The Sunday Mail
Desire Ncube
Religion Reporter
The subject of spiritual husbands and wives has been debated on, researched and written about since time immemorial but still there is no universal explanation to this highly contentious issue.
Spiritual spouses are believed to be evil spirits that visit people in their sleep and sexually manipulate them. This may result in misfortunes befalling the victims. The issue has become topical, predominantly among Pentecostal church members who believe that they have the powers to deliver people from such ‘bondages’.
Glory Ministries founder Apostle Pride Sibiya released his booklet titled “How to Overcome Spiritual Spouses”, in which he extensively used scriptures to tackle the emotive topic.
He claimed that he had countless encounters with people who needed deliverance from the bondage.
According to Apostle Sibiya, these ‘spiritual spouses’ make it difficult for people to get married, stay married and bear children with their physical husbands.
Pastor Bryne Maungwe concurred with Apostle Sibiya, saying a possessed person should be exorcised.
“Spiritual spouses are evil spirits, demons and the only solution is to seek assistance from God through deliverance, that’s why God sent his servants,” he said.
“The credence is that when your marriage is breaking up due to a husband, who seems to have lost interest in you, or you have serious gynaecological problems, it is because you have a demon called a spiritual husband in the spiritual realm, causing all this in the physical life.
“It is also the case if you are getting older and no man is seriously approaching you for marriage. It means you have a spiritual husband blocking other men, you need deliverance in order to have a wholesome marriage.”
Their claims were, however, vehemently dismissed by a Bulawayo based psychologist Mr Naveen Eric Moyo who argued that this is a psychological problem that requires counselling.
“As usual, there are many benighted souls who are ready to testify that they went for such deliverance meetings where the ‘man of God’ prayed for them to be delivered from their spiritual husbands and since then their dreams have returned to normal and their marriages are supposedly back on track.
“For those who were not getting proposals, they will say that after the deliverance sessions they have found spouses and are now married and living happily ever after!
“This is a clear indication that this is a psychological problem which at least needs either professional or pastoral counselling.
He went on: “Sadly, there are many, many more whose marriages would have been salvaged if they had gone through proper Christian marriage counselling.”
“Men having marital problems are also being taught about spiritual wives who are affecting their marriages but it is often women who fall prey to such twaddle as it is widely believed that they (women) are always an easy target of religious gimmicks.”
Theologian Dr Innocent Sibanda said people have gone right back to the dark ages where they believed everything that “priests” say without checking what the Bible says.
“All this is not in the Bible. As in the dark ages, stories doing the rounds are becoming larger than life.
“Even when these false teachers use the Bible, they wrest it out of its context,” he said.
“One such teacher used Matthew 13:25, which says, ‘But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away,’ to teach that spiritual husbands come at night to sleep with women.”
Dr Sibanda said the spiritual spouse debate is being fuelled by unhealthy superstitious views on dreams.
“If I am lusting after someone I am likely to dream romantically about him or her. If I am having problems to conceive, I am likely to dream that one day I am pregnant.
“If I am longing for a job, I am likely to dream that one day I land myself the job of my dreams. “It is sheer common sense, dreams simply live out the wishes and fears of our lives,” he said, adding that having such a dream does not mean that one has a spiritual spouse.
Methodist Church in Zimbabwe education secretary, Reverend Elliot Mashonganyika said in as much as spiritual husbands and wives are a reality, his church mainly emphasises on counselling. “We cannot despise the existence of such things but as a church we mainly focus on counselling such people. However we also have sessions were pastors pray for such,” he said.
Another charismatic teacher, Apostle Chiwengwa said spiritual spouses are demons that can never be classified as husbands or wives.
“These are demons and how can one classify that this is a female demon and this is a male demon?
“Nowadays people have a tendency of trying to find explanations to anything, as a result deviating from the word of God. As servants of God, what we must do is deliver the people. It’s not our duty to classify demons,” he said.
He added that those involved in sexual sin are being told that the blame is on spiritual husbands or wives and all they need is deliverance.
“Responsibility is shifted from them to some powerful forces. The Bible calls on people who are guilty of sin to repent, urging them to find forgiveness from God through faith in Christ.
“Many of these women and the men being counselled to be delivered from spiritual husbands and wives need to be saved by the power of the gospel. Yet, there is no effort to show them that it is sin in their lives that is destroying their marriages,” Apostle Chiwengwa said
“If the Lord were to save them, He would give them a new power to enable them to joyfully live in honour of their marriage vows and obligations.”
“Any teaching that is not based squarely on the Bible is not worth listening to,” he said.
