It should be no surprise that I have been quite vocal about critiquing Community of Christ’s inclusion of polyamorous folks, and that I have tried to preserve history of their response.
I was writing my Sunstone presentation for 2025, which touches on my relationship with Divinee Femininity, and I wanted to know specifically what month the February Policy was made by the First Presidency. I searched on their policy repository, Our Ministry Tools, for “Polyamory”, and was shocked to see that there were 2 documents, because CoC has historically been quite silent on this topic.
The first was the February Policy itself, and the second was from the program, legislation, and reports document for 2025’s World Conference. On pages 59-60/76, the Theology Formation Team gives their report, which I will recount in full here:
H-8 Theology Formation Team
To the First Presidency and the World Conference:
The Presidency created the Theology Formation Team (TFT) in 2002. It advises the First Presidency on theological questions arising in church life and provides informed theological commentary on issues related to the church’s identity, beliefs, message, and mission.
The 2023–2025 team members represented Germany, India, the Netherlands, Australia, Canada, England, Italy, Tahiti, and the USA. They reflect diverse theological perspectives, cultural backgrounds, gender experiences, and education, but they share a conviction that theology, as “faith seeking understanding,” is indispensable for the church.
The team uses scripture, tradition (Community of Christ and ecumenical Christian tradition), cultural and personal experience, and current scholarship in relevant fields in its deliberations. The church’s public faith, in Sharing in Community of Christ, informs team reflection, as do the principles of mutual respect, faithful disagreement, and shared commitment to the church’s mission.
For 2023–2025, the Presidency asked the team to 1) explore questions around the phenomenon of polyamory, and 2) offer its comments of a draft statement on nonviolence.
Polyamory
Polyamory commonly is understood as a consensual, romantic-sexual, non-monogamous relationship between three or more people. It differs from polygamy in that 1) polygamy is a type of marriage in which one person has multiple married partners, and 2) polyamory is based on the full knowledge and consent of all partners but is not viewed as a form of marriage.
The Presidency asked the team to reflect on polyamory, especially as it relates to:
- Baptism and sacramental theology.
- Priesthood and ordination.
- The relationship of this question to the church’s approach to polygamy in other cultures.
- Marriage and monogamy, including why monogamy is the basic principle of Christian married life.
- How we might uphold ethical standards without creating “vice lists.”
The team also was asked to express its position on polyamory in relation to the above questions (if one emerged), or in the absence of full consensus, to articulate majority and minority views.
The team submitted an initial report in October 2023. This report dealt with baptism and polyamory. The team held that “that there is no valid theological reason to withhold baptism/confirmation from persons in polyamorous relationships” who wish to follow the call of Christ and unite with the church. The team’s report maintained:
“Repentance”—the turning of our whole life to God revealed in Christ—is the journey of a lifetime, an ongoing, transformative process that cannot be reduced to a single act. “Covenant,” while individual, is also one’s pledge to live responsibly in, with, and for the community. The gospel’s open invitation to baptism is grounded solely in divine grace and generosity. But divine generosity should not be taken as an endorsement of specific behaviors, beliefs, lifestyles, and cultural practices of those baptized. Rather, it is a call to the long journey of “taking on the life and mind of Christ… (wherein) you increasingly view yourselves and others from a changed perspective” (Doctrine and Covenants 164:5).
Future work will need to be done (per the Presidency’s request) on questions of priesthood and ordination, monogamy, and the function of ethical standards in church life.
In 2023, I was actively trying to engage leadership in meaningful dialogue about polyamory. I authored The Polyamory Primer – a resource I printed and distributed to leaders, including the First Presidency – delivered a Sunstone presentation on being polyamorous, and appeared on Mormon Book Reviews to speak candidly about my experiences. I also reached out directly to Apostle Art Smith, who sits on the Theology Formation Team, and I appreciated his willingness to listen with empathy.
I had hoped that if I was loud enough SOMEONE would talk to me, one of the few polyamorous people in Community of Christ, about what it meant to be polyamorous. Ultimately, however, no one involved in policy creation (besides Art Smith) was willing to have a candid conversation with me. This hurt quite deeply, and I resigned my membership from Community of Christ as a result.
So when I discovered that the Theology Formation Team had submitted a report on polyamory way back in October 2023, I was blindsided. I was doing everything I could to reach these people, but I was not consulted, not invited to contribute, or even informed that the First Presidency asked the TFT to talk about this or that this report was being written. This silence confirms to me once again that in Community of Christ the theological conversation happens about minorities, not with minorities.
To add further insult to injury, members of the Theology Formation team – such as Tony Chvala-Smith and Robin Linkhart – had contributed to the broader pattern of marginalization that polyamorous members like me have faced within Community of Christ.
Even so, I recognize the significance of the team’s conclusion: polyamorous individuals should not be denied baptism. While Community of Christ has backslid by denying ordination to people in polyamorous families, they had chosen not to backslide even further. However, how the phrased this decision makes it fairly clear that they think that being a part of a polyamorous family is a sin that you need to repent of.
I am deeply curious about the internal dynamics of that October report, which doesn’t seem to currently be available online. What were the majority and minority positions? What ethical framework was used to draw distinctions between relationship models? These are questions I hope the church one day has the courage to explore transparently and in community with those most impacted.