Polygamy: a response to a video from Ugandan TV

I love the opportunities leading a multicultural church affords. Every day brings something new and unexpected, another opportunity to apply the teaching of God’s written word to a different context. Such ministry of the written word is a privileged product of the ministry of Jesus Christ, who is the revelation of the personal, transcendent, divine, creative Word “which was in the beginning”, by which “all things were created”, that really, imminently, and incarnationally “became flesh and dwelt among us” (cf. John 1:1-18, CSB). 


This morning it was a text from a sister requesting comment on a clip from Ugandan television. If you intend to read further, please watch the clip in its entirety as what I am going to say engages directly with its content. Note that this is an unpolished, off-the-cuff answer but if it was helpful to the sister who asked for these thoughts, I trust they will be helpful to someone else, particularly those ministering in contexts where polygamy is a pastoral reality. This is posted with permission, of course. 

The gentleman in the tie is correct that marriage traditions and ceremonial customs have changed over the years. The Bible actually says very little about the ceremonies themselves and over the thousands of years represented by the Old Testament, much changed including what was considered the most appropriate and God-honouring way to conduct such a ceremony. There is evidence of substantial changes happening during and after the Babylonian exile as well as the 400 years between Old and New Testaments. Even more-so than the Old Testament, the New does not dictate any particular form of ceremony, but it is to be understood that marriage would have been conducted in whatever way was recognised and approved of in the given society and in submission to the governing authorities, excepting where such customs or laws might rightly violate Christian conscience. What we do see is that God ordains marriage and blesses it between a man and a woman, and provides a legislative and ethical framework for marital flourishing. We also see that that has often been rejected throughout human history, as the Bible itself attests. 


He is incorrect as to when our modern religious ceremonies began. Yes the Roman Catholic Council of Trent to which he refers (a reaction to the Protestant Reformation) spoke to the subject of marriage, but Rome had already sacramentalised marriage in the 12th Century. Uniquely Christian wedding ceremonies more in the form of what we would recognise today were occurring at least from the time of the North African theologian Augustine in the 4 and 500s.


He is correct that it is hypocritical for the church to forbid (with, I would add, the appropriate biblical exceptions) divorce and remarriage but to then bless those who have been divorced and remarried in the courts (though again he does not note the biblical circumstances in which divorce and another marriage may occur). 


Where all of these points fit into what he then goes on to say about polygamy, I am not entirely sure. This is where he was more problematic. 


He starts with Moses. An odd choice as the options are essentially: 

1. Moses was married to Zipporah the Midianite and Zipporah is the same as the Cushite of Numbers 12 (why she would be called a Cushite is another discussion).

or

2. Moses married the Cushite after Zipporah died during Israel's wilderness wonderings.

There is no evidence that Moses was a polygamist. 


His other examples are similarly odd choices if he is trying to promote polygamy.

Jacob loved one woman, Rachel, and was cheated into first marrying Leah. His family is depicted as utterly dysfunctional, divided, and even destructive. Which makes God's grace in the words "Jacob have I loved" so radical. 


Abram/Abraham is mentioned. He had only one wife, Sarai/Sarah, but no children. Because they doubted the promises of God, Sarah gave her servant Hagar to be Abraham’s wife, but thereafter she is still only known as Sarah's servant and it is clear that the relationship with her does not please God, though God hears Hagar's prayers and cares for her and her son.

David did indeed have many wives. And this violated Deuteronomy 17:17. Polygamy is inferred in Nathan's rebuke of David in 2 Samuel 12:9-10 - David is not only rebuked for adultery when Uriah was alive, but taking Bathsheba to be his wife after he was dead. 

Solomon had many more wives as is noted. Any faithful reading of Solomon's story will observe this was far from a good thing, even contradicting the poetry and principles of monogamous love and marriage in Song of Solomon and the Book of Proverbs. Some scholars have estimated that 25 years pass between Solomon's first marriage three years into his rule and following marriages recorded in 1 Kings 10-11. 1 Kings 11:9 makes clear that Solomon's heart was toward his wives and their gods not the Lord and God was "angry with Solomon." 


These were meant to be positive examples but fail to pass the test. It is interesting that he did not consider the first recorded polygamist - well, bigamist - Lamech: a descendent of the murderer Cain, who was himself a murderer and whose bigamy is emphasised as though it were an oddity even while the focus is a ditty he composed after murdering a man. There is something horribly sinful and broken about fallen humanity is the bottom line, and it has wandered far from the peace in the garden of Eden where God oversaw the first marriage in Adam and Eve.


It is vital for interpretive purposes to also note that the genre of these relevant texts is historical narrative. These texts are just telling the story as it was, often including prophetic comment and inference that warns from following certain examples. The case the gentleman made is then fundamentally flawed, as the polygamous relationships recorded are descriptive of reality not prescriptive for righteousness. 


These comments on polygamy are the heart of his monologue but I would note that his purportedly biblical definition of adultery as simply having an affair with no intention of continuing the relationship is bizarre and has no Scriptural basis. To personalise it, were I to have an affair, would it pass muster with Uliana or the church to say "I've been committed from the beginning to perpetuating this relationship so that makes it right."? Of course not. And we know that not just because of cultural conditioning but biblical teaching on sex, sexuality, and marriage. 


He claims that Scripture does not explicitly reject polygamy, but surely the negative prohibition in Deuteronomy 17:17 alongside negative examples through biblical history, and positive biblical principles elsewhere is enough? 


Genesis 2:24: This is why a man leaves his father and mother and bonds with his wife, and they become one flesh.


Matthew 19:4-6: Haven’t you read, he replied, “that he who created them in the beginning made them male and female, and he also said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate.

Romans 7:2-3: For example, a married woman is legally bound to her husband while he lives. But if her husband dies, she is released from the law regarding the husband. So then, if she is married to another man while her husband is living, she will be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law. Then, if she is married to another man, she is not an adulteress.


1 Corinthians 7:2-3: But because sexual immorality is so common, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman should have sexual relations with her own husband. A husband should fulfil his marital duty to his wife, and likewise a wife to her husband. 


Ephesians 5:33: To sum up, each one of you is to love his wife as himself, and the wife is to respect her husband.


1 Timothy 3:2 - An overseer, therefore, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife...

Titus 1:6 - An elder must be blameless: the husband of one wife...


His concluding statements I found somewhat concerning as it defended polygamy solely from the physiological perspective of the man orientated around satisfying the man's sex drive, especially not inconveniencing him when the woman is pregnant or recently given birth. Hardly sacrificial love that denies self, and a poor apologetic for polygamy!