Contraception and Protestantism?

[Roy5]

** Sexual abstinence in marriage sounds good, but it is quite unrealistic** as most married couples will testify. Loving husbands and wives can find themselves in romantic situations quite easily and marital relations can follow. I’m sure all of us who have married can attest to that.

** Modern medicine has given us the benefit of quite reliable birth control,** not to be confused with anything that induces abortion. Why is it so sinful to use it? And this idea that there is something admirable in marital abstinence strikes me as rather silly. One of the great joys, bondings, releases, expressions of affection, and spontaneous love-making involves marital relations. This can be undermined if there is anxiety about possible pregnancy.

** I doubt if the Church changes its mind because it has painted itself into a corner. **Instead, more and more Catholics simply ignore the teaching and thereby learn to ignore other declarations of the Church. Herein lies one major explanation for the mushrooming of both cafeteria Catholics and Catholics who leave the Church altogether.

** The Church needs to throw off the chains that still shackle it to the ancient past and move carefully but courageously into the world of today. There is nothing in scripture to suggest that artificial birth control is evil. That Onan story is irrelevant as well as thoroughly bizarre.
**
Genocide was practiced by the ancient Israelites against its enemies, when thousands of infants, in and out of the womb, were murdered, See the Bible - stories involving Joshua, Saul and David especially. If Christians are supposed to believe that God blessed and even ordered these massacres, using artificial birth control is nothing in comparison.
**Let husbands and wives decide how to conduct their love-making**. Puritanism that tries to regulate such personal matters is misplaced, whether pushed by Catholicism or evangelical Protestantism. Gosh, we consider King Solomon so wise, and regularly quote his wisdom at mass, a man who had 700 wives and 300 concubines, but rush to condemn loving and monogamous couples who want to engage in family planning.

 

[manualman]

Perhaps Protestants all opposed artificial birth control. I don’t know, but I tend to doubt it. I’m aware that that is the line provided - that the Anglicans were the first to permit it. But how much birth control was there 75 or more years ago? The pill didn’t come along until when - 1970s? The methods then were usually crude and unreliable at best.

Ah, Roy! You’re making the classic mistake of drawing conclusions without having done the homework. Contraception is ANCIENT! You can still today buy condoms made from sheep intestines and that practice is older than the written word. Romans used crude medicines and even IUDs to prevent pregnancy. The reason people like you think that it was a new discovery in the 1960’s is precisely because christendom had previously done such a good job for centuries of shaping the culture to reject these things as violations of God’s beautiful design for human sexual intimacy.

And PLEASE give up on the tired canard that lack of the pill means 12 kids per family. It is not hard to look up the fact that urban families in wealthier communities have always been smaller than those in rural or poverty stricken communities (the exception often being a generation or two when families transition from rural or poor to wealthy and urban). In the last 10 centuries, this was NOT accomplished via potions and condoms, but through the virtues of comprehending fertility. Humans, contrary to ignorant modern urban sensibilities are mammals. The human female’s fertile cycle produces symptoms that can be recognized. All it takes then is a bit of self-control to avoid pregnancy when prudence warrants it.

My wife and I have never used artificial contraception in 12 years of marriage, have only 3 kids and none were “oopsies.” It just takes more work than popping a pill a day. Small price to pay to avoid denigrating the meaning of sexual intimacy and mutilating the sexual ecosystem God designed for us: marriage, intimacy and babies, all mixed up together in one beautiful package.

You couldn’t be more wrong in your conclusion. After the dust settles and the wreckage is cleaned up, history will be forced to conclude that Humanae Vitae was the proudest moment in 20th Century catholicism. Catholic teaching stood alone, founded on the firm rock as the receding tide of a dying culture washed away everything built on sand. Watch and see.

 

[Roy5]

Wealthier people usually are better educated, better informed, more likely to know about modern means of birth control, more likely and able to purchase birth control and in urban areas find birth control more accessible. Studies have shown that when a society becomes more affluent and better educated there are fewer and fewer large families.

  I have nothing against large families, by the way. I simply argue that husbands and wives, parents of children, have the right and responsibility to plan families that they can properly feed, finance, and care for. As stated already, when there were large farm families years ago they could usually feed them off the land. Moreover, they needed farm hands to help, usually lost some children because of disease, and when Mom and Dad became old they didn't have Social Security. etc., so depended on one or two successful offspring to care for them during their old age. All that has changed.

