I know it’s hard to keep up with all the crazy terms people use to justify their sexual sin. Homosexual, pansexual, bisexual, asexual…the list goes on and on.
One of these many crazy designations is “polyamorous” which is basically a fancy word for open relationships. It’s all the rage among young, immoral, “sex positive” people who try to paint their desire for multiple partners with a philosophical sheen.
Far more disturbing, however, is the movement to justify polyamory within the church. And yes, as you can imagine, this involves a whole lot of eisegesis and flat-out rejection of straightforward scriptural commands.
Like many false teachings, this one relies on a very, very broad definition of the word ‘love.’
“The point is developing intimate, loving relationships with more than one individual,” says the “Hippie Heretic” Chuck McKnight writing for Patheos.com. “In such a relationship, sex may be one of many wonderful ways to express that love and intimacy. And I don’t feel the need to ‘justify’ sex. Sex is inherently good. It is also very powerful, and we certainly need to be careful in our sexual ethics. But I reject the view that sex is some sort of a taboo, to be avoided in all but the most specific scenarios—namely, a heterosexual monogamous marriage.”
Well, at least he got it right by calling himself a ‘heretic.’ Extramarital sex is not “taboo”, it’s Biblical, as addressed in 1 Corinthians 6 & 7, Hebrews 13:4, Genesis 2:24, Proverbs 5 to reference just a few black-and-white passages that restrict sex to the marriage bed. And what a dangerous statement it is to say that sex is inherently good. So is it good between siblings? With children? Animals? Your wife’s best friend? The Bible certainly does not say that sex is inherently good, in fact, we are given at least dozens of instances in which sex is clearly described as not only not good, but outright sin.
McKnight, unashamed of his eisegesis, recently interviewed the Rev. Dr. Jeff Hood, who, despite having a more respectable-sounding title before his name, is also a raging heretic.
Hood is a radical leftist who admires preachers like Jeremiah Wright, organized the Dallas protest at which five police officers were murdered and was caught on tape crying “God d*** white America!” shortly before the shooting, penned a book entitled The Courage to Be Queer, and describes himself as a “radical mystic and prophetic voice to a closed society” who is sincerely convinced that God is “calling us to something queerer.”
With a description like that, you will probably not be surprised to hear that Rev. Dr. Hood is a proponent of polyamory. What still may shock you, however, is how crazy he sounds justifying it.
When asked by McKnight what led him to accept polyamory despite his background as a Southern Baptist, Rev. Dr. Hood kicks off the interview with a response that sounds more like a description of a drug trip than it does sound Biblical reasoning:
The old wooden doors were intimidating. Pushing hard, I got one of them open. Since everything had already started, I sat on the back pew. I heard a message of love that pulled at me stronger than anything I’d ever felt. Before I knew it, I was out in the aisle. Along the way, I heard the voices of the polyamorous repeatedly whispering, “Why are you persecuting us?” Unable to contain myself, I shouted out, “Forgive me!” At that moment, I collapsed. Before I perished, I felt the pull. Divine polyamory found me a sinner and lifted me up by grace. The Holy Trinity ushered me to love. Looking around, I saw a great cloud of polyamorous witnesses shouting, “Holy! Holy! Holy, is the polyamorous love of God!” The waters of a wild grace washed away all my sin; I was forever changed. In the midst of a great resistance, polyamory saved my soul.
Okaaaaaay.
Not sure what he was smoking when he had this “revelation,” but McKnight was apparently unphased and politely replied “That’s a very poetic way of putting it,” before asking him to explain his stance in plainer terms (probably since the rest of us are not currently on a mushroom trip).
“I’m saying that the polyamorous God saved my soul. I once was blind…but now I see,” Rev. Dr. Hood answers.
He goes on to twist the heck out of Scripture to try to explain how God is polyamorous because he loves everyone or something, and that we need to be polyamorous too, also because, you know love.
It is so easy to use this broad, warped definition of love while bulldozing over the plain reading of the text that urges us to abstain from sexual sin, clings to chastity, and in no way confuses sexual contact with agape love outside of the covenant of marriage.
Never in Scripture is extramarital sex referred to as “love,” but again, is constantly referenced as sin and abomination.
His fruits are rotten, however. His definition of love obviously doesn’t extend to his critics and enemies, again conveniently ignoring the Scripture.
When asked how his views of polyamory are received by the church, he gets pretty nasty.
“The only people who have responded negatively are church a**holes that have no knowledge of God,” he says. “Let me tell you though…there have been some nasty ones. People have stalked me. People have called me a heretic. People have called me disgusting. People have threatened my life. I could go on and on. Do these people sound like they know anything about love? Hell no. I ain’t listening to a damn word they say. I know who I’m listening to.”
I don’t ever remember Jesus referring to the Scribes and the Pharisees as “a**holes…”
This man is an accomplished theological scholar, and yet he is able to promulgate this kind of teaching simply because people want to hear it. He has most likely been criticized simply for being wrong, and is clearly quite angry about that, which wouldn’t indicate much evidence of the Holy Spirit even if he were correct about Scripture. Which he isn’t.
May God deliver this man from his demonic influences and guard the church against his deceptive teachings.
“My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. ‘Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests; because you have ignored the law of your God, I also will ignore your children.'” Hosea (4:6 NIV).
