ELCA Seminary Student Defends the Polyamorous Lifestyle, Offers the Idea that Jesus 'Proposed' to the Disciples At the Last Supper, and sadly more...

This all began with a podcast about polyamory. "Polyamory...is the practice of, or desire for, intimate relationships with more than one partner, with the consent of all partners involved." (See here)

Invited to speak on the podcast was "theologian" J.D. R. Mechelke, an ELCA Luther Seminary student who is getting his M.A. and is also a high school youth minister for an ELCA church. 

When introducing himself J.D. R. Mechelke, pictured in the lower right hand corner, mentioned that currently there are two big projects he is tackling which  center around "sexuality education with youth in the church" and writing a paper on "creating a kinky doctrine of sin..."

The headlines are numerous with this one so let's dive in and take a look at what this ELCA seminary student had to say, beginning with this blasphemous quote: ​

-  "Some would say that the Last Supper, Jesus is proposing to the 12 friends and so it's very gay and very polyamorous."

Here is J.D. Mechelke's full statement beginning with a question from the podcast host:

More from the ELCA seminarian:

- "In the evangelical world, there are a lot of the songs and prayers that are used talk about, there's this very intimate, individualistic relationship that people have with God and it's very erotic sometimes. My favorite example is this old song. It's not old, but '90s, "In the secret and the quiet place, I want to touch you. I want to see the--"

"You start to think, 'That's kind of erotic and yet it's evangelical.' It's that we're doing that, which is fine. There are queer theologians that are taking that and saying, 'Maybe we have this erotic thing going on with Jesus.' Also thinking about it, 'This is my body.' You're taking somebody's body in your mouth, and so there's some phallic-."

- "There's this idea of the polyamorous crisis that's gained traction, but usually the safe way to say it is that God loves everybody. This isn't very safe to say, but God's a total slut in that sense."

- "Oh, God, I love when Jesus says 'bush'...I don't think of the burning bush, I think of something else."
​

(I believe the ELCA seminary student misspoke or there was a transcribing error in the second paragraph, and the first sentence that should say "...there's this guideline for pastors basically that says you can [not] have sex outside of marriage.")

If you are wondering what church would be most welcoming to polyamory, J.D. Mechelke answers: 

"If a church is openly for gay and queer folk, my guess is that you probably won't have that much push back (on) polyamory..."

See here for transcript or see the video below)