Major Richelieu's request for evangelization was geared at restoring Christianity morality among the population. As such, a sizable Euro-African community existed at the time which consisted of the “ mulatto” offspring of these unions. The Danish colonial administration permitted its employees to co-habit with local women in monogamous relationships. Several European communities from the United Kingdom, Denmark and the Netherlands had an established presence on the coast where trade and commerce flourished. It aimed at expressing their Christian convictions through positive deeds and exemplary life-styles including spreading the Gospel to other continents in response to the ‘call of God’.” In their view, formal education, agriculture, small scale industry, arts and craft went hand in hand with the propagation of the Gospel. Pietism sought to “revitalise the Christian church from within by deepening and making more personal the religious life of the Christian community. Founded in 1815 in Basel, Switzerland at the height of the Pietist theological movement, many of its young missionaries came from working class artisan backgrounds in Wurtemberg located in southern Germany. Missionaries of the Basel Evangelical Missionary Society arrived in the Danish Protectorate of Christiansborg, (now the suburb of Osu) in Gold Coast in 1828 at the behest of the then Danish Governor, Major Christopher von Richelieu. In the subsequent two hundred and fifty years, activities of a few missionary societies including the French Capuchin Franciscans based in Axim and Komenda, the Moravian Mission in Accra and Elmina as well as the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts in Cape Coast yielded negligible outcomes in the hinterlands. By 1576, the spread of Christianity had stalled. They baptized the paramount chief of Fetu, Cape Coast in 1503. The origins of Christianity on the Gold Coast can be traced to the arrival of Portuguese traders in the early 16th century. Liturgical services are conducted in English and the Ga language. The church is affiliated to the Presbyterian Church of Ghana. Previously near the Christiansborg Castle at a hamlet called Osu Amanfong, where a commemorative monument now stands, the church relocated northwards to its present location near the Salem School when a new chapel was constructed and consecrated in 1902. The church was founded by the Basel Evangelical Missionary Society in 1847. The Ebenezer Presbyterian Church, formerly known as the Basel Mission Church, Christiansborg, is a historic Protestant church located in the suburb of Osu in Accra, Ghana.
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