March 13, 2008...8:45 pm
Birth Control: The Partly Natural Family, Children Aborted From The Mind
I’m not sure where I have been for the past few years, but I just tonight stumbled upon a copy of Touchstone, a self-proclaimed “journal of mere Christianity,” with theologians such as Russell D. Moore, Phillip E. Johnson, Peter J. Leithart and many more contributing. And let me tell you, I am glad I found it. Although this new find does not bode well for my homework, it looks to be a welcome addition to my ever present considerations on procreation and the question of birth control.
This month’s edition of the magazine ran an article by David Mills entitled, “From Meddling to Preaching: Three Ways to Expose the Partly Natural Family.” In it, Mills explains what the preacher is coming up against when he stands to defend the “Natural Family”:
“You go from preaching to meddling when, for example, you assert that the Natural Family has a “quiverful” of children; that it requires a permanent, unbreakable bond between the husband and wife; or that it is marked by what are called “sex roles.” This is too much nature, it is nature untempered by technology and culture, as if you were asking people to go naked in the winter or hunt and kill their own food and eat it raw.”
These pastors are of course not asking their congregates to become roving bands of migrant hunters, rather they are merely expounding upon the biblical picture of a family created, formed, and preserved by God. Mills continues on in the article with a very apt commentary on the state of marriage in our culture today in light of “the partly natural family”:
“Even conservative Americans, religious and not, seem to understand marriage as secular Americans do, defining it as a contract based on affection and mutual satisfaction; believing that you may design your marriage in almost any way you like; assuming that sexual activity without consequences (that is, children) is a human right; thinking that they must as a matter of duty pursue an ideal of the good life that requires spending too much money to have more than one or two children; and feeling that they must create perfect children, which is a burden when you have one and very hard when you have many, especially when “perfect” is defined in worldly terms.”
The truth of that statement is deep with a weight of reality that too many evangelicals have sought to lay aside. Not only have we convinced ourselves that the “partly natural family” is a “human right,” but many in our churches have convinced themselves that it is a Christian right, or even duty, to shun God’s plan for the Natural Family. And furthermore, we have turned a blind eye towards the inescapable similarities between the practical outworkings of our theology, and the politics of the pro-abortion crowd. Mills explains:
“Let me give one example, from an editorial we published a few years ago titled “The roots of Roe v. Wade,” referring to the decision of the Supreme Court that legalized abortion on demand in America. The writer, Patrick Henry Reardon, began with abortion, which traditional Christians oppose almost unanimously, and tied it to the contraceptive mentality, which many of them hold. And hold with no idea at all that there is any problem with it.
“The editorial noted that “our current culture . . . has largely stopped thinking of children as gifts from God and first fruits of the future.” After explaining this, it continued by arguing “that children are now being aborted in the flesh, because they have already been, in large measure, aborted from the mind.”
Reardon is right, and touches upon the very same things that Oliver O’Donovan mentions in his book Begotten or Made?, where O’Donovan explains the way in which our culture has shifted its thinking about children as gifts to be received (or begotten), to creations that can be made at will. O’Donovan writes:
“Technology derives its social significance from the fact that by it man has discovered new freedoms from necessity. The technological transformation of the modern age has gone hand in hand with the social and political quest of Western man to free himself from the necessities imposed upon him by religion, society, and nature.”
This necessity that O’Donovan speaks of is, in a very real sense, the Christian moral and ethical responsibility towards the family. The technology of medical birth control (both pills and abortions) has freed man from the natural necessity to expect (and even yearn after) children which would otherwise naturally come from the one flesh union of man and wife.
Because we can, we have grown content with the Partly Natural Family, and those who do not subscribe to this increasingly cultural norm will soon be (and are already being) scoffed at and ridiculed for their lack of “planning” and “wisdom”…as if trusting in God’s plan and wisdom for our families is a thing of the past…
‘BH
(HT: Touchstone Mag - From Meddling to Preaching)
22 Comments
March 13, 2008 at 9:23 pm
You might be interested in what Janet Smith has to say on the matter. She really changed my mind on this issue–though as a priest, it does not affect me directly. You are getting at only the first layers of this issue–it gets even better!
