Just some personal thoughts on monogamy. Firstly while yes it is true that polygamy is not a sin per se in the NT, however some points worth noting are:

1. The sacramental model for God's relationship with the church is a monogamous one.
2. Also I think it is fair to say that there seems to be a slant towards monogamy in the ethos of the NT.
3. While in the OT, polygamy was practiced—God always treated his people as intended to have a monogamous relationship with him.

(As an aside, there is as an example of the issue of slavery. The NT does not say holding slaves is sinful, yet I think it is the rare Christian—I know one—who would argue that it is okay today to hold slaves provided the slaves are treated well. He holds this argument on the basis that slavery seemed acceptable to the NT.)

So I think there is an issue of how we are to treat the silence of the Bible. When it comes to spousal relationships, I suppose the question is: What do I see my relationship with my partner as at a spiritual level. Is there an element of the reflection of God and his people in that relationship or is it just a plain coupling operating at a socio-physical-emotional level only? Do I see my coupling as involving only me and my partner(s) or do I see God as an integral part of that equation and if the latter am I able to see his sacramental presence in my polygamous relationships? I have yet to meet someone who is able to say this—not that there aren't.

Personally I see my relationship with my spouse as intended to carry this "prophetic" element of reflecting God and his relationship with his people—it is part of the witness and the means by which my relationship becomes the channel by which the grace of God flows into this world.

Secondly—at a practical level—when it comes to gay relationships, the issue is rarely "monogamy or polygamy"? A polygamous relationship implies spousal roles and obligations/privileges in those relationships. In the gay context, the usual antithesis is not "monogamous vs polygamous" it
is "monogamous vs open" which is really quite a different thing. This I think I can safely say was what was being alluded to in the SafeHands discussion.

In His grace,
Clarence

I have forgotten about being fair … I should allow for also polyandry (one wife, with more than one husbands) and not only polygamy.

Some inferences are derived under tight logic (e.g. if A is taller than B and if B is taller than C then there is a logic of necessity—i.e. a tight logic—that A is taller than C).

Another example: Jewish monotheism, even the Shema about "Hear O Israel, YWHW your God is one". Here I am not referring nor implying anything about Patrick's comments but just an example to illustrate my point. This does not mean that Jews in the second Temple period treated God as a mathematically one God; in fact a number of their writings showed otherwise … they affirm monotheism but their monotheism is not about God being mathematically one.

Some inferences are not logically necessary (e.g. birds can fly with wings and C saw an animal with wings...that does not necessary mean that C saw a bird that can fly).

Yahweh's relationship with Israel compared using imageries of adultery does not have a logic of necessity to mean that marriage relationship must be mathematical. Those passages were written by ancient Jews who had no problem with polygamy; likely they were not thinking of polygamy when they wrote those passages and they seemed not to have thought that their passages were contradicting polygamy. They were targeting adultery.

I am responding to the following [earlier posting by Clarence]:

1. The sacramental model for God's relationship with the church is a monogamous one.
2. Also I think it is fair to say that there seems to be a slant towards monogamy in the ethos of the NT.
3. While in the OT, polygamy was practised—God always treated his people as intended to have a monogamous relationship with him.

The law against adultery existed long ago in their tradition and it existed side by side with the acceptable practice of polygamy. That means that at that time a faithful polygamous relationship is ok but an adulterous polygamous relationship is plain wrong.

The writers used the common unquestioned idea that "adultery is wrong" and applied it to the relationship between Israel and YHWH to show that Israel was just like a wife that practised adultery when she went after other gods.

The point of YHWH and Israel or Jesus and Church being illustrated by husband-wife metaphor is to about FAITHFULNESS in a covenantal relationship.

The imagery is used to caution people against ADULTERY (adultery towards God) and not against polygamy/polyandry. People in a polygamous or polyandrous relationship should live faithfully in their covenant of faithfulness in that relationship, unless their covenant includes what we may call an "open relationship".

Is there an element of the reflection of God and his people in that relationship or is it just a plain coupling operating at a socio-physical-emotional level only? Do I see my coupling as involving only me and my partner(s) or do I see God as an integral part of that equation and if the latter am I able to see his sacramental presence in my polygamous relationships? I have yet to meet someone who is able to say this—not that there aren't.

In a relationship, the reflection of God and His people should be seen indeed, but the reflection is not about monogamy (that is not the point of all those metaphor about God-Israel/Christ-Church being Husband-Wife); the reflection is about FAITHFULNESS TO their polygamous/ polyandrous/ monoandrous/ monogamous covenant (yes the point is about faithfulness). Just like some people's attitude towards homosexuality is shaped deeply by the society's influences (and of course with a pre-subconscious culturing conditioning of their emotions towards homosexuality they find no way of reading the bible as anything but condemning homosexuality), sometimes our attitude towards polygamy/polyandry may be similar (which may prevent us to see very legitimate way of seeing that the bible does not prohibit polygamy).

