CHRISTIANITYChristianity & Polyamory hosted by QueerTheology.com an online course & POLYAMORY 1 UNIT 3 WORKBOOK Unit 3 Workbook Christianity & Polyamory Unit 3: The Poly God
This week, we’re going to explore: 1. The Synergy Between Christianity & Polyamory 2. Polyamory & God’s Abundance 3. God’s Polyamorous Agape Love
There’s also a workbook & some prompts • Considering the limits and possibilities of love in our life • Beginning to explore the poly possibilities of scripture
CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 2 UNIT 3 WORKBOOK There’s A Synergy Between Christianity & Polyamory
At QueerTheology.com, our motto has always been “LGBTQ Christians have more to offer the world than what we are not.” For too long, we’ve been told that the only conversation to have around gender, sexuality, and faith is “whether it’s OK.” That same sort of thinking spills over into other conversations around sexuality and relationships. We get stuck at “is it ok?” rather than asking more insightful questions like “What does this add?” “How might this illuminate the divine?” “Where is God?”
Hopefully by this point, you understand that open or polyamorous relationships can be a healthy and holy way to structure relationships, that there’s nothing inherently wrong with them. But if not, what Fr. Shay and I have also found is that constantly debating whether “it’s ok” (whether “it” is being LGBTQ, having premarital sex, or being polyamorous) is rarely insightful or effective. We’ve talked and worked with folks who weren’t convinced that “it” was “ok” but when we breezed past that question, eventually came around because the good fruits were just too obvious to ignore. So if you — or your parent or pastor — aren’t quite sold yet, suspend some disbelief or trust that you don’t have to have the “right argument” to convince them and let the next two weeks testify to the goodness of these relationships.
As we’ve already touched upon, the intersections between polyamory and Christianity are many: love, justice, commitment, hospitality, to name a few. Over the next two weeks, we are going to explore in greater depth some themes and passages to see how a polyamorous approach might illuminate our understanding of the divine and how a Christian faith might add some new depth and meaning to our relationships (if that’s something we want).
The examples that follow aren’t intended to be exhaustive or definitive. There are so many places poly folks might find inspiration in Scripture and Christian tradition. And for each of those, there are any number of ways that we might approach and interpret the text. These are some jumping off points to spark your creativity and get you thinking differently.
CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 3 UNIT 3 WORKBOOK What do we mean?
Last year, I made a video talking about how I’ve come to experience the New York queer beach Fire Island (complete with nudity, sex, and drinking) as a sacred site.
We’re going to be looking for such connections within our open and polyamorous relationships.
Ultimately, we would love for you to bring your own experiences to bear on this. A key component is that it’s an embodied faith. Jesus was a person with a body who moved and ate and touched and hugged and laughed and cried. And Christians acknowledge the on-going work of the Holy Spirit in each of us. Christianity is alive. It’s alive within you.
In this week’s and next week’s workbooks, there will also be some prompts and exercises for you to start thinking about the experiences, relationships, traditions, themes, and passages that are meaningful to you. The call of Jesus was never “study me” it was “follow me.” We don’t want you to just read our interpretations and then set them aside. We want you to put them into practice in your own life. And find new inspiration and interpretation that is unique to you.
You are holy.
CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 4 UNIT 3 WORKBOOK Polyamory & God’s Abundance
Abundance is a throughline in Scripture but for many, the idea that there is not just enough but more than enough can be a tough one to believe.
And that’s understandable. In 2017, 1 in 8 Americans did not have consistent access to enough food for an active, healthy life and there were on average 554,000 homeless people on any given night.
Our faith should have something to say about that but for too many Christians, the message proclaimed is anything but good news.
Conservative, Evangelical, and Fundamentalist Christianity teaches scarcity — that God only loves certain people, that heaven is only big enough for a limited number of people, and that even if you think you’re saved, you might not really be. Maybe you didn’t mean it. Maybe you’re going to lose it. So prove you’re part of the in-crowd by participating more, giving more, and excluding others more.
