-God saw all that He had made, and it was very good. Gen 1:31

-by Julie Roys, 8/6/18

(Julie Roys is an Evangelical Christian reporter. She graduated from Wheaton College and also attended the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Julie has published many articles at Christianity Today, World Magazine. Religion News Service, The Federalist, and The Christian Post. As a respected, conservative Christian voice, Julie also has been interviewed numerous times on National Public Radio, One America News, and Total Living Network. Julie hosted a live, call-in talk radio show on the Moody Radio Network that was called Up For Debate for six years. For calling out the issues at Moody she apparently lost her job. Julie and her husband live in the Chicago area and they have three children.)

“Almost all evangelicals support contraception. According to Pew Research, only 3-percent think it’s morally wrong. Most (55%) don’t even believe it’s a moral issue.

“If you go ask any . . . evangelical pastor, they’ll say if a married couple wants to use contraception . . . that’s fine.” So says David Talcott, a professor at The King’s College and an expert in sexual ethics. “It hasn’t really been a moral issue within evangelicalism,” he added. “(Evangelicals) are going to use the Pill and not think about it.”

This is stunning, given that Christians opposed birth control until the early 1900s. But as I wrote in part one of this series, Protestants soon gave way to cultural trends – first eugenics and then fears of overpopulation.

However, it wasn’t until 1966 that a thorough theological argument in favor of contraception was offered. The argument came in the form of an article published in Christianity Today by evangelical scholar John Warwick Montgomery. It proved extremely influential and swayed evangelical opinion on the matter. In fact, scholar Allan Carlson termed it a second “bombshell.” (The first was Billy Graham’s statement endorsing contraception seven years earlier.)

The article thrilled advocates of contraception and convinced more evangelicals to embrace birth control. But soon, many embraced abortion too. And they began thinking more pragmatically and less biblically.

A Birth Control Theology

In his landmark article, “How to Decide the Birth Control Question,” Dr. Montgomery presented a middle ground between two views – Catholic and liberal Protestant. Catholics opposed birth control based on “natural law” and the command in Genesis to “be fruitful.” This, Montgomery argued, reduced marriage to merely a means of producing offspring.

But Montgomery also rejected the liberal Protestant view. He said this view saw sex as “the fulfillment of human aspirations” and made it “an end in itself.” This turned sex into an idol and led to “permissive sex ethics.”

So, Montgomery argued for a third view. This view upheld the marriage analogy in Ephesians 5 as the “focal center of scriptural teachings on marriage.” It suggested that marriage was not simply “a means” of producing offspring as in “be fruitful and multiply.” Nor was it “unqualifiedly . . . an end” as in “They shall be one flesh.” Instead, it viewed marriage primarily as an analogy “of the relationship between Christ and his Church.”

This new understanding meant that marriage isn’t just for procreation. It also exists to foster a love relationship like Christ has with His church. So, Montgomery reasoned, birth control is okay if it helps a couple “achieve a better human relationship.”

Montgomery’s article drew from Scripture and made some valid points. Yet it also raised new questions. Was God’s command to “be fruitful and multiply” no longer valid? Was achieving “a better relationship” enough to justify sterilizing something God clearly designed to be fertile? And do Catholics really believe that sex and marriage is merely a means to an end?

Also, the context of Montgomery’s article was clearly fear of overpopulation, suggesting that pragmatism may have driven this new doctrine, not merely Scripture. Several times, Montgomery cited population concerns. He suggested, for example, that couples consider “the population picture” when deciding family size. And, he said in places with “rapidly growing populations,” adoption may be better than having children.

Nevertheless, evangelical leaders were thrilled with Montgomery’s article and frequently cited it as the definitive commentary on the issue. In subsequent years, most evangelicals embraced birth control. But they also embraced abortion.

Abortion and a New Ethic

Two years after Montgomery’s article published, Christianity Today and the Christian Medical Society hosted a conference that produced “A Protestant Affirmation on the Control of Human Reproduction.” This stunning document affirmed abortion. It stated, “(A)s to whether or not . . . induced abortion is always sinful we are not agreed, but about the necessity and permissibility for (abortion) under certain circumstances we are in accord. . . . When principles conflict, the preservation of fetal life . . . may have to be abandoned to maintain full and secure family life.”

The Southern Baptist Convention acted similarly. It resolved in 1971 to support laws allowing abortion in cases of rape, incest, and “clear evidence of severe fetal deformity.” The convention also said abortion is okay when “damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother” was likely.

This was a shocking development. And one that Montgomery apparently did not foresee. Two years after his groundbreaking first article, he wrote another. This one argued that life begins at conception and condemned abortion.

Fortunately in the late 70s and early 80s, many evangelicals returned to their pro-life convictions. This was largely due to the influential book by Francis Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop called, “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” This book revealed the shocking implications of degrading human life. And it “changed abortion from being a Catholic issue to a Christian line in the sand.”

Yet today there remains a significant number of evangelicals (33%) who think abortion should be legal. And 13% of women who get abortions are evangelical Protestants.

This shouldn’t surprise us. As scholar and author Allan Carlson notes, “Historically, there’s never been a culture that’s condoned birth control, but then somehow managed to keep abortion illegal. When you get one, you always get the other.”

Clearly, the mentality that drives abortion, drives contraception. And when evangelicals embraced contraception they began thinking like pragmatists. Children became liabilities, not blessings. Marriage became a means to personal fulfillment, not family and sacrifice. And birth control became essential to personal health, as though our natural design was somehow defective.

Evangelical Pragmatists

Posted to the website of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) is a shocking quote by Pastor Joel Hunter. “Unmarried sex with contraception is not God’s plan,” he says. “(B)ut unmarried sex without contraception is not a plan at all. If holy living is not the choice of some in the near term, contraception can at least reduce some potentially devastating results (including abortion) for all in the long term.”

It’s hard to believe an evangelical pastor would make such an unbiblical argument. Scripture says we’re supposed to expel the immoral brother, not give him condoms! But this thinking has become common among Christians.

Similarly, Jenny Eaton Dyer of Hope Through Healing Hands argued that Christians need to promote birth control in Africa. This was not based on Scripture, but naked pragmatism. Spacing pregnancies promotes women’s health, Deyer said. So, “Condoms, oral contraception, injectables, implants, and natural family planning: these are necessities for the health and flourishing of . . . developing nations worldwide.”

Is this really how God wants Christians to think? Does Scripture teach that sterilizing sex is key to human flourishing?

As Christians, we need to examine our assumptions in light of Scripture, not the wisdom of the world. We need to be driven by the Bible; not the spirit of the age.”

Love,
Matthew