Someone suggested awhile back that we should start a different thread on contraception. So I'm starting it.
I don't teach that contraception is a sin--yet. But I'm leaning that way.
Before I went to seminary, my pastor at the time and a lady whose husband had been to seminary were talking about some people at one of the Missouri Synod seminaries who were opposed to contraception. At the time, this struck me as utter lunacy.
While I was at seminary, I learned that the pill could, in rare cases, function as an abortifacient. That was news to me. Somewhere in there I read Luther's views on contraception, which I think are found in the Genesis commentary. I think Luther referred to it as "sodomitic" and asserted that this was why God slew Onan. Then I learned that all Christians of whatever sect were formally opposed to contraception until the 20th century.
So I started to investigate the Bible on the issue. Several things become apparent from Scripture.
1. According to the Bible, God opens and closes the womb. Children are not simply a human decision, but ultimately come from God.
2. The Psalms refer to children as "blessings." The man God has blessed has a wife who is a fruitful vine and children like olive shoots around his table.
3. God's blessing on man and woman after the creation and after the flood is "be fruitful and multiply."
Then I began to reason--"If God gives children, and they are a blessing, why would I not want to receive as many children as God sees fit to give me and my wife? if God sees fit to give us, say, 10, would I at the end of my life say, 'I wish we didn't have that one, that one, and that one?' Isn't God the author of life, not me? What does it mean to be "pro-life" but then only want to have as many children as seems good to me? How different is that kind of thinking from the kind that says, 'I only want to live as long as it seems good to me'? If God sees fit to bring ten children into the world, isn't He capable also of providing for those children?"
Then I began to think of the consequences of the widespread approval of contraception for marriage. In normal circumstances, when not obstructed, sexual intercourse leads to children. Pleasure is certainly a result of sex, and so is bonding, but biologically these seem to be only "enticments"to the chief end of sex, which is procreation. But when I was growing up, the sense that I got from society was that primarily, sex was about pleasure or expression of romantic love, and conception a usually undesirable intrusion on pleasure and "love". It began to occur to me that without that perverse way of looking at sex, it would be impossible to conceive of homosexual "marriage." It had also led to a huge increase in out of wedlock births and single parent homes.
As I continue to consider the ramifications of contraception, I am amazed at how it has completely re-shaped society. It has changed the way we view what it means to be male and female. We now live in America in which the majority of people in the workforce are women (see the latest Atlantic Monthly), and in which out of wedlock births is soon to become the norm (they presently account for over 40 percent of children born into the world.) The ramifications seem to be endless.
I think we are just now beginning to see Christians (and Lutherans) beginning to wake up to the idea that perhaps contraception is really contrary to biblical teaching.
But then again, maybe my thinking is wrong. I've held off on teaching people much about this because--in addition to the difficulty of teaching it--I am also unsure about where lines should be drawn. When the episcopal church initially began to open the door to contraception in the 30's, they only approved contraception between married couples in cases of "necessity." At the time, that was a radical idea. Rome openly approves of natural family planning, which is also a type of "birth control."
Where do we begin rethinking contraception, or should we begin rethinking at all?