The gays had the enemy of our souls on their side. Their approach probably won’t work for us, especially since he is actively fighting us.
It’s probably going to be a long slog, do what is right and suffer the consequences.
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So... What are your arguments FOR polygyny?
It’s probably going to be a long slog, do what is right and suffer the consequences.
And we have Holy Ghost on our side. Who is more powerful, smarter...?
As Tom Luongo like to say:
Truth sells itself. Lies are expensive.
We have far more advantages. So why are gays in better position than us?
So by your reckoning, we should have the entire planet converted and walking righteously.
What happened?
I mean, you have “proven” that we have all the power and the enemy should have been defeated. But here we are, still slogging it out in the trenches.
What leadership can you provide so that we can live in victory, because the rest of us are obviously too screwed up to get it.
People have free will. No way everyone will select right things always. We are all sinful.
It is in state interest to destroy family. And central banks can always print money to fund such programs.
Key question is how much is our position is due to self-sabotage? If our opponents are using better methods to influence culture and we refuse to learn then we are choosing to always remain on society's margin.
Only Bible arguments can only convince Christians. In our multicultural, multiethnic and multireligious world such arguments don't mean anything to most people. We, who are allready minority due to being Christians, are choosing to be even greater minority when accepting polygyny. We are choosing to be religious freaks.
How much of our problems are due to being on society's margins? Gays used to be in our position and now they have broad social acceptance. They used to worry how will parents and friends react when they found they are gay. Now they don't. We should and must find way to finish in same position as gays have now. Broad social acceptance. Then we will be able to stop worrying about excommunication from churches, how our parents will reacts etc..
Bible arguments are important to show we aren't sinning and aren't hypocrites. But they not enough for broad societal acceptance. We need arguments from sociology, nature...
Gays used "it is natural, I was born that way" to gain broad societal acceptance. We should use same argument. It worked before plus it's true.
Since our position is true and truth sells itself we should be able to gain broad societal acceptance at cheaper cost than gays. We should have greater optimism than we have now. And we should be braver. But we must know how societal change works or we will suffer due too uor own stupidity.
This is a misconception that you have accepted, it simply isn’t true.
Lucifer fell because truth wasn’t selling itself.
Eve fell, then Adam, because truth didn’t sell itself.
Cain killed Abel, because truth didn’t sell itself.
You need to pay a bit more attention to a quote that has been attributed to Mark Twain: “A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth puts it’s shoes on.”
Are you living the lifestyle? It is truth, there should be no reason that you aren’t living it openly and victoriously, by your reasoning.
Show us how it is done.
Yah is a gentleman, the enemy of our souls is not. They don’t fight in the same way.
Sure, Yah is all powerful, but He set up rules of engagement that precludes Him from just winning by just taking over.
The truth is that the enemy hates and fears polygyny done correctly, righteously. He brings his stronger demons to battle those who are choosing to walk this walk.
There are a lot more factors involved than most people realize.
What is missed by many is that polygyny is consistent with who God is; He presents Himself in the Bible as a husband who has more than one wife. Because we as Christians are to represent Him on earth we are engaging in a spiritual battle. We are involved in a war for the Truth and all those who are opposed to the truth about anything to do with God will also vigorously oppose this aspect of His character.
As Steve says above, this is a battle about truth so we are not fighting a straightforward physical battle. Think about what is written in 1 Timothy 4:1-3, a passage about these times, and look at the subject matter of the demonic doctrines. It says, Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth (1 Tim. 4:1-3 KJV).
These are times of demonically motivated battles over marriage and food where some who profess to believe will depart from the faith and give heed to the demonic teachings! They will be hypocritical liars with seared consciences opposing the very things God says we can have and enjoy. Because male homosexuality is wrong/sin it is accepted by the ungodly, but polygyny is right and true so it will be ardently opposed - and it is!
The wonderful news is, we are on the side of Truth and Truth ultimately wins so don't despair. Shalom
Should our goal really be broad social acceptance? In other words, pleasing men?
