Posted on 11/05/2006 5:50:46 AM PST by NYer
LOUISVILLE, Kentucky, November 3, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Young Christian couples are re-thinking contraceptive use and biblical teaching on human sexuality, in response to a growing awareness of the social damage caused by the sexual revolution, a foremost leader in the U.S evangelical community told Christianity Today last month.
Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., is a theologian and ordained minister, serving as president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, the leading educational institution of the Southern Baptist Convention. He said Christian evangelicals are questioning the effects widespread reliance on birth control has had on society.
“In the first place, this generation has now come to adulthood at a time when we can take some stock of the impact represented by the sexual revolution and by the easy access to effective contraception and birth control,” Dr. Mohler said.
“And the burden now seems to be, ‘What did all of this mean? What was the affect of the birth control revolution? What kind of changes in human institutions and relationships came as a result of the Pill? What about the missing generation among us of children who would otherwise be present were it not for the easy availability of effective birth control?’”
The previous generation’s acceptance of a secular understanding of sexuality and marriage is no longer satisfactory to young people, Dr. Mohler said, who are challenging the separation between fertility and sexuality in the popular mindset.
“The second issue is, in this postmodern time, a recovery, among the young, of a biblical ideal of marriage. They are doing their very best to rethink the basic questions and, in doing so, they are embarrassed by the easy, rather unreflective embrace of the contraception culture that marked evangelicalism in the 1960s and 70s. So they want to rethink all this.
“The third thing is, I think, a deep embrace of a biblical notion of sexuality, post-the sexual revolution, has led many younger evangelicals to think seriously about this question, and all this adds up to giant question mark in the minds of many young Christians. Can we join the contraceptive revolution? And, if not, how do we think about these things in a way that will strengthen our marriages and be most pleasing to God.”
Dr. Mohler said survey indications showing almost half of pro-life Americans support easy access to the abortifacient morning-after pill reveals the lack of consistent thinking among evangelicals on the issue.
“What we face are many evangelicals whose understanding of these things is rather superficial at best and largely influenced by the culture. And so they know how to answer the question about the sanctity of human life correctly, in the main, but they do not know how to apply that to the question of birth control.”
Read coverage in Christianity Today:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/octoberweb-only/143...
Neither is it valid to argue, as a justification for sexual intercourse which is deliberately contraceptive, that a lesser evil is to be preferred to a greater one, or that such intercourse would merge with procreative acts of past and future to form a single entity, and so be qualified by exactly the same moral goodness as these. Though it is true that sometimes it is lawful to tolerate a lesser moral evil in order to avoid a greater evil or in order to promote a greater good," it is never lawful, even for the gravest reasons, to do evil that good may come of it (18)—in other words, to intend directly something which of its very nature contradicts the moral order, and which must therefore be judged unworthy of man, even though the intention is to protect or promote the welfare of an individual, of a family or of society in general. Consequently, it is a serious error to think that a whole married life of otherwise normal relations can justify sexual intercourse which is deliberately contraceptive and so intrinsically wrong.
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Liberals are saying Evangelicals are going to stay away from Tuesday's polls in droves.
Show them how wrong they are. Get out and vote Tuesday, and bring several friends to vote with you!
Great! It's about time!
Why would any clear thinking person not go out an exercise their right to vote and forfeit the governmental control of their lifes to some left wing extremist?
The Conservatives made some governing mistakes but do you want Nancy Pelosi (Catholic liberal for abortion) controlling your life? Remember, the Liberals/Democrats support the Culture of Death. Now that the Catholic Liberals have placed their impramater on the Death of Babies, their solution to the Social Security problem will be to Euthanasia on the sick, disabled and the old people who are a drain on the Social Security System!!
Catholic liberals are not true Catholics. You CANNOT be Catholic and pro-choice. period.
Amen to that!
Not to diss our Catholics brethren, but I don't think too many evangelicals have been as rigid on contraception as they have been.
Most evangelicals I know (and I am one), practice some form of contraception, especially the pill, and have no qualms about it.
Short of everyone reverting to an agrarian society where kids help you work your farm and are a financial boon rather than burden, and people are getting married at 15, the "contraception revolution" is one revolution that will never, ever, be overturned.
I doubt it.
I have no idea how it works...as long as it works. The Dr's explanation is a little too arcane for me.
This was in the early church writings before the New Testament Canon was in the form we have now.
Well, we are all sinners.
A societies moral acceptance of contraception leads to abortion because the very act of using contraception demonstrates a lack of openness to life. If contraception should fail the next logical step is termination of that pregnancy. I am not saying that every individual will do that (I am sure you would not), but as a society that is the impact...increased use of abortion to counteract failed contraception. As such, those who allow for the use of contraception unwittingly support abortion, an abomination before God.
I know this will upset you, but it is what it is.
It's funny that the economics of raising boat loads of kids doesn't come up in this article at all.
It is true that the pill allows promiscous behavior with little risk of consequences and has impacted society. It is also true, however, that it allows couples to control the size of their family to the affordable and that most of the people interested in this use are not the ones without morals who had impact on society.
It isn't birth controll that is the problem, it's what some people do with it that is. It is quite short-sighted for some so-called leader to encourage young couples to ditch it because of some misplaced morals problem, when he doesn't have to deal with feeding, clothing and educating the result of it.
It would be nice to live in a world where economics doesn't matter, but that isn't our world and having more children than one can handle won't bring about the kind of change in society he is looking for.
You're right, I would not condone abortion in the event of failed contraception.
But, no, I am not upset by your comments.
"Why would any clear thinking person not go out an exercise their right to vote and forfeit the governmental control of their lifes to some left wing extremist?"
Laziness or revenge, that's why.
Per my Mormon friends, Mormons are allowed to practice birth control, however, they are encouraged to have big families. (My understanding is the number of children they have is tied to the afterlife they will have, hence they are rewarded for more kids.)
Yeah, there is leeway in other area in terms of debate, but abortion is a no-go area, and rightly so!
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