Proverbs 30:18-19

Nigeria: Female Cleric Urges Mothers to Embrace Peace
Daily Trust (Abuja)
4 March 2008

A female cleric, Mrs Comfort Oyelade, of Our Saviour's Church of Anglican Communion, Abuja, has appealed to mothers to embrace love in their homes to ensure peace.

Oyelade made the appeal Sunday in Abuja, during a sermon she delivered to mark mothering Sunday.

She tasked mothers to always pray for their husbands and the entire family "with submissions and fear of God, as they were the pillars of every home".

"We must treat our husbands like kings and must not forget our duties as wives, if only we want our husbands to treat us like queens," she advised.

It’s all here …

South Africa: Zuma's Growing Stock of Wives And the Burden of Christianity
Nicholas Sengoba
OPINION
The Monitor (Kampala)
4 March 2008

Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma, 65, President of the African National Congress (ANC) has been making headlines lately for the way in which he is going about adding "wives and women" to his harem.
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The polygamous side of Zuma makes news in many parts of the African continent that practise Christianity as a religion because of what a critic on national radio called the "burden of Christianity."

When the European missionaries landed in Africa with a new religion, the greatest hurdle for most of the converts was giving up polygamy (and traditional forms of worship which the missionaries called "witchcraft.")

To take advantage of the package that the new religion provided ie education and vocational skills such as carpentry, most natives took to practising Christianity during "broad daylight" before reverting to the old ways in "the night" in the absence of the prying eyes of the society -what is known as being "Anglican by day and African by night."

It’s all here …

...and a fascinating look at another kind of "closet":

To be acceptable, a well educated and civilised Christian married a wife in church and wore a ring on his finger promising to love only that woman in health, wealth, poverty, sickness etc.

Besides for a politician it was important to keep up appearances as being a good exemplary "God fearing" member of society whom the church would speak well about and Christians would name their children after. That hour in church on Sunday morning became a cherished facet of one's life.

For most politicians therefore polygamy became strictly an issue for the underground.
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If one really had to satisfy the "urge" of polygamy, he stopped at secretly maintaining a mistress on the side without children, we must add, who would act as "evidence" of infidelity. The bolder one got a town wife and "hid" one in the village with whom he started a "concealed" family.

Many of a politician's escapades with childhood sweet hearts or their sisters, private secretaries, and cases as bizarre as wives of colleagues and nieces of close relatives would remain "fiercely guarded" secrets -occasionally making it in gossip columns as "riddles."

That way the politician would still enjoy the privilege of sitting on the front pew of the church and receiving Holy Communion and recognition from the priest during Sunday service or better still winning the endorsement of men of the cloth as "God's anointed" during campaigns for office.

The trick about polygamy? It is easy to hide evidence for the other sins known to the Christian faith like killing, stealing, worshipping other gods, disrespecting one's parents etc. For polygamy it only takes a woman besides one's wife and children for all and sundry to know one's "personal failings."

A politician may blame the killing of an opponent on "uncoordinated movement of troops." As for polygamy he carries his own cross. So when a "modern" African man and moreover a politician overtly takes on more than one wife like Jacob Zuma, it is "shocking" because he breaks ranks with many who are "still in the closet."

The good Sunday morning Christian who maintains an amorous relationship with a little girl at the university- the age of his daughter- feels inadequate due to the boldness or impudence a Jacob Zuma exhibits when he opts not to be imprisoned by public opinion and the hypocrisy that many select in order to live up to the expectations of society.

My goodness. You don't suppose this might apply to other areas of African public life as well...not just politicians?

And the reference, for you biblical illiterates...?

18 There are three things which are too wonderful for me, 
    Four which I do not understand:
19 The way of an eagle in the sky,
    The way of a serpent on a rock,
    The way of a ship in the middle of the sea,
    And the way of a man with a maid.