March 14, 2008 at 12:32 am
I think I agree with you in principle. I guess my question is whether you would see any and all planning as counter to biblical teaching? I know that is a broad question, so do with it what you will.
You are like the king of ethics blogging as of late–you keep pumping ‘em out!
March 14, 2008 at 4:26 pm
Drew -
You’ve already done the hardest part. Most people focus much of their intellectual opposition on this issue towards the ‘practical,’ ignoring the fact the entire Christian life seems ‘unpractical’ to the unbelieving world. Take the idea of self-sacrifice in a marriage. Not seeking your own, but laying down your life for your wife makes no practical sense to a lost person who is deceived into thinking the most important person in the world is “me,” and how “I’ feel, and what “I” need. Practically speaking, the principle of a godly marriage runs counter to every thing the culture says about relationships and love. But we know that we can not ignore the principle, no matter how difficult or different it seems to the world.
Your question is a good one. Broad is good, but its usually difficult to handle succinctly. Let put it this way:
1) For the most part, I believe that any planning the couple wants to undertake should occur prior to the marriage covenant. I think the comparison can be drawn between birth control and abortion at this point. Most evangelicals agree that any ‘family planning’ decisions must be made pre-conception — meaning that once a child is conceived, the only moral decision available is to allow the child to be brought to term. But if we are committed to supporting life post-conception, they by what authority have we decided it is moral to restrain life pre-conception?
2) As I’ve mentioned before, the whole vocabulary of family “planning” seems overtly presumptuous to me, sounding eerily reminiscent of James 4:13-16 - “Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”– yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.” The issue here being that like “tomorrow”, children are not promised to us. They are not a right, nor an entitlement. They are not to be presumed upon like blessings we call down from the sky by our reproductive acts. Scripture is replete with evidences of God being the absolute Sovereign over the womb, and children being a gift that he can just as easily give as he can withhold. The planning then is to be wholly in God’s hands, not ours.
March 14, 2008 at 6:54 pm
“The editorial noted that “our current culture . . . has largely stopped thinking of children as gifts from God and first fruits of the future.” After explaining this, it continued by arguing “that children are now being aborted in the flesh, because they have already been, in large measure, aborted from the mind.”
I love this quote!
And I will pray for your homework and concentration, Brother Hank.
To God be all glory,
Lisa of Longbourn
March 14, 2008 at 7:02 pm
I’ve been thinking a lot about whether planning is right. Although I don’t know enough to determine whether the Bible supports planning all the time, I know there are enough verses in the Bible that talk about man’s plans failing that I think it’s a risky business, making plans.
Lots of verses I found on the subject are in the post I wrote in January:
http://lisaoflongbourn.wordpress.com/2008/01/02/plans-of-an-empty-man/
To God be all glory,
Lisa of Longbourn
March 14, 2008 at 8:55 pm
[...] Evidence of this small but remarkable and growing trend can be found over at Lawn Gospel (a very fine Evangelical blog that shies from nothing) in a post called Birth Control: The Partly Natural Family, Children Aborted from the Mind. [...]
March 16, 2008 at 10:30 am
But you neglect to mention that many families that do use Birth control (in non-abortifacient form) use it because they are not financially able to support a family.
They yearn for children and anticipate them in the future, but they realize the time is not right. The situation isn’t good for a child and it wouldn’t be smart to “wing it” and expect everything to be ok.
I used birth control for 3 years before I conceived my 1 year old daughter and I thought it made it all the more beautiful. I had time to joyously anticipate a pregnancy and yearn for a child. By the time my husband agreed to start “trying” for a baby, I was thrilled, we both were. And I want to have another child! I love children, but I also realize that a large brood would not be smart for our family.
