5 Reasons for Writing about Polyamorous Families (Guest Post by Mark Kille)

Last updated on: January 8, 2018 at 9:47 am by Guest Contributor

5 Reasons for Writing about Polyamorous Families (Guest Post by Mark Kille) 2018-01-08T09:47:02-07:00 Guest Contributor

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Gartenwirtschaft De Oude Vink in Leiden by Willy Lucas

Image credit: Gartenwirtschaft De Oude Vink in Leiden by Willy Lucas.

As part of the conversation on polyamory and the church, I want to bring some voices other than my own onto this blog. So you’ll be seeing a few guest posts and interviews from other poly folks and poly-affirming Christian leaders. If you have something you’d like to contribute, let me know.

Today, I’d like to point you to Mark Kille, who has been blogging about polyamory and Christianity since 2014 (and living as a polyamorous Christian for a long time before that). In this guest post, taken with permission from his blog, Mark shares the importance he sees in having this conversation. Be sure to check out the rest of his writing as well.

Protestant churches minister to and with single folks badly. Very badly. I honestly have no idea where I could or should start if I were to try to separate out “welcome and include single folks who identify as polyamorous” from “welcome and include single folks in general.”

Polyamorous folks who are single or casually dating don’t necessarily present that much differently from folks who prefer monogamy. They can make themselves known, if they want. But they are less likely to face questions or conversations that force them to decide if they are going to tell the whole truth, part of the truth, or none of the truth.

Protestant churches frequently proclaim that their reason for existence is so people have a place they can hear the Word preached and, depending on the tradition, receive the Sacraments. But the times when specific individuals are lifted up for public celebration and blessing are commonly family times: a baby is born, people are joined in marriage, someone has died and must be remembered–the proverbial “marry, bury and baptize.” It may be a stretch to say that lay people see these things as what church is really for, but it’s difficult to imagine church without them. Polyamorous folks? Mostly have to live without them. Or, you know. Lie.

Of all the metaphors and theological lenses through which we explain God’s love for us and the love we are called to have for each other, kinship is the one that speaks to me the most. I experience my faith most richly in terms of loyalty, sacrifice, mutual obligation and bonds that go beyond sentimentality. Claiming the right to include families like mine in that metaphor, and to examine it through that lens, matters to me.

If polyamorous families are categorically unacceptable, as the overwhelming majority of Protestant churches insist they are, then the only solution to the problem of the existence of people in polyamorous families is for them to shatter those families into more acceptable arrangements. It is a vile and, to me, incomprehensible thing that so many people view the destruction of families as a lesser sin than the living out of fruitful, covenantal love between more than two people. People understandably get uncomfortable with this characterization–who wants to be a homewrecker? In practice, though, that’s what they advocate when they make monogamy or celibacy an unconditional prerequisite for participating fully in the life of a Christian community.

Posts on polyamory

It’s Time for the Church to Talk About Polyamory
Conflating Polyamory, the LGBTQ Community, and Orientation
What Polyamory Is Not
Christian Sexual Ethics and Polyamory
Southern Baptist Preacher Affirms Polyamory (Interview with Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood)
Is God Polyamorous?
5 Reasons for Writing about Polyamorous Families (Guest Post by Mark Kille)
Polyamory and the Kingdom of God (by Christian Chiakulas on Radical Christian Millennial)
What Are Polyamorous Christians to Make of Karl Barth? (Guest Post)
Polygamy and the Problem of Patriarchy
Forthcoming…

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Is God Polyamorous?

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October 30, 2017 What Are Polyamorous Christians to Make of Karl Barth? (Guest Post)

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