Polyamory and Christianity

[Fidelia]

Loving Radiance, BrainFreezy, et al:

I am thoroughly delighted that you have read/are reading Divine Sex and finding it useful. It really opened my eyes to the discrepancies between what the Bible actually says and what Christian religious tradition teaches, among other things. I was so disappointed last year when I tried to start a discussion thread on the book and it derailed so quickly and so profoundly. Perhaps at some point we might try again.

 

[brainfreezy]

LR-

I'm all for BBQ. Where we meeting?

Whenever you (or anyone else, for that matter) find yourself in the Denver area.

Fidelia,

I was so disappointed last year when I tried to start a discussion thread on the book and it derailed so quickly and so profoundly. Perhaps at some point we might try again.

Now's as good as any! Personally, I'm finding it a complete yet exhaustive text. He really doesn't leave *any* examples from scripture out, so about halfway through most chapters I'm thinking "okay okay, so poly isn't adultery..." and such. However, since I'm open to all this, maybe I'm easy-convincing. Better to cover a topic completely than to leave out valuable points that would reach a harder sell than me. He also covers what other scholars have said about certain posts, so he does a very thorough job. The length and verbosity should not dissuade anyone, (like my posts ).

If your thread seriously got ground to a halt, start a new one. If it just up-and-died, revive it!

 

[Magdlyn]

...The only person that can tell you what Christ means to you is you. I think it is vague in some parts on purpose. Be it man-made or inspired, it is all we have to work with.

Well, we have the Roman Catholic and Protestant church fathers telling us which books are canonical and which aren't.

I second the Jesus Seminar research, but it's also worthwhile reading the intertestamental "apocrypha," and the gnostic texts of the early centuries AD, instead of just going with which books the Romans thought were most useful politically.

I prefer much of authentic Paul to the Revelation of John (which is insane, imo, though poetic and scary-violent, if you like that sort of thing...).

 

[Quath]

I think if you are trying to do a well-rounded review of the Bible, then check out some college lectures on the New Testament. One I listened to tried to unravel what happened by reconciling internal and historical contradictions by using a few assumptions like older stories were more likely to be true than newer ones. Or something is more likely to be true if it doesn't benefit the author to say it.

By doing this, the story condenses down to a story in which Jesus is a follower of John. He preaches the coming of God in a few years. He seems to hope he will be the Son of Man who is God's divine judge over who is allowed into the kingdom of Earth. He goes to Jerusalem. One possibility is that Judas let it slip that Jesus thought he was the Son of Man. The rabbi knew what it meant, and to the Roman government, it seemed that Jesus was planning on an insurgency or rebellion.

Jesus was tortured and buried in a mass grave. His followers heard a rumor he was buried in a tomb. They went to the tomb and did not find him and assumed that Jesus rose from the dead.

Another good book is Misquoting Jesus, which looks into how the New Testament has been changed a lot over time and what has been manipulated. For example, the story of Jesua and the adulterous woman appears to have been added and was not part of the original gospel. Another change is that women were made less prominent over time.

 

[MrFarFromRight]

No. Your answer is about your anger and objections. My question asked what Jesus teaches polyamorists, and what we still don't understand.

That's a tall order! There is so much that he taught that is worthy. I believe - and it's a very personal interpretation - that Jesus taught (among other things) self-respect, the necessity for taking responsibility for yourself and your life. (Matthew 16:24: Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." Though I doubt that he said "deny". As I've written before, I think he was often misquoted. And - for clarification - I imagine the word or the concept "own" inserted between "their" and "cross", i.e. every person has the duty to carry their own cross - or load, or life, or whatever you like. This means that I don't believe that he "died for our sins"... or ever claimed to.) As far as polyamory goes, didn't he teach that we should love everybody? I don't believe that he meant we should sexually love everybody, but it certainly was a leap away from the usual concept of stingy, jealous love, love with strings attached, limited love...

"and what we still don't understand" With respect, I think that you've pulled that out of context. I wrote that Jesus accused his disciples - who were with him daily - of still not understanding what he was trying to teach after all that time he'd spent with them. (I wrote that to illustrate that if Jesus got upset at their misinterpretations of his teaching, why should we accept the disciples' version?) However, to [partly] answer your question: Of course we today don't perfectly understand him. How could we? But each person is different and there must be thousands of individual misunderstandings. That said, there are some mass beliefs anchored in the Church or in each branch of it - different dogmas for different denominations (e.g. papal infallibility for the Catholics, predestination for the Calvinists...) - that are widely believed but have [I think] nothing to do with Jesus or his teachings.

So now I have a different question for MrFarFromRight. Do these issues of Jesus and Christianity still matter to you today?

