New Creation or Old Rules?

I have just finished reading Tom Wright's Simply Christian. I already knew his theology was a bit more conservative than mine, but as he is a very popular author I thought I would see for myself.

His approach is very contemporary, in that he begins with the human sense of God. The first part of the book is entitled 'Echoes of a Voice', and it talks about how we get hints of God through the universal sense of justice, the way in which spirituality springs up everywhere, the beauty of the world, and the centrality of relationships. So far so good.

Where I really part company with him is in his views on sexual morality. Having said lots of inspiring things about awakening and new birth into the freedom of the new creation etc., when he comes to the final chapter - the practicalities of Christian living - he falls back on the traditional rules. He contrasts a truly Christian perspective with the idea that we all have the absolute right to seek our own pleasure and self-fulfilment. Of course we can all agree that, in sexual relationships as in everything else, selfishness spoils everything. But the conclusion Wright draws is completely dogmatic.

He says (p198) that, in contrast to the Greco-Roman culture of the time, the Jews and the early Christians "insisted that sexual activity was to be restricted to the marriage of a  man and a woman. The rest of the world, then as now, thought they were mad. The difference, alas, is that today half the church seems to think so too."

He grounds his view theologically by talking of the vision of the Kingdom as "the  marriage feast of the Lamb" and so on, and says: "Marital fidelity echoes and anticipates God's fidelity to the whole creation. Other kinds of sexual activity symbolize and embody the distortions and corruptions of the present world."

I think this is a gross over-simplification, and a slander on all those people who live truly unselfish lives and express Christ-like love in relationships that do not conform to this "norm". Wright himself talks about "new creation", Surely the essence of new creation is that it is new, not the restoration of something supposedly laid down from the beginning. As I see it, one of the main themes of the Bible is that God is constantly leading us on into new discoveries. His very name can mean "I will be who I will be".