A faith leader wants the Church in Kenya to review teachings on monogamous marriages, claiming there is no verse in the Bible supporting it.
Determined to challenge the widely-held Christian doctrine that men should only marry one wife, Rev Vincent Mulwa of Christ Pilgrim Restoration Centre told Kenya’s Daily Nation that Africans bought the world views of European missionaries who brought Christianity into Africa and abandoned polygamy, a practice that was rife even among the people who lived during biblical times.”
“I have come out to tell Christians that we must preach the true gospel and allow our men in the church to marry as many wives as they want,” he said.
He purported that polygamy is necessary to “save a generation of women who are ageing in church without husbands”.
“I have been in the ministry for 38 years, preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ but now I have realized that we ministers of the gospel have lost our believers,” he said.
In 2014, Kenya’s president Uhuru Kenyatta signed a law legalizing polygamy in the country despite protests from National Council of Churches in Kenya, which harbors more than 40 churches and christian organisations across the East African nation.
Federation of Women Laywers (FIDA Kenya) also said it would mount a legal challenge against the law although no progress has been made to this day.
According to Rev Vincent Mulwa who argues out his case in his book, ‘Christianity at a Crossroads: Between a Rock and a Hard Place,’ Polygamy is not about men needing many wives but it’s about women needing husbands
“I have never seen anywhere in the Bible where prophets and preachers prayed for single ladies to get married. The Bible people were polygamous and everyone had a husband,” he says, adding that widows were allowed to become concubines.
He told the Newspaper polygamy was commonly practised by many African traditional communities and the Jewish culture was also polygamous, adding that it only began to fade with the introduction of Christianity.
“As far as the Bible is concerned, the number of wives or concubines that one has does not matter and is not a standard of holiness,” he claimed .
According to the cleric, the Bible has only come out strongly to condemn adultery, which is taking another man’s wife.
Kenyans respond
Daily Nation said Pastor George Mutua, a theologian who is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in theology at Daystar University did not agree with Rev Vincent Mulwa when interviewed.
God’s original plan is that each man gets one wife, Pastor George Mutua said. “Any teaching that goes against God’s original plan is a false doctrine.”
He said Christianity is about going back to God’s original plan. After the fall of man, he says, that is when polygamy and other sins began.
aaron@ugchristiannews.com
