As the Church grows larger in Sub-Saharan Africa I suspect that the issue of how to handle polygamous families will become increasingly salient. An irony of ironies, of course, is that in 2026 the Community of Christ is more polygamy accommodating than the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, since they allow polygamists to convert as long as they recognize the Church’s doctrine of monogamy and do not take additional spouses, whereas the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints requires polygamists to essentially become monogamists by divorcing their other wives.
While simply requiring polygamous converts to choose a wife in order to be baptized might seem like a no-brainer, the issue is more complicated than at first glance. In some contexts in some countries separating from a wife that one has been socially and economically intertwined with for years could be seen as a form of abandonment, so various faiths have struggled with how to not force families to break up without appearing to give any ground on their doctrine of monogamy.
The Catholic Church, for example, has been having various discussions about how to thread this needle in central Africa, one of the few places where the Catholic Church is growing. For instance, one proposal is that the first wife in a polygamous relationship can be baptized as the one “legitimate” wife recognized by the Church, and I get the vibe that in some dioceses there’s sort of a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy about polygamous families who want to participate in the liturgical life of the Church.
The Anglican Church, however, has taken a CoC approach, allowing polygamous conversions given certain stipulations and conditions such as not taking any additional wives.
I don’t actually have a strong opinion about what the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints should do, I’m just pointing out the theological-legal complexities that make it an interesting case to consider.
While the Community of Christ, Anglican, and Catholic Church have fairly stringent categorical theological prohibitions against polygamy per se, one could argue that we have more legal-theological flexibility to be pastoral here, since polygyny is still engrained in our temple sealing theology, and we could easily take the CoC/Anglican approach (I’m not usually one to use that sentence) by grandfathering in past polygamous marriages while restricting any such post-conversion unions.
However, precisely because of our history and the fact that so many people seem to have a hard time knowing that we’re not FLDS (I was on my mission when Warren Jeffs was caught and remember people jeering at us that our prophet had been arrested), giving any ground on the hard-fought battles against the FLDS means much more than a simple pastoral accommodation for Central Africans who have never heard of Warren Jeffs. Plus the Church has already, very much to its credit, been quite stringent about enforcing paternal financial responsibilities via its temple recommend granting power, so a strict Church policy about supporting one’s children from a past polygamous relationship could obviate some of the sociopolitical harm to the former plural wives if he were to divorce them.
Again, no strong opinion either way, it’s a complicated issue, and one that wouldn’t cause a religious crisis on my part if the policy were to change. Just an ironic, interesting conundrum we’re going to increasingly face as the Church grows in areas of the world where polygamy is normative.
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