www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Sad News for Christianity

God bless all those families that choose to have more children and have not swallowed the shallow western thinking of self centeredness and have not believed the lie that is being pumped into people these days.
Stephanos I

I really wish that, amongst all of these words of baby-loving, we would think through just what it would mean if there were a total absence of artificial birth control.

(And no, I'm not including abortion per se. I'm referring only to contraception.)

An absence of artificial birth control would mean a huge increase in the number of births and a general lowering of the standard of living. In fact, we can see those two very things today in many of the poor countries of the world, where artificial birth control is largely unavailable or willfully not used: Latin America, much of Asia, the Middle East, and so on. And that, in turn, can lead to other results of overpopulation: unemployment, social discontent and even famine. Now, I realize that no one here is advocating those bad things, but that is what the absence of artificial birth control has meant, as a matter of historical (and Malthusian) fact.

Let's look at another dimension also: the quality of women's lives.

In the absence of artificial birth control, women get pregnant. In other words, they cannot control their reproductive ability. Do we really want a return to that? Do we really want a return to many --not all, but many-- women being, in effect, enslaved to the cradle and the kitchen and the bed because they cannot control their reproductive life?

And before people start saying out how people should control themselves (those shameless women . . .), let's think this issue through. HOW would artificial birth control be removed from society? HOW is artificial birth control currently being impeded in societies? By men: usually with religious fanaticism, lust, or fear of change, or fear of loss of power.

So, if artificial birth control were removed, it would be because men decided to remove reproductive freedom from the lives of women. And that means one thing (in effect): men would want women to be their baby-making property. That is likewise the case for trying to prevent contraception to be introduced into societies. It's an attempt --in effect, if not in stated purpose-- to keep women out of any roles except wife and mother.

This is not imagination or hyperbole; this is the REALITY for millions of women's lives throughout the world: the Muslim world, the Hindu world, the Christian world in backwards (and not so backwards) places, and so on. Yes, many of those women make the best of their lives: with selfless love, compassion and joy. But, they are essentially enslaved to the roles of daughter, wife, mother and crone: ever powerless, and ever dependant on the uncertain mercies of men. Without contraception, they are bound to their reproductive function. By willfully preventing or eliminating artificial birth control from their lives, women are being kept in bondage to their reproductive function.

THAT is what you are asking for if you try to withdraw contraception or prevent the dissemination of contraception. Do you want that for the women in your life?

Finally, someone brought up the self-control issue. Good: the Church needs to reemphasize that. Let's summarize it: Behavior comes from motives, and motives are usually from the basic human drives. If those drives are corrupted by selfishness and sin, they become the passions. From the passions, people often choose actions that might feel good in the short term but which often have bad consequences. However, if the drives are sanctified by self-control and selfless compassion, they become the beatitudes. From the beatitudes, people often choose actions that might feel bad at first but which have good consequences. Etc. Without recognizing the psychological dimension of human behavior, religion can become just more magic.

However, two points. First, people are usually a long way from living the beatitudes in their daily lives. Hence, there needs to be checks and balances to preserve human rights and freedom. Second, therefore, the solution to improving behavior is not to eliminate contraception. That would take an enormous amount of power away from women to live their own lives. The solution, instead, is to teach everyone --men as well as women-- to overcome the passions with self-control, compassion and God's grace . . . and simultaneously to preserve women's freedom by keeping contraception available. In that way, there is both the ideal and the guarantee.

-- John

John,
I feel obliged to say this: nothing in your most recent post reflects a Christian attitude towards children, motherhood or family life. Instead it sounds like something straight out of a Planned Parenthood brochure.

St. Paul tells us,


As a married man of modest economic means who has never used artificial birth control, I will tell you that it is the opposite of "enslavement", as you call it. It is freedom for both my wife and I. We are free to open our hearts to the gifts of seven children God has given us, as well as to offer our sufferings in union with our Lord for the three children of those seven who died in the womb. We are free to allow God to control our lives, rather than succumb to the illusion that we are in "control" of our lives or "reproductive ability". This freedom and abundant love is what the Church proclaims and teaches, not a small, hard-hearted calculus that determines that children are simply "economic burdens" and causes of "enslavement", as you say.

