Polyamory: Another Attack on Real Love (Part 2)

Last week, I wrote a post that defined poly relationships, explained why they are wrong, and addressed some popular internet arguments for poly relationships.

This week, I want to explain why we should care and how we as Christians might respond.

Why We Should Care

I imagine some supporters of poly relationships are questioning why I care. They may argue that it isn’t harming anyone. I however disagree.

As Christians, we should want to see everyone know the love of God and go to heaven. God has made it clear that polygamy is not a valid form of marriage and polyamorous relationships aren’t good for us. At the very least, this is why we should speak out against poly relationships.

On a wider scale, and in regards to legal definitions of marriage, I want to appeal to the secular arguments against polygamy and the idea that family is the foundation of our society.

From a Christian perspective, we should be aware of how important family is for society and that family is one of the four levels of the Church. The Archdiocese of Cincinnati explains “[t]he Domestic Church plays a key role in our sanctification because it is the primary place where we practice coming to intimately love other persons.”

While there are plenty of secular reasons to care about polygamy, we as Christians should also be concerned about religious freedom.  Contrary to what the supporters of same-sex marriage claimed, Christians are being impacted by the legal redefinition of marriage. Christian bakers and florists have had to pay astronomical fines or even lost their businesses. Religious organizations are told they have to hire people who actively contradict Christian teaching. Speaking the truth about marriage is declared bigotry. It is not far-fetched to believe that the government redefining marriage to include polygamy would have similar impacts.

What we Can Do

One thing we need to do is share the love of God. I suspect that many seek polyamorous relationships because they are trying to fill the space for God with human relationships. No amount of imperfect human love can fill the void made for the perfect love of God. A polyamorous atheist disagreed with me when I said as much a while ago, but I sincerely believe that if we want to change how our culture treats love, we need to expose it to the perfect love of God.

This is where a larger responsibility comes in: us Christians need to get our act together when it comes to marriage. Our credibility when it comes to talking about marriage is rightly questioned when we ourselves aren’t living up to the requirements of marriage. We need to be faithful to our spouses. We need to recognize that marriage is a lifelong commitment. Though Catholics have a lower divorce rate than the rest of the country, the fact that divorce is occurring at all is deeply concerning (side note: I am not referring to annulment which is recognition that a valid marriage never occurred and therefore it is acceptable to get a civil divorce).

We need to address the horrendous stereotype that fathers are idiots when it comes to child-rearing. We need to address all issues plaguing American marriage and not just focus on same-sex unions.

I know as a young woman who has been married a little more than a year, my comments don’t carry much weight, but Christians, we need to share the truth about marriage by living it.