  Those who want to abide by the Church method of preventing pregnancy, fine. The idea that couples should not have marital relations for the joy of it, and as an expression of their love alone - that idea strikes me as puritanical at best.

 

[manualman]

Wealthier people usually are better educated, better informed, more likely to know about modern means of birth control, more likely and able to purchase birth control and in urban areas find birth control more accessible. Studies have shown that when a society becomes more affluent and better educated there are fewer and fewer large families.

…

Those who want to abide by the Church method of preventing pregnancy, fine. The idea that couples should not have marital relations for the joy of it, and as an expression of their love alone - that idea strikes me as puritanical at best.

If you actually read those studies you will find that those smaller families of the wealthy and well educated extend FAR back before the advent of the pill, the manufacture of latex and into the times when society at large considered contraception distasteful at best. It is only in the last century that humans have forgotten that we are mammals. Back when even wealthy urbanites lived closer to the land and knew the basics of mammalian husbandry, it wasn’t too hard to figure out how to apply them in the bedroom.

I find it absurd that you claim refusal to accept contraception means that they can’t have relations for the sheer joy of it. It is the deliberate sterilization of a particular time that God made fertile in the very nature of a human being that is wrong, and it is wrong precisely because taking that act changes what sex IS for that couple. It becomes a behavior utterly unrelated to procreation, which is simply a form of telling a lie with one’s body. Contracepting sex doesn’t just cut off the ability to make babies, it damages the exchange of love between husband and wife as well. These are not separate topics. You can’t destroy one without damaging both. The couple who abstains during the fertile time for serious reasons acknowledges that element of what sexuality is in the breach, thus preserving the whole spectrum of human sexuality even when they are together in the times the God made infertile.

The difference is all around you in our culture. Open those eyes!

P.S. A protestant calling a catholic “puritanical.” LOL. That was your issue, not ours!

 

[Roy5]

** It always has struck me odd that the Church approves of deliberately avoiding pregnancy by following the woman’s cycle**. but when artificial birth control is used it becomes a major sin. The goal is the very same. Somehow isn’t ‘God’s will’ resisted in either case - assuming, of course, that God wants the couple to have a baby at that time.

** I have stated from time to time that I come from a mixed religious heritage** (paternal, Catholic forebearers, maternal, Protestant forebearers). As a result I’ve been very interested in ecumenism - not union but unity, a spirit of mutual respect.
**
It’s true that I now bend toward mainline Protestantism because I treasure the freedom to weigh doctrines and practices **and resist the insistence of any church that it alone is the one true faith. I have come to believe that Christ, who lifted up the Good Samaritan to heroism and spoke with the Samaritan woman against the customs of that era, would never look down on sincere and decent people of different faiths, whether they be Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox - or, for that matter, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh. Jain. Jewish, Mormon, and we could go on and on.

** Perhaps I’m a Matt. 25:31ff Christian, more concerned with love of God and love of one another than with infallible doctrines or scriptures** or with precise rituals and liturgies. That’s where I’ve arrived at after much study and thought. I’ve also been concerned with the influences of ancient paganism upon Christianity. Call it what you will, but I resist believing the unbelievable, though I respect people who (in my view) do just that.

** None of us has much insight when it comes to this vast and mysterious **universe with maybe a million or more solar systems. God is simply beyond our human understanding, and that’s why the Lord merits our awe and respect. Religious folks (God love 'em) can be arrogant in their claims, when what we need is humility in his divine presence.
**But God bless Catholics, Protestants and all his children** of every creed, color, culture and country. May they dwell together in harmony. I believe that this is the will of Christ.

 

[manualman]

** It always has struck me odd that the Church approves of deliberately avoiding pregnancy by following the woman’s cycle**. but when artificial birth control is used it becomes a major sin. The goal is the very same. Somehow isn’t ‘God’s will’ resisted in either case - assuming, of course, that God wants the couple to have a baby at that time.

That’s because it isn’t necessarily the GOAL that is immoral. The goal of taking your family to Disney World isn’t immoral either. But robbing a gas station to pay for it is. Morality involves evaluating both the ends and the means. God’s will is that we respect and partake of the full spectrum of human sexuality, not fundamentally modify it for our own desires.

I can understand why some folks find it “arrogant” for a church to teach authoritatively on matters of faith and morals, even if I don’t agree. I believe it to be a mercy given by God to a humanity capable of rationalizing literally anything. I wonder if you have considered the arrogance of assuming that we can mess with the very nature of sexuality as we comprehended all its subtleties and wonders?

