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Copyright Acts.) "Jesus took the man aside, away from the crowd ... and said to him 'Be opened.' With that his ears were opened, and at the same time the |
impediment was removed." (Mark 7:33-35) What we need is a message tailored for each individual. In a concrete situation, general principles alone are not enough. Let us therefore take three |
people aside -- away from the crowd. Let us try to help them and take responsibility for them as a congregation. All three of them are real persons. They come |
from three different African countries, thousands of miles apart, but I shall not tell you from which countries and I have changed their names. They have given me permission to |
use their cases as an example, so I am not breaking their confidence. Joseph is a 26-year-old teacher at a mission school. I never met him, but we corresponded for |
almost three years. He wrote me after he had read my book I Loved a Girl:Three years ago I married a 15 year-old person. I have ten years of schooling, |
my wife only six. God blessed us one year ago with a baby. I purposely did not choose a. girl with a higher level of education, for I intended to |
educate my wife in order that she become exactly as I wanted her to be in her work and cleanliness, in her whole life. But she does not satisfy me |
any more with her obedience. She does not do what I command her to do. If I insist, we quarrel. I ask you for a solution to save this young |
marriage. In order to help Joseph we have to understand his way of thinking. For him, marriage is an alliance with an inferior being. For him, a woman is primarily |
a garden. Man is then primarily the bearer of the seed of life. Such is their mutual destiny. Their destiny decides their function. Their function defines their relationship. According to |
this conception the woman can never be as important as the man, any more than the soil can be as important as the seed. By her very nature, she is |
secondary, auxiliary. This is the root of all discrimination between man and woman that has shaped the history of mankind, not only in Africa, but also in Asia and -- |
until recently -- in Europe and America. This conception of marriage is not only based on a wrong and inaccurate biology. It is also not in accordance with the New |
Testament which conceives of husband and wife as equal partners before God. My task was to change Joseph's image of marriage. Here is my answer:Joseph, you have not married a |
wife. You have married a daughter. You were looking for a maid, obedient to your commandments. She was 15 when you married her. Now she is 18. In these three |
years she has developed from a girl to a young woman. In addition she has become a mother. This has changed her personality completely. She wants to be treated as |
a person. She wants to become your partner . . . It strikes me that your quarreling started after God gave you a baby. How long is the period of |
lactation in your tribe? Could it be that your quarreling has a deeper reason? It is not God's will for a married couple to abstain from physical union for such |
a long time.Joseph's answer came quickly:You are exactly right . . . It is true that we abstain from sex relations for two years after the birth of a child |
... This habit is incorporated in us. Otherwise we are afraid of losing the baby, especially if the mother breast-feeds it and if it is a boy .. . My |
father - in - law pointed this out to me when our child was born. The practice of abstaining from sex relations during the period of lactation presupposes a polygamous |
society. According to the biological conception of marriage, a man can have several gardens to be planted one after the other. A garden can have one proprietor only, Joseph wants |
to be a Christian. He has been taught by his church that polygamy is sin. But he has been left with this negative message. He has not received any positive |
advice on how to live with one wife as a partner, nor has he been told how to space his children. It is interesting that Joseph did not confide his |
problem to his pastor. Evidently he did not expect any help from the pastor. Still, Joseph looks for a counselor. He may find that counselor in a questionable friend, maybe |
one that is not even a Christian, and he may be advised to do things which are poison for his marriage. The method our couple uses for spacing their children |
-- complete abstention -- will lead to an estrangement and husband and wife will slowly drift apart. Let us imagine that Joseph would have tried to solve his problem by |
taking a second wife. It is evident that refusing him communion as punishment for this action would have been the most inadequate answer to his problem on how to space |
his children. What is needed in Africa are not church disciplinarians, but marriage counselors. In this case had Joseph not gone ahead and simply taken a second wife, but confided |
his intention to his pastor, explaining his motive, would his pastor have been able to help? Would the pastor have received enough training in this respect at the seminary? When |
a Christian takes a second wife, it is mostly due to the fact that his congregation has not carried responsibility for him. It is unkind and merciless if missionaries condemn |
polygamy as sin, but keep silent to Africans about methods of conception control which they themselves use. It is even more so because a missionary usually has powdered milk at |
his disposal while an African villager does not. Let us imagine another possibility. Maybe Joseph did not take a second wife, but secretly had sexual relations with an unknown girl, |