We are a peculiar people. We will never be accepted by society. If polygamy becomes acceptable, Christian polygamists will remain unacceptable because they're Christian - with a different excuse.
We have greater goals than achieving social acceptance.
Of course not, but it is nice when what is moral is accepted. To bring that change about it might take a greater degree of advocacy for the type of family structure and authority that actually works.
For sure! Raising children to be moral and live on the blessing side of life is a very worthwhile goal.
On the social acceptance front, our oldest daughter outed us to a couple of older (kids are grown) neighbor ladies this past week. The one made a point of coming to our coffee day and congratulating all three of us. Hubby and his new wife and myself. She said she was very happy for us, and that her and her hubby have our backs. Lol
We aren't trying to hide, but don't want to cause people issues either. In a small town, raising kind helpful children and helping others because you want to will probably go a long way toward at least a degree of acceptance.
People think it's weird, but we were already 'peculiar.' As long as we keep valuing and doing what is good, this new and mighty nice normal might catch on!
It seems that people here have "persecution complex". It is impossible to imagine world where polygamist Christians aren't persecuted. Yet such world allready existed.
Wasn't Charlemagne Christian polygamist with 5 wives and 5 concubines?
Wasn't Celtic Christianity also polygamous? We even have thread about them on this forum.
If activity is broadly socially accepted then people who do said activity don't suffer societal penalties. Nobody is punished for liking/doing book reading, riding a bike, wanting one wife/husband. It is seen as normal.
All I want is same treatment for us. Is that too much for ask? And since other groups on societal margins have achieved broad societal acceptance we can too. We can also copy their approach.
Wasn't Charlemagne Christian polygamist with 5 wives and 5 concubines?
Wasn't Celtic Christianity also polygamous? We even have thread about them on this forum.
If activity is broadly socially accepted then people who do said activity don't suffer societal penalties. Nobody is punished for liking/doing book reading, riding a bike, wanting one wife/husband. It is seen as normal.
All I want is same treatment for us. Is that too much for ask? And since other groups on societal margins have achieved broad societal acceptance we can too. We can also copy their approach.
Pleasing men is nothing more than advocating for what people want in words or deeds rather than what God wants.
When society accepts polygyny will such society be more righteous or less? If more, how can such change be called pleasing men?
It's not so much a persecution complex as understanding that is the direction the world system is going - and it's going further and further away from biblical truth. Simply because we present polygyny from a biblical foundation means it will be opposed. And people do suffer penalties for reading a book if that Book is the Bible. As I pointed out above, we are involved in a battle for the truth and because Satan is a liar, he opposes the truth at every point. This is the same as the battle for biblical Creation or teaching homosexuality is a sin; it's a battle for the truth. Shalom
Everything is this world takes time. Time is resource and since anything that consumes resources creates cost nothing is truly free in this world.
I would define truth as simply what is. Same definition can be used for reality. So seeing truth is nothing more than seeing reality.
How many genders exist? Truth is easy to find. Just use memory to find all major types of humans that exist. Graduate study is needed to learn all layers of BS to justify 47 genders.
Keynes wrote book to prove that more goverment spending is needed to rescue economy from depression. Yet such BS can be destroyed with such one sentence: You can only consume what is produced. It can then logically implied than more production is needed.
Observation of humanity vs layers of bullshit.
Book vs sentence.
Cost of truth is practically free vs cost of lies.
Yet demons were still alive and active in Charlemagne time. How then did people see truth? Why demons then didn't succed in hiding truth?
We will always have demons. And we will always have Holy Ghost.
All I did is find out blind spot in our argumentation. Adding natural arguments enables us to go for broad societal acceptance.
If polygyny isn't broadly socially acceptable then it's not just work of deamons. Truth is that also Christians who know truth didn't do much.
Most have written educational materials or participated in forums. Only Mark Henkel, as far as I know, did go for broad societal change.
