Orthodox accept artificial contraception?

[L_piperatus]

What is the sin in Genesis 38? It cannot be failure to raise up children for a dead brother, because Deuteronomy 25 gives the punishment for that and it is not death. So, why did God kill Onan? Because he spilled his seed.

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IF, Onanism refers to masturbation, why is it wrong? You seem to imply that Onanism is masturbation, but that is not in the account anywhere. Onan’s sin was spilling his seed.

If Genesis 38:10 does not address Onan’s sin as “spilling his seed”, then what is his sin? Historically, the Christian Church has always used Genesis 38 as a prohibition of contraception. In the 1930’s the Episcopalian Church broke away from that teaching, the rest of the protestant world followed. Now it seems that the Eastern Orthodox may be considering this option.

In addition to Deuteronomy 25, let’s look at the full story in Genesis 38 - particularly Er’s and Onan’s younger brother Shelah - verses 14 and 26 quoted from vatican.va/archive/ENG0839/__P14.HTM :

1. …although Shelah was now grown up, she [Tamar] had not been given to him in marriage.
2. …[Judah] said, “She [Tamar] is more in the right than I am, since I did not give her to my son Shelah.”

The point is, after Er’s death, Onan committed the great offense of having contraceptive sex with his older brother’s widow Tamar, and therefore God killed Onan in punishment for his offense. When it came to Er’s other brother Shelah, however, Judah did not give Tamar to him in marriage and thus, like Onan, Shelah also failed to conceive offspring with Tamar. This was a smaller offense, but neither Judah nor Shelah were killed by God for this offense. Since Judah and Shelah were not killed, but Onan was, that gives additional evidence that Onan’s great offense which merited punishment by death wasn’t his failure to conceive a child with Tamar, but rather the fact that he abused her and disrespected her by having contraceptive sex with her. And today is the same as thousands of years ago: contraceptive sex is abusive and disrespectful, it makes a mockery out of the full and total self-giving of the spouses to each other.