By Bamidele Johnson
The church and pastors have come under heavy fire since the death of the singer known as Osinachi from alleged domestic violence. Until she died, I never heard of her or her song, as gospel music isn’t my scene.
I’m not the one to defend pastors or the church (they’ve got battalions who’d throttle gullets, if need be, in their defence), but I think they’ve been slated unfairly. Curiously, it is the alleged Bible-believing crowd that constitutes the majoring of those bludgeoning the church and pastors. The victim, if she actually died from assault by her spouse, is getting a free pass to wherever she’s headed.
The church (generally) and pastors, however much we like remixes, are right in their opposition to divorce on any ground aside from infidelity. That is what the Bible says. I’m not suggesting it makes divorce automatic. If it did, we’d need 4milliom arks, each 500 times the size of Noah’s to accommodate divorcees. Marriages between non-Christians, who are not under pastors’ influence are not free of violence with fatal consequences. The society’s attitude, marked by subtle stigmatisation of divorced or separated women, is a big factor.
Pastors, I’m told advise separation for a while in the hope that violence-blighted marriages can be mended and the partners get back. I hope I’m wrong, but I strongly doubt that a man given to habitually hitting a woman can be completely cured. I sincerely hope I’m wrong. But pastors are healing experts, so they must believe.
Do pastors have authority to advise separation? I don’t know for a fact and don’t believe they do. I also don’t think any portion of the Bible stops them from doing so. So what happens if the marriage is irretrievably smithereened, say at between the ages of 25 and 30, on the ground of infidelity?
Neither of the spouses, as per my skimpy grasp of the Bible, is allowed to marry until one dies. If both spouses have the longevity of Pa Ayo Adebanjo, it means they’re cooked and sexually dispossessed, as they’re required to take an indefinite vacation from shagging.
The Catholic Church, correctly, sticks to that instruction that rules out marriage until and ex-spouse dies, something the “Bible-believing” churches seem to think has had its amendment signed into law by one of their mega-preachers. I cannot, for obvious reasons, trust that Catholic divorcees don’t shag, though.
Divorced non-Catholics remarry with spouses alive. So, if people defy the Bible, the presumed basis of the pastors’ authority, why can’t they defy the preachers when their marriages get in a jam on account of physical violence?
Christians take the Bible a la carte, picking what suits them and ignoring what doesn’t, hence the defiance of no marriage before a former spouse’s death. For many Christians (I dare say most), the Bible is like a software license, of which you read probably only the first five lines before clicking “agree”. That is exploited by unscrupulous preachers for influence, not power.
Power belongs to the victim, except he/she is weak-willed or inhibited by finances or absence of a support structure.
The pastor is unlikely to get someone who’s fled a grotesque marriage back in by hiring a towing vehicle to drag her back. It’s the victim’s prerogative to decide whether to leave or stay. The worst I think would happen is to be stopped from attending services or ministering. Neither is a steep price to pay for physical and mental safety.
. If I didn’t approach a pastor to pray for me when choosing a person to marry (a role not assigned to him by the Bible), I owe him no obligation to heed his counsel when the marriage becomes asphyxiating due to violence.
But if people, including pastors, defy the Bible to remarry before the death of their ex-spouses, why do they need the pastor to greenlight divorce. It’s their call, not the pastor’s.
Parent’s should get part of the blame. In my part of the country, a girl is told as she’s getting married that she no longer has a room in her father’s house. That’s not very sensible. Got two daughters and won’t want anyone to beat them.
The sumptuously bonkers Diego Maradona famously said: “If my daughters’ boyfriends make them cry two or three times, they’ll have an accident.” Needs no more explanation.
• Johnson, a public affairs analyst, is the publisher of Newsbreak.