Polyamory and Christianity

Thanks for taking some much interest in this, JG. Yes, please email me your response. I think it will be very helpful. There is definitely something very deep here for me. Even reading your response had in tears I'm typing through tears.

There is definitely a connection in my head between polyamory and God not co-habiting comfortably. It isn't to do with sin, or historical rules, but more that it seems to be one of what I'll call "The Big Suggestions" that most people who live their lives from a Christian platform adhere to. Other "Big Suggestions" are things like, "As you sow shall you reap;" the whole thing about idols and money; "Be as little children;" etc. I believe in these premises because I have observed them work out well, more often than not. I've noticed that when I apply them to my life it goes much better. Remember, this is purely my philosophy.

As I've said, I'm also open to the possibility that I am just battling my own ego. I'm using the principles of AA to deal with it, which is handing over my will to a power greater than myself. This is another "Big Suggestion" that I have seen works out best for me. I'm trying not to project out too far, just live each day to the best of my ability, and leave the rest up to God. This seems to be working well.

"Are there more issues than just polyamory involved? What about security, companionship, and simplicity? Are they missing too?" No, I feel very secure in my relationship. We live simply and are best, best friends. My problems are around depth of relationship and feeling. There is something disturbing for me in being totally invested emotionally, when my partner is not, because he also loves someone else.
 
sage said:
There is definitely a connection in my head between polyamory and God not co-habiting comfortably. It isn't to do with sin, or historical rules, but more that it seems to be one of what I'll call "The Big Suggestions" that most people who live their lives from a Christian platform adhere to. Other "Big Suggestions" are things like, "As you sow shall you reap"; the whole thing about idols and money;
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Remember, the "Big Suggestions" are man's rules/suggestions, not God's. If God does not strictly forbid it, it's not wrong. Man has a habit of feeling the need for more rules and regulations in order to "feel" holy or righteous, and therefore invents his own version of what he thinks God SHOULD have written.

"Be as little children;" etc. I believe in these premises because I have observed them work out well more often than not. I've noticed that when I apply them to my life it goes much better.
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Children don't have the same hang-ups about how many people, or even whom they are allowed to love like, like most of us adults have.

Check out Romans 14. Substitute other things for "eat." The verse is not about food, but any man-made ritual or restriction. I keep coming back to this verse in my own life when I find myself judging other Christians and their beliefs.
 
Thanks, SN. Surprisingly, even having this discussion on the forum is upsetting me again. I'll go and dig my Bible out of the basement and check out Romans. I bought a very large Bible a number of years ago, which I keep trying to get rid of, and it keeps coming back to me. I shifted it down to the basement when I got in trouble for randomly pulling out quotes. I gave it to my mother when I really went off it but she kept it knowing that I would one day want it back, and I did. I think I have a really confused and difficult relationship with Christianity and the Bible.

The "be as little children" I hadn't thought of in relation to polyamory, because seriously committed adult love relationships aren't something that a child experiences. I think of it more in their ability to live in the present.
 
sage said:
I'll go and dig my bible out of the basement and check out Romans.
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Google it - way faster and you can even switch between like a 100 different versions.

I think I have a really confused and difficult relationship with Christianity and the bible.
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Funny thing, when I was trying to find excuses to abandon Christianity and the God of the Bible, I spent alot of time reading the Bible. I came to quite a few conclusions for myself that aren't real popular with most Christians, and especially my mother. A funny thing is that my brother and I came to nearly the same conclusions and views independently.

The "be as little children" I hadn't thought of in relation to polyamory, because seriously committed adult love relationships aren't something that a child experiences. I think of it more in their ability to live in the present.
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I wasn't strictly referring to polyamory either, but they are more open to love in all forms, and can also return it. They don't care about color, race, religion, gender, if you walk with a limp, etc., they are also open to actually listening and learning to what God wants them to hear, instead of what man thinks God wants.
 
There is something lovely about the thin delicate pages of a big old Bible.

