Sex and the Church
You may have seen the three-part television documentary presented by Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch, exploring how Christianity has shaped western attitudes to sex, gender and sexuality. In one programme, he repeated the often heard statement that while Jesus didn’t say much about sex, and nothing at all about homosexuality, he had a lot to say about mercy and forgiveness. The implication is clear: what people get up to sexually is not that important and, if they get it wrong, it is easy to be forgiven.
The basic statement is true, but it is a dangerous half-truth. Although Jesus didn’t speak about sex very often, what he does have to say about it is highly significant: “For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils …” (Mark 7:21-22, NIV). This list warns us against making sexual sins more serious than other evils, but they are clearly among the things that Jesus calls “evils”. And the word he uses for “sexual immorality” (literally “sexual immoralities”, Greek porneiais) is a wide-ranging term referring to every kind of unlawful sexual intercourse.
Wonderfully, there is forgiveness for every evil, without limit, because of God’s amazing grace through Jesus’ once for all sacrifice. But it makes no sense to speak of forgiveness unless it is for things that we know to be wrong.