Dear Friends,
Excuse the basso profundo voice—yes, I and my youngest daughter have a nasty, a very nasty cold. Why it’s called the “common” cold is beyond me. When it hits you like a ton of bricks it feels like you’re being distinctively targeted.
But it is a beautiful spring day. Due to the plentiful rains, the trees, shrubbery, flowers and grass here in Indianapolis are vibrant in color. The ol’ gatehouse, which we’ve rented for the past 13 years, has never had such a lush, verdant green shimmer to its lawn.
And I trust this has been a joyous, spring season for you, this 6th week of Eastertide. I remain most grateful for each one of you. Stay strong and try to dodge that common cold.
He is Risen!
D. Paul
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Polyamory Is Not Love
Among the many “nothings” that are not “new under the sun,” certainly polyamory qualifies as one of them. It’s functioned under different guises throughout the centuries, but, at heart, it remains a reflection of our fallen nature. To be more specific—our sinful natures.
As a denizen of those “wild and crazy” days in NYC during the 60’s, other polyamorous synonyms come to mind: “free love,” “swinging,” “wife-swapping,” and the more elegant, “ménage à trois.” Other euphemisms worked their way into the vocabulary of our secular culture—“consensual non-monogamy,” “poly family,” “non-monogamous lifestyle”—all clothed in the therapeutic jargon of an “alternative family structure,” an “ethical nonmonogamy,” if you will, sanitizing our sins into legitimacy. In the ol’ days, we might say, “That guy or gal likes to play around,” or, as B B. King would sing, “I’ve covered the waterfront.” Ah, but we’ve come so far, haven’t we.
The progressive church, never wanting to be last on the “radical inclusiveness” treadmill, has in recent years given serious consideration to the case for polyamory, in both its pews and pulpits: I quote liberally from an online article by Kirk Petersen, taken from “The Living Church” website, July 24, 2024, Is There Room in the Church for Polyamorous Priests? He writes: “Some Episcopal priests with nontraditional views on sexuality and human relationships are beginning to assert what they see as their right to put those views into practice. One such priest, Kerlin Richter, was rector of St. David of Wales in Portland, Oregon, when she told her bishop that she and her husband were in an open relationship.” I was fired immediately from my job, she said. I was not allowed to say goodbye to my congregation. I was not allowed to speak publicly. At that point, I still had an absolutely irrational optimism that I was going to hold on to my ordination, and started to fight. “Richter,” Petersen continues in his article, “has a 20-year-old child with her husband, and a 17-month-old baby with another partner. After a year in what she described as ‘an incredibly abusive’ Title IV disciplinary process, she gave up, and renounced her vows.” Ah, yes, the abusive church—how dare they call sin sin.
Next up? “Colin Chapman — who was a classmate of Richter’s at General Theological Seminary — came to polyamory through his wife’s sexual exploration with a female friend.” Then that relationship grew into something that I don’t think we ever thought would happen, Chapman said. According to Petersen: “The three of them have purchased a house together in New Hampshire, where they are raising four children — three from Chapman’s 18-year marriage to his wife, and the biological child of their partner. Chapman said little about the manner of his leaving the church — only that he renounced his vows after he decided he could no longer hide his relationship.” God protect her, her, and his children.
Obviously, in Chapman’s judgement, the Seventh Commandment, “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” had become passé. So much for the vows of ordination encouraging every priest to “….do your best to pattern your life…in accordance with the teachings of Christ, so that you may be a wholesome example to your people.” So much for Paul’s admonition to the young Timothy—“Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach” (I Timothy 3:2). By way of contrast, it would appear it is II Timothy 3:2 that is holding court: “People will be lovers of themselves…unholy…without self-control…not lovers of the good….lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.” (II Timothy 3:2-4 NIV).
Even for the Episcopal Church, though, which affirms same-sex marriage and increasingly embraces the bisexual, trans, polyamorous, nonbinary/genderqueer, and pansexual laity and priests within it, all of this craziness is becoming a little too much. Certainly, the optics aren’t good, and their diminishing numbers reflect that.
In 2024, such was the case for my parish of 25 years ago, All Saints, Pasadena, the largest Episcopal church in the Diocese of Los Angeles and one of the largest, most progressive Episcopal churches in the country. On July 3, of 2024, the wardens and vestry (many whom I still know) of All Saints accepted the “resignation” of its rector of 8 years, the Rev. Mike Kinman. Four days later, Sunday, July 7, he preached his final sermon at the 7:30 and 10 am services—a somewhat unhinged, rambling admonishment for love, love, love, and more love! Within a fortnight, he was posting on Facebook what appears to be an explanation or justification for his resignation—his having come to the defense of Kerlin Richter and a bisexual priest, Sara Lynn Chiseler Goff, who was living with her wife in Hawaii. The diocese there, Goff reports, had a don’t-ask, don’t-tell approach to “alternate family structures,” until the bishop came to his senses and told the clergy he was “going to establish a policy,” and Ms. Goff used this as her “opportunity to exit.” May I add, “Thanks be to God.”
At this point, my dear brothers and sisters, lest I wander far afield, let’s allow Mike Kinman to speak for himself from his Facebook post: He praised Richter and Goff as “…courageous priests whose indelible ordination is no longer recognized by the Episcopal Church because they were forced to chose between being honest about who they are as polyamorous images of God (the Great Polyamorist themself!) and their jobs and orders.”
Reading it is enough to take one’s breath away. The perversity of thought is staggering. Not unlike other priests in the Episcopal, Methodist, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, etc., it’s obvious that Mike has gone off the rails. He continues to justify his behavior in that public Facebook post: “Several months ago, I offered the possibility of a book study on Ethical Nonmonogamy (Polyamory). I did this because two of my then-parishioners had come to me saying they were hopeful of one day being able to come out as poly in church.” Kinman then formed a planning team (oh, how I miss those planning committees!), which suggested reading The Ethical Slut: A Guide to Infinite Sexual Possibilities, a 1997 “handbook” arguing for polyamory. Cool, no? Isn’t this why you go to church? Not to be deterred by All Saints having the sense to shut this insanity down, Kinman announced: “That book study IS going to happen…. The list of participants will be kept confidential and we will be doing this on Zoom with protocols in place to guarantee anonymity if requested. It’s sad and infuriating that this amount of caution is needed just to read a book and learn, but that is the church we are living in.”
It’s difficult, dear friends, to track further details, the sequence of events, the labyrinth of Kinman’s mind—what really is under the layer of onion skins—with a “departure,” “resignation,” or possible “firing” that has been “shrouded in mystery.” May God get hold of Mike Kinman. But in the interim, thank God he is gone from the pulpit. I'm sure he’ll find himself another one. Self-appointed prophets usually do.
By dethroning the Lordship of Christ and superseding the authority of his Word, there reaches a dangerous precipice in the radical progressive trajectory where any semblance to modesty, decency, and orthodoxy have come to an abrupt halt—a “point of no return”—where their “eyes are blinded and hearts are hardened,” and everything crumbles and falls into an endless abyss of eternal darkness.
May I offer a simple prayer, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ:
Dear God, sanctify your Bride—the Church—so upon your return You may find it to be “A glorious Church, without spot or wrinkle.” In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, we pray,
Amen