Mine has all these guides and commentaries in it. When I opened Romans, one of the first things that struck me was a commentary on adultery. I find it really, really hard to get past this when it comes to polyamory and Christianity.
 
sage said:
. . . one of the first things that struck me was a commentary on adultery. I find it really, really hard to get past this when it comes to polyamory and Christianity.
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I wouldn't ever see polyamory, with its emphasis on honesty, communication, and openness, and being so much (much!) more than sex, as anything even remotely like adultery! The word "adultery" just makes me think of illicit, secret sexual liaisons, to satisfy very base desires and coveting what someone else has.

Christianity is supposed to be about love, and so is polyamory. Perhaps you're having a problem with the sexual aspect of multiple relationships? I have heard that the Torah has no pronouncement against adultery. I wonder if that is true. The fact remains that there are so many contradictions in the Bible, and its writings can be interpreted numerous ways. It is easy to get confused and twist yourself into knots trying to understand it. My mother used to torture herself over specific verses, trying to decipher their meanings and how to apply them to her life, to the point where our pastor actually advised her to stop reading the Bible!

I would suggest that this is the source of your unrest, and I have my doubts that the Bible can help you here:
sage said:
My problems are around depth of relationship and feeling. There is something disturbing for me in being totally invested emotionally when my partner is not because he also loves someone else.
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It sounds like your issue surrounds doubting your partner's ability to love you as deeply as you love him. That's big, "challenging old beliefs" kind of stuff.
 
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Adultery was a property crime, the intent to steal another man's wife without his permission. It was never intended to mean what it means today. Nearly all the heroes of the Old Testament had multiple wives and concubines with God's blessing and never once was it considered adultery.

I don't like Bibles with commentaries anymore because they skew things to their way of thinking, right or wrong.
 
Okay, here's the long story. My husband and I were pretty New Age and open-minded. My mother was a Christian. We sent our eldest daughter to a Christian school. I had tried to get into Christianity a number of times.

About 8 or 9 years ago, a chance meeting with a man caused my daughter to have a profound religious experience. The man's family were pretty 'hardcore' Christians and my daughter Ariel ended up marrying his son at the ripe old age of 21.

It was a disaster. Within a couple of years, Ariel was having an affair, which ended the marriage. It would have been so easy for her to have come to the conclusion that Christianity was a load of rubbish, and to have resumed life as a fun-loving 20-something free of any restrictions. Instead, I watched her grapple through tremendous guilt and shame and work really hard to "get right with God." I couldn't understand it, but she held this firm belief that she was "convicted" by God, and her feelings would not allow her to live a life that wasn't aligned to that. It took her a while, but she fell in love with another (less hard-core) Christian, whom she married.

Now I am asking myself if perhaps what I am going through is something of a similar "conviction." What I am feeling is no longer coming from my head, but from my heart.

As I said, this has all come about as a result of AA. My daughter got me into AA after a friend of my mother's suddenly turned up on my doorstep in January with a conviction to pray with me. I went along with it to be polite to an elderly lady, but after probably drinking most days for the past 20 years, I haven't had a drink since. Very interesting times.
 
Leviticus 18:20 Do not have sexual relations with your neighbor's wife and defile yourself with her.

Leviticus 20:10 If a man commits adultery with another man's wife--with the wife of his neighbor--both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.

contrast with:

Leviticus 20:28 If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, 29 he shall pay her father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the young woman, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.

Deuteronomy 22:22 If a man is found sleeping with another man's wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel.

John 8

...The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

“No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
 
Thanks, Magdlyn. There is no denying that the Bible says many things, often contradictory and widely interpreted. This is why I mix it with how I feel when applying it to my life. I also don't believe that spirituality of any kind is a 'one size fits all' deal. I think we each have to discover what works for us, and our relationship with our own interpretation of God.
 
sage said:
As I said this has all come about as a result of AA. My daughter got me into AA after a friend of my mother's suddenly turned up on my doorstep in January with a conviction to pray with me. I went along with it to be polite to an elderly lady, but after probably drinking most days for the past 20 years, I haven't had a drink since. Very interesting times.
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Drinking too much? Or one glass of wine with dinner every day?

Jasmine
 
jasminegld said:
Drinking too much? Or one glass of wine with dinner every day?