In fact it is far, far, far easier to see clearly that the bible does not prohibit polygamy than to see the bible not to prohibit homosexual relationship. Remember: a conservative prominent local ordained minister of the Word said that polygamy is not sinful … this same person stands very, very firmly against homosexuality on biblical and theological grounds. This person is a famous theologian with recent [published] work that won recognition as being one of the best in the world from an U.S. organisation that reviews published Christian works.

Shalom,
David

Hello, on a serious note:

I find the argument that the primary criteria of the convenantal relationship between man and God to be that of faithfulness only, highly unconvincing. Imagine for a moment Chong Hezekiah son of Muthu Nehmeiah the son of Ahmad Shealtiel, a direct descendant of Seth son of Adam going up to God and saying:

"Hey dude, I wanna be faithful to a covenant with you so I therefore covenant with you that I shall be faithful to you and two other Gods the cool Asherah and the mighty Moloch. And as a token of my faithfulness to this covenant I now sacrifice two bulls to you (and of course to be faithful, two to Asherah and two to Moloch as well)."

I find it extremely difficult to believe that God would have accepted this covenant. If indeed the only issue at stake in the divine-human covenant was faithfulness to a set of agreed upon terms where the terms were open to negotiation then God cannot reject good ol' Chong Hezekiah.

Inherent and essential to the divine-human covenant was not just faithfulness but faithfulness to an exclusive relationship. That polygamy existed in the OT and that there were rules to govern unfaithful polygamy is of no relevance. It is in the NT that the idea that the relationship between spouses is a "sacrament" of the faithful and exclusive covenant between God and his people was developed.

Similarly to say that the Jews may have had at sometime believed that God may have been multiple in the Godhead does not help practically because even if there were many Israelites and many persons in the Godhead there was only ONE shared covenant. So if we want to apply this to a polygamous marriage then there should only be one covenant between the multiple persons involved.

[Irrelevant light-hearted bits deleted.]

So I wonder from a pastoral perspective, I wonder what this well-known theologian (incidentally, he isn't closeted by any chance is he? I find the non-mention of names somewhat strange) David mentions would do if he was a pastor of a church and one of his church members (say Jane, to be politically correct) came to him and requested that he bless and preside over a wedding ceremony where she would enter into a faithful marriage covenant with James and Jerry—what would he do?

Postscript:

Please note that I am not saying that a polygamous or open relationship is sinful. Have to include this statement—just in case tomorrow I decide to poly poly … (so no one can say I have been unfaithful to this terms of this message!)

Seriously, all I am saying is that if we want to use a model that is derived from the Bible then there is a reasonably strong argument for monogamy because the spousal relationship was to be a reflection of the faithful exclusive relationship between One people with One God under One covenant.

However if we are happy to use non-marriage models whether from the Bible or elsewhere as the model for gay relationships then monogamy is not much of an issue. "Marry away!" I say.

Furthermore I am saying that the issue of whether polygamy is okay in the Bible is actually quite irrelevant to the gay situation because in the gay situation the usual dialectic reality is monogamy vs. open rather than monogamy vs. polygamy. Open and polygamy are very different animals. This does not seem to have been addressed in the exchanges.

Clarence

PS: Hope this message was not offensive—it is after all 2 am in the morning and I need to humour myself. Thanks for reading.

Have not been free to respond, but now here I am responding. Polygamy as used in this email shall include not only one-to-few relationships but also few-to-few relationships (e.g. three men and two women in a marriage covenant involving five persons).

Please note that polygamous relationship is different from an open relationship where partners are free to engage in one-night stand with strangers etc. Polygamous relationship can have an exclusive covenant, such that the various parties involved commit to be faithful to one another, not going after other parties outside that relationship. It can be an exclusive covenant. (I am not implying anything here about open relationship.)

That YHWH would not agree to Israelites worshipping other gods because the Israelites have already entered into an exclusive covenant which bind their loyalty to YHWH only. Furthermore, and more fundamentally, in the whole of ultimate reality there is no other gods in existence besides YHWH.

Therefore to treat any other things as god would be to treat what is not-god as god and that is a great insult to the true god. ("God" is a not a proper name/noun like "YHWH" or "Jesus" but rather it is a generic term and hence it is ok to us small letter "god".) The dissimilarity between YHWH-Israel relationship and husband-wife (can be male-male etc.) relationship is that there are many other human beings around whereas there is only one god.

Hence we cannot stretch too much the YHWH-Israel relationship model/situation to compare with husband-wife model/situation. The similarity between the two situations is that of the existence of a promise and the duty to keep the promise.

In this way I show that there is no tight logic to say that just because in the case of YHWH-Israel it is a one-god and one-people model (by the way it is one-god and many-persons, not only Jewish People but also Gentiles) than it must necessarily mean that husband-wife should also be a one-one model.

I go back to what I said: the YHWH-Israel model is about faithfulness only and not about having numerical correspondence.

