“It’s based on the fight for Islam, the fight for Allah and the prophet. It was me myself who went to the woman’s family and told them why she should become a polygamist.”
That’s the explanation given by Dr. Gina Puspita in a CNN story on Jakarta’s “polygamy club.” And it is not the sentiment of a third world pheasant girl hoodwinked into the practice of polygamy. Dr. Puspita attended “a university in Toulouse, France and has a PHD in aeronautical construction engineering and has worked for Airbus.” Now 46, she lived and worked in France for eleven years, speaks several languages, and was as much an advocate of polygamy in her family as her husband ever was. Five years into the marriage, the couple decided to begin practicing polygamy.
They turned to a 72-year old Islamic cleric named Abuya Ashari. Ashari first convinced Puspita of Allah’s will in polygamy at a university lecture. In 1997, Ashari founded the company Global Ikhwan to promote Islam’s teaching on polygamy. The company “has thousands of members around the world with clubs similar to the one in Jakarta in Europe, the Middle East and North America,” CNN reports. The story continues: “The company provides homes, jobs, businesses, schools and medical facilities to its members. While being a polygamist is not compulsory, most people in the company practice it.”
While the West implodes in its understanding of marriage, Qur’an-believing Muslims finance the expansion of polygamous marriage around the world. While the church struggles to find biblical footing, cogent argument, and the courage of conviction in the promotion of marital monogamy, at least some in the Muslim world channel resources and wealth into clear statements about their view of marriage: “Polygamy is coming from God,” Puspita maintains.
To be sure, there are many Muslims who oppose polygamy, and there are abuses of women in such relationships, just as there are many who oppose monogamous marriage and abuses may be found there. There will be political and cultural debates inside polygamous and monogamous cultures.
But at stake is not simply political and cultural debates, or the form marriage takes–whether we’ll one day practice polygamy or maintain heterosexual monogamy in marriage. With the advancement of alternative forms of marriage, something more glorious is removed from human view: The Gospel.
From the establishment of lifelong covenantal marriage bonds in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 2:18-25) to the “mystery” now disclosed through Christ, marriage is to picture Christ’s love for His bride, His people, the church (Eph. 5:22-33). God intends marriage between one man and one woman to display the exclusive covenantal love He has for His redeemed. It’s a love demonstrated and vouchsafed by the sacrifice of His only Son, Jesus Christ. Upon the cross, Jesus gives Himself up for His bride, the church. He pays for her sins; He endures the punishment of God’s wrath she deserved. He suffers and dies in her place, so that three days later He may give her resurrection life with himself. He never forsakes her nor leaves her. He sanctifies her, cleanses her, washes her with the water of the word. He treats her as his own body, and receives her more radiant and beautiful than when he first paid the dowry of His own blood to purchase her from sin and death. By repentance from sin and faith in Jesus and His promise of salvation, the sinner enters into this covenantal bond of forgiveness, love, eternal life, and fellowship with God.
The existence of heterosexual marriage in every age in every culture is a common grace indication of a profound love that all humanity must embrace–the love of God through Jesus Christ for wayward sinners. The vanishing of healthy, loving, heterosexual, monogamous marriage is nothing less than the vanishing of gospel witness in society. That such a vanishing should occur in parts of the world historically without spoken gospel witness does not surprise us. That it should occur in countries with rich Christian history–indeed in churches themselves that are unable or unwilling to speak the truth about such issues–should leave us undone, crying with the prophet, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and dwell in the midst of a people with unclean lips!” (Is. 6:5).
Some Muslim women, like Puspita, fight for Allah by promoting polygamy. As Christians, we don’t need to fight for Christ. He’s Lord Omnipotent and will reign until all His enemies are made His footstool. Yet, we must make him known–including showing forth the glory of His love in our marriages. Shame on us if we’re not on the front lines of promoting Christ by daily loving our wives and husbands, serving them with sacrifical love, beautifying them with words of grace. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal–if I may take the liberty of editing Paul in a way he might approve–they are marital displays of Christ’s love between one husband and one wife.
Stories like this remind us that we can be sure of at least two things. First, the Muslim world–when measured by marriage and birth rates–gives far more significant attention to the importance of marriage and family than do far too many Christians and churches. Second, we may consider the removal of the gospel in word and as it’s pictured in heterosexual monogamous marriage nothing short of the judgment of God against people too hardened to repent and believe. Before we nod knowingly toward Jakarta. Remember, this judgment includes a lot of people in so-called “Christian nations.” Lord, have mercy on us all.
HT: Kyle.