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POLYGYNY IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH

elkanahtyler

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TITLE: A HISTORY OF THE CONTROVERSY OF POLYGYNY IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH: Another Look for Christians.

COPYRIGHT © JANUARY 14, 1995 All rights reserved.
Copyright © 01/14/'95; 01/12/'96, 01/14/2003 (Revised)
This file, in its entirety, may be posted on or copied off of computer networks like Internet or WWW by anyone so inclined.
By L. Tyler , CA & ID

The Bible, Centuries 16th through 20th AD and Polygyny

>>>"Monogamy is implicit in the story of Adam and Eve, since God created only one wife for Adam. Yet polygamy is adopted from the time of Lamech (Gn. iv. 19), and is not forbidden in Scripture." >n132[Footnote: >..n132 The New Bible Dictionary, J.D. Douglas Ph.D; p.787.]

>>>TODAY:***TITLE: Can Mr. Mombasa Keep All his Wives?
AUTHOR: Tim Stafford
SOURCE: Christianity Today, 35:33-34 Feb 11, 1991
¥¥¥This article deals with a conflict in the Christian church in Kenya, where many blacks who are converted have several wives. Originally the church would not baptize them, but allowed them to participate in the church.Later, the church and some members broke away from their leadership and began baptizing black polygamous men.

>>>TODAY:Eugene Nida's (American Bible Society) book Customs and Cultures>.29 . . documents the current practice of polygyny by Christians in non Western countries, and how it is still practiced in China, SE Asia, India, Africa and parts of South America. Eugene Nida points out that when polygamists become Christians they are told of their limitations in church offices and are asked not to take any additional wives because it stumbles western Christians(Rom 14, l Cor. 8 and 10). They are not usually asked to abandon their other wives to a premature widowhood because of l Cor>. 7:1-15.[Footnote: >.29 CUSTOMS AND CULTURES, 1954, Harper &Brothers, New York]

>>>TODAY:I understand that Rev. Joseph Conrad Wold>*, a Lutheran missionary in Liberia, maintains the following points:
1. Some missionaries have become like the Pharisees,knit picking legalists;
2. For unbelievers it is more of a question of who is or is not a polygamist rather than who is and who isn't a Christian;
3.Rejecting polygamy has become the rejecting of polygamists;
4.If Cornelious>45 could be born again without circumcision, then surely polygamists should be able to be born again without cutting away their wives, breaking their solemn promises and forcing their beloved and faithful wives into adultery for survival;
5 Let the polygamist be lost because he refused to love and obey Jesus,rather than because he loved his wives too much to cause them to suffer, or was to virtuous to be a hypocrite.>70 He makes such an impassioned case I hope you take the time to read the original.Truly the commandments of men, condemning as sin and forbidding polygamy, make of no effect the commandments of God for so many.
[Footnote: >*GOD'S IMPATIENCE IN LIBERIA, Rev. Joseph Conrad Wold, pp. 179ff. >45 (Acts 10 & 11). @>.@70 Trobisch,MY WIFE MADE ME

>>>TODAY:¥¥¥"Some Christian churches in Africa today allow polygamy. A pastor in Cameroon stated: `People have no right to condemn polygamy which even Christ did not condemn in the case of Abraham'."(pg.214, ***After Polygamy Was Made A Sin: The Social History of Christian Polygamy
John Cairncross, 1974
Published by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, London)

>>>TODAY: "Polygamy continues to the present day among Jews in Moslem, Hindu, Buddhist, Asian, Oriental,and African countries." >25
[>25 IVCF, Editor J.D.Douglas; 1962,W. B. Eerdmans Publishing,p.787]

>>>TODAY: "In Spain, Italy,m and the East it persisted for some time longer, as it does still among the Jews in Mohammedan counties".DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE, J. Hastings (Selbie, Lambert,Mathews), Hendrickson Publishers, 1989; p.584

>>>1800's:***After Polygamy Was Made A Sin:
The Social History of Christian Polygamy
John Cairncross, 1974
Published by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, London
¥¥¥In the nineteenth century, Protestant missions were expanding rapidly, and missionaries around the globe were confronting polygamy among their new converts. In 1844,a conference of missionaries of various denominations"unanimously agreed that `if a convert, before becoming a
Christian, has married more than wives than one, he shall be permitted to keep them all; but such a person shall not be eligible to any office in the church'." (pg.198)

>>>1700's:***After Polygamy Was Made A Sin:
The Social History of Christian Polygamy
John Cairncross, 1974
Published by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, London
¥¥¥"Between about 1680 and 1750, the campaign for polygamy(in England) was in full swing, and plural marriage was almost as vigorously canvassed
as in Germany during the same period." (pg. 126)

>>>EUROPEAN ROYALTY: "In modern Europe polygamy disappeared from Jewish domestic life while among Christians it remained a tolerated privilege of royalty until very late times. . . . "
CHARLES A. RUBENSTEIN-----------------Bibliography:Abrahams, 1., Jewish Life in the Middle Ages (1917);
Westermarck, E., History of Human Marriage (1901);
Spencer, H., Principles of Sociology idem, Descriptive Sociology;
Lay, Wilfrid, A Plea for Monogamy (1923)

>>>1650's:¥¥¥Milton, author of Paradise Lost, wrote a manuscript in the 1650s, "Da Doctrina", a lengthy theological document. It was lost until 1825, when it was discovered and translated, creating a pre-Victorian uproar in London.The famous author had dared to justify polygamy! His arguments are lucid and concise: " Polygamy is prohibited to no one, even under the gospel." Milton "administers the coup degrade to his opponents when he observed that God himself (in Ezekiel 23:4) represents Himself as having `espoused two wives' which would have been unthinkable had `the practice been dishonourable or shameful'. On the contrary, he maintains,polygamy is `lawful and honourable'." (pg.129, ***After Polygamy Was Made A Sin:The Social History of Christian Polygamy
John Cairncross, 1974 Published by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd,London)


TO BE CONTINUED
 
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