 

[waxwing]

Manualman’s post clearly outlines the difficulties that have arisen in our culture, all traceable back to the acceptance of birth control, hence the separation and disintegration of the sanctity of marriage and the devaluation of a human being’s worth. We are all made in God’s image and likeness, endowed with body mind and spirit, a unified whole person. the separation that has occurred as a direct result of chemical and artificial means has caused the objectification of women as sex objects to be used for pleasure alone. women have been duped into believeing that birth control frees them to indulge in sexual activity without consequence. The price they are paying is huge. Just look around at all the lost and lonely young people, who continually search for ways to fill the void in their lives. Multiple sexual partners, sometime even within the same day and what exactly is this accomplishing? If this is freedom, please lock me up now. Men, too, for all their macho braggingof conquests are also totally lost and miserable. We are made for more than this. Jesus calls us to be holy, just as His heavely Father is holy. Birth control is an evil that is destroying our civilization. Marriage is falling by the wayside, children are growing up with little guidance in their one parent homes, and the public schools are operating with an agenda to normalize aberrant lifestyles and silence any Christian who dares to speak out. All this began with the acceptance of birth control and is traceable back to 1930…

Although I wouldn’t go so far as saying Birth Control is destroying our society - contributing to its decay yes, But with that quibble,** you**, manualman and L piperatus have posted far more eloquently and competently than I could have managed on this issue. I do think it does trivialize sex, like its just another human activity, turn it into a commodity and lastly elevate “desire” and “pleasure” to an unhealthy status. Also, although the CC has the right teaching (imo of course) on this the fact that it is rarely adhered to and equally rarely spoken of in homilies and such I think Catholic’s can take no joy in indicating “we’re right, they’re wrong” on this issue. Lastly I can see, like Marie_Gregg wrote in her thoughtful post that they’re are grey areas especially when one goes from the theoretical to the everyday life practical. But overall Birth Control has had consequences, intended and unintended that have done more harm then good.

 

[Dominique1234]

Cafeteria Catholics are definitely the majority

I’d like to see them be the minority. Unfortunately, the majority of most christians are all on lunch in the cafeteria… it’s the world we live in. Greed, lust, all those Capital sins people don’t realize they are committing make it so, trying to justify their sins by ‘watering their faiths down’ as I like to put it.

 

[Dominique1234]

I can’t help but recall the Republican (Rick Santorum’s) donor who joked that in his youth, ladies practiced birth control by holding a Bayer Aspirin tablet between their knees!

The joke was totally lost on the TV host, who apparently didn’t get it that her guest was simply alluding to sexual abstinence! :doh2: He could’ve as well said, speaking to a young man, “You, Sir, keep your pants on, and that’s the best birth control!”

I mean, hey, keep your knees together (for ladies), keep your pants on, and you won’t end up getting pregnant/impregnating anyone! Folks, this is not rocket science! :doh2:

Amen to THAT!!!

 

[Dominique1234]

** Sexual abstinence in marriage sounds good, but it is quite unrealistic** as most married couples will testify. Loving husbands and wives can find themselves in romantic situations quite easily and marital relations can follow. I’m sure all of us who have married can attest to that.

Absolutely agree with you on this point. As you clearly mentioned earlier about the lady with 12 children… abstinence could have possibly helped them in this case? The Catholic Church has and will never teach that the more children you have the better.

** Modern medicine has given us the benefit of quite reliable birth control,** not to be confused with anything that induces abortion. Why is it so sinful to use it? And this idea that there is something admirable in marital abstinence strikes me as rather silly. One of the great joys, bondings, releases, expressions of affection, and spontaneous love-making involves marital relations. This can be undermined if there is anxiety about possible pregnancy.

Using birth control is playing God. It is also selfish and allows a married couple to have sex when ever they want without dealing with the consequences (babies), which the Catholic Church teaches that copulation=procreation. “Man shall leave his…” you know where I’m going with this.

** I doubt if the Church changes its mind because it has painted itself into a corner. **Instead, more and more Catholics simply ignore the teaching and thereby learn to ignore other declarations of the Church. Herein lies one major explanation for the mushrooming of both cafeteria Catholics and Catholics who leave the Church altogether.

Society and watering things down as you are doing is the culprit. Not the Catholic Church.

