Many years ago I organized a necktie party. (No not the traditional kind.) It seems in the eagerness of my youth I confused western culture with Christianity. It is a common error of missionaries – especially young ones. It is difficult for us to sort out traditions from what really matters. I wrote to one of the churches I had pastored as a very young man and asked them to rid their closets of neckties and send them to our school in Uganda. When they arrived I passed them out to our male students and required them to wear them for church services. After all we must dress properly if we are to come into the presence of the King of the Universe. The problem was neckties were not the local custom, to which I should have been very much more sensitive.
When we baptized a man who already had more than one wife we required him to put away all but one wife. (He always kept the pretty one.) And so we created homes with mothers with children and no father figure. Fathers would make monthly visits to bring food and money to those homes. I do believe we created a lot of guilt as a result of those visits. Once again we confused Christianity with western culture. The only thing Paul had to say about such men with more than one wife is that they not be church leaders. Some of the men were more perceptive and compassionate than we. They came to church every week and just were never baptized.
Psychologists call what I (we) did “Group Think.” In our group we had convinced ourselves we were on moral high ground and God was on our side. May God make us wise enough to discern real truth from our acculturated beliefs.
Written by Roger Bothwell on February 27, 2014
Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574
Rogerbothwell.org