Now back to a bit about YHWH-Israel relationship, about YHWH expecting Israel not to worship any other gods. It will be a different matter if (1) there are indeed other gods, and that (2) after Israelites entered into the covenant YHWH announced that he withdraw the covenant and now permits them to worship other gods.

Similarly, a person entered into an exclusive covenant with his/her partner would be guilty of being unfaithful if she/he unilaterally breaks the covenant and enters into a romantic relationship with another. However if she/he approaches her/his partner and that his/her partner agrees to "expand" the covenant or other similar move, then it is a different matter.

Again, polygamy is not about adultery; adultery is about cheating. As Clarence said, they are two different animals. There is such a thing as exclusive polygamy. Three or more guys can set up a covenant to be in an exclusive relationship.

What is inherently wrong about adultery is that is causes harm/hurt to one's covenantal partner. God forbids it for very good reason.

In the case of polygamy YHWH not only did not denounce it through his prophets (despite the little statement in Deut. 17:17 about [the correct behaviour for a] King but also the fact is there is no INHERENT harm involved in polygamy itself (as long as all parties agree to it). It is possible for there to be no harm involved in an exclusive polygamous relationship.

In the case (rare it maybe, but still it may/can exist in principle and in reality) where all parties are happy in a polygamous relationship then there is no good reason why it should be forbidden. For practical reasons and for fairness to the female sex our human laws in many countries forbid it but in ultimate morality with god in view polygamous is not inherently wrong.

Similarly to say that the Jews may have had at sometime believed that God may have been multiple in the Godhead does not help practically because even if there were many Israelites and many persons in the Godhead there was only ONE shared covenant. So if we want to apply this to a polygamous marriage then there should only be one covenant between the multiple persons involved.

In case there is any misunderstanding, my point about Jews at some point in history believed in beings sharing the throne of YHWH has nothing to do with polygamy itself.

Yes, there can be one covenant between multiple persons in a polygamous relationship. Such polygamy would be morally right if (IF) other forms of polygamy are not acceptable. The bottom line is that polygamy per se is not morally wrong be it for Christians or non-Christians.

So I wonder from a pastoral perspective, I wonder what this well-known theologian (incidentally, he isn't closeted by any chance is he? I find the non-mention of names somewhat strange) David mentions...

I find no need to mention names. I just use it to illustrate a point. I won't mention it for now.

Please note that I am not saying that a polygamous or open relationship is sinful. Have to include this statement—just in case tomorrow I decide to poly poly … (so no one can say I have been unfaithful to this terms of this message)!

It is fine even if you believe and say that it is sinful while you do it at the same time. It is better for one to teach the truth (I am not referring to anything here) without distorting the truth by one's actual behaviour than to distort the truth to suit one's behaviour. Just like years ago a smoker told us not to smoke and that smoking is harmful etc. So if I practise child abuse, that does not necessarily mean that I believe child abuse is right. Or if I say child abuse is wrong, that does not mean that I do not practice child abuse. If I go to hell, I can still warn others to flee from the pathway to hell.

Seriously, all I am saying is that if we want to use a model that is derived from the Bible then there is a reasonably strong argument for monogamy because the spousal relationship was to be a reflection of the faithful exclusive relationship between One people with One God under One covenant.

It can be a reflection of a faithful exclusive relationship between one people-group (call wives) with one person (call husband) too. Or one people-group (call wives) with a three-person group (call 3 men) (similar to Trinity).

However if we are happy to use non-marriage models whether from the Bible or elsewhere as the model for gay relationships then monogamy is not much of an issue. "Marry away!" I say.

My point is that the bible does not prescribe monogamy as the only marriage model.

Furthermore I am saying that the issue of whether polygamy is okay in the Bible is actually quite irrelevant to the gay situation because in the gay situation the usual dialectic reality is monogamy vs. open rather than monogamy vs. polygamy. Open and polygamy are very different animals. This does not seem to have been addressed in the exchanges.

Step by step. I have to deal with what conservatives can accept first, which is polygamy (or has the least difficulty accepting). Conservatives generally cannot accept open-relationship. (There is nothing wrong with being conservative per se; I am using the term as a easy way to give a general reference.) I have to be very focus on the point: whether or not polygamy is biblically wrong.

PS: Hope this message was not offensive—it is after all 2 am in the morning and I need to humour myself. Thanks for reading.

I don't find it offensive. I treat this as a cool discussion/debate of an issue. This is different from some other discussions that I have witnessed where parties in debate, instead of using reasons to defend or to critique point by point in an issue, they start calling one another names and start to use personal attacks. That would not be a mature discussion.

So even if Clarence practise polygamy (to my knowledge Clarence is not doing that) I have no problem with Clarence continuing to affirm that polygamy is wrong. It only shows that Clarence is able to discuss truth-issues while minimising his actual situation from distorting the truth-issues.

Shalom,
David