CHRISTIANITYChristianity & Polyamory hosted by QueerTheology.com an online course & POLYAMORY 1 WEEK 4 WORKBOOK Unit 4 Workbook Christianity & Polyamory Unit 4: The Poly Christ

This week, we’re going to explore: 1. Christ & the Church: a poly look at Ephesians 5 2. The Trinity 3. Body Parts & Breaking Down Barriers 4. What’s next?

There’s also a workbook & some prompts • The power of relationships • Families of origin & chosen families • Honoring Commitments • Building connections between Christianity & Polyamory

CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 2 WEEK 4 WORKBOOK Christ & the Church a poly look at Ephesians 5

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind—yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, because we are members of his body. […] This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church.

Ephesians 5:25 - 33

This section of Ephesians is sometimes used in really shitty ways against women, but sandwiched in the middle of it all is an important message.

By looking at this passage through the lens of polyamory, we can unlock a new and deeper meaning to the text. And by holding this passage alongside polyamory, we can see from a different perspective the goodness — and sacredness of polyamorous relationships.

In Ephesians 5, Paul uses the word marriage to describe Christ’s relationship with us.

Repeatedly Paul reminds us that Jesus gave himself for us.

Us.

The church, which Paul describes here as the body of believers (“just as Christ does for the church, because we are members of his body”).

In this marriage, Jesus isn’t married to one person — he’s married to the entire body of believers. CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 3 WEEK 4 WORKBOOK You could say that Jesus is in a pansexual, polyamorous relationship with us.

To be clear, in this passage — both the original and this new, poly spin on it — Jesus isn’t literally, historically married to anyone.Nor is Jesus literally, historically polyamorous. Paul is using an allegory (in the Common English Bible translation of this passage, it says “Marriage is a significant allegory, and I’m applying it to Christ and the church.” That’s what we are doing here: extending and exploring that metaphor. It’s a theological and meaning- making claim, not a historical hypothesis.

The Church isn’t one monolith, it isn’t one place, it isn’t represented by one person or one institution. The Church, as Paul describes it, is comprised of the whole body of believers. Christ loves the Church, yes, and we are members of that body… Christ loves each of us. Christ is in a marriage, of sorts, with us all.

Christ’s love for one of us isn’t diminished by Christ’s love for another of us. There is more than enough to go around.

We already recognize that God’s love for us isn’t diminished by God’s love for others and that each of us can have a unique, transcendent relationship with the divine.

Our relationship with God can be a model for our romantic and sexual relationships, as well.

You know how you feel when something good happens to someone you care about? When your friend, child, neighbor, or coworker connects with the divine? That’s how I feel when my partners date or meet someone new or are just head over heels for someone else.

How beautiful, how majestic, that they get to have more love in their lives? And how exciting that someone else gets to share in the amazingness of my partner?

As you know, the word polyamory comes from poly and amorous. Many. Loves.

CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 4 WEEK 4 WORKBOOK We all already have many loves; the question then becomes: how do you express that love? With whom?

And so, of course, Christians can be polyamorous… we see modeled here a love between God and the whole body of believers, which is a many loves sort of love. In that, polyamory can be thought of as a Biblical model of relationships! And our polyamorous relationships can help us to see and understand the divine in new and deeper ways.

That’s what we’re continuing to explore in this course. The Bible can offer some insight and our faith has something to teach us and at the end of the day we’ve got to wrestle with it all and figure out how to walk humbly in pursuit of a relational and sexual ethic that is loving and just.

CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 5 WEEK 4 WORKBOOK The Trinity

Many (but we should note, not all) Christians understand God as a trinity: three in one. All of our human attempts at explanations and metaphors have failed to fully capture the trinity (either because it’s a divine mystery or it just doesn’t make any sense, or both, depending on your perspective).

A few years ago, we read Radical Love by Patrick Cheng as part of Sanctuary Collective and in it he talks about the trinity as an orgy. My. Mind. Was. Blown. I highlighted that passage, took a picture of it, and sent it to half of my phone book.

