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Posted on Sat, Mar. 04, 2006
As I See It
Birth control prevents God’s work
By Kristin Knight
Special to The Star
Karin McAdams, in response to Laura Scott’s column on family planning, poses an honest question about “what objections, perhaps biblical, perhaps otherwise” people have for discouraging artificial means of birth control (Letters 2/15).
Although many Christians may point to the Genesis account of Onan and many Catholics may point to papal encyclicals, most notably Humane Vitae, the whole biblical tradition reveals that God has intended for sex to be a marriage act that is open to, or at least not deliberately closed off to, the transmission of life.
By using contraception, you prevent God’s creative power in bringing forth new life. Sex is a complete self-giving love you pledge to your spouse within marriage, and contraception destroys the unitive and procreative qualities of sex. Pleasure is not the purpose of sex - it’s the motive or consequence.
Our culture has now put pleasure at the center of everything, and we speak of human sexuality in such animalistic ways - as though we can’t control ourselves, waiting for marriage, waiting for stable economic circumstances, waiting to have sex until we are ready to be open to life.
Self-control or temperance is a Christian virtue, and by practicing modern, effective methods of natural family planning by having periodic abstinence, you can postpone pregnancy if necessary in a healthy, inexpensive, fulfilling way as you embrace chastity appropriate for your stage in life.
As for McAdams’ concern that it’s so “expensive” and “difficult” to raise a child today as opposed to former generations of women with more children than today’s modern moms, I think again that pleasure - and its good ally, materialism - is at the heart of this notion. Our society in general promotes two-income households with more stuff in them than prior generations ever dreamed of having.
The concept of sacrifice has been replaced with stuff, stuff and more stuff as our children are raised in day-care centers and our elderly are shuttled off to nursing homes. Our value for life at both ends of the spectrum has diminished in our society, where life is measured by its contribution, not its intrinsic worth, and where some work so hard to safeguard methods to prevent pregnancies while never accepting that we have the controls already to prevent pregnancies naturally through abstinence and chastity.
Kristin Knight is the mother of four children. She lives in Olathe.
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/opinion/14013410.htm
As I See It
Birth control prevents God’s work
By Kristin Knight
Special to The Star
Karin McAdams, in response to Laura Scott’s column on family planning, poses an honest question about “what objections, perhaps biblical, perhaps otherwise” people have for discouraging artificial means of birth control (Letters 2/15).
Although many Christians may point to the Genesis account of Onan and many Catholics may point to papal encyclicals, most notably Humane Vitae, the whole biblical tradition reveals that God has intended for sex to be a marriage act that is open to, or at least not deliberately closed off to, the transmission of life.
By using contraception, you prevent God’s creative power in bringing forth new life. Sex is a complete self-giving love you pledge to your spouse within marriage, and contraception destroys the unitive and procreative qualities of sex. Pleasure is not the purpose of sex - it’s the motive or consequence.
Our culture has now put pleasure at the center of everything, and we speak of human sexuality in such animalistic ways - as though we can’t control ourselves, waiting for marriage, waiting for stable economic circumstances, waiting to have sex until we are ready to be open to life.
Self-control or temperance is a Christian virtue, and by practicing modern, effective methods of natural family planning by having periodic abstinence, you can postpone pregnancy if necessary in a healthy, inexpensive, fulfilling way as you embrace chastity appropriate for your stage in life.
As for McAdams’ concern that it’s so “expensive” and “difficult” to raise a child today as opposed to former generations of women with more children than today’s modern moms, I think again that pleasure - and its good ally, materialism - is at the heart of this notion. Our society in general promotes two-income households with more stuff in them than prior generations ever dreamed of having.
The concept of sacrifice has been replaced with stuff, stuff and more stuff as our children are raised in day-care centers and our elderly are shuttled off to nursing homes. Our value for life at both ends of the spectrum has diminished in our society, where life is measured by its contribution, not its intrinsic worth, and where some work so hard to safeguard methods to prevent pregnancies while never accepting that we have the controls already to prevent pregnancies naturally through abstinence and chastity.
Kristin Knight is the mother of four children. She lives in Olathe.
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/opinion/14013410.htm