Coming to Christ with all our Wives‪!‬

There are billions of people in the Third and Fourth Worlds of our planet who must structure their families in such a way that they will survive together. These expansive family structures recognize family membership that extends to people who fall outside the Western nuclear family culture. Most of them live in societies that allow family leaders to marry more than one wife under certain circumstances. The good news of Jesus Christ is beginning to reach them. One big cultural problem stands in their way. The Church is not ready to accept them as equal heirs of salvation unless they become monogamous.

Torn between their love for the Messiah (Jesus) and this Christian requirement for Church membership, they are forced to search the scriptures. They see nobody condemned to hell for marrying an additional wife, they hear no commandment to never marry more than one wife, and they are confused. They are confused because some scriptures seem to approve the marriage arrangement while others seem to emphasize monogamy. They do not know why the Western Church looks fiery in its persecution of polygynists and warm and cozy towards easy divorces and unconventional marriages. They wonder why some of the godly men of the Old Testament lived with polygamous marriages without persecuting those who were involved. They also wonder why the recommendations of the Great Council at Jerusalem (Acts 15:28-29) do not include such a seemingly "gigantic" prohibition.

Dr. Mumbi tries to outline some of the reason why the Church is in this state of not really being open to embracing people whose cultures differ on this point. Western civilization seems content with a preference for monogamy with easier options of divorce while non-Western Churches try to keep believers in cultural permanent unions whether monogamous or polygamous. A fifty percent divorce rate in Christendom bears testimony to the fact that the Western Church is not winning the battle for permanence of marriage. The answer might well be in opening the door to people of cultures that do not divorce easily.

New believers coming from Muslim and African Indigenous Religious backgrounds come from expansive family structures that often tolerate polygyny. Some are coming to faith as whole households and some are coming in as individual converts. Missionaries are happy to see people coming under the Lordship of Jesus, but pastors find the "new wine" too explosive to fit their usual "wine skins."

Dr. Mumbi would be happier to see the Church come to health by removing every impediment to the unity of the body of Christ. Many missionaries are willing to give their lives in death in order to reach Muslims and indigenous peoples with the love of God; but alas, the believers they do reach cannot come to Yahweh's house of prayer because the gate keepers reject their kind of families. To the question, "are polygamous believers welcome into the Church?" Dr. Mumbi has to answer, "yes!" And to the follow-on question, "with all their wives?" this writer has to agree, "yes! With all their wives!"