But that scarcity mindset is contrary to scripture.
One of the most famous Bible passages is Jesus talking about abundance:
“I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” - John 10:10 (ESV)
Abundance was at the center of Jesus’s ministry.
He turned water into wine. He transformed a moment of scarcity (a small number of fish and bread loaves) into a feast of abundance. He healed those who didn’t have resources.
And abundance was central to the work of the early church, too: sharing everything in common, taking care of the sick, practicing radical hospitality, breaking down barriers that once divided us.
CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 5 UNIT 3 WORKBOOK Abundance can be at the center of our lives too.
Not in a greedy way nor in a way that takes away from others nor in a way that offers false promises (I’m looking at you Law of Attraction). But rather in a way where we step into the good life that is possible for us all.
Jesus opens his public ministry in Luke 4 by quoting Isaiah:
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
The Year of the Lord’s favor is a reference to the Year of Jubilee that’s outlined in Leviticus:
Leviticus 25 starts off by calling for a “Sabbath Year” every seven years. For that whole year, the idea is that you don’t sow your fields or prune your vineyards.
You rest and you let the earth rest. Whatever the land happens to yield, you eat and you share with your family and hired hands and the residents of your area.
Then, every seventh Sabbath Year—every forty nine years—is a Year of Jubilee. And this is where it gets really cool. The Year of Jubilee is God’s plan for a radical redistribution of land, and property, and freedom.
It’s returning land that had been sold to pay debts, it’s canceling all debts, it’s setting slaves and their children free, and allowing all to eat from the food of the fields.
This idea of abundance is found throughout the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 6 UNIT 3 WORKBOOK Here are just a few passages for reflection:
“God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Romans 5:2-5
“God shows his love for us, because while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8
“Give thanks to the God of heaven, for his steadfast love endures forever.” Psalm 136:26
And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed; 2 Corinthians 9:8
“I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.” Psalm 81:10
“For he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things.” Psalm 107:9
“You crown the year with your bounty; your wagon tracks overflow with abundance.” Psalm 65:11
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” Matthew 6:25-34
CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 7 UNIT 3 WORKBOOK Some Christian pastors will twist these verses to try to say that we are obligated to do something or indebted to God. Or that material abundance is proof of our good standing with God.
But God wants us to know that there is enough. And more importantly, that we are enough. God doesn’t love us because of something we’ve done but because of who we are and who God is. God is love. 1 John 4:7
(more on “agape” the word for love that is used in that verse here)
What might this Biblical idea of abundance have to say about our sexual, romantic, and even friend relationships?
Our culture teaches us that monogamy is the only way in part because there is, supposedly, not enough. Not enough time, not enough love, not enough intimacy.
Polyamory is a powerful counter to a culture of scarcity that invades even our most intimate relationships.
Polyamory insists that our partner has more than enough love to give not just to us but to the others that she (or they or he) love, too.
In an open relationship, we find security not in a promise that there is no one else but in a lived commitment to each other where we stick with it, day after day after day.
I’ve experienced this in my own life. My boyfriend Peter dated someone for about a year (while their sexual relationship ended recently, they still deeply care for each other). Abundance went from an abstract idea to my lived reality. I remember watching them kiss for the first time and feeling a well of joy spring up. CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 8 UNIT 3 WORKBOOK You know when you add more kindling to a fire, it roars up even higher, hotter, and brighter? That’s kinda what it felt like. Peter’s love for and attraction to Dan didn’t take away from the love and desire we share, it increased it.
Deciding to have an open or polyamorous relationship doesn’t automatically, magically turn you on to the wonders of abundance. Sometimes, jealousy rears its head. Sometimes painful scheduling conflicts happen. Sometimes it gets messy.
