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.
Their candor has been costly in some cases. One priest was abruptly fired by her bishop and forbidden to have any contact with her vestry or congregation. Another suddenly left one of the largest parishes in the country without explanation, after proposing a book study on the topic. At least two other priests have renounced their ordination vows to escape ecclesiastical discipline.
This is not a previous era’s war over homosexuality, but rather a present-day struggle over polyamory — “many loves.” A broader term is “consensual nonmonogamy” — relationships where everyone involved knows about and consents to a lack of exclusivity in sexual or romantic expression.
Of course, any discussion of polyamory in a Christian context immediately bumps up against the Seventh Commandment: “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” Episcopal priests vow at their ordination 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.” Marital fidelity is also prominent in New Testament texts about the qualifications for ministry (1 Tim. 3:2, Titus 1:6).
A flexible approach to marriage vows may be considered a personal matter for politicians and others in the secular world, but it has long been grounds for discipline for priests and bishops. More about the Seventh Commandment later.
On July 21, three former Episcopal priests shared their experiences in an online conversation titled “The High Cost of Love: Polyamory, Coming Out, and Religious Trauma.”
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 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. Her former bishop, the Rt. Rev. Diana Akiyama, is on vacation and unavailable for comment.
Sara Lynn Shisler Goff was ordained in 2011, lives in Hawaii with her wife, and identifies as bisexual. Her departure from ordained ministry was less confrontational. “After a decade in ministry, and from my own process of inquiry and self discovery, I was like, Oh, I think I might actually not be monogamous. What does that mean?”
She said the diocese had a don’t-ask, don’t-tell approach to alternate family structures, but eventually the bishop told the clergy he was going to establish a policy. “So if that is now the thing, then I’m going to use this as my opportunity to exit,” she said.
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,” he said. 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.
The Rev. Mike Kinman did not participate in the conversation, but expressed strong support for two of the former priests in a long Facebook post in advance of the discussion. Earlier in July, Kinman abruptly resigned from his eight-year rectorship at All Saints Pasadena, a famously progressive congregation that is by far the largest Episcopal church in the Diocese of Los Angeles, and one of the largest in the country.
His departure has been shrouded in mystery. The wardens announced his resignation on July 3, and he preached his final sermon at All Saints four days later. Subsequent communications described the process for finding a new rector, but provided no reason for Kinman’s departure.
Kinman did not respond to multiple requests for comment. His Facebook page has been lit up for weeks with questions and speculation. Some posters have indicated it may have something to do with the cancellation of a musical event after some of the music was described in a culturally insensitive way.
His own post promoting the polyamory discussion suggests a different possible explanation.
“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 wrote.
He formed a planning team that decided to start by studying a 1997 book with a clickbait title that for a quarter century has been a beacon for polyamory: The Ethical Slut: A Guide to Infinite Sexual Possibilities.
“That book study IS going to happen,” he wrote, and said there will be confidentiality safeguards in place for participants. “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.”
He then wrote that he did not know Chapman, but 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.”
Someone in the chat during the online conversation asked how clergy who are supportive of nonmonogamy can discuss the issue with their congregations. “I think it depends on how safe you are, right?” said Richter. “Because we’ve all recently heard a story of a priest who, one of the things that he got in a lot of trouble for was just wanting to have this conversation.” Richter discusses polyamory and other topics on her Substack blog.
Polyamory is a bridge too far for many Episcopalians — even many who are quite open to topics like same-sex relationships and transgender identity. When General Convention in June passed a variety of resolutions in support of same-sex marriage, the language made reference to a covenant between “two persons,” rather than the traditional “man and a woman.”
But it’s a movement with a growing footprint in the broader society, especially among young people. References increasingly appear in popular culture, and the polyamory “subreddit” forum has 373,000 members.
“A sizable portion of adults in the United States and Canada have been or are currently involved in consensually non-monogamous relationships (e.g., swinging, open, and polyamorous relationships),” according to a 2021 article in Frontiers in Psychology. “Approximately 1 out of 22 people (4–5%) who are currently in a romantic relationship identify as part of a consensually non-monogamous relationship.”
In other words, polyamory is widespread enough that even priests who do not support the practice are increasingly likely to encounter it in their congregations.
A resolution that might have provided some protection to priests in polyamorous relationships failed to advance at General Convention.
Resolution A145 called on “disciplinary authorities to exercise pastoral compassion and discretion during the 2024-2027 triennium with those clergy and laity who disclose the diverse ways in which they are forming family and household structures that seek to be holy, faithful and lifegiving.” Some saw this as a reference to polyamory, although that term does not appear in the resolution. A member of the committee that proposed the resolution said polyamory came up in committee discussions, but that the primary focus was on cohabitation without marriage. The committee member spoke on condition of anonymity.
Back to the Seventh Commandment. Richter pointed out that acceptable patterns of behavior have evolved in many ways since Biblical times. “Once upon a time, monogamy meant two virgins getting married, and then when one of them died, the other one would never remarry,” she said. “Monogamy now includes things like divorce and remarriage, which historically was absolutely out of bounds.”
Richter also raised the question of whether nonmonogamy is a lifestyle choice or an orientation — another consideration that hearkens back to earlier debates about homosexuality.
“We’re all still figuring out, how are we using these terms, and we’re not all using them the same way, and they don’t mean the same thing for everybody,” Goff said.
Chapman, Goff, and Richter said they hope their online discussion will lead to more conversations on polyamory — even though such conversations can be risky.
