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Polyamory and Christianity

R. S. Jackson: The Erotic Trinity

If polyamorous relationships are truly forbidden in Christianity, it would be the only thing which was clearly allowed under the Old Law (see the numerous Old Testament patriarchs with multiple wives) but forbidden under the New, despite the New Law being, in conventional understanding, the morality of the Old Law with the ritual law replaced by the ecclesial law of the Christian sacraments. This in itself is a strong argument against an anti-polyamorous interpretation of the Christian law.

This applies even to sexual polyamorous relationships between unmarried people (the lover and beloved in the Song of Songs are clearly not married to one another, although the lover is married to others or another).

As such, any of the New Testament’s statements about sexual morality, including those attributed to Christ himself, must be seen as divine clarifications or interpretations of the moral Old Law, and must themselves be interpreted as consistent with the sexual morality of the figures of the Old Testament.

Both must also be interpreted in the context of popular social attitudes to sex and sexuality in biblical times, which are very different from today’s attitudes — even those of contemporary so-called ‘conservatives’. On these topics @a_hoeke on Twitter recommended: