Ghana is the most Protestant country of West Africa (33 per cent) (Baur 1994: 524). Its Protestantism is fairly pulverised, with traditional, pentecostal and new charismatic churches all strong. As in many African countries, the Christian elite spearheaded the independence movement, in 1957 becoming the first colony in black Africa to achieve freedom. At the forefront was the Presbyterian J. B. Danquah, an intellectual who in 1947 founded the moderate United Gold Coast Convention, rivalled later by Nkrumah's mass-oriented Convention People's Party. Danquah's contribution to the new constitution was great, but when he ran against Nkrumah for president in 1960 he polled only 10 per cent. Still attacking Nkrumah's dictatorial rule, Danquah was imprisoned and died in 1965.

For all Nkrumah's excesses, he stopped short of open confrontation with Christianity. From 1981, Flight-Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings governed dictatorially, but in 1990 he permitted debate on a democratic system. The Catholic Bishops Conference and the Christian Council had active roles in the transition, making suggestions to government and mediating between it and opposition parties to ensure parliamentary elections in December 1992. The presidential elections of the previous month, won by Rawlings himself, were denounced by the opposition. But international observers from the Carter Center of Emory University, Atlanta, considered the elections ultimately fair. (The role of the Carter Center and of the ex-president himself can also be considered indirect evangelical involvement in Third World politics.)