Disclaimer: Because this forum hosts a broad range of people with differing views and many folks aren't even Christians, while I can't limit participation on this thread to sincere, pious believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, I want to declare my target audience from the outset in aiming to solicit other opinions on this.
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This issue of artificial contraception is something I've thought about off and on over the past decade, and I'd like to see where other folks land on this issue.
As someone who has, for the majority of my walk with the Lord, considered himself a Protestant, I find myself considering the sin of Onan and sodomy more broadly as something inherently unfruitful. I can't help but wonder: is coitus interruptus and other forms of contraception a type of sodomy? Or even a type of divorce, if we define divorce as man putting asunder what God has brought together (e.g. divorcing the procreative and unitive aspects of intercourse by using artificial contraception)?
One set of my in-laws were effectively Quiverfull, and this is what originally put me in a headspace to start thinking about this issue. In my life before I knew the Lord, when I lived as a heathen, the pursuit of pleasure was the ultimate goal. It was only according to His mercy that I hadn't fathered dozens of children by the time I finally settled down and got married.
Now that I have the opportunity to pursue plural marriage, I can't help but wonder if this isn't an opportunity to pivot and exalt God as the Sovereign Lord who opens and closes the womb.
In my research about contraception, I was struck by what the Reformers actually taught. Martin Luther called Onan's sin "shameful" and said contraception is "against nature" and "a disgraceful thing." John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 38, wrote that "the Lord will avenge all such frauds" against the procreative purpose of marriage. Heinrich Bullinger stated that "they who use potions or charms that they may not conceive, or that they may bring forth death, are guilty of murder." John Wesley condemned contraception as contrary to God's design. This was the unanimous Protestant position for over three hundred years.
In my research about contraception, it seems even the goalposts around conception have changed post-Lambeth. Life used to be declared as occurring after fertilization, not implantation. Once the point at which life begins was redefined, a lot of modern contraceptives would no longer be considered abortifacients.
The timeline bears this out. The 1930 Lambeth Conference was the first Protestant body to permit contraception, a full thirty years before the Sexual Revolution is typically dated. But widespread acceptance consolidated during the 1950s and 1960s, right as the Pill received FDA approval in 1960. The shift on when life begins followed a similar pattern, moving from fertilization to implantation during the mid-century period. These theological changes did not merely respond to the Sexual Revolution. In many ways, they enabled it.
As my wife learned about how contraception really works, she became troubled by this. It was one of the motivations for a tubal ligation, which honestly might be an even greater sin. While she regrets this decision now, I think she probably only regrets the decision in light of plural marriage becoming more likely, as opposed to a godly sorrow for preferring to choose instead of God when she would get pregnant. This is despite a majority of our children being conceived on contraception. I include this information to make plain my position: while it's easy for God to overrule mankind's puny attempts at asserting procreative autonomy, I'm struggling to see how such resistance would be pleasing to Him.
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TL;DR: If God is sovereign, and we've been commanded to be fruitful and multiply, and He opens and closes the womb, and children are a gift, are we not engaging in sinful unbelief and an unrestrained pursuit of unfruitful pleasure by preventing pregnancies?
_______________________________________________________________________________
This issue of artificial contraception is something I've thought about off and on over the past decade, and I'd like to see where other folks land on this issue.
As someone who has, for the majority of my walk with the Lord, considered himself a Protestant, I find myself considering the sin of Onan and sodomy more broadly as something inherently unfruitful. I can't help but wonder: is coitus interruptus and other forms of contraception a type of sodomy? Or even a type of divorce, if we define divorce as man putting asunder what God has brought together (e.g. divorcing the procreative and unitive aspects of intercourse by using artificial contraception)?
One set of my in-laws were effectively Quiverfull, and this is what originally put me in a headspace to start thinking about this issue. In my life before I knew the Lord, when I lived as a heathen, the pursuit of pleasure was the ultimate goal. It was only according to His mercy that I hadn't fathered dozens of children by the time I finally settled down and got married.
Now that I have the opportunity to pursue plural marriage, I can't help but wonder if this isn't an opportunity to pivot and exalt God as the Sovereign Lord who opens and closes the womb.
In my research about contraception, I was struck by what the Reformers actually taught. Martin Luther called Onan's sin "shameful" and said contraception is "against nature" and "a disgraceful thing." John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 38, wrote that "the Lord will avenge all such frauds" against the procreative purpose of marriage. Heinrich Bullinger stated that "they who use potions or charms that they may not conceive, or that they may bring forth death, are guilty of murder." John Wesley condemned contraception as contrary to God's design. This was the unanimous Protestant position for over three hundred years.
In my research about contraception, it seems even the goalposts around conception have changed post-Lambeth. Life used to be declared as occurring after fertilization, not implantation. Once the point at which life begins was redefined, a lot of modern contraceptives would no longer be considered abortifacients.
The timeline bears this out. The 1930 Lambeth Conference was the first Protestant body to permit contraception, a full thirty years before the Sexual Revolution is typically dated. But widespread acceptance consolidated during the 1950s and 1960s, right as the Pill received FDA approval in 1960. The shift on when life begins followed a similar pattern, moving from fertilization to implantation during the mid-century period. These theological changes did not merely respond to the Sexual Revolution. In many ways, they enabled it.
As my wife learned about how contraception really works, she became troubled by this. It was one of the motivations for a tubal ligation, which honestly might be an even greater sin. While she regrets this decision now, I think she probably only regrets the decision in light of plural marriage becoming more likely, as opposed to a godly sorrow for preferring to choose instead of God when she would get pregnant. This is despite a majority of our children being conceived on contraception. I include this information to make plain my position: while it's easy for God to overrule mankind's puny attempts at asserting procreative autonomy, I'm struggling to see how such resistance would be pleasing to Him.
_______________________________________________________________________________
TL;DR: If God is sovereign, and we've been commanded to be fruitful and multiply, and He opens and closes the womb, and children are a gift, are we not engaging in sinful unbelief and an unrestrained pursuit of unfruitful pleasure by preventing pregnancies?
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