or even the wife of another man. In other words, he had committed adultery. Now, since he wants to be a Christian, his conscience hurts him. What could he have |
done? Would he have found someone in your congregation to whom he could have gone, confessed his sin and received the absolution? If he had come to you, whether you |
are a pastor or not, would you have known what to do? What is needed in Africa are not ex-communicators but confessors who are keep the secret of confession absolute. |
What kind of training do our pastors receive in this respect? Here is the heart of the congregational responsibility for the individual. The offer of private confession is probably the |
most helpful contribution the Lutheran Church could make to the African churches as a whole. Martin Luther said: "No one knows what private confession can do for him, except he |
who has struggled much with the devil. Yes the devil would have slain me long ago, if the confession would not have sustained me." It is also possible that Joseph |
would not have dared to confess, but maybe you would have heard anyway about his sin. Then it would have been your duty to go to him. Responsibility for the |
individual means to take the initiative. Just as God has taken the initiative in Jesus Christ and has spoken to us without our inviting Him, so we have to take |
the initiative and talk to our brother, even if he does not ask us. This is "church discipline" according to the New Testament. "Go ye therefore ..." not to put |
him out of the church but to win him back to Jesus Christ (Matthew 18:15; 2 Thessalonians 3:15; 2 Timothy 2:25). Church discipline means to go and to win, not |
to wait and to judge. There is not time to report the case of Joseph in full. The relationship between him and his wife improved after I informed him about |
other methods of conception control. Later on a new problem arrived. The family moved from the village to town. While living in the village Joseph's wife had fed her family |
from that which she had grown in her own garden. But in town she did not have a garden. She had to go shopping. Joseph had to give her money, |
which had rarely happened before. Here is Joseph's letter:Tell me how to make up a family budget and how to convince a woman -- however idiotic she may be -- |
to keep it. Most of the time my wife buys things which we don't need and then they spoil.I made up a detailed monthly budget according to Joseph's income and |
included as one item, "pocket money for each one of you." Joseph wrote:My wife was very happy about it. After we had divided up the money, she was frank enough |
to tell me also the criticisms which she had in her heart about my spending habits. She was overwhelmed by joy to see the item, "pocket money for each one |
of you." This was, after almost three years of correspondence, the first time that Joseph had reported to me a reaction of his wife. The fact that he had shared |
my letter with her, that he even listened to her reproaches, but above all the fact that he gave her spending money, shows that his marriage had grown from a |
patriarchal pattern where the husband-father dominates his wife, into a marriage of partnership. A garden cannot rejoice and talk. One cannot listen to a garden. Joseph's wife had changed from |
a garden to a person. She had become a wife. Formerly, the course of life was channeled. The individual made very few decisions on his own. The road was marked |
by customs and traditions. This had changed now. The individual has to make up his mind about many things which formerly were decided by the family and the group. But |
-- as the case of Joseph and his wife shows -- the individual is not trained to make these decisions. Counseling therefore becomes indispensable. It belongs to the responsibility of |
the congregation. It is the service which the Christian church must give in a situation of social change. The work of the counselor can be compared best of all with |
"swimming." The time is past when a counselor could stand on a solid hilltop and give prefabricated rules and commandments to the counselee. The counselor has to descend from the |
hilltop and go into the water. Counselor and counselee have to swim together. With this picture of "swimming" in mind, the fact of uncertainty is expressed. At the outset the |
counselor may be more in need of advice than his counselee. But he swims together with him, trying to make. out beforehand the whirlpools and the rapids, the islands and |
the riverbanks. For a limited time, while exploring the situation for clarification and solutions, the counselor becomes the partner of his counselee. God is in this situation and the counselor |
has to find his will together with the counselee. Only what the latter is able and willing to accept and put into practice will help him. The development of Joseph's |
marriage during the time of our correspondence proves that marriage guidance by letter can be fruitful. It may even be easier to confide the most intimate problems to a complete |
stranger. Because of the long distances and the lack of trained counselors, marriage guidance by mail has great promise in Africa, all the more because a personal letter there is |
highly treasured. It gives the receiver the experience of "being taken aside, away from the crowd," to have his impediment removed. Marriage guidance is not only a counseling task. It |
is also a missionary opportunity. Since marriage is part of practical Christian living, the Christian marriage counselor has the possibility of proclaiming the Gospel to non-Christians along with the advice |
