For God or For the Denomination? The Troubling Theology Behind Mandated Marriages

In a stunning edict that has sent shockwaves through Nigeria’s Christian community, a senior superintendent of the influential Assemblies of God Church has effectively weaponized the marriage altar, barring pastors from marrying anyone outside the denomination. This directive, issued by Rev. Abel Amadi during a clergy retreat, transforms the most personal of covenants into a matter of institutional compliance, demanding that ministers search the church’s nationwide directories for a spouse as if seeking a qualified candidate for a vacant pulpit position. The instruction, chilling in its bureaucratic clarity, orders district presbyteries to strictly enforce the policy, reducing the sacred search for a life partner to a denominational scavenger hunt across state lines—from Rivers to Umuahia, Enugu to Lagos. This move, framed as a safeguard for “doctrinal unity and shared values,” instead constructs a doctrinal prison, suggesting that a pastor’s faith and effectiveness are so fragile that they can be undermined by the beliefs of the person they love, unless that person holds the same membership card.

Beyond the shocking intrusion into private life, this mandate exposes a deep-seated anxiety within the institution and raises perilous questions about the nature of spiritual leadership and community. It implicitly devalues the faith of millions of Christians outside the Assemblies of God fold and presumes that marital harmony—and by extension, effective ministry—can only be achieved through doctrinal clonehood. The policy, while perhaps aimed at preserving internal cohesion, risks cultivating a culture of isolation and superiority, where pastors are bred in a spiritual bubble, shielded from the diverse, interwoven reality of the global Christian body and the society they are meant to serve. By prioritizing denominational pedigree over personal conviction and godly character in a partner, the church risks not only alienating its own clergy but also broadcasting a message that love is secondary to loyalty—and that the boundaries of the faith are drawn not by the cross, but by the gatekeepers of a single organization.