Protestants: defend your use of artificial contraception

[benedictus2]

indeed

But some Catholics see heterodoxy as “me-doxy” and like to take advantage of an opportunity to smear Protestantism. Often, it results in the closing of threads. Maybe this thread is showing signs of nearing its end-times.

Which it is.

Where else would hetero derive from but from the different opinons of several “mes”.

And in this murky soup of hetero doxies, which doxy is ortho?

 

[1234]

Don’t ask the Protestants about contraception, which most people in the world practice, or would if they could. Many people unable to get contraception in their contries are begging to have it. Ask the Catholics. The vast majority of Catholics in the US practice contraception. Birth rates for Catholics do not differ significantly from Protestants.

As for the ‘proliferation’ of Christian denominations, actually there are many mergers among them these days. And those that don’t merger are in communion with a number of others. Usually the logistics of a merger may prevent it, rather than any significant difference in doctrine, practice or governance.

 

[BlueShadow123]

Hi Blueshadow123,

You say you are a Christian but your signature shows that you just do not get it.

The purpose of life is NOT a life of purpose. That is just pop psychology trying to be clever.

The purpose of life is to be transformed into the image of Christ. The purpose of life is union with God.

You do realize that NFP doesn’t allow life to come through either?

Because that is also too a birth control method.

So based on what you’re saying, you must be against NFP. Because if they are doing it when life isn’t going to start, or at least the chances are slim.

So you are against ALL birth control methods, including NFP which is having sex when you are infertile which is a form of birthcontrol by not getting pregnant.

 

[TracyR]

No. NFP and ABC are two different things.
NFP is taking the time to chart when you ovulate and then deciding to not have sex at that given time. No barriers are used, no hormones used.

The original post is about Artificial Birth Control not Natural Family Planning.

 

[BlueShadow123]

No. NFP and ABC are two different things.
NFP is taking the time to chart when you ovulate and then deciding to not have sex at that given time. No barriers are used, no hormones used.

The original post is about Artificial Birth Control not Natural Family Planning.

NFP is a form of a way to not get pregnant which does not allow life to happen.

Same thing.

 

[TracyR]

NFP does not separate sex from responsibility. The act of intercourse has a twofold meaning: sharing of love and giving of life. Married persons who perform this act must accept both sides of the coin. While not every marital act will result in a child, it must nevertheless be open to the possibility of life. The act will be “open” to life as long as the spouses do nothing to “close” it. Here’s the difference between artificial birth control and NFP. In the first case, one does something (takes a pill, uses a condom, etc.) to deliberately “close” the life-giving power of sexual intercourse. In NFP, however, no such step is taken. The spouses do not act against their fertility. They do not reject the link between the two meanings of sex (love and life). They simply follow the natural patterns of the body’s fertility and infertility – patterns placed there by God Himself. In the fertile days of a woman’s cycle, if there are serious reasons to avoid pregnancy, the couple respectfully steps back from the act of intercourse. In using birth control devices, however, they attack the meaning of the act – they do the action of intercourse and then undo part of it. In NFP, instead, they simply choose at times not to do the action in the first place.

1. NFP is not just a “method” based on physiology. Rather, NFP is based on
   based on VIRTUE. It is based on sexual self-control, which is necessary for a healthy marriage. There are times in any marriage when spouses have to put aside their desire for sex because of sickness, fatigue, travel, or other reasons. In a healthy marriage, love is shown in many ways, and not all these ways of showing love are physical. In fact, to refrain from sex when necessary is itself an act of love. Why? Because in effect the spouses then say to each other, “I did not marry you just for sexual pleasure. I married you because I love you. You are a person, not an object. When I have sex with you, it is because I freely choose to show you my love, not because I need to satisfy an urge.” Using NFP requires abstinence from intercourse during the fertile days if a pregnancy has to be avoided. This actually can strengthen the couple’s sexual life. When the spouses know that they can abstain for good reasons, they also come to trust each other more, and avoid the risk of treating each other primarily as objects of sexual pleasure rather than persons. Artificial birth control, on the other hand, gives free reign to the temptation to make pleasure the dominant element, rather than virtue. It encourages couples to think that sexual self-control is not necessary. It can encourage them to become slaves to pleasure
   NFP is not just a means of avoiding pregnancy, as artificial contraception is. Rather, it can also be used to ACHIEVE pregnancy since it p(name removed by moderator)oints ovulation. It is a wholly positive approach to the sexual life of the spouses. It is clean, inexpensive, morally acceptable, and reliable.

