God’s plan for marriage, rethought

Posted by admin on Nov 21, 2007 in Issues & Ideas | 0 comments

Contraception is a part of life. We all know this. We have been told about it repeatedly since first starting sex-ed in junior high. Not only has it become a part of life, the forms and varieties are endless: everything from vaginal inserts and injections to the more common estrogen-progesterone pill and condoms (now in multiple fun flavours). Yet there are still some Christians who question the use of contraception, those who wonder what the original meaning of the sexual act really was and if contraception really fits within God’s plan for marriage. I have known such people, and seen them get into very heated debates – enough to lead me to wonder, “What’s really behind this?”

A brief background check will show that until recently the Christian community entirely prohibited the use of contraceptives, even within marriage. The Church of England in 1930 was among the first to declare artifical contraceptives permissible but only “where there is such a clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood, and where there is a morally sound reason for avoiding complete abstinence”. This permission excluded “motives of selfishness, luxury, or mere convenience.” Most Protestant denominations also relaxed their positions on contraception shortly thereafter, gradually leading to the church of today’s assertion that it is every couple’s right to access whatever form of contraception they prefer. Only the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Churches have officially retained their prohibitive stances on contraception, although many prominent Protestant Christian thinkers held out very strongly against the use of contraception, most notably C. S. Lewis.

Now why would they do this? Why prohibit something that seems to be so beneficial to marriage in that the couple can engage in the unifying action of sex more often without having to worry about having more kids than they can afford? I have heard many arguments about this, most of which seem to be rooted in the following. Marriage, in the mind of most Christians, is the joining of two free persons as one flesh, an idea which is biblically based in Genesis 2:24. This involves the complete and total gift of self from each person to another, the highest expression of which is found in the conjugal act. This has been built into the very fabric of what it means to be a human person created in the image of a trinitarian God who is constantly engaged in complete and perfect self-gift from Father to Son to Holy Spirit. In effect, artificial contraception disrupts that cycle. It says, “I give you my body, my spirit, my emotions and passions – everything but my fertility. That I withhold. That I keep for myself.”

Now if this was your typical debate here at Trinity Western University, someone would at this point angrily burst out with, “So what, you’re saying everyone has to have twelve kids?” Let’s think about that for a second. Firstly, coming from a somewhat larger family of six kids myself, I have always resented the characterization that children are nothing but a huge burden that will completely destroy your marital happiness. The Bible speaks repeatedly of children as the most joyful gift from God, not a chore. Secondly, who said you would be forced into having twelve kids just because you aren’t using contraceptives? Even I know that a woman is only fertile at certain times in her cycle, and I have known many couples who have used natural family planning to time their pregnancies according to the family’s situation. No, it’s not a perfect means of preventing conception, but then neither is the pill.

This issue never sleeps, as I have witnessed at TWU. Most of the time, the debates in the atrium end in anger and frustration on both sides. In light of this lack of resolution, perhaps a better solution would be, instead of arguing, to ask God what he has in mind for marriage, instead of telling Him what we have decided about it. He is, after all, the author and source of love.