Lesallan Bostron
Ohio Christian University
PHL2100 Ethics (ONL25F3A)
Professor Mark Godbold
10/30/2025
Ethical Sexual Expression – Journal Entry
Christian sexual ethics flow from the conviction that human sexuality is a good gift of God, intended to embody covenantal love, mutual self-giving, and the formation of faithful community. Sexual expression, therefore, is not merely a private preference or a biological drive; it is a moral language that communicates commitments, shapes identity, and either builds or harms relational flourishing. Grounded in creation, incarnation, and the call to holiness, a Christian account honors bodily goods while insisting they be ordered toward love, fidelity, and the protection of the vulnerable.
Sex before marriage challenges this ordering because it often detaches sexual intimacy from the public and stabilizing commitments that marriage provides. Sexual acts outside of covenant can express genuine affection, but they also carry risks: emotional fragmentation, unequal power, and the temptation to treat persons as means to desire rather than as image-bearers. From a Christian perspective, resisting casual sexualization is not an exercise in prudish control but a discipline for love: delaying sexual union until a stable covenant helps ensure that sex is given and received within a framework that promises mutual care, responsibility, and permanence. Where premarital sexual activity has occurred, the Christian response must combine truth with grace—calling people to repentance and renewed commitment while offering pastoral care that restores dignity and hope.
On questions of homosexuality, a Christian ethical posture must hold both conviction and compassion. Tradition has often understood same-sex sexual acts as inconsistent with the biblical pattern that locates sexual intimacy within a husband-wife covenant. For many Christians, this understanding remains the starting point for moral teaching about sexuality. At the same time, the gospel requires deep pastoral sensitivity to gay and lesbian people whose lives are shaped by longing, faith, and vulnerability. Ethical witness therefore refuses both dehumanizing rhetoric and facile approval; it seeks communities where people of all sexual orientations are loved, listened to, and invited into discipleship that honors God’s call to holiness, integrity, and mutual service. Churches must also be ready to revise pastoral practices where they have inflicted shame, offering restorative accompaniment rather than exclusion.
Divorce and remarriage reveal the compassionate temper of Christian sexual ethics when human relationships fail. Scripture laments divorce yet recognizes that sin, abuse, and abandonment break covenants in ways that sometimes render reconciliation impossible. A Christian ethic resists trivializing divorce while refusing to castigate those whom life has shattered. Where divorce occurs on biblical or serious moral grounds, pastoral discernment permits remarriage as an avenue for renewed covenantal life and healing. The priority is to protect the vulnerable, to acknowledge the moral weight of broken promises, and to shepherd people toward accountability, reconciliation where possible, and flourishing where restoration is not.
In all these areas, the Christian standard is not mere rule-following but the cultivation of character: humility, fidelity, sacrificial love, and mercy. Ethical sexual expression, grounded in Christian conviction, calls people to order their desires toward relationships that reflect God’s steadfast love and to form communities that confess truth, extend grace, and embody the transformative power of the gospel.
References:
English Standard Version Bible. (2001). Crossway Bibles.
Crowther, W. (2024, June 17). Understanding Christian sexual ethics: Insights from history and scripture. Australian Lutheran College. https://alc.net.au/understanding-christian-sexual-ethics-insights-from-history-and-scripture/
Ross, M. F. (n.d.). Biblical grounds for divorce and remarriage. Christian Research Institute. https://www.equip.org/article/biblical-grounds-for-divorce-and-remarriage/
Lesallan. (2025). Ethical reflection on divorce and remarriage. Unpublished manuscript.
