Broad-based families are here to stay whether deputy Jesus likes it or not

Prophet Victor Kanyari and his late wife Betty Bayo. [Courtesy, Standard]

Prophet Victor Kanyari could not stay married to the vivacious gospel singer, Betty Bayo (may her soul rest in eternal peace) resulting in their children calling two men "father".

Kanyari may not be your conventional clergyman, but his divorce signaled the challenges plaguing the institution of marriage. If a union sealed with the holy spirit can be ripped apart, what about the thousands consummated in parking lots and held together by the flimsy band-aid of lust?

Initially, the mainstream churches were firm. When you walked your butt into holy matrimony, you stayed put come rain or shine. If you foolishly grabbed your rugs and stomped out, no way you were partaking of the body and blood of Christ.

They frowned upon sex before marriage, too, and if a woman indulged and ended up with a protruding belly, padre was not baptizing that child.

But the church is slowly awakening to the reality that these "social misfits" could be the stone that the builders rejected. Divorces and single mothers are becoming the cornerstone of the church because, heck, many are loaded like a nonsense.

There is also a reluctant admission that tolerance has sunk, that the flesh on both sides of the isle is weak, and that man will continuously disrupt the Lord's best intentions by ripping unions asunder.

Let there be no doubt: stepfamilies are here to stay, and there is absolutely nothing elders, religious groups, civil society or the State can do about it.