Living Dangerously…at Walgreens: What can our Purchases at a Pharmacy Tell us About our Theology?

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An atheist stands in line with his Buddhist wife. Behind them a teenage girl stands by herself, with her boyfriend impatiently waiting in the car. And standing at the end of the line, a Christian couple waits for their turn at the checkout counter.

What brought all these people to their local Walgreens tonight? You guessed it: birth control.

The atheist husband and his Buddhist wife already have three kids, and don’t intend to have anymore. Their finances are already hard-pressed, and they want to have enough time and money to provide the best for their children. For them, birth control provides an easy way to manage their fertility, and steward their resources. Their theology tells them that children are a choice, and a key to self-fulfillment.

The teenage girl started having sex at 15 and has been on the pill for just as long. She loves her boyfriend, and he tells her all the time that he loves her too. But if she gets pregnant, then everyone would know that they’re having sex. If that happened, she has no idea what she would do. A baby would change everything. What about college? All her plans? Vacations? Is abortion even an option? For her, birth control is a way to enjoy the physical and (a kind of distorted understanding of the) relational side of sex, without having to make any sacrifice of her own self-centered plans. Her theology tells her that children are an unfortunate byproduct of sex…unless you’re careful.

And the Christian couple? What about them? They’ve been married for two years. They already talked about this issue in pre-marital counseling, and their pastor told them that contraception was a matter of “Christian liberty”, and that they should take the first two years of marriage just to get to know each other. Besides, the husband’s enrolled in seminary, and she’s working full time to help support them both until he gets his degree. They’d like to have kids later, just not now. For them, birth control helps them lay a foundation for their marriage and ministry, without the added stress of childcare. Their theology tells them that children are always a gift…just not now, and not for them. Their theology tells them that they would absolutely accept the gift of a child, if (and ONLY if) God can find a way around their birth control.

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So what is the over-arching (or should I say, underlying) issue in all of these cases? None of these examples (even, and perhaps especially the Christian couple) can consistently hold their contraceptive theology without doing great harm to a Scriptural doctrine of children. Either children are held to be a “heritage from the Lord” and the fruit of the womb “a reward”, or they are not. Either children are seen as a “gift” that God alone can decide to give or withhold, or they are seen as something less – something more like a punishment for our lack of “know-how” when it comes to controlling sex. If we affirm that Scripture is God’s Word, to God’s people, for all time – then we are bound by that confession to affirm that children must ALWAYS be valued as gifts to be received, rather than burdens to be refused (until we deem fit). God never has and never will contradict himself – and this goes for anything claiming to be “wisdom” as well. Any time we allow something that we do not know for certain (for instance, that it is both wise and within our dominion to separate the relational and procreative aspects of sex) – anytime we allow something like that to usurp and overpower something that we know as an uncompromising Scriptural certainty (that children are, always have been, and always will be “a heritage from the Lord” and a “reward), we have lost our theological bearings. As Christians, it is at this point that we must return to the first things of marriage and family. Doing so however, will be both radical and dangerous.

In a world that is increasingly hostile to children in general, and family in particular, your convictions here will look like something straight out of the 10th century BC… and it’s because they’re actually older than that. Your marriage will look different. It will be one where it is clear to the world that you regard as a reward what God regards as a reward. Your family will look different – even if it does not look larger. The language of gifted-ness will not be lost on you. You will know, both by faith and by sight, that it is God who opens and closes the womb, and no one else. Adoption won’t look like a contradiction in your family, it will look like a natural extension of it. Rather than refusing any children that God would give you naturally, to instead pursue someone else’s natural child — your family will be willing to do both, to the glory of God. They’ll be no ‘accidents’, no ’surprises’ – only, if the Lord wills, the sweet fruit of an open womb.

What will it look like for you tonight? It will look like living dangerously, and walking past the pharmacy on your way to the baby food aisle…to the glory of God.

‘BH

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Filed under Birth Control, Calvinism, Culture, Ethics, Life, Pro-Life, Religion, Scripture, Southern Seminary, Theology

Tags: Adoption, Bible, Birth Control, Children, Christ, Christianity, Contraception, Doctrine, Family, God, Kingdom, Marriage, Protestantism, Reformed Theology, Sex, Stewardship, Wisdom, Worldview