As with anything good, NFP can be misused, if a couple has the wrong motives. Married couples are called by God to cooperate generously in bringing forth and educating new life. For a couple to decide that “we don’t want children at this time”, there need to be serious, objective reasons (health, finances, etc.). If the reasons are not objective but selfish, then the couple cannot justify the avoidance of pregnancy just because they are using NFP to do it. In this case they are not practicing “family planning”, but “family avoidance”!( Priests for Life, n.d)

Those are the differences.
So no, not the same thing.

 

[BlueShadow123]

Alright, I see what you’re saying.

 

[rev_kevin]

I don’t see artificial contraception being a problem. 1 Corinthians 7: 3-5 says, “The husband should not deprive his wife of sexual intimancy, which is her right as a married woman, nor should the wife deprive her husband. The wife gives authority over her body to her husband, and the husband also gives authority of his body to his wife. So do not deprive each other of sexual relations. The only exception to this rule would be the agreement of both husband and wife to refrain from sexual intimancy for a limited time, so they can give themselves more completely to prayer. Afterward they should come together again so that Satan won’t be able to tempt them because of their lack of self-control.”
This seems to say that it is alright to have sex with your wife/husband without wanting to have children. It does not say that sex is only for procreation. On the contrary, it says we should not deprive each other of sexual relations. Now the Bible does not say it is wrong to have sex without the intent of procreation. The Bible does not say its wrong to use a condomn or other types of birth control.

 

[Gregory_I]

Remember, the normative Catholic experience for a married couple IS TO HAVE CHILDREN. You would only ideally use NFP to keep from having children for grave reasons. You don’t base your whole sex life around it, that too is an abuse and a contraceptive mentality that runs counter the life-giving Trinity.

 

[Gregory_I]

TO the above, wow. THe Bible condemns the sin of Onan for spilling seed on the ground, and he was killed for it. Withdrawl is a method of contraceptive which is deliberately condemned in the Bible. THerefore, the PRINCIPLE at work here is that God TOLD US to be FRUITFUL and MULTIPLY, and that the direct inhibition of this divine injunction got Onan killed. God is a life giving God, one who says that Sons are a blessing in old age. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them!

It is not enough to do what YOU think God wants: You must not only do WHAT God wants, but HOW he wants it done. THat’s why Protestant is not enough.

Look at Korah and Moses: Numbers 16:

16:1 Now Korah, the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, with Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and On, the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took men:

16:2 and they rose up before Moses, with certain of the children of Israel, two hundred fifty princes of the congregation, called to the assembly, men of renown;

16:3 and they assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and said to them, You take too much on you, seeing all the congregation are holy, everyone of them, and Yahweh is among them: why then lift yourselves up above the assembly of Yahweh? 16:4 When Moses heard it, he fell on his face:

16:5 and he spoke to Korah and to all his company, saying, In the morning Yahweh will show who are his, and who is holy, and will cause him to come near to him: even him whom he shall choose will he cause to come near to him.

There are always the few and the deluded who cannot understand God’s ways and seek to undermine his anointed. We do not have the right to lay hands on the anointed of God, none of us! Therefore, the Protestants who divide, are now, and always will be divided. What a man sows, he reaps.

Not only do we not have the right to lay hands on GOd’s anointed, but we do not have the right to change doctrine, and the sense of doctrine that has been handed down throughout the centuries: The testimony of the Fathers is the Testimony of the Movement of the Spirit of God in the hearts and the minds of the Faithful! TO deny that, to throw that out and devalue the work of God in His Church is quite simply the spirit of antichrist.

Wake up people! The morning is coming…

 

[benedictus2]

You do realize that NFP doesn’t allow life to come through either?

Because that is also too a birth control method.

So based on what you’re saying, you must be against NFP. Because if they are doing it when life isn’t going to start, or at least the chances are slim.

So you are against ALL birth control methods, including NFP which is having sex when you are infertile which is a form of birthcontrol by not getting pregnant.

First off, you quoted my post regarding your signature so I don’t know what you have written here has anything to do with that.

But I am presuming that it is in relation to my post about not being open to life.

The Catholic Church position is not that NFP is to be used to limit children for the sake of limiting children. It is only to be used in a limited sense, after much prayer and where there is grave reason as to why a couple cannot have children at this stage. It is not to be used indefinitely.

