Posted on 11/24/2019 2:51:38 PM PST by CondoleezzaProtege
I used to think like most evangelicals when it came to family planning. I strongly opposed abortion, but embraced contraception and thought Catholic objections to birth control were on par with praying to Mary.
Abortion, I reasoned, takes an innocent life and is clearly wrong. But contraception merely prevents conception. What could be wrong with that?
Sadly, I had never considered arguments on the other side. When I did, I found they aren’t flimsy or far-fetched. They’re solid and Scriptural. And they aren’t just Catholic either.
Every Protestant Reformer opposed contraception. In fact, before 1930, every church — Protestant and Catholic — did as well.
Yet today, most evangelicals embrace contraception. In fact, we’re so enthusiastic about it, we’re promoting it worldwide.
The Christian aid group World Vision now works with the pro-abortion Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help women in poor countries “time and space their pregnancies.” So does Christian singer Amy Grant. There’s even a faith-based organization whose main purpose is to promote family planning. Not surprisingly, Bill & Melinda Gates are contributing to this group too.
Today, Western nations spend billions to control population in the developing world. Supporters say the impetus for this is concern for women and children. Critics say that’s not so. The only reason the West wants to reduce population elsewhere is because it wants more resources for itself.
In any case, the issue of birth control isn’t just personal; it’s global. The stakes don’t just concern the size of one’s family, but the fate of people worldwide and the witness of the Church.
Over the last 60 years, many evangelicals have promoted a view that earlier Christians would have thought immoral. We didn’t do this because we studied Scripture and found prior interpretations lacking. Instead, we were swept along by culture.
(Excerpt) Read more at stream.org ...
In this piece, I’ll help us do that by explaining what led evangelicals to embrace birth control. In part two, I’ll describe the theology developed to defend this embrace. And in part three, I’ll examine biblical arguments for and against contraception.
"Anglicans Break With Tradition"
Though Martin Luther had no problem with natural family planning, he strongly opposed contraception, calling it “intrinsically evil” and “a grave sin.” John Calvin felt similarly. Referring to Onan’s sin, he wrote, “It is a horrible thing to pour out seed.” This “quenches the hope” of one’s family and “kills the son … before he is born.”
In saying these things, Luther and Calvin were not expressing anything new. They were simply stating a position the Church had held for more than a thousand years. Early Church Father St. Clement of Alexandria wrote, “(T)he seed is not to be … wasted. To have coitus other than to procreate children is to do injury to nature.” Likewise, John Chrysostom lamented that some couples viewed children “as grievous and unwelcome” due to their greed.
Historically, opposing birth control has not been a Catholic thing. It’s been a Christian thing. As late as 1908, Anglican church leaders officially resolved that “the use of all artificial means” of birth control should be discouraged. They added that contraception corrupted character and was “hostile to national welfare.”
Yet in 1930, Anglicans reversed course and became the first church to condone birth control. As author and scholar Allan C. Carlson said in a 2015 interview, the impetus for this change was not spiritual, but pragmatic. Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger had recruited Anglican pastors and convinced many to embrace eugenics, or “controlled breeding.” The American Eugenics Society even sponsored a “Eugenics Sermon Contest” with cash prizes for the best sermons.
Evangelicals Succumb to Fear Evangelicals, however, opposed birth control for several more decades. But in 1959, Billy Graham made a stunning statement. He told reporters that he found “nothing in the Bible which would forbid birth control.”
Like the Anglicans, Graham didn’t appear to be motivated by Scripture. Instead, having recently visited Africa, he cited concerns of overpopulation. “I do believe that some form of birth control is necessary in Asia, Japan, Africa, and other nations where population explosions are threatened,” he said.
Many in Graham’s generation shared his concern. In 1952, the Population Council had warned that overpopulation was going to deplete the world’s resources. And in 1958, the Draper Committee reported that the “population problem” was the greatest obstacle to world progress.
A month before Graham’s statement, Christianity Today ran an article on the Draper Report. It suggested that the time had come for a “re-examination” of sex apart from procreation. Apparently, Graham agreed.
Over the next decade, fears of overpopulation continued to grow and exploded when Paul Ehrlich published The Population Bomb. This best-selling book predicted that overpopulation would lead to mass starvation in the 1970s and 80s. Though Ehrlich’s predictions never came true, the fears he raised remained and impacted Christians and non-Christians alike.
Yet evangelicals couldn’t fully embrace contraception without a some kind of biblical rationale. That came seven years after Graham’s statement. And it led to major changes in Christian thought and action.
Many evangelicals began accepting and using contraception. And as I explain in my next article, some even began to condone abortion as well.
