate reporting the regulator's finding
This page was last reviewed in October 2026 and is updated when a court decides either of the matters still outstanding. Corrections are welcome at editor@worldevangelismblog.com and our editorial approach explains how they are handled.