March 16, 2008 at 2:32 pm
militarywifey-
I don’t question your yearning for children and anticipation of them in the future. I really believe that you love children.
Where I would press you however is your view that couples can enjoy the pleasures of the marriage bed apart from the responsibility of offspring. This is undoubtedly the mindset of large portions of contemporary Christianity, but the historic witness of the Church rejects that idea. I quoted Martin Luther on this very issue a few months ago in this post entitled, “The Five Points of Birth Control-ism, And Why They’re a Hard Pill to Swallow”. Here’s what Luther said:
Additionally, I think it would do us well to consider this question in light of ’spiritual’ children (which may be an upcoming blog post…maybe). You said that your usage of birth control for 3 years “made it all the more beautiful” when you finally had your daughter. And again, I do not doubt for an instance that is true. But the question we should ask is, “Is that biblical?”
Say for instance we take a look at the Great Commission, which instructs us to share the gospel of Christ with those who have never heard. If we wait 3 years before evangelizing for the first time, it may indeed make us treasure our first convert all the more — but in the end, that is no commentary on whether or not we have the right to wait 3 years before pursuing ’spiritual’ children. Our natural inclination as children of God should be to share the good news of his coming, death, resurrection, and imminent return. Similarly, our marital relationships were created in a such a way that our natural inclination is to produce children, raise them up to love and honor the Lord Jesus Christ, and then teach them to do the same. That is one of the express purposes God gives for marriage in Genesis, and I don’t believe we have scriptural support for rejecting that purpose (even for a time) to pursue other purposes that we deem more opportune, or wise.
The world has deceived us into fearing large families as unsupportable burdens, calling us wise if we reject them for the modern standard of the perfect family. But that is not wisdom. It is not the fear of families that the Bible says is the beginning of wisdom, rather it is the fear of God.
March 16, 2008 at 6:51 pm
brotherhank,
I’m really liking your style of writing. You are a pleasure to read.
Evangelizing and having children isn’t all the same. Having children is a much greater responsbility (if you had one,you’d know). They offer endless joy, but they are a great responsibility and I don’t believe that we shouldn’t try to at least offer a good situation for them to come into.
In light of my response, my true desire was to have a child sooner than I did. Of course, God worked this out for His own plan. What I have heard, in regard to this issue, was that it would have been wrong of me to go against my husband’s will because , according to Corinthians, my body is his. He is called to be the headship of our household, according to the Bible, and I believe it would have been more unbiblical of me to be unsubmissive and usurp his rightful authority.
Now, I choose to have around 3 children (I was going with 2, but I really like children and 3 is where I think I’ll end up). Not to say that God may not throw in a “twin suprise” (which I’d be happy about), but, more than likely, this is what I’ll end up with. Given my husband’s career, which takes no consideration at all of his family or whether i go into labor or not, to choose blantantly to have more children would be unwise.The Air Force sent my husband to Japan when I was 8 months pregnant. He had to fly back to the states (luckily he got leave for that) to be there for our daughter’s birth. We thought the military would provide some extra leave for him or would’ve at least let him stay in the US until our daughter was born, but apparently the military doesn’t really care. My husband is currently TDY and I know this won’t be the last time it happens. He could get deployed for a year to Iraq. Would it really be wise to deprive a large family of their father for a year?
Does God not give us individual choices to make? Although he is sovereign over all, he expects us to make certain decisions on our own. I don’t believe he expects everyone to have a small family just like he doesn’t expect everyone to have a large family. If we know that we are fully capable of reproducing on a grand scale and that our situation isn’t beneficial to many children, shouldn’t we scale back? We have to think about our child’s feelings in the process. I came from a family of four and I certainly wouldn’t have been a very happy girl to see my father leave constantly. These kind of things contribute to strained parent-child relationships, and those can lead to bigger problems later in life for the child.