The difference here is one is using the natural method, that is one that is built in into our nature. As such, you are still open to God’s action for during the times of intimacy, the only “barrier” to conception is one that God himself has willed naturally.

Furthermore, to say that NFP does not allow life to come through is tantamount to saying that people who are single and do not engage in sexual intimacies are practicing contraception is ludicrous.

As I said earlier, artificial contraception is like sexual bulimia. NFP is more like controlling your eating. You do not want to get fat don’t over eat.

 

[benedictus2]

If it was so wonderful for you then why are you not still Protestant yourself? I am not here to start any argument. There is no such thing as an Agnostic Protestant so I’m assuming you are not Protestant. .

Nailed that one right on the head.

I have told Larkin that many times over, many moons ago on a different thread. He should make us his mind what he is. He is divided within himself so his posts go this way and that.

 

[benedictus2]

I don’t see artificial contraception being a problem. 1 Corinthians 7: 3-5 says, “The husband should not deprive his wife of sexual intimancy, which is her right as a married woman, nor should the wife deprive her husband. The wife gives authority over her body to her husband, and the husband also gives authority of his body to his wife. So do not deprive each other of sexual relations. The only exception to this rule would be the agreement of both husband and wife to refrain from sexual intimancy for a limited time, so they can give themselves more completely to prayer. Afterward they should come together again so that Satan won’t be able to tempt them because of their lack of self-control.”

And how is that passage supposed to support artificial contraception?

This seems to say that it is alright to have sex with your wife/husband without wanting to have children. It does not say that sex is only for procreation.

But we do not say either that sex is simply for procreation but it is it’s primary goal. As St Paul said, you must give yourselves to each other. But artificial contraception is making a lie of that self donation .

On the contrary, it says we should not deprive each other of sexual relations.

And did it also say that one should should artificial contraception to stop the formation of life? I didn’t see that one so perhaps you could tell me which verse says that.

Now the Bible does not say it is wrong to have sex without the intent of procreation. The Bible does not say its wrong to use a condomn or other types of birth control.

You are right, the Bible does not say that it is wrong to have sex without the intent of procreation. Sex is a wonderful thing that God Himself designed for us. But one thing God did not say is that you may indulge in this but use artificial means to stop conception.

I refer you to the passage regarding Onan.

Furthermore, until 1930, EVERY SINGLE CHRISTIAN DENOMINATION SAW ARTIFICIAL CONTRACEPTION AS INTRINSICALLY EVIL.

Now, how can something that is wrong for one thousand nine hundred thirty years suddenly become right?

 

[benedictus2]

Remember, the normative Catholic experience for a married couple IS TO HAVE CHILDREN. You would only ideally use NFP to keep from having children for grave reasons. You don’t base your whole sex life around it, that too is an abuse and a contraceptive mentality that runs counter the life-giving Trinity.

Excellent point. I think that needs re-iterating so I have highlighted your post:thumbsup:

 

[larkin31]

Interesting coming from someone who claims they are a former Protestant( assuming you do not believe in its teachings anymore) and who is Agnostic. Hmmm.

I am NOT a bigot. That would mean I am intolerant of other’s opinion. I have not resisted anyone’s opinion. You may feel I have of your opinion but that is something you think and no one else has. I think I should turn the tables and call you one because you are so strung up on calling me a bigot that it is actually you who are resisting my opinion.

I grew up in the Protestant faith as well. I know what I’ve grown up to believe with the teachings of the various different types of churches I attended and its been confirmed on here that I am not the only Protestant that has come here with the same belief.

If it was so wonderful for you then why are you not still Protestant yourself? I am not here to start any argument. There is no such thing as an Agnostic Protestant so I’m assuming you are not Protestant. I did not come here to pick a fight.

There is NO rule in the Protestant faith that condems ABC. NONE.
So if you can go through all of the protestant faiths and get back and post on me the laws and rules of the faith condoning ABC please feel free to post them on here.
There maybe Protestants who do not believe in using ABC but that is of their own free will, such as the Quiverfull movement. But they are seen in the community as a bunch of wackos. The attitude is " Who would want more than one or two children? That’s just crazy!" That’s the attitude.

There is nothing in the Westminster Shorter Catechism that states anything about using or not using birth control.

Of course there are some that are Protestant and don’t believe in it. Its a form of personal preference. Not according to catechism or God’s law. I am one of them. I was a Catholic living in a Protestant world.