Jasmine
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Yes, well, it started out at 1-2 glasses with dinner every day. But as my marriage worsened, I started using it to feel better. The 'usual" crept up to 2-3-4 glasses; weekend socialising would usually cut out a bottle, and when I was particularly upset, I would just take a whole bottle of wine and drink it all so I could carry on. After my marriage broke up, I was able to peg it back to a couple of glasses most days, with a bit more on the weekends, but I was always wanting more, even though I didn't allow myself. When I tried to stop on a daily basis, I would end up drinking more when I did drink. When I did stop altogether, I really started to craving it. This never went away. I ended up going back to it, because emotional stuff started coming up that I couldn't deal with. I tried to stop, or be very moderate in my drinking for over a year, without much success.

Being in AA, I realise I had a long way to go to be the 'classic' alcoholic, but I have got too much to do with the rest of my life to be putting so much effort into regulating my alcohol intake. Trust me, I am much better off without it. The bonus of it all is that I probably feel the closest to God that I have in my whole life, and that is something I have also craved.
 
sage said:
Please email me your response.
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It should be in your mailbox.

one of what I'll call "The Big Suggestions" that most people who live their lives from a Christian platform adhere to.
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Something I learned once...
The difference between a little truth and great truth:
The opposite of a little truth is a falsehood.
The opposite of a great truth is another great truth.

I wonder if the Big Suggestions fall into the great truth department.

the whole thing about idols and money;
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It seems to me that we as a society treat monogamy like an idol. It is above question. Anyone caught violating monogamy is whispered about in scandalized tones.

I struggled with the "Thou shalt not commit adultery" bit too. I worried and worried that I was reading what I wanted to read with the property crime interpretation. But in the end, the facts are the facts. Adultery was indeed a property crime when that law was written. Women were the property of their fathers first, and then their husbands. Notice Exodus 20:17:

"17 Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's."

The wife doesn't even get top billing! The house comes first!

"... nor any thing that is thy neighbour's."

It's all about property.

Further, a man couldn't commit adultery against his wife. Only against another man.

All this figured into my wrestling with Scriptures. All this contributed to my understanding that the Scriptures were written for a people in a place in time. They were never written for today's people in today's places in today's time. I can read them for insight, hints, and clues. I can't read them for directives.

I'm using the principles of AA to deal with it, which is handing over my will to a power greater than myself. This is another "Big Suggestion" that I have seen works out best for me.
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I understand this. I've done this, especially when things get really bizarro, which happens sometimes. Hey, I don't need to land in the belly of a whale!

"Are there more issues than just polyamory involved? What about security, companionship, and simplicity? Are they missing too?" No, I feel very secure in my relationship. We live simply and are best, best friends. My problems are around depth of relationship and feeling. There is something disturbing for me in being totally invested emotionally when my partner is not, because he also loves someone else.
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Have you seen the book, "Cinderella Ate My Daughter"? I haven't read it, only heard about it. It's about how the picture-perfect princess tale, including Prince Charming, is taking over our daughters' imaginations. They expect their entire lives to be exactly like that.

What's more, the picture-perfect romantic tale of "happily ever after" has been insinuating itself into all our lives for so long that it has become like the air we breathe -- we don't even know it's there. Or maybe like all those chemicals and plastics floating around in all our bloodsteams without our knowledge, with unknown toxicity levels.

I'm a committed poly, a polyamory activist. And sometimes **I** get frustrated around depth of relationship and feeling from my husband, and I feel neglected and want to scream. But you know what? I had times like that long before we transitioned away from monogamy. There's something about those secure, companionable, simple, best-of-friends, long-term committed relationships, they just don't spark the same kind of NRE - new relationship energy. And the toxic Cinderella/Prince Charming virus lurking in our hearts starts to whisper ugly "not enoughs" at us. Because we've been eaten by Cinderella.