Reality check: While love is abundant, time and attention are not No matter your relationship configuration, you only have so much time to spend with others and attention to give to others. Spend your time and attention with intention
A helpful first step is to know what’s important to the people who matter most to you. A framework called “5 Love Languages” can help you get a handle on how you—and others in your life—like to receive love.
For me, physical touch is most important to me followed by words of affirmation. Peter’s primary love language is quality time. That means if I want to show Peter that I love him, I better spend some quality time with him!
If you’re not careful, your time and attention can get pulled away from those that you care most about by • chasing new flings • social media/television • constantly reading/watching the news • drugs • partying
New flings and keeping up on social media and hitting the party circuit can all be fun ways to spend your time — absolutely indulge in them if that’s something you want more of in your life. But do so with intention.
CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 9 UNIT 3 WORKBOOK Set aside time for social media and time for your family. Build 15 minutes of reading the news into your morning routine and trust that someone will tell you about any breaking news you need to hear about. Make going out a special occasion rather than a rush you can’t stop pursuing to the exclusion of deeper relationships.
I really truly believe that love is abundant
That there’s enough love to go around for your family, your friends, your husband or wife, your partner or playmate… but I also know the reality of time. If there are people in your life that matter deeply to you — act on that feeling. Don’t just assume they know it. Or decide that since you’re married that should be enough. Give them the same time and attention you give your other interests. If you don’t, do you really value them? So this week, think about how you can spend just a little more time and attention on the people that matter most to you.
A commitment to intentional, ethical polyamory or an open relationship creates space for you to practice abundance. It’s one thing to read about abundance in the Bible, it’s another to begin living into that in your life. If you’re already open or polyamorous, you may already be experiencing this abundance in your life.
When we practice polyamory, it can be a spiritual practice of embodying God’s abundance and modeling that for the world.
Early Christians were known for their love: they take care of all the sick, not just their own. It was a peculiar way of loving to the world around them — and it demonstrated a particular vision of God. Polyamorous Christians are similarly known for a particular way of loving, one that seems a little off to the world around us. But in living into that practice, we also demonstrate a particular vision of God.
And that can be one small brick in building a better world, of co-creating the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven.
CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 10 UNIT 3 WORKBOOK Quick note: polyamory is still misunderstood and this course is, obviously, all about polyamory and so we’re focusing on the benefits and blessings of polyamorous and open relationships. Part of that is how they provide a healthy counter to all of the assumptions and baggage that come with our culture of mandated monogamy. But of course a monogamous relationship can be a good and healthy choice. There are lots of reasonable reasons for choosing monogamy that don’t derive from fear and scarcity. Fr. Shay is monogamous, after all! When we highlight the differences between polyamory and monogamy, we’re usually talking about a culture of mandated monogamy and the ideas and values that go along with it, not every individual monogamous relationship, many of which are beautifully and thoughtfully chosen.
CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 11 UNIT 3 WORKBOOK God’s Polyamorous Agape Love
I have “agape” tattooed in Greek letters on my wrist; it’s one of the words for love in Greek and it connotes a self-sacrificing love (philos is brotherly love, eros is erotic love). In 1 John 4 where the writer says “God is love,” agape is the word used.
It’s not a new idea to think that agape might be present in a romantic relationship; even Focus On The Family talks about that.
They say on their website, quoting Coty Pinckney, “Agape is a love that gives, a love that does not demand or hold onto rights, but has the good of the other at heart. This is the love we need to work on in our marriage in order for our spouse to feel like he or she is married to Jesus.”
That’s a nice idea, isn’t it?1
1 Unfortunately, how that plays out in practice in conservative Christian circles is controlling, limiting of and sometimes even abusive to women, and deadly to LGBTQ people … it takes a bit more digging beyond the bright one-liner to get to that ugly truth CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 12 UNIT 3 WORKBOOK If you scratch even a little though, you can see that the “rules” of monogamy hem in agape. Mandatory monogamy says that there’s a different type of love for different types of people. Which is not untrue; I love my dad and my sister and my boyfriend and my best friend and my ex and my neighbor in different ways. But it’s also not completely true either. Because sometimes, at best, those distinctions are arbitrary, and sometimes, at worst, they’re divisive and harmful.
