July 26, 1988: David Mukuba Gitari, a Kenyan bishop tells Anglican leaders that Christians should be allowed to have more than one wife and urged the church to baptise polygamists. The Bishop of Mount Kenya East, told the Lambeth Conference there was nothing in the New Testament that prevent a man having several wives. He said St Paul’s instruction was merely that bishops and deacons should have only one. Five hundred and twenty-five bishops are attending the decennial conference, including almost 200 from Africa. “This year marks the centenary of the Lambeth Conference’s decisive, and I believe mistaken, refusal of baptism to polygamists,” he told the bishops. “In one case of great importance for Africa, the Anglican Church has failed to recognise a tolerable custom,” he added. The Rt. Rev Gitari was speaking as part of a debate on evangelisation and culture, a subject of more interest to Third World bishops than the largely Anglo-Saxon dispute over the ordination of women, which has dominated the conference so far.

Photo|Nation Syndication