Warning: This post got a little long, because I wanted to try to address a lot of things here instead of within comments :) It’s a busy weekend, but part two regarding Christian marriage and a more theological view will come as soon as I get a chance…
Part One: History and Scripture
Most people think Catholics are crazy for not using birth control. (Okay, let me qualify that: the Catholic Church teaches that you shouldn’t use birth control. Most Catholics do in fact use it.) There’s even a joke that NFP stands for “Not For Protestants.” Not so! In fact, until 1930 all churches, Protestant and Catholic alike, believed contraception was a sin. (Catholic/Protestant similarities regarding birth control: http://www.nfpandmore.org/notjustfor.shtml.)
But let me back up. Let’s start with the Bible.
In the Bible, children are always viewed as gifts from God. Fertile women are blessed; infertile women are “cursed.” I think you all are quite familiar with this concept, but I’ll throw out a few references for you about this: (More scriptural references here: 1)
Be fruitful and multiply. Genesis 1:28, 9:1, 7, 35:11, and so on.
Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your children will be like olive shoots around your table. Lo, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord. Psalm 128:3-4. (Fruitfulness is a blessing; see also Genesis 24:60, 28:3, Exodus 23:25-26, Deuteronomy 7:12-14, etc.)
But she [women in general] will be saved through motherhood, provided women persevere in faith and love and holiness, with self-control. 1 Timothy 2:15
It’s true that Jesus never explicitly said “Don’t use contraception.” (Then again, he never said a lot of things explicitly that we all acknowledge to be in line with his teachings!) The closest we come to this in the Bible is the story of the Sin of Onan in Genesis 38. In a nutshell, Onan prevented impregnation by withdrawing, and God killed him for it. There were other people in the story, too, but Onan was the only one who was killed, because he was the only one who actually tried the do the act but nullify it. (I’m not the best Biblical scholar, so feel free to not take my word for it. You can read more about it here for example: 2.) And what have Protestant leaders said about this?
Martin Luther: "[T]he exceedingly foul deed of Onan, the basest of wretches . . . is a most disgraceful sin. It is far more atrocious than incest and adultery. We call it unchastity, yes, a sodomitic sin. For Onan goes in to her; that is, he lies with her and copulates, and when it comes to the point of insemination, spills the semen, lest the woman conceive. Surely at such a time the order of nature established by God in procreation should be followed. Accordingly, it was a most disgraceful crime. . . . Consequently, he deserved to be killed by God. He committed an evil deed. Therefore, God punished him."
John Calvin: "The voluntary spilling of semen outside of intercourse between man and woman is a monstrous thing. Deliberately to withdraw from coitus in order that semen may fall on the ground is doubly monstrous. For this is to extinguish the hope of the race and to kill before he is born the hoped-for offspring."
John Wesley: "Those sins that dishonor the body are very displeasing to God, and the evidence of vile affections. Observe, the thing which he [Onan] did displeased the Lord—and it is to be feared; thousands, especially of single persons, by this very thing, still displease the Lord, and destroy their own souls."
Charles Provan (Evangelical Protestant investigating contraception, 1989): “We have found not one orthodox theologian to defend Birth Control before the 1900s. NOT ONE! On the other hand, we have found that many highly regarded Protestant theologians were enthusiastically opposed to it, all the way back to the very beginning of the Reformation.”
So now for a bit of history. In the 1860s, the neo-Malthusians started promoting contraception (I know, you thought it started in the 1960s!). In 1873, a Protestant reformer passed the Comstock laws, a series of laws against the sale and distribution of contraceptives. They “were passed by essentially Protestant legislatures for a basically Protestant America.”3 The Church of England also reaffirmed their traditional teaching against contraception in 1908 and 1920. Margaret Sanger came along (let’s not get started on her), and the Church of England finally caved in 1930. This was the first time EVER that unnatural birth control was permitted by a Christian group. In the US in 1931, a committee of the Federal Council of Churches made a similar statement, despite dire warnings from their members. Immediate responses:
[The Federal Council of Churches]’s recent pronouncement of birth control should be enough reason, if there were no other, to withdraw support from that body, which declares that it speaks for the Presbyterian and other Protestant churches in ex cathedra statements. The Presbyterian
Carried to its logical conclusion, the committee’s report [to allow marital contraception] if carried into effect would sound the death-knell of marriage as a holy institution, by establishing degrading practices which would encourage indiscriminate immorality. The suggestion that the use of legalized contraceptives would be “careful and restrained” is preposterous. Editorial in the Washington Post, March 22, 1931
Birth control, as popularly understood today and involving the use of contraceptives, is one of the most repugnant of modern aberrations, representing a 20th century renewal of pagan bankruptcy. Dr. Walter A. Maier, Lutheran theologian
The whole disgusting movement rests on the assumption of man’s sameness with the brutes. Warren Chandler, Methodist Bishop
By the 1950s and 60s, most people had forgotten that Protestants and Catholics were together in adamantly opposing contraception. In the 60s, the pill came on the market. Now it seemed like everyone was for it, and maybe even the Catholic Church! Pope Paul VI set up an advisory commission about it and everything, and those opposing all contraception were actually in the minority! Many people were then shocked when he came out firmly against unnatural forms of birth control. He predicted it would lead to “conjugal infidelity and the general lowering of morality” 4. When Pope John Paul II came along in 1978, people speculated whether he would change this decision. Nope! In fact, he reaffirmed it over and over and over and over again.
So there you have it, the history of Christian thought on contraception, in a nutshell! More to come, but it's time for me to take a break and make supper. Sorry there's not enough time for me to proofread!
1 http://www.scripturecatholic.com/contraception.html
2 http://ccli.org/nfp/morality/bible.php
3 Kippley, John F. and Sheila K. 1996. The Art of Natural Family Planning. Cincinnati, Ohio: The Couple to Couple League International, Inc.
4 http://www.goodmorals.org/smith7.htm
More sources:
http://www.catholic.com/library/Birth_Control.asp
Protestant NFP supporters:
http://www.silentvoices.org/naturalfamilyplanning.html
http://www.sweeterthanhoney.org/
This is part III in a series of five posts. (Yes, I might've gotten a bit carried away.) Here are the others in this series:
Introduction: "NFP - Not just because I want babies!"
Part I: "Reason #1 - Social Health"
Part II: "Reason #2 - Personal Health"
Part IV: "Reason #3 - Spiritual Health (Theology and Christian Marriage)"