Christianity Today (CT) published an article a few days ago which seemed to be an attempt to open the conversation on how we will pastorally relate to polyamory. In the article the authors give a quick explanation of this phenomenon (something like 5% of people claim to be in a polyamorous relationship) and then give a bit of a strategy for engaging with those involved in such a relationship.
Their strategy was to affirm potential good desires which might go out of its banks into polyamory. The key sentences which some would pick up on as an example of the softness of evangelicalism are these:
And in churches that idolize marriage and the nuclear family, polyamory’s focus on hospitality and community can be an attractive alternative. We can acknowledge that many of the elements that draw people to polyamory—deep relationships, care for others, hospitality, and community—are good things.
Owen Strachan called this “a piece arguing that ‘good things’ draw us to polyamory”. To which he then labeled this an unsound hermeneutic of “identifying ‘good things’ in abominatory pursuits…” Doug Wilson said, “These are soft men, writing soft words for a soft magazine, published in a soft generation, and all of it guaranteed to go down softly. Talk about oleaginous”.
My desire here isn’t to defend CT or Strachan/Wilson but to use this as a place from which to talk about missional strategy. I will say this, after reading Strachan and Wilson’s criticism, my first reaction was to think that I had read a different article than these two men. I didn’t see the CT article as soft but I read it as pastoral. But then it hit me why we’re perhaps talking past one another here.
What Is Paul Doing in Acts 17?
When I read Acts 17 I see the Apostle Paul coming into the hostile environment of the Areopagus and using a bridge—their many idols—to proclaim the living God. I read the CT article as employing a similar strategy. In fact its something I do in preaching often. It’s something I’ve picked up from Zack Eswine. In his book, Preaching to a Post-Everything World, he encourages us to consider the echoes of creation. He notes that we will discuss how the fall impacts us but:
“…before we do this, we want to learn how to ‘begin our message where the Bible begins—with the dignity and high calling of all human being because they are created in the image of God.’ We desire to learn this skill because if we as preachers always and only start with the message of sin, without placing our sin into the context of our having been created, we discard vital aspects of the beauty of redemption.” (Preaching to a Post-Everything World, 43)
There is much more of value that Eswine shares, but that is sufficient to understand the strategy. When we are dealing with folks living with in a post-Christian world with such a mindset it might be effective to find the fingerprint of God on their life and then declare to them that which they are worshipping in ignorance.
This is why I read that CT article through that lens. I viewed them as finding echoes of creation within a polyamorous relationship and then showing how sinful hearts can hijack good things and make them bad things. I didn’t view it as them saying that these “good things” would inevitably lead to a polyamorous relationship. Or even that “good things” come from polyamory. But I saw a missional strategy similar to what Paul employed in Acts 17.
Talking Past One Another
What I think is happening is that some will read a statement like this…
Another important pastoral step is to distinguish elements of polyamory that are in violation of God’s will from elements that are simply culturally unfamiliar to us. When we want to lovingly call people to repentance, we should be precise about what needs repentance and what relationships or elements can and should be sanctified in Christ.
And they’ll conclude from this that what needs to be repented of is every single element of a polyamorous relationship. They’ll, rightly, say that these elements which can be sanctified in Christ aren’t elements of polyamory but elements of being created in the image of God. But that’s not the argument that I believe CT was making. What they are saying is that when someone in a polyamorous relationship evidences a longing for deep relationships with others you point out how this is an echo of creation (much as Paul saw the religiosity in Athens) but then show how this is fulfilled in Christ an not polyamory. So what they mean by elements of polyamory “can and should be sanctified in Christ” is precisely this that I’ve mentioned. It’s not polyamory which can be sanctified. But those who are engaging in polyamorous relationships are made in the image of God and there are still echoes of creation within—and it is here where sanctification in Christ can happen.
Though I don’t believe I would use some of these words in the same way they do, I do not see this article in CT as soft. I don’t see them necessarily turning a blind eye to sin. One certainly could use this missions strategy to be soft on sin. But it’s not a necessity. The key moment comes in whether or not you can pastorally and boldly call sin exactly what it is when it comes that time. Can you be both pastoral and prophetic? Can you lovingly show echoes of creation but also proclaim the truth of the Fall and how our wicked desires will turn to good things—like a longing for a relationship—into a wicked thing like polyamory.
Identifying the finger-print of God on a human being who is in an “abominatory pursuit” isn’t soft, it’s Pauline. And I didn’t even mention Jesus’ interaction with the woman at the well.
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