For Althaus-Reid, the Trinity needs to be understood as an orgy, which breaks down the privileging of binary or pair-bonded relationships. Initially, the Trinity appears to be an example of “restricted polyfidelity” in which the three persons of the Godhead are themselves in a closed, or faithful, sexual relationship. However, Althaus-Reid argues that each person of the Trinity has her/her [sic] own closet of lovers and “forbidden desires” (for example, Jesus’ relationships with Mary Magdalene and Lazarus), which in turn results in the death of the “illusion of limited relationships.”

Patrick Cheng, Radical Love, p 58

I have a vivid memory of my first year out as queer in college. I was talking to this guy I’d hooked up with a few times—he was one of the first guys I ever hooked up with— and he mentioned, rather off-hand, that for his 21st birthday, he wanted to have an orgy. And I gay gasped inside. That’s something I wanted but I could never EVER say that out loud. I mean C’MON?! And here he was, saying it as casually as he might say he wanted to organize a beach trip or a spa day.

I’d been out for a decade when I read in Radical Love that we might think of the trinity as an orgy. If the trinity is an orgy, what does that say about actual orgies? A few of my good friends want to have group sex but it’s not something they talk about. It’s something they do in secret. It’s something succumb to. It’s something they think they’re supposed to feel bad about. But if the trinity is an orgy, maybe we don’t have to feel bad? Guilty?

CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 6 WEEK 4 WORKBOOK Shame? about our sexual desires (regardless of whether we’re acting on them).

In The Queer God, by Marcella Althaus-Reid (which Cheng references), points out that in theology and in relationships, there are many faithful ways to form relationships and to make sense of any one relationship configuration.

What is three? Two plus one (as in the heterosexual scene of husband, wife and lover)? Or is it one plus one plus one (as in detached loving encounters of affectively independent people)? How do we define faith here? Faith is a pluri-fidelity, as in a contained reunion in a time of religious exchanges. Different ways of combining ones to make three have different theological and amorous connotations and therefore different faithful results. The Trinity may be pointing us to a case of restricted polyfidelity, that is, in this divine triad three persons who enjoy a kinship close relationship are faithful amongst themselves. The lines of exchanges between the three could be multiple and yet they might remain in a faithful situation. We should be even more suspicious than that in considering the Trinity as an expression of polyfidelity. We may ask if there are more than three in this triad because as in real life and relationships many other friends and lovers may be hidden in the closets of each person of the Trinity. To presume otherwise would force us to fall into gender (and sexual) divine stability; the Godman–father who only relates to the Godman–son and the God–spirit. Precisely the figure of the Spirit here is remi- niscent of the hidden third man in many heterosexual marriages, where the husband practises rough trade, or the lesbian lover of the wife (or any other combination), making us suspicious of what clusters of forbidden desires are hidden under God. Therefore, one of the first ‘deaths’ occurring in this kenotic process of omnisexuality is the death of the illusion of limited relationships. That is, the death of the mono-lover, which signifies the end of the hidden, silenced persons of our lives. Our beloveds are sometimes like holy ghosts. But the point is to ask whether by opening up the hidden relationships of each person of the Trinity we might not destabilise power through desire and knowledge. For instance, we cannot presume to know the identities of this extensive polyfaithful group of sacred friends.

CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 7 WEEK 4 WORKBOOK If you haven’t already read Radical Love, I highly recommend it (it’s much more accessible than The Queer God, which is very academica and very dense). It’s not poly or open relationship focused at all but what we are doing here is very much building off of what others have done in the queer theology space.

I think that the trinity has something to say about the whole of our relationships, too, not just the sex parts.

Both Christianity and mainstream culture reflect this idea that a two-person pairing is the ultimate form of partnership and family. There’s your soul mate or your one true love or the spouse God has chosen for you or the one who completes you or whatever…

Two people, in a nuclear family, completely separate from the rest of the world.

But as Christians, we say that the divine is a 3-part partnership. God is a family, and a nontraditional one at that.

In the next section, we’ll explore more how Jesus in his ministry broke down barriers and redefined family and how polyamory enlightens and embodies that. Something is happening in the trinity too, in the very heart of the divine.