P.S. Don’t sit there and try and read into my words. I don’t care for it when my husband does that nor do I of you. I say what I mean and mean what I said. So no. I did not insinuate anything. I clearly stated myself. Me, myself and I is exactly what I meant. Protestant rules and laws are built on the person who created the faith.
I wasn’t challenging the fact that they didn’t believe in God. Nor did I state that it is selfish of others to start a faith. But now that you mention it , it does become selfish when it becomes further and further from the truth that Jesus taught, and man begins to create their own version of God’s law.

I also know my history and know very well that Martin Luther was not happy with what the church was doing during the time 16th Century. Martin Luther was a very hot headed guy and didn’t agree when the church began selling indulgences. So much so he wrote the 95 Theses in Latin so that the general public didn’t know ( because at that time only scholars could read Latin). If you read the 95 Theses ( like I have) his big beef was all about money. He never challenged the beliefs of Catholic teaching. He very much wanted to be and believed in the Catholic church itself. Just not what was going on with the higher ups so to speak. He stayed a Catholic until he finally got enough people in the chuch so angry with him that they actually shunned him because he was not willing to back down. Luther didn’t intend to start a church of any sort. He wanted them to stop selling indulgences and pardons. It was and is wrong. It was a not very good time for the church in that time peroid. There is a huge anti Catholic biase when it comes to what happened then. I remember being in a Baptist school being taught the Martin Luther did what he did because the Catholics were corrupt. Corrupt it was at the time but not for the reasons that Protestants like to claim it was corrupt. Protestants are taught to believe it was corrupt in the faith. That was NOT what it was corrupt in. The corruption came from the higharchy by selling indulgences,and pardons, making money off of poor people and scaring everyone into the stone age of fire and brimstone when in fact Christ’s church is about love. Therefore living a life of wealth while others were poor and suffering.
It was not a good time for the Church in those days.

Anyways not hear to debate it with you since you are no longer Protestant anyways.
I know the stance about ABC in the Protestant faith, and there is none. So therefore you cannot defend something that does not exist.
Its just all about what YOU believe in or not. Not what the church teaches.

You write about 1000 words, but you’re “not he[re] to debate it”? Just so you know, this IS a thread challenging the Protestant defense of ABC. If you don’t want to debate it with even a “former” Protestant, then I suggest you find another thread in the apologetics forum.

The best defense of ABC is that Jesus never cares about the issue and that the Onan passage is about disobedience about God’s specific command to him to make a child with a specific woman for a specific plan. Onan was not even married to the woman. The Genesis exhortation to “be fruitful and multiply” is nothing close to “having sex and avoiding conception is a sin”. Even many Catholics feel like the Church fathers have gone too far with these interpretations into the extreme realm of controlling physical intimacy between man and wife in the modern world.

 

[larkin31]

TO the above, wow. THe Bible condemns the sin of Onan for spilling seed on the ground, and he was killed for it. Withdrawl is a method of contraceptive which is deliberately condemned in the Bible. THerefore, the PRINCIPLE at work here is that God TOLD US to be FRUITFUL and MULTIPLY, and that the direct inhibition of this divine injunction got Onan killed…

See my comment above. This is an extremist’s reading of Genesis and Onan. If God meant to condemn married couples for infertile sex, Onan is a very weak example. In all of the Bible, both OT and NT, there is never once mentioned a moral imperative that ALL sexual acts be procreative. Not once. Jesus never states this. Jesus does not have children, nor does he exhort his followers to have only procreative sex. Even Paul, the most sexually obsessed of them all, makes no such moral commandment. This moral imperative is one of the examples of religion becoming mixed with obsession with sexual purity (another form of purity laws concerning the body). The result is a nuerotic concern over where and when a man’s semen is being ejaculated and a religious institution’s very specific interest in exactly the bodily location and timing of that ejaculation even between a married couple. Honestly, I consider that interest (and level of moral prohibition) on the part of the RCC as bizarre.

 

[OriginalJS]

Let me take the Protestant side of birth control (other than the type of Pill that can cause abortions, IUDs, etc. that destroy the early embryo).

First, many Christians, even Catholics, do not understand exactly how some forms of birth control work…and as such do not understand that certain types can cause an early abortion. I think many would not use these if they knew that such methods did cause early abortion. Many Protestants, methinks, if they really think about it would agree that an embryo is human from the moment of conception.