I understand why most people aren't willing to go for broad societal change. It requires media exposure, activist work etc... Other things are seen as more important.
But, please, just say the truth. In area of Christian polygyny I would most like to be left alone or at most have fellowship with similar believers. Nothing wrong with this.
But in any case we must expand range of our arguments. It can only make our case stronger in other' people eyes.
Agreed.
I agree also, you are very right to propose that we use more natural arguments, and not only scriptural ones. These will help us to persuade many individuals, either fully to our viewpoint or at least to a neutral stance.
I just disagree that the goal is broad societal acceptance - I don't see that as being likely in the near future. I think our goal is smaller, to positively impact the real people we actually have contact with in our lives. And that goal, which seems small, is actually enormous.
Social acceptance isn't going to help anyone on the day of judgement so directing people to the Bible/gospel must remain our primary focus. But if we weren't being persecuted for our relationships, that would be great.
It cannot be our goal, yet the world is going to change. I think the harvest of the world may have started already with people who chose to worship and trust the ungodly and evil getting "culled" by the very people they trusted.
We see the time is coming when His kingdom will be manifested, end times signs are everywhere we look.
I am pretty sure that once the tares are gone, wide social acceptance will be the reality.
Abolitionists succeed in abolishing slavery in about 50 years. Dream achieved during lifetime and seen impossible at start.
You have to recall that the abolition of slavery was largely a political goal argued for in the USA and UK using Christian terminology, but in French colonies using secular terminology, and is considered so important largely because it is a political founding myth of the post-civil-war USA. It was permitted to succeed because it served the purposes of the growing secular State, and the humanitarian achievement is (in the eyes of the State) just a side effect. It was achieved in different places at different times by both Christian activists and humanitarian secularists.
Certainly it had many positive effects. Yet at the same time it reduced the power of "tribes" (individual powerful families), and created a permanent social underclass who became ultimately dependent upon the State rather than the wealthy and able to be used by the State for various ends - as you've seen over the past few years with this class being incited to rise up by BLM. The West is now ruled by totalitarian governments that could never have arisen without the welfare state that abolition cleared the way for.
Satan had plans for it, so he supported it, and it happened.
I would argue the correct Biblical position would have been to restrict it to a point of near-abolition as per the scriptural laws - freeing all who were enslaved by force (e.g. the blacks in the USA), but leaving a limited version of the institution available as a solution for the poor who could choose to sell their services for a fixed period of up to 7 years for an advance payment, with strict labour laws around corporal punishment and hours etc. That would have eliminated the evil while restricting the rise of the State, by keeping in place a decentralised social welfare system that avoided the creation of a politically useful social underclass. But that's not what happened. Instead a more radical and simplistic goal was adopted, the baby was thrown out with the bathwater, and good Christians seeking only to help people unwittingly laid the foundations for Marxism.
Does Satan have plans for social acceptance of polygamy? If so, it might happen too. If it happens for that reason there will be short-term benefits but the end result may not be what we hope for.
The Biblical goal would be for the promotion of only those relationships that are not sinful, but retaining those restrictions against things that are truly sin - partial sexual freedom, partial abolition of marriage restrictions. Satan's goal is more radical - complete eradication of the very concept of sexual crimes from the entire legal system. That he will use as a tool to destroy society. Full legalisation of polygamy will no doubt occur if that goal is achieved - but don't get excited about it, as the social harm of the whole package will be greater than the gain, and persecution of conservative Christians will continue, the excuses will just change. We may be persecuted for patriarchy instead of polygamy, for instance.
You cant properly promote Polygyny without first having Patriarchy. Feminism must be undone first. Otherwise Polygamy and Polyamory and Polyandry will be put on the same level of Polygyny and practiced openly as well. Our goal is to set an example of Patriarchy and Polygyny. If you want society to accept Polygyny, you must be willing to accept the other 3 as well, the scripture is what regulates this practice, not society.