As we talked about earlier, in Scripture and Christian tradition we hear that Christ is wedded to the church and we explored how that could be thought of as a polyamorous relationship. It’s also an open marriage since Christ is also one part of the trinity. The Holy Spirit, too, is getting in on the side action. Descending and taking up a home in and working through the body of believers from Pentecost onward.

In Genesis, we read that “the Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.’” But perhaps it’s also true that it is not good for the Lord God to be alone, either.

The Divine, through the work of the risen Christ and the Holy Spirit, are in constant relationship with all of us. The divine itself is enriched by its

CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 8 WEEK 4 WORKBOOK relationship with us and the relationships amongst the trinity are likewise enriched.

A multiplication happens in and amongst relationships.

To be clear: God is in many ways unknowable. And human attempts at saying “This is exactly how it works” always fall short and often end in disaster. I’m not trying to literally explain the nature of God and God’s relationships anymore than the author of Galatians was saying that Christ is literally married to the church. These are theological claims and explorations to help us understand the divine, ourselves, and others better.

We see in the trinity a creative collaboration. A union of sorts, for sure, but one in which individual identities are maintained. In Unit 1, we explored how “becoming one flesh” is not a good justification for monogamy. Here, the trinity can remind us that when we become one flesh with others, we don’t lose ourselves. There is value in our individuality. I often hear couples talk exclusively as a “we.”

We are going on vacation. We are tired. We are going out to eat. We are opening up our relationship. We are jealous.

The trinity is a reminder to honor each person as a separate, unique, wonderful individual. And that in our individuality, in our separateness, we can come together to create something divine.

Speaking of 3s… Fun side note: Some Christian resources cite Ecclesiastes 4:12 as an example of the power of marriage partnership: “Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves.” Which is interesting because it continues, “A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.” Hellllooo…

CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 9 WEEK 4 WORKBOOK How have you experienced the additive power of relationships in your life? Children? New friendships? Additional partners?

In what ways have you maintained In what ways have you lost your identity in romantic yourself in romantic relationships? relationships?

CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 10 WEEK 4 WORKBOOK Body Parts & Breaking Down Barriers

When I look at my queer and polyamorous life and then look back to Scripture, I begin to understand the Bible in a new and vibrant way that escaped me in all my years of Sunday school and Bible study.

In particular, I find a common theme among the following texts that polyamory has helped me to see and understand more clearly

• The early church in Acts 2 • Galatians 3 (“neither Jew nor Gentile”) • No distinction between circumcised or not in Colossians 3 & Galatians 6 • Jesus asking “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” in Matthew 12 • Jesus’s response to the teacher asking him “Who is my neighbor?” in the parable of the Good Samaritan

Here are the readings for reflection. I invite you to read them again now, before continuing on, and then to return to them again at the end of this section. What do you see that you didn’t before? What else might be in there that even I haven’t addressed?

Acts 2:42 - 47 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

Galatians 3:26-29 So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with

CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 11 WEEK 4 WORKBOOK Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise

Colossians 3:1-15 Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. 8 But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 12 WEEK 4 WORKBOOK Galatians 6:11 - 16 See what large letters I use as I write to you with my own hand!

Those who want to impress people by means of the flesh are trying to compel you to be circumcised. The only reason they do this is to avoid being persecuted for the cross of Christ. Not even those who are circumcised keep the law, yet they want you to be circumcised that they may boast about your circumcision in the flesh. May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is the new creation.Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule—to the Israel of God.

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.”

Luke 10:25-37 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

“What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

“You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 13 WEEK 4 WORKBOOK But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’

“Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

When I read these passages, I see a vision of God that is committed to breaking down barriers, to questioning assumptions, and to drawing the circle wider. I see an expansive view of family.

For many (but certainly not all) of us, taking care of our family seems to be second nature. Of course your parents feed you, of course your sister can crash on your couch when she breaks up with her boyfriend, of course I love my family.

Quick note: For too many LGBTQ+ people, we can’t count on our family’s love and support. And for some people, no matter how much our parents love us, they just don’t have money to lend us or spare bedrooms for us to stay in.

