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Tuesday, 13 May 2008
Christians and polygamy in Nigeria.
 I meant to post this over the weekend but I forgot. From the BBC
Nigeria's Anglican leader has told the country's many Christian polygamists to give up their extra wives.
In a letter to the faithful, Archbishop Peter Akinola warned the issue could "make a mockery" of the church.
Until now, converts to Christianity have been allowed to keep their polygamous relationships.
Bishop Ali Buba Lamido told the BBC that it was difficult to convert polygamous Muslims to Christianity unless they could keep their wives.
Bishop Ali Buba of the Wusasa diocese in northern Kaduna State, said that as much as 10% of some congregations in the north can be in polygamous marriages.
The problem of extra wives in families converting to Christianity is not a new one. Bishop Colenso explored the situation in Natal in the 19th century. The Ancient Church encountered polygamous societies. Even King Canute who was a second generation barely Christian had to juggle two wives, Aelfgifu of Northampton and Emma of Normandy. Although the situation was generally dealt with by downgrading Aelgifu’s status to that of mistress; he entered into the relationship with her first but Emma had royal rank and was harder to downgrade.
The BBC goes on to emphasis that the Nigerian Church fears that the presence of polygamous marriages will weaken their opposition to homosexual clergy.
I think the main interest of the story which the BBC doesn’t emphasis is that there are sufficient converts to Christianity in northern Nigeria for their family setups to be any sort of issue. If 10% of congregations in some areas are polygamous converts, then, as some will be individuals or not polygamous, the proportion of converts from Islam must be over 10%. I knew the church in Nigeria was growing; this suggests to what extent. Posted on 3:29 AM by Esmerelda Weatherwax
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