** The Church needs to throw off the chains that still shackle it to the ancient past **and move carefully but courageously into the world of today. There is nothing in scripture to suggest that artificial birth control is evil. That Onan story is irrelevant as well as thoroughly bizarre.

God doesn’t change, nor does His rules. That’s what the Catholic Church teaches unchanged. Sorry buddy. You’re wrong to make uneducated comments such as these.

** Genocide was practiced by the ancient Israelites against its enemies**, when thousands of infants, in and out of the womb, were murdered, See the Bible - stories involving Joshua, Saul and David especially. If Christians are supposed to believe that God blessed and even ordered these massacres, using artificial birth control is nothing in comparison.

Are men not allowed to sin? Where does free will fit in here? Do you think God was proud of this? You’re obviously taking what is said out of context. Where in the Bible do you see the perfect man? Oh, wait Jesus Christ. The one and only perfect man.

 **Let husbands and wives decide how to conduct their love-making**. Puritanism that tries to regulate such personal matters is misplaced, whether pushed by Catholicism or evangelical Protestantism. Gosh, we consider King Solomon so wise, and regularly quote his wisdom at mass, a man who had 700 wives and 300 concubines, but rush to condemn loving and monogamous couples who want to engage in family planning.

It’s not family planning, and FAR from Natural Family Planning, when God is put to the side and unnatural objects and pills are put into play to ‘avoid’ a pregnancy. This isn’t being open to life. I agree with you that what happens in someone’s bedroom, keep it there. But you’re morally wrong by taking a bite out of the Catholic Church or protestant faiths that still keep to God’s teaching on this matter to think that it’s their rules. It’s God’s rules. Don’t shoot the messenger so that ‘people’ can justify their sins.

Margaret Sanger. Ever heard of her? Google her name and quotes she stated. She also wanted one race, and to kill off all black people. Let me quote her.

“[Our objective is] unlimited sexual gratification without the burden
of unwanted children … [Women must have the right] to live … to love
… to be lazy … to be an unmarried mother … to create … to destroy
… The marriage bed is the most degenerative influence in the social order
… The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members
is to kill it.”
– Margaret Sanger (editor). The Woman Rebel , Volume I, Number 1.
Reprinted in Woman and the New Race . New York: Brentanos Publishers,
1922.

 

[Roy5]

Dominique

 1. One can argue that we 'play God' all the time with modern medicine. Somebody's heart stops and we start it again. We lengthen lives by transplanting organs. One might even say that deliberately having marital relations only according to the calendar is 'playing God'. Why don't we just let God determine how many children we should have? Etc.

 2. You seem to have missed my point. God commanded Joshua to slaughter everyone in Jericho and God ordered Saul to murder every living Amalekite. Does this sound anything like out God? Not to me. Yet, that's what the Bible clearly says. I don't believe for a second that the Lord demanded that the ancient Hebrew commit mass genocide. That is one of the reasons I do not believe the Bible is inerrant.

 3.  There are church rules and then there are church rules. When I was a kid it was viewed as a major sin to even enter a Protestant church. Protestants were heretics. If a Protestant married a Catholic the Protestant had to sign a document that the children would be raised Catholic. Etc. Along came John XXIII and Vatican II and in the twinkling of an eye we had ecumenical services in Protestant churches and they were no longer heretics, but, alas, separated brothers and sisters. Annulments were very rare, and now they are many thousands annually. The Church has changed again and again. Read its history. The doctrine of Papal Infallibility wasn't defined until 1864. The Assumption of Mary wasn't defined until 1950. By the way, I was in Rome as a student at that time, and had an audience with Pius XII. I also have heard (in person, that is) Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI (at Yankee Stadium 2 years ago). Please refrain from suggesting that I am 'uneducated' in this field, as you seem to suggest. Because our opinions differ doesn't mean that either of us is ignorant of the facts. We assess them differently.

 4, Of course I've heard of Margaret Sanger. I certainly do not endorse her positions, as quoted. I've read somewhere that many quotes attributed to her have been fabricated or taken out of context to distort them, but I'm not an authority on that subject.

 

[David]

It seems that cafeteria Catholics and Protestants spend too much time justifying sins, instead of trying to really find out why the Catholic Church teaches certain doctrines.

Couples that practice NFP have a divorce rate of less that 2%.

Peace
David

 

[exoflare]

It seems that cafeteria Catholics and Protestants spend too much time justifying sins, instead of trying to really find out why the Catholic Church teaches certain doctrines.

ya think?