We know that we’re supposed to love our family, but who is our family?

CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 14 WEEK 4 WORKBOOK Perhaps family is bigger than flesh and blood. Perhaps, as Jesus suggests in Matthew 12, our family includes those who are bound together with us through our common work toward “the will of God.” And what is the will of God? We see that over and over and over again it’s to “do justice, love mercy, walk humbly” (Micah 6:8). That it’s 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” (Luke 4:18 and Isaiah 61)

Last week, we explored God’s abundance and agape love and explored how that might expand from one partner to many partners. Here too polyamory and open relationships can be an embodied way of breaking down those barriers even further. Family need not be just those to whom we are related by blood. And it need not only be those we are sleeping with either.

Our culture asks us to divide the world into family and not. The one and only and everyone else. Girlfriend or husband vs “just friends.” Are those distinctions grounded in truth and do they serve us? We are often asked to drop everything for a certain type of family, much like Jesus was in Matthew 12. In my own life though, my friends who I’m not sleeping with are just as much my family as my parents or lovers.

In Luke 10, Jesus is asked “Who is my neighbor?” and he responds with the story that we now call the “Parable of the Good Samaritan.” When I first came out as queer, the people who were supposed to be there for me weren’t. My family didn’t know how to cope, my church had no space for me, my Christian friends were more concerned with “correcting” me than “caring” for me.

When the people who were supposed to care for me didn’t, I was rescued by the very people who my church told me to were “the bad ones.” My secular Jewish roommate who drank too much, my friend’s unflinchingly liberal mother who marched with the Black Panthers back in the day.

Queer people have long formed chosen families. We’ve blurred the lines between friend and lover, parent and mentor, stranger and brother.

Polyamory is another invitation to draw the circle wider and blur those distinctions of who is in and who is out.

CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 15 WEEK 4 WORKBOOK How has your family of origin How has your family of origin supported you? betrayed you?

Who else hase become like family to you? What is something meaningful — and specific to them — aabout your relationship with each of these?

CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 16 WEEK 4 WORKBOOK Traditional monogamous culture wants us to divide up everyone we know into “The One” and “Everyone Else.” Your partner comes before everyone else (often even before your own parents).

My childhood church had different adult Bible studies for “young singles” and “young married couples.” Yup, when you get married you’re supposed to cut off all your former friends. You have new priorities now. Or something.

Polyamory often doesn’t come with neat and tidy lines.

“Who is my neighbor?” What about, who is my partner’s partner to me? What about that friend from college that I’m still in love with but only see every other year? What about my every month or so kinky playmate who I delight in pleasing?

To be clear: there are types of polyamory that enforce lines and divisions and hierarchies as well. And sometimes there are very practical reasons for that (you may have a different level of commitment to the co-parent of your child than a one-night stand).

But just because different people play different roles in your life and you in theirs doesn’t mean that they or you are any less valuable or worthy.

“Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. […] The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you! On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. [...] If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.”

1 Corinthians 12:12,21-23,26

That captures my experience of my polyamory more than just about anything else I’ve ever read. And my experiences with polyamory help me to see and understand the truth in that passage more fully.

CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 17 WEEK 4 WORKBOOK We’ve been taught to believe that certain parts of the body are more important — our spouse is more important than our friend is more important than our neighbor. And many of us (myself most definitely included!) can have a hard time advocating for parts of ourselves or explaining people in our lives that culture are “less honorable.”

I know that when it’s come to exploring bisexuality or kink or one-night stands or even dating someone new, I’ve struggled with shame and how to explain the importance of that part of myself or that expression of myself and of those people with whom I connect.

New partners and kinky playmates and casual partners are no less important, no less vital to the body than spouses and life partners.

In my own polypod, I see how this idea of “if one part suffers, every part suffers with it” comes to life. When my boyfriend Matt broke up with his other boyfriend he was grieving. And I was in pain alongside of him. And even my boyfriend Peter, who is not romantically involved with Matt, hurt for him. We held each other and loved each other and supported each other. Because in some ways, we’ve become one body.