March 16, 2008 at 7:54 pm
mw -
paul seems to disagree with you about spiritual and physical children being totally different in both joy and responsibility. his pastoral letters are replete with pictures of the great love and burden he has for them and their growth, with unspeakable joy in their successes, and words that can still fill the reader with pain over their failures. part of the failings of the evangelical movement of modern times has been the lack of responsibility taken for the growth and sanctification of children of the faith. of course like all metaphors, taken to the extreme this one does break down, but either way - if it’s good enough for paul, it should be good enough for us.
your story about your decision to use birth control in being submissive to your husband is a heavy one. but again, it does not answer the underlying question on the morality of birth control itself. the husbands authority over his wife only goes so far as he is true to the commands of God. the husband never has the authority to ask his wife to submit to sin. which is why i would highly, highly, highly encourage couples to talk about birth control prior to marriage, so neither partner is forced to sin against their conscience - which as Luther say, “is neither right, nor safe.”
gotta run for now, thanks for the compliment, and i appreciate your willingness to confront this issue in light of the Gospel.
March 17, 2008 at 1:53 am
brotherhank,
Paul doesn’t address the issue of children directly. He speaks to us as spiritual children. It is really hard to tie his mention of children as somehow encouraging us to look upon them not as a burden. Proverbs does say that “children are a blessing and a heritage”. Yet, many Christian small families do not look upon children as a burden, but they just do not feel they could adequately provide and care for many children.
I can see what you are saying about the Evangelical movement and not raising children in the faith. But most Evangelical parents I know attempt to raise their children in the faith. Sometimes, though, a child strays so you can’t always saw a Christian upbringing always brings about Christian children. I see the parallel of what Paul says there and bringing up children in the faith though.
I’m glad to hear your opinion on my story. But I don’t find that anywhere God spurns the usage of birth control. The only story is Onan and that story involves outright disobedience to God, not the usage of birth control. God does command “be fruitful and multiply” so it’s clear he wants us to have children. How many, he never says. And I believe it was intentionally left this way. Birth control is in no way Biblically supported or Biblically condemned so it is up to the married couple to decide.
And I don’t mind disagreeing with a fellow Christian over an issue. I actually am glad to hear where you are coming from. I do like to confront my issues and not just blindly dismiss claims.
Actually Challies has a great post on Birth control, he does an amazing job of breaking it down. If you pop by his blog go ahead and read it.
March 17, 2008 at 7:55 am
mw-
yeah, i actually think i caught that series by Challies when he first came out with it a while ago. i agree, he did a great job (although of course, I disagree with his conclusions…lol).
it think it should be noted that the mere absence of an explicit divine prohibition against birth control is not grounds enough to say that it is therefore moral and right to use. the same argument can (and is) used by proponents of human cloning — God never said “Thou shall not clone,” and yet I’d wager that you don’t believe cloning is moral, do you?
The point is that there are many things that are outside of the technical purview of the Bible, and yet the Bible still speaks to them under a firm understanding of the biblical principles of related fields, such as marriage, family, children, God’s sovereignty, etc., etc. We can no for certain that cloning is wrong because it undermines the imageo Dei, among other things. And here at the blog, I seek to argue in a similar vein when it comes to birth control. I don’t believe the bible has left us blind on this issue, and in fact, nearly every Reformed theologian from the Reformation to the turn of the 20th century agrees with this perspective.
thank you btw for the grace you’ve showed in this conversation. i definitely don’t take that for granted!
March 17, 2008 at 10:29 am
Definitely don’t believe cloning to be moral. I don’t really know of too many people who do.
The Bible also never explicitly condemns abortion (in saying, “thou shalt not abort”
which some pro-aborts tend to cite as a reason to why God isn’t opposed to abortion being legal. Yet they fail to see that all throughout the Bible got upholds the santictity of life.
Cloning is messing with a human soul. Stem cell research is likewise, creating people apart from God’s design for some unknown purpose.