he gives. Marriage has become the problem of life today. People of all confessions, religions, classes and races are interested in it. Every heathen, Muslim or Communist will listen to |
those who have something useful to say about marriage. As Christians, I believe we do have something useful to say. But, do we say it? Or is the church in |
possession of a treasure of knowledge and wisdom and is keeping it locked up instead of handing it out? Elsie is a high school student and the daughter of a |
"minister of religion" as she calls it. I know her too only by letter. She wrote to me and asked: "How can I meet a Christian boy?" I advised her |
to attend church. There she could meet boys. Here is her answer:The old people in our churches don't want boys to meet girls, not even to talk to them in |
their presence. Always the Sunday service begins by speaking against boys and girls. This has turned away most of the boys and girls from attending church. The other day the |
pastor said: "If any boy has written to you a letter, return it to him and tell him never to write to you any letter."I answered, but for a long |
time did not hear from Elsie. Later I learned that her school principal had confiscated my letter. I was not on the list of men with whom she was allowed |
to correspond. So my letter went to her parents, who lived in a small village hundreds of miles away from her school. It took three months before the permission came |
and my letter was handed over to Elsie. Finally she wrote again:I have met a boy who is not of my tribe. He is a keen Christian and a student |
in a secondary school. It appears to me as if he would make a good husband according to the direction in your book I Loved a Girl. I went home |
and talked to my parents about him. They said they would not allow me to marry from any other tribe apart from mine. They claim that men from my boyfriend's |
tribe are going about with other women, even if they are married. I have tried to tell them that not all men from that tribe are bad, but they insist |
on my marrying someone from my own tribe. Since we are told that we should honor our parents, I cannot do something which is against their will. To make it |
worse: I do not live at home. I know very few boys from my own tribe. Seeing that this boy is interested in me, should I disregard my parents' advice? |
In my answer I advised Elsie to take her boyfriend home once and present him to her parents so that they could meet him as a person. If she is |
certain about God's will for her marriage, she should obey God more than men. Elsie's answer:My parents have become impossible. They cannot approve the choice I have made. They say |
they have heard rumors that the man I have chosen was misbehaving at college. But ever since I met him, he has never showed me any nonsense. I have decided |
to remain single for the whole of my life, unless I can marry him.Marriage between two Christians must be based on mutual trust and confidence. Confidence demands free choice. Free |
choice demands opportunities where young people can meet in a healthy atmosphere without suspicion. It belongs to the responsibility of the congregation to provide such opportunities. Many marriage problems in |
Africa have their root in the fact that the couple never had time and opportunity to really meet and get acquainted before marriage. Many African boys and girls have a |
list with names of a limited number of persons with whom they correspond. In a society where the meeting of the sexes is still difficult, also for outward reasons, we |
have to recognize that letter-writing as a means to establish contacts, can be a good one. Instead of intercepting mail, schools should rather teach criteria of how to evaluate a |
letter and give helpful instructions for answering. Elsie's case reflects two areas of conflict. There is the conflict between the younger and older generation. Dealing with parents, uncles and grandparents |
is probably the thorniest problem of a marriage counselor in Africa. It has been overlooked that, in a fast-changing society, the education of the older generation is also a responsibility |
of the congregation. The church may have to speak out on the rules of exogamy (the tradition forcing a young man to find a bride outside a defined group of |
relatives) or endogamy (reversely, the rule that a bride can only be found within a close core of relatives.) Once a young African wrote me that he had 11,000 girls |
("sisters") in his tribe which he could not marry. Unfortunately, he had fallen in love with one of them. There is also the conflict between individual freedom and the obligation |
to tradition and family. Elsie has new possibilities of choice, unknown to her parents. She is caught between (1) making use of this freedom and (2) submission to rules originating |
from customs no longer relevant to her situation. Like Joseph, she is in need of personal counseling in her new freedom. Her decision to renounce this freedom and the wish |
of her heart, even against the advice of her counselors, poses lots of questions: - If you had been her counselor, what would you have advised her to do? - |
Assuming that God called Elsie to stay single, would it be possible for her to put this' decision into practice? - Does our church have a message for single girls? |
- What would be the responsibility of her congregation for her? - Is the decision against individual freedom and for submission to tradition always God's will? - Where are the |
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