Why must Christians continue to affirm biblical sexual values in the face of widespread modern social approval of behaviors like “hooking up,” cohabitation, and homosexuality?
Our Lord gave serious warnings against causing little ones to stumble. How might we cause them to stumble? One way is by being hypocritical and setting up rigid formal standards that we ourselves violate. The Pharisees who hated Jesus were guilty of this (Luke 11:42).
Another way we might cause them to stumble is to be so fearful of being hypocritical (or being perceived as hypocritical) that we fail to appeal to their own consciences by compassionately warning them about sin.
Jesus didn’t shrink from affirming moral guidelines (Matthew 5:28; Matthew 21:11-13; John 4:15-19; John 8:11), but affirmed them like a loving parent, not a self-righteous hypocrite. He didn’t shun sinners or treat them contemptuously. Neither did He mince words regarding their spiritual need.
Anyone with knowledge of the wide variety of human sexual behaviors knows the extent to which sexual desire is shaped by behavior. The fact that some people are aroused by children, inanimate objects, or the infliction of pain, humiliation, or suffering demonstrates how seriously sexual desire can be distorted by gradual conditioning. These forms of sexual behavior are still viewed as abnormal and destructive by most people, and a general cultural consensus remains that it would be wrong to encourage them.1 Non-religious psychiatric standards still acknowledge that such behaviors are learned.
But other types of harmful sexual behavior—including cohabitation, “hooking-up,” and active homosexuality—have gained wide cultural acceptance.
Life is short, and the way we invest our femininity and masculinity will have tremendous consequences. Common sense and human experience show that promiscuity, uncommitted sex, and gender confusion lead to tragedy. Conscience reinforces what the Bible teaches—that only sexuality dedicated to the nurture of spouse and family can contribute to wholesome lives with healthy personal boundaries.
As they seek to uphold and maintain the divinely revealed moral standards of Scripture, Christians often fail to keep the attitudes and example of Jesus in mind. Great harm has been done when Christians confront moral confusion in cruel, self-righteous ways. In the postmodern world, it will be impossible—even within the community of the church—to successfully grapple with issues like cohabitation and homosexuality without a degree of humility and self-awareness that the Christian community has seldom attained.
Most mature Christians in our sexualized modern world realize how far they personally have fallen short of sexual purity. As they experience sexual and emotional healing through God’s grace, they need to apply the lessons they have learned to help people who are still struggling. Although it is right that they be humbled and seasoned by their own failures, they shouldn’t lose sight of those who are still struggling and are far from sexual and emotional healing. Don Williams explains why, using as an example the potential effects of “normalizing” homosexual behavior within the church:
“For the church at this point to surrender to gay advocacy and gay theology and thus to give up her biblical faith would bring not only disaster upon herself, it would bring more havoc to the world as well. If the church simply blesses homosexuality, the hope for change in Christ will be destroyed. Millions of potential converts will have the only lasting hope for wholeness cut off from them. Untold numbers of children and adolescents who are struggling with their sexual identity will conclude that ‘gay is good,’ deny their heterosexual potential and God’s heterosexual purpose for them, and slip into the brokenness of the gay world. Untold numbers of adults will follow suit.” (Don Williams, The Bond That Breaks: Will Homosexuality Split the Church? (Los Angeles: BIM, 1978), 73)
The ultimate motive for upholding biblical moral standards must be love and concern for those missing the mark. Any light we shine into a dark world (Matthew 5:13-16) needs to be as suffused with love as it is with truth.
“Social constructivists point out that we construct who we are—including our sexual identity—in large part through interaction with others. This parallels the epistemological idea of the social construction of reality, which speaks about the power of language to create the world we inhabit. The constructivist insight cautions us against adopting too quickly the language of ‘sexual orientation,’ understood as a fixed, lifelong, unchanging given of a person’s life.” (Welcoming But Not Affirming, p. xi) Back To Article
