This is not your normal headline for a Christianity Today think piece: “Polyamory: Pastors’ Next Sexual Frontier.”
Then again, while teaching at Denver Seminary in the early 1990s, I kept seeing studies suggesting that there was little or no difference — in terms of mass-media patterns — between ordinary American consumers and people living in “conservative” or even evangelical households. Did anyone expect this to slow down in the Internet era with its omnipresent screens?
The question that has emerged: Are evangelicals attempting to evangelize their culture or is the culture, via media, slowly but surely evangelizing them? Here’s another newsworthy angle to chase: Are media habits linked to emerging fault lines inside evangelicalism today?
But back to this provocative, to say the least, CT thinker from Preston Sprinkle, leader of the Center for Faith, Sexuality & Gender, and Kuyper College theology professor Branson Parler.
The context for this? Many pastors today are still struggling to know how to handle the marriage requests of evangelical couples who are “shacking up,” to use the old school language. Now this:
A pastor recently told me (Preston) about Tyler and Amanda (names changed), high-school sweethearts raised in Christian homes, living in the Bible belt. After getting married, they seemed to be living the American dream with a house, good jobs, and two kids. Then Jon, a friend of Tyler’s, began living with their family. Amanda developed a close relationship with him, but their flirtation soon developed into something more, and Jon and Amanda proposed to Tyler that they begin exploring polyamory, with Amanda adding Jon as a significant other. They also encouraged Tyler to develop a relationship with another woman he’d met at the gym. He agreed.
When Tyler and Amanda came out as polyamorous, their parents were shocked. What seemed like a fringe practice of the sexual revolution had settled into the heartland of Middle America.
Making the situation even more complex, Tyler and Amanda sought counseling from a Christian counselor who advocated polyamory.
I didn’t see that last twist coming. I think it is safe to say that this “Christian counselor” is not evangelical, but is linked to a center that works with believers from all kinds of flocks. Then again, maybe not.
Parents had a question that would seem bizarre in previous generations: How would people in their their church respond to this development in the lives of their children?
So, is there enough evidence of change here to say that trend stories would be valid in mainstream media? Keep reading. Parler and Sprinkle note that "polyamory” is:
… much more common than some people think, and it’s growing in popularity. According to one estimate, “as many as 5 percent of Americans are currently in relationships involving consensual nonmonogamy,” which is about the same percentage as those who identify as LGBTQ. A recent study, published in a peer-reviewed journal, found that 20 percent of Americans have been in a consensual non-monogamous relationship at least once in their life. Another survey showed that nearly 70 percent of non-religious Americans between the ages of 24 and 35 believe that polyamory is okay, even if it’s not their cup of tea. And perhaps most shocking of all, according to sociologist Mark Regnerus in Cheap Sex, roughly 24 percent of church-going people believe that consensual polyamorous relationships are morally permissible.
Pause for a minute, especially if you are a reporter (or church leader) who has been reading Christianity Today — a flagship publication in global evangelical culture — for several decades.
Could you have predicted the sudden need for a CT summary paragraph like this one?
Scripture does clearly connect sex, marriage, and monogamy in ways that are violated in polyamorous relationships. In the example above, Amanda and Tyler both need to be called to repentance for the way they have committed adultery. A pastoral approach would commend them for their desire to have other adults contribute to the life of their family but point them to the church — not a polyamorous relationship — as the place where God intends for that to happen.
Journalists: Do you know pastors in your zip codes candid enough to talk about this?