Relationship anarchy can be a form of polyamory (the term was coined by Andie Nordgren) where each relationship is defined on its own terms and the folks involved decide on what that structure looks like. Relationship anarchy is also about not needing to formally categorize relationships as “romantic,” “sexual,” “just friends,” etc. 2
This polyamorous and relationship anarchist idea of blurring the boundaries between friends, family, lovers, and spouses can enrich our faith and our whole lives — regardless of how we structure our own personal relationships.
The traditional understanding of marriage and monogamy is that a certain type of love is reserved only for our one spouse. God’s agape love is expansive and monogamous marriage is then a limiting metaphor for and example of it.
Limiting agape fractures our communities.
This way of thinking about our relationships says that there are things we would do for a spouse but not a best friend. Why?
I have friends who have become like family to me. We have a deep love for each other, we’ve lived together, met each others families, provided financial support for each other, and I hope will grow old together. But we haven’t slept together. I’m not going to say that they are less valid or less important in my life just because of that.
Redefining family has long been both a queer thing to do and a Christian thing to do. 2 Sources consulted https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_anarchy http://www.relationship-anarchy.com CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 13 UNIT 3 WORKBOOK As LGBTQ people have been rejected by our families of origin, we’ve formed chosen families — taking care of each other in the wake of family rejection, homelessness, abuse, trauma, and more. We’ve supported each other through the toughest of times and celebrated with each other at our peaks.
Jesus also challenged what it meant to be family in Matthew 12:46-50
While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.”
He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
Polyamory is yet another way that we — whether LGBTQ, Christian, and/or polyamorous — can redefine family and broaden our understanding of love in its highest form. (More on this next week)
If we think that our love of our spouse is an analogy for God’s love for us (more on that next week, too!) and we’re supposed to love our spouse more than others, it’s a natural extension that God loves some of us more than others (and that plays out in real life: when I was visiting my childhood church as an adult, the preacher literally said “God loves some of us more than others” … I was so shocked and horrified I wrote it down to remind myself that I wasn’t making it up).
Loving without losing yourself
It’s easy to get the message that to be in a relationship means to lose yourself in another person. You merge. “Two become one” and all of that. But that’s not necessarily healthy.
Ester Perel talks in her book Mating In Captivity about how common an uncritical merging of partners is and how that can lead to increased intimacy but an absence of eroticism. Psychologists know that if a relationship becomes codependent, it becomes unhealthy and dysfunctional.
CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 14 UNIT 3 WORKBOOK In Christianity, values of sacrifice and service can be corrupted, too. The idea that pride is sinful might lead you to degrade yourself. An over emphasis on taking care of others might lead you to neglect yourself (we’re supposed to love others as ourselves, not instead of ourselves).
Here, polyamory can offer a corrective antidote.
Whereas our culture of monogamy says that you should just know what your spouse needs and that your spouse comes ahead of everyone else; polyamory says, “We each start with ourselves.”
We are each responsible for our own feelings and needs. Not that we are rugged, isolated individuals but rather that we start with ourselves and work out from there. From a place of power and autonomy, we are able to collaborate with others to get our own needs met and to help others get their needs met, too.
Too many people stay in relationships that are unhealthy out of a sense of obligation (to be clear: this can happen in polyamorous relationships too).
What if we didn’t define self-sacrificing love as staying together at all costs or completely rejecting our own needs and desires, but instead viewed it as an opportunity for creative problem solving? A space where nuance and complexity is welcomed. Where sometimes we even need to enlist the help of others — friends and family and metamours — in showing up and showing love for one another. This type of love isn’t always easy or comfortable; it’s ok to be uncomfortable sometimes. But when it comes from a place of choice and agency and options rather than a place of guilt and obligation, we are better for it.