Second, I think there is a lack of understanding (again, shared by many Catholics) as to the reasons for NOT using ABC. The main reason, methinks, is the understanding or misunderstanding of INTENT.

The intent of NFP and of ABC is the same…(at least temporarily) avoiding pregnancy. If one does not look past the intent of the act, ABC is justified. However, the crux for Catholics is that the act of contraception itself is intrinsically evil. Many Protestants, methinks, focus on intent, and do not consider both the procreative and unitive aspects of intercourse are essential if we use our bodies the way the Almighty intended.

From what reading I have done, as well as conversations with those who use birth control, both Catholics and Protestants, I believe your point about focus on intent is accurate, not only for Protestants but for Catholic ABC users as well. This focus has a compelling logic that the ultimate goal of both is the prevention of pregnancy.

 

[1234]

Is it wrong for an infertile couple to have sex? Or get married at all? What if one of the partners becomes infertile? Must they then cease to have no-longer-procreative sex?

Was Paul married? Did he say that the primary purpose of marriage is to procreate?

Medical studies from non-religious sources have demonstrated that NFP methods are far less reliable than “artificial” contraception. Would if another pregnancy would endanger the life to the mother, as in the AZ case, where the mother shouldn’t have gotten pregnant again in the first place?. Is she to reply on Natural Family “Planning”? Would if her periods are irregular? Best to be sterilized in that case, as she should have been.

Catholics have voted with their feet and their pocketbooks. Until the pope pays their medical and food bills, they are practicing contraception, like their Protestant neighbors. And ‘religious’ people do change their minds. Catholics used to think it was OK to burn heretics. Fortunately, in recent centuries, they’ve changed their minds.

 

[Gregory_I]

The beautiful thing is, I don’t have to justify my interpretation, because it is not mine. I have this beautiful 2000 year old giant on my side known as the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church. I have the witness of the church fathers on my side, over 700 years commentary and evidence of the Holy Spirits directing the church, I have the constant teaching authority of the bishops especially the Pope maintaining one view up to the present day. I have the testimonies of Calvin, Luther and Zwingli on my side as well. And it isn’t even my side.

It is the Apostolic Faith of Christ. I do not need to exist in a paradigm where I need to prove everything from the Bible, because the Bible is simply my first reference, not my final authority.

In Fact the burden of proof rests on he who dissents.

So my fellow dissenters, what reason can you possibly give for ignoring the 2000 year work of God in the church, the very Obvious Leading of the Spirit in the unanimous writings of the Fathers, and the Heavenly Direction in the unanimous consent of the bishops and all the Faithful Down past the reformation to the present day?

Even your own “Korahs”, The reformers, deny you.

Your opinion likens you to illegitimate children or those born out of time: THere is no life in your thought and it has no connection with Christ, his church, or even the heretics who dissented from his church to form YOUR Churches!

Is it lonely being a slave to your own opinion? For you have nothing else…

 

[larkin31]

The beautiful thing is, I don’t have to justify my interpretation, because it is not mine. I have this beautiful 2000 year old giant on my side known as the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church. I have the witness of the church fathers on my side, over 700 years commentary and evidence of the Holy Spirits directing the church, I have the constant teaching authority of the bishops especially the Pope maintaining one view up to the present day. I have the testimonies of Calvin, Luther and Zwingli on my side as well. And it isn’t even my side.

It is the Apostolic Faith of Christ. I do not need to exist in a paradigm where I need to prove everything from the Bible, because the Bible is simply my first reference, not my final authority.

In Fact the burden of proof rests on he who dissents.

So my fellow dissenters, what reason can you possibly give for ignoring the 2000 year work of God in the church, the very Obvious Leading of the Spirit in the unanimous writings of the Fathers, and the Heavenly Direction in the unanimous consent of the bishops and all the Faithful Down past the reformation to the present day?

Even your own “Korahs”, The reformers, deny you.

Your opinion likens you to illegitimate children or those born out of time: THere is no life in your thought and it has no connection with Christ, his church, or even the heretics who dissented from his church to form YOUR Churches!

Is it lonely being a slave to your own opinion? For you have nothing else…

Then why are you on this thread?

…and “slave to one’s own opinion”? What does that even possibly mean? Your entire post here is about yielding to hierarchy and dogma, but you call Protestants “slaves to their own opinions”? Yeah, I confess that I am a “slave” to independence of thought. Guilty as charged!