Protestants & Contraception

First Things ^ | January 2018 | Evan Lenow

[CondoleezzaProtege]

There is one teaching that most Protestants readily recognize as Catholic, and it is usually received with derision: the prohibition of artificial means of birth control. The Protestants in my circles often disparage this teaching with little knowledge of Humanae Vitae, perhaps the most significant document to address birth control over the last one hundred years.

Our distaste for things Roman Catholic, dating back to the sixteenth century, has deprived us of a wealth of theological wisdom...Our acceptance of most forms of birth control is not helping us teach the next generation about sex and sexuality. It is time for us to reconsider our stance.

I teach ethics at a Southern Baptist seminary in Texas where one of our core ethics courses is “The Christian Home.” I cover a number of issues concerning marriage and family, but the one that receives the greatest response is my lecture on sexuality and reproductive technologies.

Our students reject abortion and “emergency contraceptives” but don’t worry about the morality of the pill and other methods. They hold this position because their churches do.

Beginning with the Lambeth Conference in 1930 and concluding with the wholesale embrace of the pill in the decade or so that followed its release, most Protestants moved away from agreement with the Catholic Church on this moral issue and never looked back. Among Southern Baptists, the drift from renunciation to acceptance of birth control had a clear trajectory. The 1934 “Resolution on Birth Control” urges Congress to reject pending legislation because its purpose

"...would prove seriously detrimental to the morals of our nation."

Some forty years later, the Southern Baptist Convention took up the issue of birth control again, issuing a series of resolutions that opposed only contraceptives distributed to minors at school without parental consent...

[daniel1212]

I don't see a problem with daniel1212's understanding of the passage in question. There are some who simply do not have the means to provide for their family. We see the poor in Scripture a great deal.

That should be obvious. See above post.