The why of Christian sexual ethics

Christian sexual ethics, in other words, isn’t simply a collection of old rules which we are now free to set aside because we know better (the danger within Option Two). Nor can we appeal against the New Testament by saying that whatever desires we find inside our deepest selves must be God-given (the natural assumption within Option One). Jesus was quite clear about that. Yes, God knows our deepest desires; but the famous old prayer which (tremblingly) acknowledges that fact doesn’t go on to imply that this means they are therefore to be fulfilled and carried out as they stand, but rather that they need cleansing and healing:

Almighty God, to Whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from Whom no secrets are hidden: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy name; through Christ our Lord.Amen.

Another famous old prayer puts it even more sharply:

Almighty God, who alone can bring order to the unruly wills and passions of sinful humanity: Give your people grace so to love what you command and to desire what you promise, that, among the many changes of this world, our hearts may surely there be fixed, where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

We have lived for too long in a world, and tragically even in a church, where this prayer has become reversed: where the wills and affections of human beings are regarded as sacrosanct as they stand, where God is required to command what we already love and to promise what we already desire. The implicit religion of many people today is simply to discover who they really are and then try to live it out—which is, as many have discovered, a recipe for chaotic, disjointed, and dysfunctional humanness. The logic of cross and resurrection, of the new creation which gives shape to all truly Christian living, points in a different direction. And one of the central names for that direction is joy: the joy of relationships healed as well as enhanced, the joy of belonging to the new creation, of finding not what we already had but what God was longing to give us. At the heart of the Christian ethic is humility; at the heart of its parodies, pride. Different roads with different destinations, and the destinations color the character of those who travel by them.—N. T. Wright, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense, 233–34