WHAT SEXUAL ETHICS ARE ALL ABOUT

'...a "crisis" in sexual ethics is never simply that; it is a crisis in our understanding of what it means to be a person. Are we beings characterized most of all by will and choice, beings who confer meaning and value on our acts by our choices? Or are we beings who discover meaning and value in the embodied life God has created? Because the latter is the truth, the church can offer to the world something more hopeful than the idea that what is good depends largely on our own choosing.'

Gilbert Meilaender, Thy Will Be Done: The Ten Commandments and the Christian Life, p.21.

TO BE HUMAN

'To be created in God's image - to be human - is to carry in the depth of one's being a longing to transcend the boundaries of human nature so as to have a share in divine life.'

Erik Varden, The Shattering of Loneliness, p.139.

WHAT WE'RE MADE OF

'...I'm made of longing...'
Rainer Maria Rilke in Erik Varden, The Shattering of Loneliness, p.134.

WHAT WE SHARE WITH GOD

'The characteristic common to God and man is apparently...the desire and ability to make things.'

Dorothy L Sayers in Makoto Fujimura, Art and Faith, p.6. 

THE RIGHT LONGINGS BEHIND OUR WRONG DESIRES

'What is bent when I experience that internal pull to homoeroticism? Well, actually, quite a lot about me is bent. My sexuality may be the least of my issues. But when considering homoerotic temptation, what else is going on? Certainly, this is not less than the temptation of indwelling sin; it is more than that. That's always how sin works.

What good thing has been bent? What is going on?

For one thing, we're dealing with a legitimate God-given human human longing for community. Yes, this longing has become sexualized in ways that distort God's creational design. But it is a legitimate longing nonetheless. It might be a longing for healthy intimacy - to know and be known. It might be a longing for acceptance, a need to feel wanted. Our longings for intimacy, community, and friendship, our longings to be loved and accepted, our recognition of human beauty - these are not evils. The longing for nurture, inclusion, and affirmation are not evils. The longing to matter to someone, to be unique and special to them, the longing for family - don't you dare call these sin. They are core human needs we all share as image bearers of God. We all long to be delighted in. We all long for companionship. We all long to be seen inside and out. These longings are good longings placed there by God.

God does not call us to put these to death,. These are not sin. They are part of how he created us as human beings designed for relationship. These are good longings that inborn sin bends in spiritually unhealthy directions. Sin over desires the good, to our own damage. That's how sin works - by blending the good. That's true for all of us.'

Greg Johnson, Still Time to Care: What we can learn from the church's failed attempt to cure homosexuality, p.137.

THE FUNCTIONN OF AN IMAGE

'An image is something that helps us catch a glimpse of reality.'

Madeleine L'Engle, A Circle of Quiet, p.17

SANCTIFICATION

'It is the universal renovation of our natures by the Holy Spirit into the image of God, through Jesus Christ.'
John Owen in Kelly M Kapic, You're Only Human, p.164.

CHRISTIAN ETHICS 1.1

'There is no human being you will ever meet, no matter however wounded, disordered, or evil, no matter their theology, style of worship, or ways of thinking who was not created by the God we love. Any culture - nation, denomination, city, church, or family - that leads us to treat someone otherwise is seducing us to behave in ways that break the heart of God.'

Diane Langberg, Redeeming Power, p.56.

SELF-EVIDENT TRUTHS?

'That all men had been created equal, and endowed with an inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, were not remotely self-evident truths. That most Americans believed they were owed less to philosophy that to the Bible: to the assurance given equally to Christianity and Jews, to Protestants and Catholics, to Calvinist and Quakers, that every human being was created in God's image. The truest and ultimate seedbed of the American republic - no matter what some of those who had composed its founding documents might have cared to think - was the book of Genesis.' 

Tom Holland, Dominion, p.384.

