For this series, we aim to provide a better vision of Christian sexual ethics than those the world has taught us around us or the Church over the years. We want to establish that we are all sexually broken and in need of Jesus’ restoring work.
In American culture, there is an overwhelming sense that fulfillment in life is tied to sexual pleasure. Shaped in this environment, the sexual ethics of Jesus don’t sound liberating; they sound limiting. But the Christian story insists that marriage is the safest and best place for sexuality to flourish as bonding, mutual submission, and witness.
It is no secret that our culture is relationship-obsessed. Whether it be Hallmark, Zola, Hinge, Love Island, or The Bachelorette, they all sell the same dream that Disney princesses believe—your fulfillment is tied to finding true love. This is problematic primarily because it’s not how Jesus lived or how the New Testament writers articulated marriage and singleness. Single people are welcomed as full participants in God’s kingdom.
The most polarizing question of our generation is: What does Christianity have to say to those who experience same-sex attraction? We must carefully discern God’s heart on this subject and work to align our life with Jesus’. The place we begin is with the biblical text.
We are living through a widespread redefinition of sexuality and sexual norms in the West. There is a cacophony of competing visions vying for our attention and adoption. None is more influential and corrosive than pornography, which offers us the lie of commodified and anonymous pleasure. Against these stories is the Christian vision of sexuality that insists bodies matter, holy union is coming, and there can be a better witness to the world.
We all hold default assumptions about sex; assumptions formed by our environments, relationships, and experiences. Assumptions that have left us all sexually broken, fractured, and misshapen. The invitation of the Gospel is to bring our brokenness to the healer, to become a community of compassion and challenge.