As the Word of God tells us,


There is no qualification here: children are a reward from the LORD. Period. They do not bring enslavement, but freedom from the lies of this world.

Perhaps what John is getting at is that it's unreasonable to expect all those persons in the world whose beliefs about children as a gift from God and the honored position of motherhood are not shaped by the Christian tradition cannot be forced to conform their sexual practices to the Christian ideal. If that is what John is suggesting, then I must agree. I believe that children are indeed a gift from God and should be seen as such. On the other hand, for those who view children as a curse and see parenting as a form of enslavement, I welcome their having access to contraception.

Ryan

Please explain the above to me. Thank you.

Converted Viking

Then I suggest you reread the last two paragraphs of my post.

The gist is freedom. You mentioned, Francis, that you and your wife have seven children. But that was a choice that you and your wife had the freedom to make. Before contraception, no one had that choice; and most of the burden fell on the women. In countries without contraception (or without any other women's rights), the burden still falls mostly on women. They have to accept as many children that men force upon them, and that can be --and often is-- a real form of slavery.

Look: the issue of the original post is an implication that Catholics had better start having babies or the Muslims will overwhelm them.

No. Muslims tend to behave like anyone else when they adopt modernity and its opportunities and freedoms.

Hence, the real issue isn't to go out and have more babies.

The real issue is to get the Muslim world into the modern era.

-- John

John,


Again you are equating having children to slavery. This is an not a Christian attitude towards children - they are ALWAYS a gift from a loving God. The solution to those situations in which a child causes a true burden (not the false burdens manufactured in the 1st world) is to support the women materially and spiritually, not eliminate the child's existence.

Furthermore, your idea of "freedom" is not at all related to the Christian idea of true freedom. Having children does not lead to a loss of true freedom. Perhaps it does mean less freedom to buy a big house, go out on the weekends, and take expensive vacations, but those are the things that lead to slavery, not children. The "good life" promoted by "modernity" is not freedom, it is enslavement.

Finally, your arguments for contraception are exactly the same arguments used to promote abortion. If children truly are a burden to "freedom", as you say, then it is a small step to say that they should be eliminated if they are not "wanted". I'm not saying that is your position, but your arguments belie the same presuppositions.

Francis,

I'm going to quickly refute your points; and then I'm going to get back onto the topic.

First, I am not equating having children to slavery. I am saying that being forced to have children, without a choice, can be and often does become a kind of slavery. There's a distinction there that makes all the difference. And that is especially true for the women involved. So, if you want to have 7 children, fine and God bless. Just please don't make the rest of us follow suit by taking away --dare I say it-- the freedom to choose.

Second, freedom to me means free will. The spiritual kind of freedom that you mention can't really be achieved unless there is the freedom to actually choose it. It can't be imposed, only received.

Third, no, I don't advocate abortion by advocating contraception.

But, increasingly, I am not totally anti-abortion either. And that is because of people like you, Francis: conservative extremists who want to take away the means of having liberty in order to fit a set of religious convictions. Yet, not everyone --including myself-- holds your religious convictions. Dare I say, I think there needs to be room for judgement and discretion and . . . personal choice.

* * *

Now that we have gone way off the original topic, I propose returning to it.

In the Vatican's recent statement, we have the odd situation of one theocracy (the Vatican) inferring that its members should imitate another theocracy (Islam) to which it is otherwise diametrically opposed. Odd, isn't it?

There is another way to view all this. We could preserve a modern, secular, free society against theocracy; and we could even try to permeate the Muslim world with modernity.

-- John

Hi, could you point me to a source for that? I've been trying to find it and have had no luck; perhaps I'm not Googling the right words. I would really appreciate it.

Thanks,
Andrea

I am not worried for how many Christians are and what percents there are.

I worry rather for the quality of the Christians.

I saw some posts here that are very sad to me, as Orthodox Christian.

