How to explain NFP to a Protestant

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Hi all,

I’m looking for tips on how to explain why the Catholic Church condemns contraception and allows NFP to a Protestant. She’s about to get married and has questions about it. I’m just not good on these apologetics questions. 🙂

Thanks for your help!
 
mizznicole said:
Hi all,

I’m looking for tips on how to explain why the Catholic Church condemns contraception and allows NFP to a Protestant. She’s about to get married and has questions about it. I’m just not good on these apologetics questions. 🙂

Thanks for your help!
Click to expand...
Easy.
Good News About Sex and Marriage
by Christopher West

Tell her what constitutes a Sacramental Marriage.

Full, total, faithful, and fruitful

How Christ is our Bridegroom and gave Himself
fully, totally, faithfully and fruitfully for us.

How the cross has been called the nuptial bed by the mystics of the Church.

The Theology of the Body explains the Nuptial meaning of our bodies.

The marital embrace is the consummation of our vows to love our spouse fully, totally, faithfully, and fruitfully.

When you withhold a MAJOR part of yourself, then you are not being TOTAL self gift in your marriage.

God is the Author and Giver of new life.
When you exclude Him from the bedroom, you are taking matters of creation into your own hands, and are excluding the will of God.

God cares more about your heart and being open to His will.

Often times, couples enter into a marriage expecting to contracept when in their heart of hearts, they know they don’t want to bring children into the world with the person they are marrying, they just don’t know why, and they think they will change their minds.

www.christopherwest.com
 
Thank you. That’s a good start.

The argument that I have a hard time with is against using contraception for child spacing. I think Evangelicals see contraception like any other technology - it can be used for good or bad. The bad, in this case, is using it so you can sleep around.

But I think they see it as possible to use contraception “prayerfully” within marriage to space or limit children.

Any Evangelicals out there who can respond?
 
mizznicole said:
Thank you. That’s a good start.

The argument that I have a hard time with is against using contraception for child spacing. I think Evangelicals see contraception like any other technology - it can be used for good or bad. The bad, in this case, is using it so you can sleep around.

But I think they see it as possible to use contraception “prayerfully” within marriage to space or limit children.

Any Evangelicals out there who can respond?
Click to expand...
These are the best sections in the Catechism that will answer those questions… read over them a few times…
2368
A particular aspect of this responsibility concerns the regulation of procreation. For just reasons, spouses may wish to space the births of their children. It is their duty to make certain that their desire is not motivated by selfishness but is in conformity with the generosity appropriate to responsible parenthood. Moreover, they should conform their behavior to the objective criteria of morality:
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Code: 
    When it is a question of harmonizing married love with the responsible transmission of life, the morality of the behavior does not depend on sincere intention and evaluation of motives alone; but it must be determined by objective criteria, criteria drawn from the nature of the person and his acts, criteria that respect the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love; this is possible only if the virtue of married chastity is practiced with sincerity of heart.156
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2369
"By safeguarding both these essential aspects, the unitive and the procreative, the conjugal act preserves in its fullness the sense of true mutual love and its orientation toward man’s exalted vocation to parenthood."157
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2370
Periodic continence, that is, the methods of birth regulation based on self-observation and the use of infertile periods, is in conformity with the objective criteria of morality.158 These methods respect the bodies of the spouses, encourage tenderness between them, and favor the education of an authentic freedom. In contrast, “every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible” is intrinsically evil:159
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Code: 
    Thus the innate LANGUAGE that expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is overlaid, through contraception, by an objectively contradictory LANGUAGE, namely, that of not giving oneself totally to the other. This leads not only to a positive refusal to be open to life but also to a falsification of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality. . . . The difference, both anthropological and moral, between contraception and recourse to the rhythm of the cycle . . . involves in the final analysis two irreconcilable concepts of the human person and of human sexuality.160
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mizznicole said:
Thank you. That’s a good start.

The argument that I have a hard time with is against using contraception for child spacing. I think Evangelicals see contraception like any other technology - it can be used for good or bad. The bad, in this case, is using it so you can sleep around.

But I think they see it as possible to use contraception “prayerfully” within marriage to space or limit children.

Any Evangelicals out there who can respond?
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If you don’t mind, I am an evangelical convert. I was of the contraceptive mentality and tried to work that out from an evangelical perspective for years.

Scripture says that abstaining for a while and giving yourself over to prayer for a time is okay in marriage. 1 Cor. 7

ALL protestant faiths were against contraception until the last two generations.

Here’s what Pope Paul wrote about Responsible “Spacing” of Children when he wrote Humanae Vitae

vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html

Here’s how John Paul II expanded and fleshed out Humanae Vitae:
ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP840801.htm

Here’s where you can get a free cohesive argument that sums up Catholic teaching from both of these Popes in order to share with your friend.

omsoul.com/catalog/1-free-copy-of-contraception-why-not-p531.html

Any evangelical will see the wisdom behind the honest teachings of the Catholic Church, if it is presented well. Dr. Janet Smith does a phenomenal job. Before I converted, I knew several evangelical married friends who converted from the contraceptive mentality.
 
mizznicole said:
But I think they see it as possible to use contraception “prayerfully” within marriage to space or limit children.

