Pastor says Christian men can marry more than one Wife

A Kenyan Clergyman – Rev. Vincent Mulwa of Christ Pilgrim
Restoration Centre, Kenya, has come out to challenge the
Christian doctrine that men should only marry one wife.
In an interview with Kenya’s The Daily Nation, Rev. Mulwa said
Africans bought the world views of European missionaries
who brought Christianity into Africa and abandoned polygamy,
a practice that was rife even among the people who lived
during biblical times.
Rev Mulwa said he wants Christian leaders to review
teachings on monogamous marriages, claiming there is no
verse in the Bible supporting it.
He says this is necessary to “save a generation of women who
are ageing in church without husbands”.
Rev Mulwa added;
“I have been in the ministry for 38 years, preaching the gospel
of Jesus Christ but now I have realised that we ministers of
the gospel have lost our believers,”
“I have never seen anywhere in the Bible where prophets and
preachers prayed for single ladies to get married. The Bible
people were polygamous and everyone had a husband,” he
says, adding that widows were allowed to become concubines.
He says polygamy was commonly practised by many African
traditional communities and the Jewish culture was also
polygamous, adding that it only began to fade with the
introduction of Christianity.
“As far as the Bible is concerned, the number of wives or
concubines that one has does not matter and is not a
standard of holiness. I have come out to tell Christians that we
must preach the true gospel and allow our men in the church
to marry as many wives as they want. Polygamy is not about
men needing many wives but it’s about women needing
husbands.”
According to the cleric, the Bible has only come out strongly
to condemn adultery, which is taking another man’s wife.
The reverend argues that the fact that the missionaries, who
mostly came from Rome, began to preach monogamy does
not mean that this is what the Bible teaches.
“It is unfortunate for the Church that today, when our dear
brothers and sisters attend theological schools, they are fed
with so much gentile-tilted theology that upon graduation, they
are well equipped to vigorously convince the world to buy into
the Roman immigration of Christianity,”
He says Christianity is not an American or European culture.
Rather, it is God’s way of reaching and dealing with
humankind.
Rev Mulwa, who says he is officially married to one wife, says
he was preaching in a church he started 20 years ago but had
to leave the church because his wife and members disagreed
with his polygamy teaching.
“I told my wife that as much as she doesn’t want to agree with
me, I will continue preaching the gospel of polygamy until the
whole world hears of it because that is the true gospel,” he says.
When asked if he has secret wives he responded:
“The number of wives I have is not an issue. If I have one wife
or more, I will not be holier than the other. That’s why I am
saying Christian men should be allowed to marry many wives.”
His interpretation of the Bible is that it has not condemned
polygamy. Rather, it was practised widely by men of God in the
Bible.
“Polygamy is an acceptable practice. No lady should stay
without a husband. Christianity remains the most holy faith, but
when preached from the perspective of the European and
American gentiles, then it is definitely the filthiest religion on
earth.”
He gives the example of some of the men in the Bible like
Abraham and David who married more than one wife and had
concubines with whom they got children.
“The holiness was in how these men dealt with their many
wives and concubines and God had no problem with them,” he
says.
The reverend says it is wrong to imagine that God would have
created two wives for Adam as “God created them so that they
may fill the world”
He noted that in the Bible, some women seemed to have been
in a complex situation such that remarrying was out of
thought. They ended up being concubines.
But even for concubines, there was discipline, he says, and a
man found with another man’s concubine was to be beaten.
“This was a lesser punishment compared to when you were
found with someone’s wife where the sentence was death by
stoning,” he adds.