When we think of agape only in the context of our love for one spouse and that becomes God’s limited love for only some of us, we distort agape.
Agape is neither hoarding our love for just one person nor is it pouring ourselves entirely into someone else. Instead, agape is something that we co-create together and from a place of abundance can spill out into our other relationships and ultimately to the whole world.
CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 15 UNIT 3 WORKBOOK When it comes to agape love, there’s a balance, right? Of having others best interests at heart and taking care of ourselves.
Rather than see each partner or potential partner as a source of competition, a place where love and time and attention is subtracted, we can work to build relationships where mutuality is present and where we each, together, have our best interests at heart. Where we come together for a night or season or a lifetime to see and love and honor each other.
In this way, polyamory is a continual practice in loving others as we love ourselves.
It’s not always easy to balance the needs and hopes and dreams of multiple partners in your life. As you add partners, you necessarily add complexity.
As someone who has benefited immensely from polyamory, it’s tempting for me to paint it all with rose colored glasses, the cure-all for every societal and relational ailment. But it’s not. I’ve had fights in my polyamorous relationships. I’ve had massive disagreements. I’ve been hurt and I’ve hurt. I’ve experienced heartbreak and I’m sure I’ve broken a heart or two along the way.
Too often, marriage is held up as The Ideal and I definitely don’t want to substitute polyamory as a new idol here.
Instead, I think polyamory can be an opportunity to question the myths about love, support, and commitment that we’ve been accustomed to hearing and instead structure our lives in a way that respects every single person in them as whole and worthy of God’s (and our) agape love.
Here, polyamory can teach us two things:
1. To see our partner(s) for who they really are — full, complex, complete — and not how we want them to be or imagine they are. And then, boldly, to love them in all of who they are
CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 16 UNIT 3 WORKBOOK 2. To value those around us who we aren’t sleeping with or married to but whom are deeply important to us
How can polyamory teach us about loving without expectation?
Back to that Coty Pinckney quote from the Focus On The Family website…
“Agape is a love that gives, a love that does not demand or hold onto rights, but has the good of the other at heart.”
Is that really what our monogamous, Christian marriages look like? Doesn’t mandatory monogamy hold on to a whole lot of rights and make a whole lot of demands?
“My love is conditioned on who you sleep with.”
“I demand to know the details of all your other relationships.”
“You can do this but not that.”
Monogamous relationships sometimes function as a transaction of sorts: if we stay together for X months/years, we’ll get married. If we get married, you’ll never leave me. If you never leave me, I will be fulfilled.
Of course, it doesn’t always work out that way. But that’s part of the promise, right?
Polyamory doesn’t come with any of those promises or expectations built in. It’s up to each of us to decide on the relationship structures that are right for us.
I don’t love you because won’t sleep with anyone else.
I don’t love you because you tell me I’m your one and only.
I don’t love you because you will always meet my needs. CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 17 UNIT 3 WORKBOOK I don’t love you because you will always be there for me (sometimes you won’t).
Until we don’t, of course. And that’s the scary part. Relationships end. Monogamous relationships end and polyamorous relationships end and relationships that we thought were monogamous but actually weren’t end.
I’m often asked if I get jealous because of polyamory. Or how do I handle all of the insecurity? And for the most part, I’ve become less jealous and more secure in my relationships since shifting to open and polyamorous relationships. But old habits die hard and sometimes my insecurities flare up.
Sometimes polyamory feels scary because it involves loving without expectation. I love you because I love you. We choose each other today. I love you for who you are. And you love me for who I am. And each day we show up and choose each other not because we feel indebted or obligated, not because we don’t have any other options, not because we’re legally required to, but because we choose to. (And some monogamous people approach their relationships in this way too).