Bookmark
NONSENSE!
Less contraception = more Catholics
That is all.
I was once ambivalent about contraception, at least as a Christian. Not any more.
We are acting like the world when we.... ACT LIKE THE WORLD.
I, too, thought being opposed to birth control was a Catholic thing that even most Catholics didn’t really believe. I once heard my mom’s Catholic friend say, “If the the pope wants us to have more than 2 kids he can buy their shoes!”
When discussing having a family my husband and I, in our human arrogance, decided on four. Looking back I am ashamed at how we would dare to tell God how many blessings we were going to allow Him to give us. Thankfully, God was merciful and despite our wrong thinking and choices gave us 6 children. I sometimes wonder who we might have missed out on during the 5 years between # 4 and #5 because we chose our own path.
Our 6th seems like an extra special blessing because we lost one before and one after her.
I know this is a topic that gets people quite hot and so in my real life I keep my strong opinions to myself. But really, if a position cannot be supported by supported by scripture, then believers shouldn’t accept it.
Even in disagreeing you’ve shown how birth control has harmed the church. Fewer believers means less of an impact on the culture.
More contraception among Chistians means more Muslims. Stuff doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Europe is turning Muslim because the non-Muslims have 1.2 children per woman.
“NONSENSE!
Less contraception = more Catholics
That is all”.
That’s right.
That is your whole argument against artificial contraceptives?
That is fairly weak. Come to think of it that is very weak.
Besides many people who claim they are “devout” Catholics have no problem using contraceptives. Why there are even priests who council it can be acceptable. So the “more Catholics” claim falls flat on its face.
To my understanding the only religious groups that currently oppose contraception within marriage are Christian. The only Christian groups that still officially ban it within marriage that I have found: Old order Mennonites, Amish and Catholics. I think the ‘quiver full’ movement might encompass individuals from many different groups. And of course there are many individuals who don’t accept it for their personal religious beliefs.
Freegards
It is neither weird nor offbeat to hold to what has been the mainstream Christian stance until the mid 20th century. Not holding to it at large has caused tremendous damage to the ‘basic’ Christian witness for the last half century plus and now it is time to stop the damage birth control has wreaked on almost every facet of society in its tracks. And take responsibility.
It does not mean everyone is supposed to have massive families.
Two kinds of contraception. One kills babies, one doesn’t. Condoms aren’t bad.
The other kills God’s intent to make a baby. Just as bad.
“To have coitus other than to procreate children is to do injury to nature.””
Nature?
Trying to follow nature? Trying to please nature?
This article didn’t provide a biblical argument against contraception.
Contraception prevents conception. Anything that allows conception but prevents implantation is not a contraceptive but an abortifacient. Catholic doctrine condemns all of it. The contraceptive mentality fosters the culture of death and inexorably pushes the occurrence of aboration up, up, up. Thoughtful and devout Catholics, including some in the U.S., predicted many years ago what’s happening today. A societal slide into general sexual immorality is very difficult to reverse once it is set into motion. (Just ask Sodom/Gomorrah.)
“This article didn’t provide a biblical argument against contraception.”
Now that we have a history of contraception in the churches, i hope the second half has what the authors thinks God said about it.
God creates us and provides for us.
We respect life and His creations and praise God for His gifts to us.
The Blessed Mother was another gift as our spiritual mother from God who was obedient to God and provided the Ark that gave us our Savior.
Where is the over population in western countries. Dec 11, 2017 - Half the World’s Population is Reaching Below Replacement Fertility .
If you have the talent to have 10 kids should you use it? Perhaps the Holy Spirit tells you it is better to use another talent instead. Alternatively, you may not think you can handle it. I am not going to fault you for that decision nor the decision to have ten kids.
We all make choices. Not sure they are always thought out and good choices from God’s perspective.
It also allows for the attitude that pregnancy is a mistake. And though the circumstances can be outright disastrous it would be wrong to say a baby is a mistake.(A contraceptive mentality).
It is not that much of a leap to go from a contraceptive mentality to abortion may be alright in some cases. After all often the very circumstances of a woman or family’s life that are cited as reasons to use artificial birth control are used as reasons for abortion.
To me the acceptance of artificial birth control and abortion(even if for limited reasons) are linked. Also the acceptance that the unitive and procreative aspects of sex can be artificially separated has made it much easier for society to approve gay relationships including pseudo marriage.
I will not offer a Biblical argument against artificial contraceptives but I will ask you to ponder what it means to claim that Christian marriage is Trinitarian (in that it mirrors the Trinity). And what that means to deliberate sterility even when such is temporary.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.