And so too “if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.” A few years ago, Peter was dating someone and it made me giddy beyond belief to see them together. More recently, he’s been gently nudging me to reconnect with a former play partner now that we’re in the same city again.

1 Corinthians 12:26 could be the definition of compersion.

We thrive and suffer together.

When you believe something, it changes everything

My middle school youth group leader Dave O’Connell asked, “If you believe something but it doesn’t change your life, do you really believe it?” Ever since, that question has anchored my beliefs to my actions.

His point at the time was that we were supposed to believe that Jesus was CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 18 WEEK 4 WORKBOOK trying to save us from being sent to eternally fiery punishment by God and the only way to do that was to say a prayer and “accept him” (and then, what was of course unspoken, was to also follow all of the rules to prove to everyone around you that you’d done that and meant it).

I think of Dave often because if I really believe all of this Jesus stuff, then it’s got to change everything for me. But what is supposed to change? And how?

Polyamory can be a practice of breaking down barriers that divide us

Throughout the scriptures, we see a holy call to radically reorganize the way we do life. From the Year of Jubilee in Leviticus to the early communal church in Acts.

Faithful folks have put these Biblical ideals into practice over the years — Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the student nonviolent coordinating committee, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Black Panther Party, Catholic Worker Communities, and other Christian movements, churches, and communities.

Polyamory is yet another way that we might break down barriers that divide, practice an abundant and self-sacrificing love, and embody the work of Christ in the world.

How might we continue the work of Galatians 3 in releasing division:

There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female… neither lifelong romantic lover nor ‘just friend’... for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

In Christianity, we are reminded of a grander identity: that of beloved child of God.

In polyamory, we have the opportunity to set aside the labels that divide us — Jew or Gentile, man or woman, queer or cishet, mono or poly celibate, friend or lover — and to a claim a new one: beloved. CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 19 WEEK 4 WORKBOOK How have you honored commitments to romantic partners?

What commitments have you made to non-romantic partners? How might you acknowledge and honor them?

CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 20 WEEK 4 WORKBOOK In what ways do your friends and non-romantic (or non-primary) partners support you and enrich your life?

In what way do casual partners (or “non-primary” partners) support you and enrich your life? How do they support and make stronger your other (or “primary”) relationships?

CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 21 WEEK 4 WORKBOOK God’s liberating work: we are all free and we all need each other

When I look at the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, something becomes very clear to me: God is concerned with us, here and now.

From the Lord God in Genesis noticing that it is not good for humans to be alone ...

… through God partnering with Moses to lead the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt...

… and the Hebrew prophets crying out under oppression and exile for God’s justice ...

… to the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus who took a stand against empire and proved that God’s love is bigger and mightier.

Who we are matters.

That we are fed matters.

Our bodies matter.

How we love matters.

Taking care of each other matters.

God wants us to be free — individually and collectively.

That’s a message that transcends queer or straight/cis, that transcends monogamous or polyamorous or celibate. We are in this together,

“And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works.” Hebrews 10:24

CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 22 WEEK 4 WORKBOOK “For the body is not one member, but many.” 1 Corinthians 12:14

There is a tension between autonomy and interdependence

We need to be our own people. We need each other. This is true regardless of your relationship structure. Polyamory and open relationships are a practice in embodying that tension: we are all free and we need each other.

“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” 2 Corinthians 3:17

“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” John 8:36

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” Galatians 5:1

It’s important that we remember the context in which Jesus lived and preached and the context under which his followers taught and organized. Jews in the first century were living under Roman military occupation. Their lives were physically gruelling and terrorizing. The threat of Rome loomed large always.

Which is not to say that our overbearing bosses or uncomfortable family dynamics aren’t important — they are — but only that we can’t lose sight of the deeply political message of the Gospel. God is here for total liberation. As Christians, we are called to work for our own liberation as well as the liberation of the whole world.

We are, obviously, living in a very different context than Jesus and the authors of Christian scriptures and of the Hebrew writers. Many of us don’t live in exile or under military occupation (though that is still very real for many). But does that mean we are free?

CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 23 WEEK 4 WORKBOOK I think a lot about the hold that shame has had over me. Shame alienated me from my body and told me to distrust my body.

In 1962, Robert Anton Wilson wrote for the Mattachette Review about the interplay between sexual freedom and government and social control:

A governor, we can safely say, has less problems in enforcing obedience if his subjects are mystical, religious and frightened of sex. The reason for this is easy to understand. Sex denial is very close to being absolutely impossible, and — as the subtle Jesuits knew long before Freud — even when the would-be ascetic thinks he has “triumphed” over the flesh, it sneaks up on him from a new direction and takes him by surprise. Thus, the inevitable consequence of sex denial is guilt: that special guilt which comes of continual failure to accomplish that which you consider “good.” (This continual failure is the “dark night of the soul” lamented by medieval monks). Now, a guilt- ridden man is an easy man to manipulate and force to your own will, because self-respect is the prerequisite of independence and rebellion, and the guilt-ridden person can have no self-respect.

Claiming our sexual freedom is an important step in the process of claiming our whole freedom. And recognizing the source of many of the sex- negative messages we receive — fear and control — is an important step in befriending our bodies and desires again.

I spent years paralyzed by fear of my body and my desires. I knew there was this deeply unacceptable part of me and I didn’t know what to do with it. I would tell myself that my desires were wrong. I would ignore them and suppress them. And eventually they would sneak up on me and I would snap.

Most of my “relationships” in college started as drunken hookups. Those were the only times I could let my guard down enough to acknowledge and act on my desires. Paddy was different. We met through a mutual friend. For our first proper date, we drove an hour from USC’s campus near downtown Los Angeles to go mini-golfing in Sherman Oaks. He was cute and we liked each other and we did cute, “innocent” things like hold hands and playfully hip-check each other to flirt. But I couldn’t quite escape my shame.

CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 24 WEEK 4 WORKBOOK After a month or so, an acquaintance that I knew through Campus Crusade for Christ died in a skateboarding accident. I fell into a shame spiral. Here was this young (good looking) man of God out there living his life for God (or so I imagined) and he just … died. But at least he would be in heaven. What if I died? Where would my gay ass go?

I stopped reaching out to Paddy and stopped returning his calls as quickly and just let things … fizzle.

At the turn of the semester, one of my best friends came back from abroad and asked my roommate “Whatever happened that guy Brian was dating?” I’ll never forget what my straight, fratboy roommate told me when recounting the conversation:

“He was really nice and fun. But you know…. Brian… He Brian’ed. And got in his head and panicked and ended it.”

My roommate saw what I couldn’t see: shame was controlling my life.

It didn’t just sabotage my dating life. It undermined my relationship with my family. It consumed my thoughts. How many hours and hours did I spend thinking about this … trying to ignore this … looking for ways to change this … researching and rationalizing this ...

In Unit 1, I talked about the good and bad fruits of repression and acceptance. Letting go of sexual shame was a step toward freedom.

Taking responsibility for our desires is a holy act.

This was never a purely intellectual exercise (though the more I’ve integrated the theological with my lived experiences, the more I’ve thrived). Jesus was embodied. The divine and the flesh have to come together.

My best friend Matt Beams was the first person to tell me, “Sometimes you can’t think yourself into a new way of acting, you’ve got to act yourself into a new way of believing.”

Speaking my desires out loud is a holy act of resistance.

CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 25 WEEK 4 WORKBOOK Loving my boyfriend openly is a holy act of resistance.

Going to the nude beach with friends is a holy act of resistance.

Visiting the backroom of a bathhouse is a holy act of resistance.

The work of justice and liberation is hard. War and poverty and racism and transphobia and human trafficking are real, pernicious evils.

“But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” can’t begin and end with us. As Christians, we are in this for something bigger than ourselves. But to do that work, to be present in world of hurt and offering a healing work, we need to bring our whole selves to the table. Our intimate relationships matter, too.

Learning how to be responsible for our own needs, responsive to our feelings, how to set and enforce healthy boundaries are necessary components to healthy and thriving sexual relationships.