Passionately! Partly because it's the culture that I grew up in. The issue of Christianity has played a fundemental role in who I am. But mostly because
a) I believe that Jesus was a great and loving teacher;
b) Christianity is a mighty force (in determining the opinions and attitudes of the dominating nations today - even those who don't profess themselves Christians: it's part of the bedrock of our society);
c) The Church has (sometimes willfully) mangled and perverted those beautiful teachings, so that they can be used for hate and bigotry... and war. (Those widely published photos of Son OF A Bush and his cabinet bowing their heads in prayer before deciding which Iraqi villages to bomb turned my stomach!)

 

[MrFarFromRight]

In full seriousness, MrFarFromRight - I would suggest that you read through Divine Sex. I'm on chapter 6 now, and by this point most of my sticking points with polyamory and the Bible have been either completely dissolved or turned on their ear. Best recommended book on both the faith and poly fronts for me personally (thanks for the hard sell LR!).

There is so much I'd like to read, and honestly, I don't need to work on reconciling my sexual principles with my spiritual beliefs: they're already in harmony.

Ultimately, no one is going to heal your faith but you and God together. Of course, you've rejected a lot of secondhand corruption and become skeptical, which isn't a bad thing - so long as you keep digging! We'll never know Christ's precise feelings on any particular topic, and we all tend to project our values onto Him when we try to reconcile things He didn't talk about.

Similarly, I don't feel the need to "heal my faith". I reject the patriarchalism, the sexism, and the idea of a "jealous God" (and - as I've written earlier - the pettiness of a God who has a "Chosen People", favoured above all others) of the Judeo-Christian tradition. I have full respect for [my concept of] Jesus... just as I have full respect for [my concept of] Goldman, Gandhi, King, Mandela, and Corrie. I'm sure that they all had their faults, but they tried to be good... and [I believe] achieved that in very difficult circumstances. Personally, I doubt that Jesus set himself up to be the unique son of God (and if I became convinced that he did believe that of himself, I would lose a lot of my respect for him). So that I'm as [un]likely to worship any of them... aside from a certain degree of hero worship.

Speaking of which, what may help your sticking points is to get a red-letter edition Bible, where the words of Christ Himself are highlighted.Of course Christianity is about an individual's walk with Christ, not with His church (small-c). Without studying we are left with the interpretations of others. The only person that can tell you what Christ means to you is you. I think it is vague in some parts on purpose. Be it man-made or inspired, .

I agree that "The only person that can tell you what Christ means to you is you." But I disagree with "it is all we have to work with". As I've already written, I believe that the Gospels are flawed, the "letters of Paul" have some moments of beauty and truth... but are mostly abhorrent, a play for power in the young church. And let's pass over the drugged craziness of Revelations!

 

[serialmonogamist]

I've never encountered a Bible verse that said that multiple husbands were not allowed. But would both husbands be the head of the household? If so, how would that work?

I think it could work, especially in modern life, where women can head their own households. The tricky part is conceptualizing how two individuals can be married and each be head of their own households. For example. a woman could have multiple children with multiple husbands if she could afford it, and her husbands could do the same, if they could afford it. This already happens in serial monogamy when you consider that people divorce and remarry other people who have other children from previous marriages. The only difference with polygamy is that you remain married instead of divorcing.

 

[sage]

I'm trying to reconcile spiritual beliefs with polyamory at the moment.

How do you reconcile Jesus supposed words 'man and woman becoming one flesh'? (It's something like that. I can pull out the exact verse if need be.)

The other biggie for me is Jesus likening a couple to being a pair of yoked oxen. As a mono in a mono/poly relationship, this is a problem for me and others in similar situations. The more elements you add to into a relationship, the more difficult it is to maintain an even yoking.

 

[Magdlyn]

I'm trying to reconcile spiritual beliefs with polyamory at the moment.

How do you reconcile Jesus supposed words 'man and woman becoming one flesh'? (it's something like that I can pull out the exact verse if need be).

Jesus is made to quote Genesis, where Yahweh creates Eve from Adam's rib.

Matthew 19

When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea...

Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”

“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

“Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”

Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.”

Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”

Context, context, context. Quote mining is always a big FAIL. The Pharisees were wondering about Jesus' opinion on divorce in that current time. A divorce, for a woman at that period, was pretty much a death sentence, or at least a quick ride to prostitution to keep body and soul together. Women had no power, couldn't own property, and were not able to remarry after divorce. This was actually a protective, pro-woman statement. Divorce in Judea was easy then: tell your wife, "I divorce you," and it was done.

Digging deeper, the original Genesis statement refers to the heiros gamos, sacred marriage, a perfect balance of yin/yang. The first being created by Yahweh was a hermaphrodite, split in twain by surgery.

Now look at the bit about being a eunuch, celibate. That's OK as well, according to the author of Matthew. For men! Women had no choice but to marry, or live forever as a second class citizen in her father's/brother's house.