THE ONLY SOURCE OF HUMAN SATISFACTION

'...the reasons why you have not got contentment in the things of the world is not because you have not got enough of them - that is not the reason - but the reason is, because they are not things proportionate to that immortal soul of yours that is capable of God himself.' 

Jeremiah Burroughs, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, p.91. 

OUR RELATIONSHIP TO GOD DEFINES, AND DIGNIFIES, US ALL

'...when I look around, my neighbour is also always somebody who is already in relation with God before they're in relation with me. That means that there's a very serious limit on my freedom to make of my neighbour what I choose, because, to put it very bluntly, they don't belong to me, and their relation to me is not all that is true of them, or even the most important thing that is true of them.' 

Rowan Williams, Being Human: Bodies, minds, persons, p.37.

THE SOURCE OF HUMAN CREATIVITY

'...the best explanation for why we make architecture and jokes, sculptures and gardens, stories and mythical creatures is because we bear the image of God who is the master creator, comedian, and storyteller.' 

Paul M Gould, Cultural Apologetics, p.109. 

OUR DIVINE CREATIVITY

'Maybe our world will grow kinder eventually.
Maybe the desire to make something beautiful
     is the piece of God that is inside each of us.'
Mary Oliver, from 'Blue Horses in Blue Horses, p.43. 

GOING WITH THE GRAIN OF CREATION

'Our lives are lived well only when they are lived on the terms of their creation, with God loving and us being loved, with God making and us being made, with God revealing and us understanding, with God commanding and us responding. Being a Christian means accepting the terms of creation, accepting God as our maker and redeemer, and growing day by day into an increasingly glorious creature in Christ, developing joy, experiencing love, maturing in peace. By the grace of Christ we experience the marvel of being made in the image of God. If we reject this way, the only alternative is to attempt the hopelessly fourth-rate, embarrassingly awkward imitation of God made in the image of men and women like us.' 

Eugene H Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, p.147. 

CHRISTIANITY IS THE TRUE HUMANISM

'The Christian doctrine of sin proves to be a remarkable resource in helping us understand ourselves, but it's intelligible only against the background of a profound Christian optimism about the created potential of humanity. The caricatures of Christianity paint it as pessimistic and life denying. But in fact, Christianity is the true humanism. We are royal masterpieces, yet we are marred. The glorious image of God in us needs to be restored, and it is worth the effort of restoration. 

Rankin Wilbourne, Union with Christ, p.160. 

THE CROSS WAS MEANT TO DEHUMANISE

'Crucifixion as a means of execution in the Roman Empire has as its express purpose the elimination of victims from consideration as members of the human race. It cannot be said too strongly: that was its function. It was meant to indicate to all who might be toying with subversive ideas that crucified persons were not of the same species as either the executioners of the spectators and were therefore not only expendable but also deserving of ritualized extermination.'

Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, p.92. 

A BABY

'...a new being, a microcosm, like a mirror to catch and reflect the universe and the Maker of the universe..' 

HFM Prescott, The Man on a Donkey, p.35. 

WE ARE RELATIONAL IMAGES

'God is in relationship, and so too is the man created by him. This is his divine likeness.' 

Karl Barth in Todd Wilson, Mere Sexuality, p.70. 

WHY HAVE WE BEEN CREATED IN GOD'S IMAGE?

'If you are very great and you fill the earth with seven billion images of yourself, what is your aim? Your aim is to be well known and admired for your greatness.' 

John Piper, Reading the Bible Supernaturally, p.47. 

WOULD THE ANIMALS HAVE US?

'The fact, or at least the degree, of human exceptionalism is often disputed. In some quarters it is considered modest and seemly for us to take our place among the animals, conceptually speaking - to acknowledge finally the bonds of kinship evolution implies. Yet, in view of history with regard to the animals, not to mention our history with one another, it seems fair to wonder if the beasts, given a voice in the matter, would not feel a bit insulted by our intrusion.' 

Marilynne Robinson, The Givenness of Things, p.256.