If Christ comes...In front of me, looking to me, what to say? "Dear Lord, I know you will understand me. I couldn't bother my person having again a kid. This would lower my so hard gained life style. I looked to be free, do not I have freedom? A personal choice, right? Look, my daughter got pregnant. What to do? She was silly, but if she would give birth to this child, then she would be chained in slavery. She is only 16. She will have time to become wise. And time for some repentance, why not? Yes, time. Why do you look to me so sad? Do you feel ok? Perhaps you want to take a seat? Come here, stay here on this armchair dressed in turquoise velvet. I worked so much for this chair, but this is me, only a person with a nice level of life. It was not easy. I have this daughter. And a boy, he is at college. The other boy was rather an accident, I was not too clear in my options. Are you sick, my Lord? It is hard to be happy on this earth, that you created after all. I work as broker, I sell houses. You talked in Matthew about some beatitudes, but frankly we are so far in the daily life. Not only me, but also so many others. I think I can judge correctly.........."

We must obey our Lord and promote the life.

m+

John I am going to try to get something up Monday answering some of your objections, but how familiar are you with NFP? You seem to be of the thinking that absent artificial birth control - some of which is just abortifacient - than there would naturally (no pun intended) be millions who end up having 12+ kids because they are without any other way to regulate their child-bearing...

So are you at all familiar with NFP?

It is especially odd insasmuch as I truly do not see where you are seeing that the Vatican ("a theocracy" you so oddly call it) is inferring its members should imitate Islam.




Anticipating a debate on "theocracy" I will inform I know the definition but find the use - especially in this context - somewhat pointed given the nature of the Vatican state - "nation" smaller than most of the farms I grew up near.

Yes, I am familiar with natural family planning. And, I know that it can be effective as a means fo determining fertility. However, its use as contraception depends upon the discipline and persistence of its practioners to abstain from sex during times of fertility. It is not a physical way of preventing concpetion from occuring in conjunction with sex.

Yes, I think the Vatican is a theocracy. Its head of state is also a head of a religion, and his mission is to uphold and spread that religion and to shape societies according to it. In the Middle Ages and in the countries experiencing the counter-reformation, the Vatican was a very effective theocracy in Western Europe. Today, it has less political power; but it is still trying to be the main or only religious influence on the societies around the world.

What I increasingly think is that people should be free to hold their own opinions and practice religion as their own private matter, and that society overall and law should be secular.

-- John

John, yes, you are right, NFP like most of the Christian life takes virtue and discipline. I have read what you have written on fasting before, would have thought you might feel the same way.

The "theocracy" stamp on a state the size of the stamp that serves as administrative HQ for the Church... Do what you need to do on that one I guess. It seems rather loaded.

You also realize that you have moved the discussion from "what is right" to your ideas about personal liberties...

JOHN:

If I read you correctly, you're saying that there should be no Church then. Because the idea of Church demands that the brethren should be "of one mind" as Scripture has it. What you advocate has already been tried and it is failing fast. It's called mainline Protestantism: each person holds his own beliefs, justifies himself by his own interpretation of Scripture, and goes his own way affiliaitng with a community or not as he wishes. The next question comes in a straight line. How do we pass along what Christ taught as the Deposit of Faith? If everything is private opinion and everything is private practice, what do any two Christians have in common or what does a group have in common to hold them together? What of the baptismal mandate to accept the Faith gift recognized by the Church and grow within the bounds of the Church? What of accepting the Faith as it has been given to us by our trusted teachers and passing it along to others without adding to it or subtracting from it? What would we do to pass along the Faith--catechisms would be out; Scripture translations would be out (as we've seen in the past 40 odd years many such have been heavily influenced by the translators' bias). How would you deal with your children telling you that faith in Christ is just another opinion and they could live without it? This seems to me to be the end of private opinion and private practice.

Again, should we have no influence on the public square? Christianity built up the civilization we enjoy today. That we seem to be headed for a return to the pagan civilization that she grew out of is another matter.

Should the Latin Church not respond to the Great Commission found in the Scriptures? Should the Orthodox Church not do so in Russia and the other countries coming out of the communist yoke? Should the other communities who believe they are similiarly bound by the same Great Commission not try to influence the societies in which they live? ISTM we are called to be the salt of the earth and the leaven of our societies. Is this no longer the case? If we are, then it seems to me that we need a common teaching to present to a world already broken into a Tower of Babel of conflicting opinions and value systems, especially since so many of these systems place so little value on all of us as human beings created in the Image and Likeness of God.

In Christ,

BOB