Why is the non-Christian Western world so much opposed to polygyny, but accepts homosexuality as a so-called "alternate lifestyle?" Why is it OK for someone to hop from bed to bed in a series of "sexual conquests," but if a responsible man wants to enter into two (or more) loving, committed, lifetime relationships with women, it is considered to be some kind of perversion, and in some jurisdictions, a crime?
Historically, there have been only two ancient major cultures that practiced enforced monogamy - ancient post-Homeric Greece and ancient Rome. Both cultures increasingly accepted homosexuality as what we in 21st-century "enlightened" "post-modern" (whatever that is) America call an "alternate lifestyle," and both cultures self-destructed, at least in part because of a decline in moral values.
Guess what is happening in our monogamy-only American culture? Society increasingly accepts the gay lifestyle as being just as valid an option as living in the family unit specified by so-called "traditional family values" (more on "traditional family values" in a future post), and we are self-destructing because of a decline in our moral values. To quote that (in?)famous commercial, "It's deja-vu all over again. It's deja-vu all over again."
Ultimately, of course, the real reason polygyny is rejected but both the sexually-promiscuous and gay lifestyles are accepted by the non-Christian element of our society is because a polygynous lifestyle is a biblically-acceptable (and sometimes biblically-mandated) form of marriage (see see Deuteronomy 25:5-10), but the gay lifestyle is condemned as an abomination to God (See Leviticus 18:22) and a sexually-promiscuous lifestyle is discouraged in the Bible by requiring the seducer to pay the (now former) virgin's father the price of a bride and to take care of his "sexual conquest" for life (see Deuteronomy 22:28).
Why does the established church almost universally reject polygyny, wrongly condemning it as a sin that is treated as if it is "worse" than homosexuality? The complete answer to this question would take a small novel-sized book to explain, but briefly, it is because the Roman Catholic Church decided that what the Pope says when speaking ex-cathreda, and the body of Church Magesterium (tradition), are both at least as authoritative as God's Inspired Word, and between approximately AD 950 and AD 1100, plus or minus a couple of decades at each end, a succession of "infallible" Popes, with the approval of the various Vatican Councils during that period of time, increasingly incorporated pagan Greek and Roman marriage customs and Gnostic asceticism (which also came from Greece and Rome) into church law, calling the resulting abomination "christian" with absolutely no biblical justification - in fact, both the act of incorporating pagan doctrine into church law, as well as the doctrine itself, are completely contrary to what the Bible teaches. (See Leviticus 18:3) After the Protestant Reformation, which was sparked by Martin Luther and his famous 95 Theses on October 31, 1517, Protestant theologians didn't bother to correct that satanic doctrine, other than to allow members of the clergy to be married. Luther tried to, but the Church of Rome still had too much political clout (Roman Catholic monogamy-only marriage dogma was entrenched as secular law by this time because of the RCC's near-absolute political power for most of the preceding nine or ten centuries) and his attempts were not successful.
[insert tongue in cheek]
Perhaps correcting the false monogamy-only doctrine wasn't very high on Martin Luther's list of things that were important - as a former celibate Catholic priest, he must have been overjoyed to have even one wife.
[/remove tongue from cheek]
(BTW, Luther's wife was a former nun.)
Apparently, the non-Christian segment of our society knows more about what is biblically acceptable than those who sit in the pews every Sunday morning. If they didn't have that understanding which is lacking among the people of God, they wouldn't oppose polygyny the way they do, they would accept it right alongside of gay "marriage" and other "alternate" lifestyles, thinking it was just another sinful way to live. But unlike most Christians, the world knows that polygyny is not a sin, so they oppose it. You can be sure that if God says something is good and right, Satan and his minions will fight it with everything the have; and conversely, if God says something is wrong, the enemy of our souls will promote it with every means at his disposal.
To question "The Sacred Cow of Monogamy Only" is to be labeled as an apostate heretic (or worse) by the church and suffer persecution. How many of us on this forum have been asked to leave a church when it became known that we don't think polygyny is a sin? Even if we were living a monogamous (or maybe a celibate) lifestyle? Not for advocating that anyone take another wife, but simply for believing that doing so would not be sin?
It's time that the People of God study the Word of God rather than allowing those who are perceived (rightly or wrongly, but most often wrongly) as being able Bible scholars do their thinking for them. The Bible was put on the Vatican's Index of Forbidden Books list by the Council of Toulouse/Toledo in AD 1229. It was never removed, but the index was discontinued by the Vatican Council II in the 1960's. Since the Protestant Reformation, anyone who was willing to leave the Roman church has had the right (and responsibility) to study God's Word for themselves, but most Christians won't.
