I have been reading Seventh-day Adventist resolution on polygamy and baptism during 1913-1986 and it is interesting that after they reached at point they couldn’t agree on the issue of polygamy and baptism, they invited the women to discuss with them the issue and how it affects them. But after listening to them and their suggestions, the pamphlet says the following: –
“After all, women’s voices and some alternative positions have not been given due attention at the level of authority where policies are made.”
It is just mind-blowing that the committee called the women in to hear from them and then did not consider what they said. And just for our information, no woman sits on BRI, that was the first time I heard women sat on the discussion with theologians to discuss a crucial matter in SDA I may be wrong but never read it anywhere. They have been invited in Daniel 11 symposium for three years now but not invited with BRI for my knowledge.
Agreed
“Among the Maasai in Tanzania, polygamists can be baptized if they promise not to marry any more wives after baptism.”
So the denomination decided that they would not dissolve the marriage among the Maasai based on ethical reasons and not theological basis because the Bible although condemns polygamy yet the denomination saw that it never went beyond dissolving those polygamous families. In Asia, the woman who is chased from her marriage or marriage is dissolved is treated as a prostitute and can never be married again, so in Asia too they deemed it fit not to dissolve the marriages but let them be yet teach others the dangers of polygamy and Bible monogamy. In the issue of Sarah and Hagar, the theological committee argued that Sarah was not even a concubine of Abraham leave alone being a wife so her case should not be raise when speaking about polygamy and that’s why God send her away but in all marriages that has been polygamous, you don’t find God dissolving any.
When you read in COOD, we find that the people could take a low position in church, it is very vague if the marriages were dissolved. In referring to the case of David putting the concubines to house, feeding them and not having intercourse with them, the argument is that it was not on the basis of polygamy that he put them away but because his son had defiled them so it is wrong to argue that David came into truth and then put the concubines away. NO. he didn’t have to go into women that her son had abominated with.
Anyway I found the topic so interested from the denominational standpoint not that I now know the truth implicitly on this topic nor suggesting anything but to inform us that I found the above so interesting and intriguing.
For more click on the title below
Adventist and Polygamous Converts