Jasmine
 
sage said:
"Are there more issues than just polyamory involved? What about security, companionship, and simplicity? Are they missing too?" - No, I feel very secure in my relationship, we live simply and are best, best friends. My problems are around depth of relationship and feeling. There is something disturbing for me in being totally invested emotionally when my partner is not because he also loves someone else.
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I was talking to someone about having multiple relationships and we both seemed to reach the conclusion that it's so much complexity to deal with, that monogamy is just simpler. Also, when you know that someone else prefers the simplicity of monogamy, it is hard not to worry that they will choose to simplify their love life by choosing someone else and dispensing with you. Christianity, however, is very explicit about divorce being hard-hearted and unforgiving. So if you apply that in a practical sense, it could almost mandate polyamory by telling you that even though someone else committed adultery, you should forgive them and love them. The Bible says you MAY divorce in cases of adultery, but it doesn't say you MUST, as far as I know. Considering that Christianity is so focused on forgiveness and loving enemies, I think polyamory would be preferred to divorce, but maybe this is a far-sought interpretation. idk.
 
Phew, this seems to finally be clearing for me. Thanks to everyone who has posted something. It does help me to have the biblical stuff interpreted in such sensible ways.

Serialmonogamist, your little post seemed to hit just the right note at just the right time.

Then I went to an AA meeting last night, on Step 6, being willing to have God remove all of our character defects. It seems the more I go into the 12 step programme, the more it opens up. I thought this step was primarily about prayer, but it's about being aware of my defects, and then changing my thinking.

I said my difficulties could have been about ego, and I think they are. I think pride is my greatest character defect, and my ego will find any way it can to feed it. Having a partner who also loves someone else attacks my pride at a very deep level.

I don't go to church very often because it can set me off into floods of tears. I've always found it really puzzling that there are all these happy, joyful people around me singing about the wonders of the Lord, and I seem get such a different experience of it. A hard work experience. It makes me feel like I must be one of the worst of the worst. Maybe that's why AA works for me, no happy clappers, just people who realise they have issues and are willing to look at the really hard things about themselves.
 
Magdlyn said:
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

“No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
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Interesting that none of the others got stoned either, despite their also being seemingly guilty of sin. Also interesting that Leviticus only mentions other men's wives and virgins. I wonder if they were allowed to sleep with divorced women and prostitutes, of which I have heard there were many. No, they were probably expected to marry the women they slept with, and not divorce them without good cause.
 
sage said:
Phew, this seems to finally be clearing for me. Thanks to everyone who has posted something. It does help me to have the biblical stuff interpreted in such sensible ways. Serialmonogamist your little post seemed to hit just the right note at just the right time. Then I went to an AA meeting last night - step 6 Being willing to have God remove all our character defects. It seems the more I go into the 12 step programme, the more it opens up. I thought this step was primarily about prayer but it's about being aware of my defects and then changing my thinking.

I said my difficulties could have been about ego, and I think they are. I think pride is my greatest character defect and my ego will find any way it can to feed it. Having a partner who also loves someone else attacks my pride at a very deep level.

I don't go to church very often because it can set me off into floods of tears. I've always found it really puzzling that there are all these happy, joyful people around me singing about the wonders of the Lord and I seem get such a different experience of it. A hard work experience. It makes me feel like I must be one of the worst of the worst. Maybe that's why AA works for me, no happy clappers just people who realise they have issues and are willing to look at the really hard things about themselves.
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You condemn yourself unfairly. The mere fact that you are so concerned about being a good person testifies to your goodness. Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit was the only true sin, according to Jesus, if that means anything to you. To me, it means that people who are sincerely in pursuit of goodness are forgivable where anything else is concerned.

It took me a long time to realize that the reason people are singing and praising the Lord in church is because they are just enjoying the feeling that they are loved and forgiven. Some (maybe many) are on an ego trip of being "holier than thou," but many accept that they are sinners and are just happy to be forgiven and moving in the direction of love and forgiveness.

AA is also good.

In my experience, there is good to find in many different ideologies. None are perfect, because they're all created by imperfect humans, but that doesn't mean you can't take the good, and attempt to discern what is bad and leave that behind.
 
Oneida Communal Thinking had it mostly correct. You can not love one person more than another, and be more intimate, if you are out to perfect agape, universal love for everyone. So why are so-called "Christ-like ones" not more into perfecting love, which encompasses sexuality? When the Spirit lines up, sex can not be better. Lining up the Spirit is the hard part! When sexuality and spirituality are lived as ONE, ecotopia will surely be the result.

We are a commune in NH, attempting to do just that. We are a long way from perfection. We do take the early Book of Acts seriously.
 
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