Christianity Today

Jacob Zuma's recent election as South Africa's fourth president since the end of apartheid was a foregone conclusion. The question that captivated observers has been which of the Zulu traditionalist's several wives would be first lady: The media-shy senior wife? Or the middle wife who responds to reporters' questions with "Jesus is Lord"?

Zuma's election has raised the profile of polygamy, a mostly rural practice that has long been a challenge for Christians in Muslim nations, some parts of India, and many parts of Africa. Traditionally the practice of rich men with the land and money to support a large family, polygamy is now practiced by middle-class and poor men, said Isabel Phiri, a theology professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa.

Experts say the African church isn't united on what should be required when polygamists convert.

"African-initiated types of churches will be more welcoming, and you'd probably find a number of [polygamous families] in their churches," said James O. Kombo, a senior lecturer at Daystar University in Kenya. "The mission-founded types of churches will tend to have none of that."

Earlier Western missionaries felt a need to confront polygamy at the point of conversion. During colonial days in mission churches, Christians in good standing would give up the status symbol and send away all but one wife, said Kombo. Such a painful decision often meant that men would choose family or social standing over church. Medical missionary David Livingstone's single convert abandoned the faith to return to polygamy.

Many African church leaders regret zero-tolerance policies for polygamous families of converts, saying that treating those marriages as invalid raises a number of problems. Besides absolving fathers of their responsibilities and leaving many economically dependent women out in the cold, it's theologically questionable to force new converts to divorce, said Sunday Agang, an ethics professor at Jos ecwa Theological Seminary in Nigeria and a John Stott Ministries scholar.

None of the polygamists in the Old Testament were condemned specifically for having more than one wife, said Agang. "[But] God said in Malachi, 'I hate divorce.' So which one should we go for?"

Phiri tells the story of a Malawian who left his second wife and children in order to be baptized, and whose church forbade him to directly contact or aid his family after their homeland was struck by famine. "This is an example where missionaries with good intentions did not have a proper solution to the issue of polygamy," said Phiri. "They're promoting divorce without responsibility for the children. That doesn't even sound biblical."

Many African churches take a position that John Azumah, director of the Centre of Islamic Studies at the London School of Theology, calls ambiguous. If a polygamous man from a non-Christian background converts, his family is fully accepted into the church, yet such men are often not allowed to take Communion, hold a leadership position, teach, or sing in the choir—though they can participate in the offering.

These measures offer a problematic shortcut for church discipline, said Azumah. "If we deny people Holy Communion on the basis of sin, it should not only be for the polygamous. To deny someone a means of grace as a form of church discipline—I don't see how helpful that is. … Lines should be drawn to be used as corrective lines for pastoral care to turn people around, rather than to turn people out of the church."

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