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limitations of the fourth commandment? - What is behind the attitude of her parents? (Her father is a pastor !) - How far here is also the "biological" conception of |
marriage at work? - Will they be pleased by her "obedience" or rather be shocked that their "garden" shall never be planted? - What could be done to help her |
parents to better understand their daughter? Elsie's case is an encouraging one. She has character. She proves that one of the oncoming generation of African girls is able to make |
up her mind by herself instead of being pushed around and dominated. She is on her way to mature womanhood. Africa's future will depend upon this growth. There will be |
no free nations, unless there are free couples. There will be no free couples unless the wife grows into true partnership with her husband. It is the responsibility of the |
congregation to help toward such growth. It is the solution for Joseph's case as much as for Elsie's and even for our next case. On one trip, I worshipped in |
an African church where nobody knew me. After the service I talked to two boys. "How many brothers and sisters do you have?" I asked the first one. "Are they |
all from the same stomach?" "Yes, my father is a Christian." "How about you?" I addressed the other boy. He hesitated. In his mind he was adding up. I know |
immediately that he came from a polygamous family. "We are nine," he finally said. "Is your father a Christian?" No," was the typical answer, "he is a polygamist." "Are you |
baptized?" "Yes, and my brothers and sister too," he added proudly. "And their mothers?" "They are all three baptized, but only the first wife takes communion." "Take me to your |
father." The boy led me to a compound with many individual houses. It breathed cleanliness, order and wealth. Each wife had her own house and her own kitchen. The father |
-- a middle-aged, good-looking man, tall, fat and impressive -- received me without embarrassment and with apparent joy. Omodo, as we shall call him, was well-educated, wide awake and intelligent, |
with a sharp wit and a rare sense of humor. From the outset, he made no apologies for being a polygamist. He was proud of it. Here's the essential content |
of our conversation which lasted for several hours. "Welcome to the hut of a poor sinner!" The words were accompanied by good-hearted laughter. "It looks like a rich sinner," I |
retorted. "The saints come very seldom to this place," he said, "they don't want to be contaminated with sin." "But they are not afraid to receive your wives and children. |
I just met them in church." "I know. I give everyone a coin for the collection plate. I guess I finance half of the church's budget. They are glad to |
take my money, but they don't want me." I sat in thoughtful silence. After a while he continued, " I feel sorry for the pastor. By refusing to accept the |
polygamous men in town as church members, he has made his flock poor. They shall always be dependent upon subsidies from America. He has created a church of women whom |
he tells every Sunday that polygamy is wrong." "Wasn't your first wife heart-broken when you took a second one?" Omodo looked at me almost with pity. "It was her happiest |
day," he said finally. "Tell me how it happened." "Well, one day after she had come home from the garden and had fetched wood and water, she was preparing the |
evening meal, while I sat in front of my house and watched her. Suddenly she turned to me and mocked me. She called me a `poor man,' because I had |
only one wife. She pointed to our neighbor's wife who could care for her children while the other wife prepared the food." "Poor man," Omodo repeated. "I can take much, |
but not that. I had to admit that she was right. She needed help. She had already picked out a second wife for me and they get along fine." I |
glanced around the courtyard and saw a beautiful young woman, about 19 or 20, come out of one of the huts. "It was a sacrifice for me," Omodo commented. "Her |
father demanded a very high bride price." "Do you mean that the wife, who caused you to become a polygamist is the only one of your family who receives communion?" |
"Yes, she told the missionary how hard it was for her to share her love for me with another woman. According to the church, my wives are considered sinless because |
each of them has only one husband. I, the father, am the only sinner in our family. Since the Lord's supper is not given to sinners, I am excluded from |
it. Do you understand that, pastor?" I was entirely confused. "And you see," Omodo continued, "they are all praying for me that I might be saved from sin, but they |
don't agree from which sin I must be saved." "What do you mean?" "Well, the pastor prays that I may not continue to commit the sin of polygamy. My wives |
pray that I may not commit the sin of divorce. I wonder whose prayers are heard first." "So your wives are afraid that you become a Christian?" "They are afraid |
that I become a church member. Let's put it that way. For me there is a difference. You see, they can only have intimate relations with me as long as |
I do not belong to the church. In the moment I would become a church member, their marriage relations with me would become sinful." "Wouldn't you like to become a |
church member?" "Pastor, don't lead me into temptation ! How can I become a church member if it means disobeying Christ? Christ forbade divorce, but not polygamy. The church forbids |
