What did God use to open your eyes and heart to polygyny?

[Mojo]

Not the first time I have been told it by peoole theoretically qualified to judge.

I’m not certified in any related field but I was curious on your personal take because I’ve picked up on the vibe based on your writing style over time. Of course, if you’ve ever been to a retreat, you’ll note that none of us necessarily speak the same way as we write but I sense a higher AQ (aspi quotient) in your style. It seems more deep dive into the subject itself more than emotional relationship to it.

The high AQ has been a subject around here in the past. I would guess that many of us men would be aspi adjacent if not outright in the club.

Final note: I hate all the online obsessions about labeling ourselves. God made us all unique. We don’t need to be associated with anything. We’re just us.

 

[indigenouspolygynist]

I've experienced a lot of abuse in my life and I've encountered it countless times in the church. Several years ago, several major scandals happened at the same time. A couple evangelical celebrities were found to have been molesting people (which has become a trope now) and the head pastor at a church where I used to teach Sunday school was fired for having an affair. Besides that, I was becoming disgusted with the way tithe funds were being wasted in the churches I visited. Very little of it was actually being used for missions, widows, the poor, etc.

I just got completely fed up with the evangelical community as a whole. I wanted to know where they had gone wrong, so I started reading the bible with a new perspective. If I had never heard of Christianity before, what would I believe it to be if I was only handed a bible and nothing else?

I was completely shocked by what I found. I started questioning everything I had been told growing up. Very few of the things taught or practiced in modern churches is actually biblical. You won't find any pastors in the bible (and definitely no celebrities!). The concept of the trinity isn't there. (Even people like William Lane Craig will admit this, but still argue in favor of it merely because they need to insist that Christianity is a monotheistic religion.) If you dig a little further, you'll find that hell is never mentioned in the bible. It's a mistranslation in our English texts. The modern idea of tithing isn't in the bible either. The bible also never says we need to pray to ask Jesus to come into our hearts.

That's just a few examples. As I kept reading and researching, I just kept finding more and more examples of things that the modern church gets wrong. I still find myself questioning things all the time. I've tried having conversations with some people about these things, and it usually doesn't go over well. People claim to believe that the bible is the ultimate authority, but if you show them scripture that contradicts something they hold dear, or if you ask them to show you the scripture that supports it, they often become irrational. I've been shunned multiple times.

I started considering the idea of polygamy a few years ago when I came home from work one winter evening and found her doing puzzles at the table with a friend. She's always been a very lonely person, and I had never seen her so alive before. That sparked a desire in me. I thought to myself that if her friend was single, I would have liked to have her in our family so my wife could be happy like that all the time. That's when I first started researching the topic from a biblical perspective.

I didn't bring it up with my wife at the time because it's a difficult subject and I didn't think there was any chance of actually finding someone to join our family. So I just kept it to myself.

Just recently, I met someone who I knew instantly would be the perfect fit for our whole family. I couldn't keep these thoughts to myself anymore because I felt very strongly that this would be the best decision for our family. So I made the very difficult choice to open up to my wife about it. I shared the research that I had done and she came to the same conclusions that I had. She was reluctant at the beginning, but as we've talked more about it, she's begun to share my dream for the future. We're very much on the same page. I'm excited to see where this leads.

 

[Joleneakamama]

You won't find any pastors in the bible (and definitely no celebrities!). The concept of the trinity isn't there. (Even people like William Lane Craig will admit this, but still argue in favor of it merely because they need to insist that Christianity is a monotheistic religion.) If you dig a little further, you'll find that hell is never mentioned in the bible. It's a mistranslation in our English texts. The modern idea of tithing isn't in the bible either. The bible also never says we need to pray to ask Jesus to come into our hearts.

Yep! We wouldn't be welcome in any church I know of. We are blessed to have the acceptance of family and others in our small community.

I had an aquaintance who claimed Christ tell me once "I would be more interested in what else you believe if you believed in.....the devil"

The Bible tells us to Fear YHWH and guard His commands for this is the whole duty of man."

True monotheism is a powerful thing!

 

[TNOvercomer]

I've experienced a lot of abuse in my life and I've encountered it countless times in the church. Several years ago, several major scandals happened at the same time. A couple evangelical celebrities were found to have been molesting people (which has become a trope now) and the head pastor at a church where I used to teach Sunday school was fired for having an affair. Besides that, I was becoming disgusted with the way tithe funds were being wasted in the churches I visited. Very little of it was actually being used for missions, widows, the poor, etc.

I just got completely fed up with the evangelical community as a whole. I wanted to know where they had gone wrong, so I started reading the bible with a new perspective. If I had never heard of Christianity before, what would I believe it to be if I was only handed a bible and nothing else?

I was completely shocked by what I found. I started questioning everything I had been told growing up. Very few of the things taught or practiced in modern churches is actually biblical. You won't find any pastors in the bible (and definitely no celebrities!). The concept of the trinity isn't there. (Even people like William Lane Craig will admit this, but still argue in favor of it merely because they need to insist that Christianity is a monotheistic religion.) If you dig a little further, you'll find that hell is never mentioned in the bible. It's a mistranslation in our English texts. The modern idea of tithing isn't in the bible either. The bible also never says we need to pray to ask Jesus to come into our hearts.

That's just a few examples. As I kept reading and researching, I just kept finding more and more examples of things that the modern church gets wrong. I still find myself questioning things all the time. I've tried having conversations with some people about these things, and it usually doesn't go over well. People claim to believe that the bible is the ultimate authority, but if you show them scripture that contradicts something they hold dear, or if you ask them to show you the scripture that supports it, they often become irrational. I've been shunned multiple times.

I started considering the idea of polygamy a few years ago when I came home from work one winter evening and found her doing puzzles at the table with a friend. She's always been a very lonely person, and I had never seen her so alive before. That sparked a desire in me. I thought to myself that if her friend was single, I would have liked to have her in our family so my wife could be happy like that all the time. That's when I first started researching the topic from a biblical perspective.

I didn't bring it up with my wife at the time because it's a difficult subject and I didn't think there was any chance of actually finding someone to join our family. So I just kept it to myself.

Just recently, I met someone who I knew instantly would be the perfect fit for our whole family. I couldn't keep these thoughts to myself anymore because I felt very strongly that this would be the best decision for our family. So I made the very difficult choice to open up to my wife about it. I shared the research that I had done and she came to the same conclusions that I had. She was reluctant at the beginning, but as we've talked more about it, she's begun to share my dream for the future. We're very much on the same page. I'm excited to see where this leads.

So encouraging and inspiring! Thank you for sharing. We had a similar experience in that we endured the modern church that was so broken, so corrupt, so dysfunctional, so ineffective.....it was discouraging and it drove us to seek out what God was doing....Totally understand!