Sometimes poly folks (myself included) make plans for the future and commitments about how we’ll structure our relationship and spend our time. But in the process of moving away from the dominant cultural relationship paradigm and embracing non-monogamy, we’ve had to confront those relationship myths. This might not work. There might be someone else that fits better.
Practicing agape when your boyfriend is sleeping with someone else
“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” - John 15:13
For Jesus, and for many Christians throughout the ages and even today, that love calls for a literal laying down of our lives. But sometimes, it’s a metaphoric laying down. It says, I love you enough to lay down my vision of our life so that you might live into your own. So that you might be who you truly are. CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 18 UNIT 3 WORKBOOK In many of my of romantic relationships, I’ve struggled and fought and done everything I could to hold on to them. To make them work. To save them.
Over the past decade, I’ve worked to loosen my grip so that I don’t crush the precious butterfly I’m holding in my hand.
Which is not to say that I don’t work for my relationships, I do. But it also means that I am constantly ask myself, “How can I love him best?” And good God it’s scary but sometimes it means reminding myself, “I love him enough to let him go.”
I met Peter when we were 23. Over the past 10 years, we’ve each grown and evolved in ways neither of us could have imagined.
After a year and a half of dating monogamously, we decided to open our relationship. Sometimes, it came easily — we’d meet up with someone for a quick threesome... he was hooking up regularly with a friend from church choir (I cannot make this up!)... I got to reconnect with a few exes that I cared about...
But other times, it was rocky. Peter started dating Josh, a guy we’d hung out with together and they began spending more and more time together. It became clear that Josh had a connection with Peter that he didn’t have with me. Which was fine, in theory. But in practice, it was hard and it took some work.
There were times when I was scared, lonely, insecure. And I was dealing with my own doubts: I’d meet single guys and wonder what it would be like to date them and just them, no pre-existing boyfriend that came with the package. (This was especially the case when they were interested in me but not in polyamory).
And so, for a number of reasons, we decided to take a break. And Peter and Josh continued to see each other. And we each got some hands on, jump in the deep-end agape love — of, how did Focus on the Family put it?, “a love that gives, a love that does not demand or hold onto rights, but has the good of the other at heart.”
CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 19 UNIT 3 WORKBOOK We stayed in touch and after just a few weeks started getting together for coffee once a week and after a few months started casually hooking up again and after 9 or so months decided to “be boyfriends” again and have been for 10 years now.
But in the years since, there are still moments where we’ve looked at each other and asked “How best do I love you?” and wondered, sometimes aloud and sometimes to each other, “Would you better off without me?”
I am so thankful that in each of those instances, we have decided that we’re better together than we are apart. It would be devastating to lose him.
But I know this from our ten years together: I love him enough to love without demand, without expectation, willing to let him go.
I’ve found that that’s the only way I can ever really love him. As his own person. As someone with his own interests and desires. With someone who is freely choosing to be with me. Not out of guilt or obligation or because he’s afraid he won’t “find someone better” or any other reason than he loves me and wants to stay.
That lesson is one of the reasons I am so thankful for polyamory: it makes more space for me to love without obligation.
CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 20 UNIT 3 WORKBOOK Christianity & Polyamory Week 3: The Poly God How do you love your romantic How do you love your friends?? partner(s)?
In what ways have you withheld love from someone because it’s “not what you do” for that type of relationship??
How have you experienced God’s agape love in unexpected places?
CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 21 UNIT 3 WORKBOOK Poly Possiblities The stories and examples in this week’s workbook thus far are just a few of countless possibilities. As we learn and grown from the experiences and insights of others, we can use that as inspiration to make our own connections and find spiritual breakthroughs that are personal to each of us. We’re going to start putting together the pieces of that this week and continue that work next week.
Which scripture passages most Which passages have been resonate with you? sticking points for you?
What parts of your open or polyamorous journey & experiences have been particularly meaningful?
What new insights have you learned about yourself along the way?
CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 22 UNIT 3 WORKBOOK