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Completely self-giving love between spouses is never sterile. It cannot be contained in just two bodies. It overflows, spilling over into love for others. For married couples, this love finds expression in its openness to participating with God in the creation of new life. It's time for us, as Christians, once again to embrace childbearing with joy, as a gift, and fertility as a mystery to be reverenced.

Sam and Bethany Torode work at home in rural Wisconsin. Their son, Gideon, was born in September. This article has been developed and expanded into a book, Open Embrace: A Protestant Couple Rethinks Contraception (Eerdmans, Spring 2002). Their Web site is www.torodedesign.com.

Copyright © 2001 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

A ready-to-download Bible Study on this article is available at ChristianBibleStudies.com. These unique Bible studies use articles from current issues of Christianity Today to prompt thought-provoking discussions in adult Sunday school classes or small groups.

Also appearing on our site today, Raymond C. Van Leeuwen argues that sex is one of God's good gifts to be used for love and glory, "whether or not it seeks in every instance to be fruitful in a procreative sense."

In-depth information on Natural Family Planning can be found at Couple to Couple League's Web site.

In Christianity Today's sister publication Today's Christian Woman, Dr. Paul Reisser wrote that Natural Family Planning hasn't received much awareness because of a "mistaken impression that any method of postponing pregnancy that doesn't involve medical technology is unreliable."

NaturalParenthood.com has extensive articles about natural birth control, myths of fertility, and pregnancy achievement.

Intended for Pleasure by Ed Wheat and the LaHayes' The Act of Marriage are available at Christianbook.com. Open Embrace: A Protestant Couple Rethinks Contraception by the Torodes will be available in March 2002.

Souls Raised from the Dead by Doris Betts and Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler are available at Amazon.com.

In an October 1999 article, World magazine editor Joel Belz argued that God controls world population numbers while noting that the morality of contraception is not seriously debated among evangelical Christians.

Lyrics to Monty Python's "Every Sperm is Sacred" are available online but keep in mind they're pretty over the top and poke fun at Roman Catholics.

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November 12 2001, Vol. 45, No. 14