Yet Birth control involves none of this. With non-abortifacient birth control we are not messing with a human life. We are simply trying to prevent a pregnancy from occuring because a child wouldn’t be wise at the moment. There is no destruction of human life in true contraception, therefore we cannot say it violates God’s laws the way cloning would.
I cannot see any explicit statements in the Bible that condemn a man for practicing birth control (aside from the Onan, which was God’s disobedience) or that celebrate a man for refraining from it. God does want us to have children, this is Biblical. He wants us to love our children, raise them the right way, and lead them to him. However, I believe God intentionally left blank how many children he wanted us to have. That is where I believe personal responsibility comes into play.
Many couples before the turn of the 20th century believed in not using birth control, aside from just the reformed theologians, because there was no real method of birth control (other than the Onan method, which isn’t very popular). Also, there was a larger rural community in that day in age. Children were often beneficial to a family in terms of an extra pair of hands to help out. Also, most children were not having any prospect of college, so not many families had that aspiration for their children. Another important topic to consider is that infant mortality and child mortality was much higher in that day in age due to the prevalence of tons of different diseases (which are most often vaccinated for now) and illnesses which were uncurable.
Nowadays the tide has changed significantly. Nearly every baby that is born, thank God, now stands a good chance at living a healthy life for the next 80 years. Vaccines have eliminated the spread of deadly diseases that would take countless children. Our economy, and those economies around us, has transformed from a rural one into a more industrialized economy placing much more emphasis on the white-collar, college-degreed workforce.
I don’t take the grace you’ve shown for granted either. I like being able to talk to someone I can disagree with on one issue civily.
March 17, 2008 at 11:06 am
http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/AskPastorJohn/ByTitle/1440_Does_the_Bible_permit_birth_control/
March 17, 2008 at 1:30 pm
hank, i’d like to see you interact with piper’s discussion of God’s sovereignty over the use of means in the link Jen gave above.
is it possible that your stance is “hyper” on this issue? is “God is sovereign, so He will plan my family apart from my use of means” analagous to “God is sovereign, so He will save people apart from my use of means”?
i can already see a counter-argument, though. evangelism is a biblically-mandated positive injunction whose means are actually delineated in Scripture. “family planning” is nowhere biblically mandated; in fact, the term is misleading because it makes it sound like a positive activity, when in reality is a negation of an activity. no means for family planning are delineated in Scripture.
i don’t know. i’m confused on this issue…
March 17, 2008 at 3:14 pm
MW-
We agree on cloning.
As far as abortion, if we understand (as I’m sure both of us do) that abortion is not something other than murder, rather it is merely a different type of murder (much like drowning, or suffocation), then the Bible does explicitly speak to the issue in saying “Thou shall not kill”. Furthermore, there are some interesting principles laid down in passages such as Exodus 21:22 and following, which further clarify the reality that the unborn are indeed children deserving of protection.
Birth control - You’re correct in so far as birth control does not involve the soul of the child, but of course it involves the souls of the parents, and those are the ones who must shoulder the responsibility of accepting God’s will for their family. The very language of “trying to prevent a pregnancy” is extremely troublesome in regards to the high view of the ‘life’ that you are espousing elsewhere. If life is so precious, and children are such a blessing, and if you conceived despite the use of birth control you would joyfully keep the child — then where is the distinction? It is difficult to see this mindset as anything other than “God, if you find a way around my ‘plans’ then I will trust in you” instead of trusting in his plans from the beginning. Because again — we must not presume upon children, lest they cease bearing their sense of ‘begotten-ness’ from the Father and start bearing a sense of ‘created-ness’ being fashioned in the exercise of our wills.
Bible principles - I don’t have time to elucidate this point here, but suffice it to say that a quick survey through nearly every patriarchal family from Adam to Zacharias saw children as supreme blessings that (and this is of utmost importance) were given to them (ie. conceived) outside of their immediate control. Mary is the greatest of all these examples in that she was on the best birth control known to mankind (abstinence) and still got pregnant! (not that the incarnation will ever happen again) But the point is that biblical revelation paints a very clear picture of Who is in charge of planning families, and it is not the husbands or the wives, it is the Lord God.