The other biggie for me is Jesus likening a couple to being a pair of yoked oxen. As a mono in a mono/poly relationship this is a problem for me and others in similar situations. The more elements you add to into a relationship the more difficult it is to maintain an even yoking.

Of course there are plenty of marriages in the Old Testament that were polygynous. The men were poly and the women were mono, basically. Take that into consideration, as well.

Don't quote mine and flail, read the whole darn book!

 

[sage]

Thanks for explaining that, Magdlyn. I always forget about context. But still I think that the "one flesh" statement seems a bit like over-kill if it was only supposed to be used to prevent unfair divorce.

I'm certainly not going to read the whole bible, if that's what you meant, so maybe I should just leave the whole of Christianity alone. I thought I had done that, but I'm doing the 12 steps of AA and it is quite difficult to do that without getting caught up in Christianity.

 

[GroundedSpirit]

Maybe I should just leave the whole of Christianity alone.

Ah yes, a very wise idea, likely.

I thought I had done that but I'm doing the 12 steps of AA and it is quite difficult to do that without getting caught up in Christianity.

A lot of otherwise well-meaning groups have been saddled with religious underpinnings. The trick is to pick what is solid logic and science and just ignore the propaganda. It IS possible.

 

[serialmonogamist]

Thanks for explaining that, Magdlyn. I always forget about context. But still I think that the "one flesh" statement seems a bit like over-kill if it was only supposed to be used to prevent unfair divorce.

I'm certainly not going to read the whole bible, if that's what you meant, so maybe I should just leave the whole of Christianity alone. I thought I had done that, but I'm doing the 12 steps of AA and it is quite difficult to do that without getting caught up in Christianity.

People are free to pick and choose parts of any philosophy to learn from, regardless what others may tell them about it being wrong to do so. Ultimately, individuals construct their own personal philosophies from the things they read, experience, and think. If they choose to do this by adopting the most orthodox possible interpretation of a particular religion or sect they can muster, that is their choice, but it is not the only one. Please don't let an all-or-nothing attitude toward any philosophy prevent you from freely exploring and developing your own personal beliefs through learning about others' beliefs/ideas as part of your process.

 

[sage]

A lot of otherwise well-meaning groups have been saddled with religious underpinnings. The trick being to pick what is solid logic and science and just ignore the propaganda. It IS possible.

I have had sort a deeply-connected spiritual experience for a very long time (through nearly every channel available to me) and never found it until, of all places, through AA. Solid logic and science don't do it for me. Sifting through teachings, and working out what is right for me and what isn't is part of my process. I don't think I can dismiss all of Jesus' possible words as being propaganda, but neither can I leave my brain at the door and accept everything that is taught as part of Christianity.

@serialmonogamist - Thank you

 

[Quath]

"One flesh" is also just another phrase for sex. You can see this in 1 Corinthians 6:16 "Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, 'The two will become one flesh.'"

Like many parts of the Bible, pick your beliefs and you can find a Bible verse to back you up. (Murder is the only exception I have found. However, who to kill is wide open.)

 

[sage]

Thanks, Quath. I think I will just leave the bible alone. It's way too confusing if you aren't prepared to do intensive study.

 

[Magdlyn]

I have had a sort of deeply-connected spiritual experience for a very long time.

Same here. But I left Christianity when I was 16, exploring the ways various cultures experienced the divine instead. I was informed by Buddhism, Hinduism, New Age and Wicca. I didn't feel ready to do an intensive Bible study until I was in my 40s.

Solid logic and science don't do it for me.

Science and logic have their place. But they only go so far. Psychology, philosophy and theology can also inform us on how to live better healthier lives in our short time on this planet.

Sifting through teachings and working out what is right for me and what isn't is part of my process. I don't think I can dismiss all of Jesus' possible words as being propaganda.

Pro-pagan-da. For the pagans. Romans used orthodox Christianity for empire building, serving a form of this religion to consolidate the "Holy Roman Empire," to keep their formerly pagan subjects firmly in line with Pope and Emperor, and later, King. Of course, Xtianity stems from earlier pagan religions and shares many themes. Later, northern European beliefs were syncretized with the Middle Eastern teachings of the Bible. Many holy Christian shrines and churches are built on old pagan holy sites. Even Christian holidays are usually set on important pagan dates, Xmas, Easter, Candlemass, St John the Baptist's day, All Saints Day, etc., etc.

but neither can I leave my brain at the door and accept everything that is taught as part of Christianity.