polygamy but demands divorce. How can I become a church member if I want to be a Christian? For me there is only one way: be a Christian without the |
church." "Have you ever talked to your pastor about that?" "He does not dare to talk to me, because he knows as well as I do that some of his |
elders have a second wife secretly. The only difference between them and me is that I am honest and they are hypocrites." "Did a missionary ever talk to you?" "Yes, |
once. I told him that with the high divorce rate in Europe, they have only a successive form of polygamy while we have a simultaneous polygamy. That did it. He |
never came back." I was speechless. Omodo accompanied me back to the village. He evidently enjoyed being seen with a pastor. "But tell me, why did you take a third |
wife?" I asked him. "I did not take her. I inherited her from my later brother, including her children. Actually my older brother would have been next in line. But |
he is an elder. He is not allowed to sin by giving security to a widow." I looked in his eyes. "Do you want to become a Christian?" "I am |
a Christian." Omodo said without smiling. What does it mean to take responsibility as a congregation for Omodo? I am sorry that I was not able to see Omodo again. |
Our conversation contains in a nutshell the main attitudes of polygamists toward the church. It is always healthy to see ourselves with the eyes of an outsider. I asked myself: |
What would I have done if I were the pastor in Omodo's town? Let me share with you my thoughts and then ask for your criticism. They are based on |
many experiences in dealing with other polygamist families. Maybe you have better ideas than I have. Please, help me to help Omodo. The trouble with Omodo is that, unlike Joseph |
or Elsie, he did not ask for help. But that does not mean that he is not in need of help. The fact that he did almost all the talking |
and hardly gave me a chance, proves his inner insecurity. His sarcasm showed me that deep down in his heart he was afraid of me. In order to take this |
fear away, I accepted defeat. You will have noticed that I was a defeated person when I left him. If you want to win someone over, nothing better can happen |
to you than defeat. In the eyes of the world the cross of Jesus Christ was a defeat. Yet, God saved the world by this defeat. In talking with people |
we must remember this truth. We can easily win an argument, but lose a person. Our task is not to defend, but to witness. Humble acceptance of defeat is often |
the most convincing testimony we can give for our humble Lord. It is the one thing which the other one does not expect. Counseling is not preaching at a short |
distance. It is ninety percent listening. When I have a conversation like this I ask myself first of all, where is the other one right? I think Omodo is right |
in his criticism of contradictory church policies, which sometimes deny our own doctrines. We have made the church the laughing-stock of a potentially polygamous society. We have often acted according |
to the statement, "There are three things that last forever: faith, hope and love, but the greatest of them all is church order and discipline." Some churches demand that a |
polygamous man separate himself from all his wives, some from all but one. Others demand that he keep the first one; others allow him to choose. Some allow that his |
wives stay with him under the condition that he has no intercourse with them. Some do not even allow polygamists to enter the catechumen class. Others allow them, but do |
not baptize them. Again others baptize them, but do not give them communion. A few allow them full church membership, but forbid them to hold office. The most generous solution |
was to baptize a polygamist only on his death bed. It happened to a Swedish missionary once that such a polygamist did not die but recovered after baptism. The church |
council decided, "Such things must not happen." They did not specify whether they referred to the recovery of the polygamist or to his baptism. We have made ourselves fools before |
the world with our policies. Let us admit honestly our helplessness first of all. We are facing a problem where we just do not know what to do. Maybe our |
mistake is that we want to establish a general law for all cases. We want to be like God, knowing what is good and evil and have decided that monogamy |
is "good" and polygamy "evil" while the Word of God clearly does not say so. The Old Testament has no outspoken commandment against polygamy and the New Testament is conspicuously |
silent about it. Instead of dealing with polygamy, the Bible has a message for polygamists. Therefore let us not deal with an abstract problem. Instead let us meet a concrete |
person. Let us meet Omodo. Is he a special case? Well, every one of us is a "special case" in one way or another. There are no two persons exactly |
alike. Still, if we can help in one case like that of Omodo's, we might find the key to deal with many others. So, what would I have done? First |
of all, I would have gone back to visit him again. Church discipline, as the New Testament understands it, starts with me, not with the other one. If possible, I |
would have taken my wife along. I would have asked her to tell Omodo what she would think of me if I let her work all day in the garden, |
get wood and water, care for the children and prepare the food while I sit idly in the shade all day under the eaves of my hut and watch her |
