The Baptists also seem soft on Polygamy.
Some of the early Baptists in Germany were polygamist.
Also, in Africa, the Baptists originally allowed their converts to retain their polygamy.
“As must be evident by now, before their missionaries came, one of the major attractions to the BaptistChurch was initial toleration of polygamist. It appeared also that initially the Baptists did not firmly take as negative an attitude to ancestor veneration as did the C.M.S. But according to Agbaluwa, a Baptist minister, the practice was never approved of “but people being so used to it mixed it up a little”.[12] Thus, many who enlisted in that church were at first able not only to keep their harems of wives but also to pay some homage to their departed parents[13] both of which practices were not allowed by the C.M.S. As the Baptist were to change their attitude towards polygamy later, this attraction belonged only to the first phase.”
#7: YOU play defense.
The Baptists stand on polygamy among new converts does not reflect a wholesale softening of it’s stand against polygamy.
It’s not unusual for missions groups to have to address the issue and the conclusion is that if they forced the men to divorce wives that they legally (according to their culture) married, then they would not only be forcing them to commit a sin in divorce, but the women thus divorced would be cast out as those cultures have no way for a woman to provide for herself outside of marriage.
It’s then concluded that allowing the new converts at remain married to their multiple wives would be less of a evil than divorcing them and failing to provide for them.
Polygamy, however, is not practiced, encouraged, or condoned among converts who were single when they converted and that is accepted by the indigenous people.
I’d bet that the younger men were especially happy about the increased availability of marriageable women.