But… but… we are not islands unto ourselves.

We still need each other:

“Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law.” Romans 13:8

“Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” Galatians 6:2

Polyamory asks us to take responsibility for our own needs and feelings — but to ask others to help us meet them too.

CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 26 WEEK 4 WORKBOOK To lean not only on ourselves and not only on one other partner but on a whole network of friends, family, lovers, metamours, and neighbors.

If God is love, we could read this passage from Proverbs 3:5-6 differently:

“Trust in love with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to love, and love will make your paths straight.”

Not a fleeting love not a selfish love not a hot ball of fire that will burn out love but agape love, a giving, considerate, generative love. We can’t lean on our own understandings, we’ve got to lean in to love.

Polyamory recognizes that we are separate, unique individuals — and that we choose to come together. Like parts of a body or members of a family or even expressions of the trinity.

Polyamory invites us to love without ownership, to support without obligation — from a place of abundance, with joy. As bell hooks wrote, “We do not have to love. We choose to love.”

Polyamory helps us to see the divine more clearly

I was talking to a close friend whose wife wanted to open their relationship and he asked me desperately, “Is it because I am not enough?”

That’s a tough question for me to answer. In many ways, when I opened my relationship with Peter, he was completely enough. I loved him and felt satisfied with him and was happy and could imagine a whole life together. It was like being hungry and full at the same time.

I feel similarly now that I’m dating Matt, too. Is it that he’s not enough? Or that Peter isn’t enough? They are both enough because we are all, each, already enough. I am enough and you are enough and they are enough. It’s been my experience that relationships (whether monogamous, open, or polyamorous) are most healthy and most fulfilling when we come to them from a place of abundance. As whole people relating wholly.

CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 27 WEEK 4 WORKBOOK Which is all to say: is monogamy not enough? do you need to be polyamorous understand God?

Yes and no. It’s not that monogamous folks can’t understand God (of course they can!) anymore than saying straight folks can’t or white folks but also … something unique about God is revealed when approaching theology from the Black or Latin or poor perspective (hat tip to Gustavo Gutiérrez, James Cone, and many other liberation theologians). Something about the divine is uniquely revealed when approaching it from the perspective of women. Or queer folks.

We’ve had thousands of years bringing a monogamous paradigm to the divine. It’s beautiful and life-giving and liberatory. And there is more there. More that we already know but perhaps haven’t quite named. More that we know in theory but haven’t connected to our lives in practice.

This course has been an invitation to pick up both our theology and our relationship structures and turn them over in our hands and look to see how one might inform and enrich the other.

If theology comes from theos and logos — talk about God — then theology is always a conversation and never a book.

We must continue this conversation. However you structure your relationships, you are invited to continue this work in your life.

CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 28 WEEK 4 WORKBOOK So what’s next?

There’s one last worksheet in this Unit but your journey is not over!

If you haven’t already, take time to go through the videos included with this course. Every person and every relationship is (obviously) unique but we also have a whole heck of a lot in common! If you have any lingering questions, they will likely be addressed in one of the videos. You may learn something new and unexpected by listening to others questions and experiences.

This course is designed so that you can come back to it again and again. Use it as a resource book to flip to when you’re in a pinch. Or, in a few months, spend some time going through all of it again. You will learn more each time as you are in a new and different place on your faith and relationship journey.

We want to continue to support you

Sanctuary Collective is a robust resource library + international online community. Explore your questions, deepen your faith, make new friends, transform your life. There are over 150+ LGBTQ+ and straight, cisgender ally members from around the world waiting to welcome you.

Now that you’ve gone through this course on your own, Sanctuary Collective is the best next step. You can learn more and join at queertheology.com/community

Individual Suppport

If you’d like more individualized support, Brian is a certified relationship coach and would be happy to talk with you about options there. We can look at a one-off session or put together a series of sessions to help you navigate the challenges that come with opening up your relationship, navigating faith communities as a poly person, “coming out,” and more.

Want more info on that? You can apply for a free consultation here.

CHRISTIANITY & POLYAMORY 29 WEEK 4 WORKBOOK