The recent upswell in interest in desire as a theological concern is both invigorating and sea-changing. Two books in particular deal with the subject well and with satisfying complementarity: Jay Stringer's Unwanted (2018) and A.J. Swoboda's The Gift of Thorns (2024). The authors reach many of the same conclusions, Stringer by way of his experience as a Christian psychotherapist and Swoboda by way of intensive biblical exegesis. In essence, both authors argue that human desire gets a bad rap, and we need to think about desire differently. A proper view of desire can change how we engage with the world around us and even improve our success at dealing with unwanted desires.
The Original View
One of the earliest thinkers on desire was Augustine (354-430 AD). It is well known that this church pillar from North Africa fell into a "swirling cauldron of lust" when he went to study in Carthage as a young man. It is also well known that he eventually repented of his sexual decadence and gave us cogently argued views on desire, sin, and temptation that are still authoritative today. Desire, Augustine believed, was given by God as a kind of bridge for us to cross to Him:
The entire life of a good Christian is in fact an exercise of holy desire. (...) Simply by making us wait [God] increases our desire, which in turn enlarges the capacity of our soul, making it able to receive what is to be given to us. So, my brethren, let us continue to desire, for we shall be filled (Augustine on John 4, 6).
For Augustine, desire is also a bridge to sin. In his view, however, sin and desire are not equivalent, but rather sin springs from a disorder in one's experience of desire. In fact, as Augustine saw it, all human sin comes from "disordered love" (i.e., desire). Unfortunately, Augustine is better remembered for his thoughts on disordered love than on desire. Distrust of human desire has simply been a much more powerful tidal force. We see it in the "Total Depravity" dimension of Calvinist teaching, which finds humans irredeemably incapable of goodness. This perspective has, no doubt, fostered distrust on the part of Christians of even the most innocent desires. Puritan preacher Jeremiah Burroughs (1600–1646) wrote: "The greatest misery of all is for God to give you up to your heart’s lusts and desires" (The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, 1648). Warnings like this one seemed to follow cleanly from the prophet Jeremiah's warning that "the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure" (17:9).
The vocabulary of disorder introduced by Augustine has survived robustly (and controversially) in the Catholic Church's characterization of same-sex attraction as an "inclination" that is "objectively disordered" (Catechism, paragraph 2358). It is on a par with lust, in turn classified as "a disordered desire for or enjoyment of sexual pleasure" and masturbation, described as "intrinsically and gravely disordered" (paragraphs 2351 and 2352). Fornication, the sex between unmarried persons of the opposite sex, is also a sin, but is—peculiarly—"naturally ordered" (paragraph 2353). While it is true that the things listed in the Catechism are sinful, the vocabulary of disorder perpetuates the idea that our desires can't be trusted, and it is better to have no desires at all than to "be in touch" with our desires or even to seek to heal them. Without any mention of desire except in the context of sin, we are left to wonder whether an "ordered" (unsinful) desire is even possible.
A better view?
It was possibly C.S. Lewis who began the work of digging us out of the "disordered desires" pit. He proposed that we've had it backwards. Desires, he argues, are inherently good and should be embraced as such, but never channeled to improper uses:
If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased (C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, 1941).
In the same vein, Christian psychotherapist Jay Stringer proposes that God "solicits our sensuality" (Unwanted, 2018, p. 163). This is odd language for any Christian accustomed to the old-school view. Sensuality is, after all, closely associated with desire, and therefore triggers all the old suspicions. But Stringer argues his point well. It runs roughly thus: God calls us to be at home in our senses, not wary of them or living in hostile defiance of them, because they are a way for us to enjoy God, other people, and the world around us. Stringer's observation is timely and commands caution. We live in a culture in which the full range of our sensual day-to-day experince is consistently channeled toward the erotic. This channeling targets mostly our senses of sight and sound, but all the senses get in on the action:
sight and sound — TV shows and movies with sexually suggestive or sexually explicit scenes and dialogue;
touch — consider the sexualization of touch in "massage parlors" and in ads for certain highly tactile products like fabric softener;
taste — pretty much any ad for an "indulgent" dessert-type food;
smell — candle fragrances like "Sexy Time," "Sexy mood," "So sexy," and "Sexy as sin."
By learning to find satisfaction in ordinary sensations, such as a soft breeze, a play of sun and shadow, a cool pillow, a new spice combination, or a new music playlist, we can de-eroticize our lives and, most importantly, quiet our cravings for illicit sensuality. Eating a well-balanced meal seems to have the same kind of effect on a person's cravings for sweets. Think about it, when you are sensorily full of non-sinful things that pleasantly stimulate your eyes, ears, tongue, skin, and nose, you are less likely to crave sensations outside of God's boundaries. On the other hand, Stringer argues, "if we do not marvel at and honor beauty, we will inevitably bend it toward our control" (p. 105).
What does this have to do with desire? By allowing ourselves to attune to simple sensations through our God-given senses, we satisfy our desire for sensuality and diminish our longing for sinful misuse. These observations echo Christ's teaching about not emptying demons out of the house without filling it with better things:
“When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation” (Matthew 12:43-45).
On this point, A.J. Swoboda (The Gift of Thorns, 2024, p. 149) comments that putting to death wrong desires must involve filling ourselves up with good ones. This diminishes the power of wrong desires quite simply by crowding them out, or at the very least it causes them to figure less prominently on our sensory landscape. Paul instructs us to take every thought captive (2 Corinthians 10:5); more importantly, however, he exhorts us to direct our attention to a physical and spiritual universe filled with things that are delightful. This includes holy things as well as things that are simply beautiful to our senses:
Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things (Philippians 4:8).
This discipline is what Stringer calls "a routine of delight" (p. 148)—a daily endeavor:
We should not just say no [to wrong desires] but [also] scheme for ways to bring our bodies pleasure in non-orgasmic ways. (...) The very best activities to pursue [in a routine of delight] are those that help you engage your senses. Swimming, cooking, music, and the outdoors are all good places to start. (...) If we have ears to hear, eyes to see, and skin to feel, there is a wild and sensual world that awaits us (Unwanted, p. 152).
Like Stringer, Swoboda argues that desire has been given a bad rap in Christian theology and teaching; but even so, desire requires disciplined nurturing. Swoboda admits that some desires simply need to be killed. The killing of desire—through fasting, sexual celibacy, and other asceticisms—"can have a remarkable power to reorient our lives in a sex-crazed culture like our own" (p. 145). He aptly points out that self-denying disciplines are a "prophetic stand against the idea that we are our desires or that one's fulfillment or identity can be derived from bodily desire" (p. 145). At the same time, he warns against mortification for its own sake:
We too often believe the absence of desire to be better option [sic] than the possibility of healed desire. Rather than working to cultivate good desires, we become desireless. We wrongly assume Jesus' goal for our lives is the absence of desire (p. 147).
Ultimately, Swoboda's argument is that we need to grasp the depth and breadth of our desires more fully so we can either put them to good use or deny them altogether. Either way, we can connect with the world around us more meaningfully, and we are better equipped to enjoy the sensory freedom we have within God's boundaries.
Conclusion
How we engage with our desires very much determines whether our Christian walk will be alongside Christ or alongside someone (or something) else. Rather than quashing all our desires as inherently dangerous, we can learn to regulate them by finding out what sorts of sights, sounds, and other sensory experiences make us feel invigorated, refreshed, and connected to the world around us. By seeking out a wide range of experiences of this type, we deprive illicit desires of their power in our lives.
—Rick E.
(Rick E. is the director of Free in Christ Ministries)
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