work. I think she would have told him that he does not have three wives, but actually he has no wife at all. He is married to three female slaves. |
Consequently, he is not a real husband; he's just a married male. Only a real husband makes a wife a real wife. In the meantime I would have talked to |
Omodo's first wife and told her precisely the same, that only a real wife makes a husband a real husband. I would have challenged her because she had not demanded |
enough from her husband. She had behaved like an overburdened slave trying to solve her problem by getting a second slave. Instead, she should have asked her husband to help |
her. She should have behaved like a partner and expected partnership. She probably would have thought I was joking and not have understood at all. So I would have explained |
and we would have talked, visit after visit, week after week. Then finally I would have asked her why she ridiculed her husband. I am sure there was something deeper |
behind it, a concrete humiliation for which she took revenge, a hidden hatred. At the same time, I would have continued to talk to Omodo -- not telling him anything |
which I had learned from his wife, but listening to his side of the story. I am sure I would have heard precisely the opposite of what his wife had |
said. I would have tried to make him understand his wife and to make his wife understand her husband. Then, maybe after months, I would have started to see them |
both together at the same time, possibly again accompanied by my wife. The best way to teach marriage of partnership is by example. One day we were discussing this in |
our "marriage class," a one-year course I taught at Cameroon Christian College. The students were telling me that African women are just not yet mature enough to be treated as |
equal partners. While we were discussing this, rain was pouring down. We watched through the window of the classroom the wife of the headmaster of our primary schools, who jumped |
from her bicycle and sought refuge under the roof of the school building. After a little while a car drove up. Out stepped her husband. He handed her the car |
keys, and off she drove with the car, while he followed her on the bicycle getting soaked in the rain. This settled the argument. It is up to the husband |
to make his wife a partner. Then, one day I would have attacked the case of the second wife. I can imagine her story. She probably was given into marriage |
with Omodo for a high bride price at a very young age. I would have tried to find out how she felt about her situation. Young and attractive as she |
was, I cannot imagine that she was so terribly excited by old fat Omodo. It is very likely that she had a young lover alongside. I have found that women |
in polygamous marriages often live in adultery, because their husbands, staying usually with one wife for a week at a time, are not able to satisfy them. Solving the problem |
of the second wife would involve talks with her father and "fathers" and also with the young man she really loves. It would have been a hard battle, but I |
do not think a hopeless one. It is a question of faith. I would trust Jesus that He can do a miracle. I would ask some Christians in the congregation |
who understand the power of prayer to pray when I talk to the father. Every father wants to have a happy daughter. I would try to convince him to pay |
the bride price back to Omodo (or at least a part of it). The first time I would have suggested to Omodo to let his second wife go, he probably |
would have thrown me out the front door. So I would have entered again through the back door. I would have tried to tire him out by an unceasing barrage |
of love. It is very important that by now a very deep personal contact and friendship is established between Omodo and me, a "partnership in swimming." In this partnership Jesus |
Christ becomes a reality between us even when His name is not mentioned in every conversation. One day, I think, Omodo would have admitted that he did not take his |
second wife just out of unselfish love for his first one, but that he considered his first wife as dark bread when he had appetite for a piece of candy. |
Now, we could start to talk meaningfully about sin. Not about the sinfulness of polygamy, but about concrete sins in his polygamous state. To talk to a polygamist about the |
sinfulness of polygamy is of as little help as talking to a soldier about the sinfulness of war or to a slave about the sinfulness of slavery. Paul sent the |
slave Onesimus back to his slave master, while at the same time he proclaimed a message incompatible with slavery which finally caused its downfall. Paul broke the institution of slavery |
from inside, not from outside. This is a law in God's kingdom which can be called the "law of gradual infiltration." It took centuries until slavery was outlawed. God is |
very patient. Why are we so impatient? So I would have talked to Omodo about his selfishness. I would have talked to his first wife about her hatred, lies and |
hypocrisy and to the second one about her adultery. In the minute they began to see how these things separate them from God, it would not have been difficult to |
make them aware of their need of forgiveness. Then we could have talked about reconciliation with God. This reconciliation would have happened through the absolution. "He has enlisted us in |
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