Any Evangelicals out there who can respond?
Click to expand...
Scripture says that when you regard iniquity in your heart the Lord will not hear you.

Contraception promotes lustful marriages where the couple uses one another for sexual gratification. A couple that balances their sexuality and includes God in their decisions, will learn to periodically abstain and exercise self control over their bodies, so that when they do come together in the marital embrace it is about loving one another and giving themselves as a total self gift, rather than just gratifying their sexual appetites.

Order the free CD for your friend. You can even listen on line here:

blog.ancient-future.net/2008/03/21/contraception-why-not-mp3s-by-dr-janet-smith/
 
mizznicole said:
Hi all,

I’m looking for tips on how to explain why the Catholic Church condemns contraception and allows NFP to a Protestant. She’s about to get married and has questions about it. I’m just not good on these apologetics questions. 🙂

Thanks for your help!
Click to expand...
Focus on the fact that God has already designed our bodies in such a way that we can work with Him (instead of against Him) in our family planning.

Because of how our bodies are designed, we don’t have to thwart God’s action in our bodies through the use of chemicals and artificial devices. We can actually work with God, prayerfully and consciously, to follow His will for our families, instead of worrying that God might be about to give us a child, and then taking steps to prevent Him from doing so.
 
mizznicole said:
The argument that I have a hard time with is against using contraception for child spacing. I think Evangelicals see contraception like any other technology - it can be used for good or bad. The bad, in this case, is using it so you can sleep around.
Click to expand...
How about this:
**
Evangelicals have a 51% divorce rate.
Couples who use NFP have 3% divorce rate.**

(Because God is the third Member in their union.)

These stats are corroborated in Janet Smith’s newest CD, I think, and also I got them from a presentation on the the Creighton Method Fertility Care.

creightonmodel.com/
 
Just tell them that NFP is simply a non-chemical and non-barrier method of birth control. It doesn’t seek to allow God control in when one has children, it simply makes those who are practicing it feel a little more superior about it.

Now, that is a little harsh on purpose. No, I don’t really think that NFP couples all feel superior, but the evidence on many posts suggests that a good deal do.

NFP has the advantage of not being an abortion agent like the pill and IUD. It doesn’t pollute the woman’s body with artificial hormones and it doesn’t place an artificial barrier between the two people, but at its core, it is just another form of Birth Control.

NFP is not letting God bless us with children when He will, it is about exerting our control over the situation. It just does so in a manner not judged sinful by the Catholic church.

We should never confuse NFP and ABC with being truly open to life. As the most hardcore NFP people will tell you, NFP is far more reliable than ABC when done correctly.
 
I am protestant, and this is why I changed to NFP.

I was on the pill about 2 years, and was constantly changing which pill I was taking because I never felt like myself on them. It’s kinda hard to explain, but I was more edgy, depressed, had no sex drive and was generally not my normal self. It’s not totally surprising because the pill is a hormone, and alters your normal hormones and effects your moods. Anyway, I was getting tired of always feeling that way, and complaining to an Anglican friend of mine, and she gave me the “Taking Charge of your fertility” book. It was amazing.

My husband and I use NFP and less than two weeks after stopping the pill, my husband commented on how much happier I was now, he also liked that I had my sex drive back, and apparently it also made my skin softer.

Anyway, as a protestant, I’m a big believer in NFP. It helps foster better communication between partners and is much better for your health.

On that note, NFP works only in a solid commited marriage where both partners want to work together. It is not a good option if you are throwing all morals to the wind. I am not against ABC, as long as it doens’t harm a fertilized egg, and if someone is not going to wait until marriage I would recommend ABC, but in a commited marriage, I’d recommend NFP over ABC any day.
 
After reading about NFP here on CAF, I started charting about 2.5 months ago. Here’s an excerpt from how I described it to my female friends (none of them are Catholic and most are not Christian – and at least two women were interested after reading this from me!):

I went off birth control to start learning Natural Family Planning, or the Fertility Awareness Method. It’s not “Catholic birth control,” it’s knowing what’s going on with your body enough to say, “Yes, I’m fertile today, we should/should not have sex” or “No, I won’t be fertile for another five days, we should/should not have sex.” You chart your basal body temperature, the quality of your cervical mucus, and the changes in your cervix, and the combination of all three tells you when you’re close to ovulation and when you’ve just ovulated. It is fascinating, and really empowering.

I’m not learning this just because of the Catholic Church’s view on birth control. I’m learning it because after hearing some about it, I got curious, and now I’m wondering why I’d never heard of it before. I’m learning how my body works, and why it does some of the things it does. I now know more about my body than my gyno does! I don’t want to have to worry about birth control failing, which has happened to three women I know – if NFP is followed TO THE LETTER, it won’t fail because you’re not having sex while you’re fertile. Also, if/when I get married, I want to be able to conceive right off the bat and not have to wait six months for my body to normalize, which can happen when coming off birth control.
 
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