Polyamory and Christianity

[nycindie]

Originally Posted by SNeacail

Nearly all the heros of the Old Testament had multiple wives and concubines with God's blessing and never once was it considered adultery.

That's right! How else could there be so many begats !?

[sage]

OK. 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 and 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 (A) ended up marrying his son at the ripe old age of 21.

It was a disaster and within a couple of years A 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, who 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.

[Magdlyn]

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.”

[sage]

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.

[jasminegld]

Originally Posted by sage

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.

Drinking too much? Or one glass of wine with dinner every day?

Jasmine

[sage]

Originally Posted by jasminegld

Drinking too much? Or one glass of wine with dinner every day?

Jasmine

Yes well it started out at 1-2 glasses with dinner everyday. 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 in 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 and I ended up going back to it because emotional stuff started coming up that I couldn't deal with. I tried to stop and tried to 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.

[jasminegld]

Originally Posted by sage

please email me your response

Should be in your mailbox.

one of what I'll call "The big Suggstions" that most people who live their lives from a Christian platform adhere to.

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;

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 a 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.

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.

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 poly 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

[jasminegld]

Originally Posted by Quath

I am kind of interested in how this went. ...maybe a new thread?

New thread here:
http://www.polyamory.com/forum/showt...3022#post93022

Jasmine

[serialmonogamist]

Originally Posted by sage

"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.

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 adultry, 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.

[sage]

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.