Xtianity is a belief system based on myths from 2000-10,000 years ago. Why would anyone believe any of those myths literally today? However, there are universal truths written in the various books of the Bible which can be useful to understand mankind's attempts at making sense of life. There are threads in the Bible going back to beliefs of ancient Babylon, Egypt, Canaan, Persia and Greece. Most of the Old Testament is a polemic against Goddess worship (Asherah and Astarte) and later, political protest against Greek rule. The New Testament is about Jesus and his followers protesting Roman rule, and in the later books, infighting between gnostic Xtian thought (seen as heresy) and orthodox thought. The Revelation of John was just one "Revelation" screed among many of the day, but the only one included in the canon. It wasn't accepted as part of the canon until the 16th century AD.

I think I will just leave the bible alone. It's way too confusing if you aren't prepared to do intensive study.

It is confusing, but it all becomes clear when you get certain vocabulary and understand context.

 

[serialmonogamist]

Xtianity is a belief system based on myths from 2000-10,000 years ago. Why would anyone believe any of those myths literally today?

I think the most radical belief in Christianity is that individuals can have God's will directly revealed to them through the Holy Spirit. That idea gets dogmatized and chanted and people fail to think about what it really means, which is that individuals have the ultimate authority to know God. This includes the authority to know what sin is and confess directly to God.

If you look at all the negative feelings toward Christianity, I think you'll find that it's usually people angry about someone else's definition of what constitutes sin or not, and who gets to decide how they're supposed to live. Really, consulting God directly though prayer is the only true way for Christians to address their questions. They can talk to each other, share their insights, and tell others when they think they're making mistakes, but what it really comes down to is that they are honest with themselves about what they know is wrong, and that they make an honest effort to live well.

I think the Roman authorities and so many others through history have used the Christian ideas to promote external authority systems simply because many people can't grasp the idea that individuals can be their own ultimate authorities where communion with God is concerned. People also have trouble distinguishing between listening to others for insight/advice and having to obey them. Really, Christianity is not about obedience, imo, no matter what anyone or any church might have led you to believe.

 

[Quath]

Be careful of listening to God (or thinking you are). Sometimes the results are humorous like in God's Busy Schedule. Or horrible as seen in the stories of Peggy Ross, Latisha Lawson, LaShaun Harris, etc. These people killed family members because God told them to. While mental problems seem to be an obvious thing to blame, how can you tell if someone who listens to God is mentally ill or not?

If you hear God physically, then I think it is more likely you have dissociative identity disorder, schizophrenia, or you are listening to your own inner voice. The easiest way to help you decide is to ask that voice a question that you do not know the answer to. For example, ask what the lottery numbers will be right before they are called out. God should know. You don't. If there is no answer or you get the wrong answer, then I would suggest getting help.

I don't mean to sound attacking of other people's beliefs, but I worry when people say they can hear God.

 

[serialmonogamist]

Be careful of listening to God (or thinking you are). Sometimes the results are humorous like in God's Busy Schedule. Or horrible as seen in the stories of Peggy Ross, Latisha Lawson, LaShaun Harris, etc. These people killed family members because God told them to. While mental problems seem to be an obvious blame; how can you tell if someone who listens to God is mentally ill or not?

If you hear God physically, then I think it is more likely you have dissociative identity disorder, schizophrenia or you are listening to your own inner voice. The easiest way to help you decide is to ask that voice a question that you do not know the answer to. For example, ask what the lottery numbers will be right before they are called out. God should know. You don't. If there is no answer or you get the wrong answer, then I would suggest getting help.

I don't mean to sound attacking of other people's beliefs, but I worry when people say they can hear God.

There are different ways of thinking of "God" in practical terms that distinguishes it from just any insane ideology you can think of. The way I think of it is as a concept of a good authority that is not afraid to question any human authority figure. So whatever anyone tells you or leads you to believe, God lets you question it, and if you think it's wrong in some way, you can search further for a better answer.

I think God also provides guidance by illuminating which thoughts are wrong. I guess you could view "God" as just a sense of truth and goodness, where you KNOW when things are wrong or not good. Sure, you could go insane and be misled, but if that is the case, what other voice (internal or external) is going to prompt you to be more sane? It sounds like all you're really saying is not to trust the voice within because it could trick you. What is that doubt supposed to do for you other than leave you confused? Ultimately you have to make choices, and you need a basis for that. If you don't call that basis "God," what would you call it then? The next question is if you trust whatever basis it is you use, why would you avoid attributing it to "God?" Don't you think that all humans have ever done is attribute whatever wisdom they can muster to a greater being or force?

 

[Magdlyn]

If you don't call that basis "God," what would you call it then?

One's higher self. Or maybe common sense.

The next question is if you trust whatever basis it is you use, why would you avoid attributing it to "God?"

One might be an atheist.

Don't you think that all humans have ever done is attribute whatever wisdom they can muster to a greater being or force?

No, not at all. Some people have a belief in, or reliance on, their own inner power, wisdom and strength. You could call it god, buddha or spirit if you are religiously inclined, but not all people are that religious.