Pre-20th century - This is both your weakest and most dangerous point. You are making judgment calls on the “doctrines of family and marriage” of some of the greatest theologians of the Christian church — and it seems, chalking up their differences to mere geography, medical technology, and economics. These men were no dupes, nor were they just ignorant to the possibilities of family planning. Nearly all of the major theological figure heads of Protestantism weighed the balances of birth control and found it wanting. It just won’t do to reject their positions out of hand on the argument of human progress alone. The quote by Luther I posted earlier addresses this fact quite succinctly. If we are to disagree with them, we must first agree reckon with their conclusions.
March 17, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Jen-
Thanks for the interjection. I don’t know how you got passed my spam filter….lol, jk.
Jonnymac-
I’ve been pondering upon the relation of birth control and God’s sovereignty for quite some time - almost since the first day I ever considered the issue. And I actually think the doctrine of God’s sovereignty may be one of the most powerful arguments in opposition to the use of birth control of all my arguments.
Now of course, both camps can claim the support of this doctrine, but like most things, only one of them will be doing justice to the truth and the biblical picture of the family. If there is any “hyper” to be found, it is definitely on the side of birth control advocates whose ever-present argument is that God can bypass their birth control means to accomplish His divine ends if he chooses to do so. But unlike haircuts and farming (as Piper addressed) God never placed mankind under Adam’s dominion. The command in Genesis is to “be fruitful and multiply”. Now whether or not you see this as a command, or permission is beside the point here. What is important is that the “dominion” is not given until later in the verse, and neither fertility in specific or mankind in general is in view there — rather it is everything except dominion over himself - “subdue it [the earth] and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” The very fact that we see God, one chapter later, giving an express command to Adam and Eve should further prove that mankind’s dominion was not intended to be unlimited, rather it was necessarily limited to creation (which is one of many reasons it is a sin to kill a man, and not a sin to kill a calf). And the pattern continues throughout the rest of biblical revelation. From God’s cursing of childbirth (showing once again Who has actually dominion there), to allowing the barren to conceive, and on and on. If we take the Bible at face value, the picture we get is anything but mankind being given control over the ends of procreation or the means whereby God fills the womb. God reserves both for himself, with great intentionality.
Natural families (what I believe)- God is sovereign over all. He opens and closes the womb (Gen 30:2). God gives children as a blessing (Psalm 127:3). He causes the conception of each child and fashions them in the womb (Psalm 139:13-16). He causes the time of delivery and birth for each child (Isaiah 66:9). One of the many (yet indivisible) purposes for marriage is the possibility of bearing children (Gen 1:28). Since man knows this is true from both experience and Genesis 1:28, he has no right to strive against this purpose, either by active (Gen 3
or passive (1 Cor 7) forms of birth control. God’s established means by which he gives us children is the act of sex (by his will), in the context of marriage. By knowing this, and yet intentionally circumventing those means in order to pursue a marital relationship that fits our own purposes and plans, we spurn the sovereign rule of God over our marriages, families, and children.
Pastor Phillip Way has a posted a great resource on this issue entitled, God’s Purpose for Children. He links to a great article by John McArthur entitled, “A Plan for Your Family: God’s vs. the World’s”, as well as Charles Spurgeon’s commentary on Psalm 127, “The Treasury of David”.
March 17, 2008 at 6:02 pm
I think Militarywife may have misunderstood the point about Paul’s spiritual children. Paul did take great responsibility for those God allowed him to lead to Jesus (”spiritual children”, like Timothy, his “son in the faith”). Paul kept writing to them and visiting them all for years, and was emotionally involved in their success or failure in pursuing godliness and their faith in Jesus. So comparing evangelism to having children is a fair analogy, because the responsibility (”burden” in militarywife’s words), according to Paul’s pattern, is similar.
