Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Opposition

Let me say a word or two about where the opposition to biblical polygyny comes from.

It might or might not surprise you, but I have never met anyone quite as rabidly opposed polygyny as so-called "good Christians". To the majority of modern day Christianity, polygyny is simply wrong, and they are as ashamed of the biblical accounts of polygyny as they are of the mentioning of slaves or concubines. Not understanding any of the three mentioned examples because they approach polygyny, slavery and concubienage with modern day definitions and the attitude historical Christianity has towards these issues, they feel comfortable judging Abraham, King David and others for "sins" God never judged them for, and have no problem relying on the majority agument ("if more people thought like you do, you would be more convincing", "after all, we all know polygyny is wrong", and similar phrases) instead of relying on Scripture to shape their theology.

The more ecclectic the Christans we talked to were, the less issues they seemed to have with polygyny, not for biblical, but for humanistic reasons. Since they did not rely on the Scriptures as their only standard, they felt comfortable not to condemn polygamy because they themselves did not want to be condemned for, for example, blending their traditional pagan believes with Christianity. So the further away people we met were from God's word, the easier it was for them to accept polygyny.

For us, this basically means that real brethren are few and far between. So if you are inclined towards believing God and relying on His word for all of life, and openly advocate biblical plural marriage, brace yourself for opposition from the Christian community, but rest assured, they only have so many arguments from the bible that they use out of context or have to reinterpret in order to make the Scriptures say what they wish it to say. God will not be mocked, though, and whoever is ashamed of God's word, of him God will be ashamed too.

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