A Revelation for Christians

The Christian Post, and elsewhere

The July 29th Newsweek online article about the growth of poly continues to spawn good things. Into this category I put a critical piece that appeared this morning in, among other places, The Christian Post, a large online magazine spanning many conservative denominations. The article is by R. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

Of course he's totally opposed. However, he describes polyamory and the people doing it accurately and level-headedly and quotes the Newsweek description at length. As I've said before, this kind of coverage informs millions of people whom we're unlikely to reach that a happy, workable poly life is actually possible. And that normal people are doing it not only successfully, but ethically by secular standards. Such a possibility never used to be even imagined.

Mohler's readers will remember this article if multiple love ever enters their own lives.

Polyamory: The Perfectly Plural Postmodern Condition

By R. Albert Mohler, Jr.

Once a sexual revolution is set loose, it inevitably runs its course through the culture. While the current flashpoints of cultural conflict are focused on same-sex marriage and gender issues, others are biding their time. As Newsweek magazine makes clear, some new flashpoints are getting restless.

Polyamory, reports Newsweek, is having a "coming-out-party." Polyamory is the current "term of art" applied to "families" or "clusters" comprised of multiple sexual partners.... Advocates of polyamory... define their movement in terms of the moral principle of "ethical nonmonogamy," defined as "engaging in loving, intimate relationships with more than one person — based upon the knowledge and consent of everyone involved."

...The article in Newsweek, written by Jessica Bennett, presents polyamory as a growing movement that now involves persons in the cultural mainstream. As the magazine reports: "Researchers are just beginning to study the phenomenon, but the few who do estimate that openly polyamorous families in the United States number more than half a million, with thriving contingents in nearly every major city."...

...Bennett quotes Allena Gabosch, director of an organization known as the "Center for Sex Positive Culture," suggesting that polyamory sounds scary to people because "it shakes up their worldview." But, she insists, polyamory might well be "more natural than we think."

...The ultimate sign of our moral confusion becomes evident when virtually no one appears ready to condemn polyamory as immoral. The only arguments mustered against this new movement focus on matters of practicality. Polyamory is certainly not new, but this new movement is yet another reminder that virtually all the fences are now down when it comes to sex and sexual relationships. What comes next?

Read the whole article (Aug. 10, 2009).

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