wfn.org | Accept Polygamy as an African Tradition, WCC Told

[PCUSA NEWS <pcusa.news@ecunet.org>]

Reply-To: wfn-news list <wfn-news@wfn.org>
16-December-1998 
98425 
 
    Accept Polygamy as an African Tradition, WCC Told 
 
    by Noel Bruyns 
    Ecumenical News International 
 
HARARE, Zimbabwe -The general secretary of the Zimbabwe Council of Churches 
(ZCC), Densen Mafinyani, has urged the World Council of Churches (WCC) to 
stop quibbling over whether an African church which tolerates polygamy 
should be accepted as a WCC member. 
 
    The Celestial Church of Christ, an "African Instituted" ( indigenous) 
church established in Nigeria after the Second World War, is one of nine 
churches seeking membership of the WCC, whose eighth assembly taking place 
in Zimbabwe's capital, Harare. Eight of the churches have been 
accepted as members, but a decision on whether or not to admit the 
Celestial Church was initially deferred, apparently because the church 
tolerates polygamy among clergy. 
 
    According to a statement from the Celestial Church,  the church 
admitted polygamous clergy only until 1986, the year in which the church's 
founder, S. B. J. Oshoffa died, although clergy who lived in polygamous 
unions before that date could continue to do so. The church did not condone 
divorce, the statement added. 
 
    Although the assembly voted on 10 December to reject the Nigerian-based 
church's bid for membership, this vote was declared invalid on a 
constitutional technicality and the matter has now been referred to the 
WCC's central committee which will meet next August. 
 
    Asked by Jubilee, the WCC daily newspaper being published during the 
Harare assembly, to comment on  the Celestial Church's membership 
application, Mafinyani said the WCC was intellectually refined and 
theologically advanced, but out of touch with real people. 
 
    Polygamy, Mafinyani said, was not a problem for local churches in 
Africa. 
 
    To underline his point, Mafinyani said that the general secretary of 
Fambidzano, an umbrella body of about 100 African Instituted Churches 
(AIC), attended the annual general meeting of the ZCC as an associate 
member. 
 
    "Many of the [AIC] church leaders are polygamous," he said. "This is 
not a problem for the local churches. These leaders are accepted in their 
churches, their followers accept the cultural dimension where the tribal 
headman had more than one wife. The local churches see nothing wrong 
with this." 
 
    He added: "The new [WCC] central committee [elected on Dec. 10] must 
form a space where real people can speak," he said. "Otherwise, the WCC is 
just like the UN - very organized, but cannot to relate to simple people. 
 
    "Can the WCC please open a door where the African spirituality can be 
rediscovered?" he pleaded. "We don't want our Christian faith to be limited 
by the mind set of Europe, where it came from, a theology too narrow to 
accommodate what God has done with Africans long before the 
missionaries came - those missionaries who threw out our ancient religious 
experiences and sacred beliefs as pagan." 
 
    This gave, he said, the impression that God spoke only through Western 
theology, and not in Africa. "I, personally and speaking on behalf of the 
ZCC, appreciate very much what the WCC has done and is doing, but it must 
please create more space so that our faith can be enriched," Mafinyani 
said. 
 
    Professor Frans Verstraelen, of the Department of Religious Studies at 
the University of Zimbabwe, told Jubilee that the first missionaries told 
those wanting to be baptized they had to choose one wife and send the rest 
away. 
 
    "This, of course, was unjust," he said. "Often a young wife was kept, 
and the first wife and the older wives were chased away. This was a subject 
of intense debate in the 1970s, and today many churches are not forcing 
polygamous marriages to be dissolved if people want to become 
Christians. 
 
    "Polygamy in the African mind set can reflect status and is not 
something wrong or evil.  And if the ZCC accepts the AIC, it is probably 
because it has a better idea of what is acceptable in the African context 
than someone from, say, Sweden," said Professor Verstraelen. 

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  This note sent by PCUSA NEWS
  to the wfn-news list <wfn-news@wfn.org>.
  Send unsubscribe requests to wfn-news-request@wfn.org