Historically, there have been only two ancient major cultures that practiced enforced monogamy - ancient post-Homeric Greece and ancient Rome. Both cultures increasingly accepted homosexuality as what we in 21st-century "enlightened" "post-modern" (whatever that is) America call an "alternate lifestyle," and both cultures self-destructed, at least in part because of a decline in moral values.
Guess what is happening in our monogamy-only American culture? Society increasingly accepts the gay lifestyle as being just as valid an option as living in the family unit specified by so-called "traditional family values" (more on "traditional family values" in a future post), and we are self-destructing because of a decline in our moral values. To quote that (in?)famous commercial, "It's deja-vu all over again. It's deja-vu all over again."
Ultimately, of course, the real reason polygyny is rejected but both the sexually-promiscuous and gay lifestyles are accepted by the non-Christian element of our society is because a polygynous lifestyle is a biblically-acceptable (and sometimes biblically-mandated) form of marriage (see see Deuteronomy 25:5-10), but the gay lifestyle is condemned as an abomination to God (See Leviticus 18:22) and a sexually-promiscuous lifestyle is discouraged in the Bible by requiring the seducer to pay the (now former) virgin's father the price of a bride and to take care of his "sexual conquest" for life (see Deuteronomy 22:28).
Why does the established church almost universally reject polygyny, wrongly condemning it as a sin that is treated as if it is "worse" than homosexuality? The complete answer to this question would take a small novel-sized book to explain, but briefly, it is because the Roman Catholic Church decided that what the Pope says when speaking ex-cathreda, and the body of Church Magesterium (tradition), are both at least as authoritative as God's Inspired Word, and between approximately AD 950 and AD 1100, plus or minus a couple of decades at each end, a succession of "infallible" Popes, with the approval of the various Vatican Councils during that period of time, increasingly incorporated pagan Greek and Roman marriage customs and Gnostic asceticism (which also came from Greece and Rome) into church law, calling the resulting abomination "christian" with absolutely no biblical justification - in fact, both the act of incorporating pagan doctrine into church law, as well as the doctrine itself, are completely contrary to what the Bible teaches. (See Leviticus 18:3) After the Protestant Reformation, which was sparked by Martin Luther and his famous 95 Theses on October 31, 1517, Protestant theologians didn't bother to correct that satanic doctrine, other than to allow members of the clergy to be married. Luther tried to, but the Church of Rome still had too much political clout (Roman Catholic monogamy-only marriage dogma was entrenched as secular law by this time because of the RCC's near-absolute political power for most of the preceding nine or ten centuries) and his attempts were not successful.
[insert tongue in cheek]
Perhaps correcting the false monogamy-only doctrine wasn't very high on Martin Luther's list of things that were important - as a former celibate Catholic priest, he must have been overjoyed to have even one wife.
[/remove tongue from cheek]
(BTW, Luther's wife was a former nun.)
Apparently, the non-Christian segment of our society knows more about what is biblically acceptable than those who sit in the pews every Sunday morning. If they didn't have that understanding which is lacking among the people of God, they wouldn't oppose polygyny the way they do, they would accept it right alongside of gay "marriage" and other "alternate" lifestyles, thinking it was just another sinful way to live. But unlike most Christians, the world knows that polygyny is not a sin, so they oppose it. You can be sure that if God says something is good and right, Satan and his minions will fight it with everything the have; and conversely, if God says something is wrong, the enemy of our souls will promote it with every means at his disposal.
To question "The Sacred Cow of Monogamy Only" is to be labeled as an apostate heretic (or worse) by the church and suffer persecution. How many of us on this forum have been asked to leave a church when it became known that we don't think polygyny is a sin? Even if we were living a monogamous (or maybe a celibate) lifestyle? Not for advocating that anyone take another wife, but simply for believing that doing so would not be sin?
It's time that the People of God study the Word of God rather than allowing those who are perceived (rightly or wrongly, but most often wrongly) as being able Bible scholars do their thinking for them. The Bible was put on the Vatican's Index of Forbidden Books list by the Council of Toulouse/Toledo in AD 1229. It was never removed, but the index was discontinued by the Vatican Council II in the 1960's. Since the Protestant Reformation, anyone who was willing to leave the Roman church has had the right (and responsibility) to study God's Word for themselves, but most Christians won't.
Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. (2 Timothy 2:15 KJV)