Militarywife, I think you are right when you say God does not want all families to be the same size, small or large. But I think we find out the size our family should be not by the amount of annual income or our chosen lifestyle, but by the amount of children God gives us. This can be a test of faith, but our lives should be formed around God’s sovereignty, not the reverse.
To me, I would not consider birth control an act of pro-active faith, and the most convicting verse in my life is in Romans 14: “whatever is not of faith is sin.” So if all my decisions were really made by that, my life would be radically counter-cultural. I might not be able to afford cable TV, new clothes, my own car, or even my computer once I have the kids God chooses to give me. But I’d rather have what God gives than have normal. There is a long history of God providing for families that logically can’t afford to exist. And sometimes there is hardship, but I trust that is God’s plan for refining individuals. He knows.
I don’t know what it’s like to have kids. I do believe that God is sovereign, that God can open and close the womb, and that He is too good to give me children for which He will not provide.
But I believe there is a lot about Him and His plan for me that I have not learned yet, and that He mercifully blesses me when I try to follow Him in good conscience, like the “weaker Christian” of Romans 14. I thank God that He didn’t teach all the Christians only one little piece of truth at a time.
To God be all glory,
Lisa of Longbourn
May 19, 2008 at 5:39 pm
I find this interesting and I have some questions. Do you think natural family planning is OK and also, what is your opinion on vasectomies? If a woman has 6 kids and she’s 41 and still of childbearing age, yet is sure she doesn’t want more children, do you think it is wrong for her husband to get a vasectomy? I’m just curious of what you think. Also, I believe we are all created with different strengths and weaknesses. As in the body of Christ, some work with children, some are pastors, some council men, etc. Do you think some women are more gifted in the area of childrearing than others? Having a large family takes a gifted woman to fulfill that job and I’m wondering if you think all women are gifted in that area? Thank you for this interesting discussion.
May 19, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Katie-
NFP - I’m still considering the overall implications of this technique, but for the most part I think it fails to answer most of my moral inquires concerning ‘family planning’. The biggest issue that contraception poses is the way it causes us to view children - not first and foremost the technique that is used. NFP is a great answer to the Catholic moral framework, but currently I am not convinced of its adequate answers to the question of the proper dominion of man, and the overall heart of the parents present in my own Reformed Protestant framework. If parents do not value children as gifts from God, then whether they are using technology to take a pill, or using technology to monitor fertility cycles - neither have the proper “heart”, either in principle or in practice.
Vasectomies - Again, the root of this question is not a matter of number of kids or age. We must first answer whether or not God has revealed that we are EVER to permanently sterilize ourselves in the context of marriage. It would be extremely hard for one to reconcile a biblical understanding of children, and yet an intentional rejection of any children the Lord would seek to give you from the natural (and assumed) union of man and wife.
Having the gift of child rearing - Of course, for some women mothering may come more naturally than others. However, as with many things, God may not give the grace for mothering until the ‘actual need’ is there. Feelings of inadequacy are not evidences of a need to ‘family plan’ - rather they are a healthy realization that “unless God builds the house, those who build it labor in vain” (which, btw, is verse 1 of Psalm 127, which continues a few verses later to say:
Although some families may be blessed with more children, no child will ever come into a marriage without the accompanying grace to “bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Eph 6:4). Of that, we can be certain.
May 20, 2008 at 11:48 am
[...] Recently one of my Lawn Gospel readers posted this comment on the post entitled, “Birth Control: The Partly Natural Family, Children Aborted From The Mind“: I find this interesting and I have some questions. Do you think natural family planning is [...]
May 29, 2008 at 1:22 am
God gives gifts. If there is a special giftedness for child-rearing, then He will give the gift of children (or many children) accordingly.
NFP from what I’ve heard contradicts 1 Corinthians 7:5 - “Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.”
To God be all glory,
Lisa of Longbourn
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