When we were looking ahead to marriage 20 years ago, I told my future wife that I wanted us not to have children. She honored my wish, and we used birth control for the first six years of our marriage. But the Lord gave me a change of mind and heart, and he blessed us with two delightful children.
Now I wonder: To what extent was our earlier choice to be childless valid? Until recent years, most Christians assumed that, barring medical problems, marriage meant children. More and more couples now seem to be making a decision to be childless. Is this an inroad of the culture of narcissism into the church? Or is birth control a God-given means of freeing people for greater service to the kingdom of God?
An answer is found only by addressing more basic questions: How are we to understand sexuality? What is the purpose of the sex act? Above all, what is the role of the family in the plan of God?
The beginning point for a biblical theology of the family lies with God’s ultimate purpose in history. As the Bible’s vision of the new heaven and new earth makes clear, God is at work to create a kingdom community in which people will experience the presence of God. The Book of Revelation gives this glimpse of the coming reality: “I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God’ ” (Rev. 21:3, NIV).
Both the marital bond and our participation in family have theological significance because they have to do with human community, which is itself related to God’s ultimate purpose. In the Old Testament era and in the church age, God uses marriage and family to move his people toward the goal of a reconciled community that lives in harmony with creation and enjoys fellowship with God. Both testaments clearly affirm that God has ordained marriage, and that children add a crucial dimension to the marriage relationship. As parents assume their God-given responsibilities in caring, and even sacrificing, for their children, God uses their offspring to foster spiritual growth.
The Most Important Family
In the Old Testament scheme of things, the family (including the extended family and, ultimately, the tribe) functioned as the foundation of human community. The primary social unit was the extended family, generally headed by a patriarch and including his wife (or wives), offspring, and household.
The Old Testament highlights the primacy of family affiliation in various ways. The sixth commandment enjoins us to honor father and mother. Deuteronomy entrusts parents with religious instruction, making the family the main vehicle for passing on the sacred traditions to future generations (Deut. 4:9; 6:1–9; Ps. 78:5–6). This emphasis on family meant ancient Hebrew society afforded little place for single persons and childless women.
A fundamental shift in the theology of the family occurs with Christ and the founding of the New Testament church. The church became a new primal human community; the fellowship of those who followed Christ began to assume greater relative importance. More significant than clan or the name of one’s parents was adoption into God’s spiritual family—and awareness of who one’s heavenly Father is (John 8:31–59; Gal. 4:4–7).
In a way not seen in the Old Testament, a believer in Christ could live out loyalty to God in either marriage or singleness. Jesus tells his disciples no longer to view marriage and family as their primary bond. Of even greater significance is the bond they share with the Master and the community of his followers (Matt. 10:37; Mark 10:29–30). What Jesus demands of his followers he fulfills himself, for he counts as his true family “whoever does the will of my Father in heaven …” (Matt. 12:50).
The family is therefore subsumed under God’s new and larger purposes. When it comes to the church’s mission, for example, the family helps extend and expand Christ’s community. The presence of a believer in the home mediates Christian influence to spouse and children (1 Cor. 7:12–14; 1 Pet. 3:1–2; Eph. 6:4). The family provides a spiritual beachhead for outreach into society. In the New Testament era, the Christians’ homes even became bases for launching the church in certain locations. A good example is Priscilla and Aquila, whose home is repeatedly the site of advances in the church’s outreach (Acts 18:2–3, 26; Rom. 16:3; 1 Cor. 16:19).
The marriage bond (and by extension, the family) also serves God’s broader purposes by embodying vital spiritual truths. It offers a vivid reminder and foretaste of God’s plan to bring into being the community of the Last Day. It is also a metaphor of God’s relationship to his people. In the Old Testament, the prophets repeatedly speak of Israel as the wife of Yahweh; the New Testament employs imagery of the church as the bride of Christ (Rev. 19:7). Paul uses marriage to symbolize Christ’s relationship to the church (Eph. 5:21–31).
Sex And Procreation
While such a perspective does not minimize the importance of children, it does suggest that bearing and raising children is no longer the highest goal or outcome of marriage. It also means that sexual activity is not validated solely on the basis of a couple’s openness to having children. The procreative purpose need not always be present for a married couple to legitimately enjoy sexual relations, contrary to what some Christian traditions—such as Catholicism—teach. Of course, the connection between the sex act and procreation is fundamental. And the act often expresses the openness of the married couple to a new life.
But sexual intercourse can fulfill other functions. It can serve as a beautiful statement of the covenant between husband and wife, as the reenactment, reaffirmation, and embodiment of the marriage vow. Or it can function as a celebrative expression of the submission of the partners to each other in all areas of marital life.
The assertion that procreation and child rearing is not the highest goal of marriage also has a far-reaching implication for the ethics of birth control. It means that the Christian need not reject all birth-control methods on the basis that they prevent conception. If we deem certain methods questionable, this judgment will arise from other considerations. We should evaluate the pill, for example, in light of any harmful physical side effects it could have on women. And we should consider devices such as the IUD on the basis of whether or not they act after conception.
Can a Christian couple, then, elect in good conscience to remain childless? The change in the role of the family in God’s purposes that came with the new covenant suggests that under certain, limited circumstances the answer is yes. Paul advised the Corinthians to remain single “because of the present crisis” and so that they might devote their attention more single-mindedly to the affairs of the Lord (1 Cor. 7:25–40). By extending this principle, a Christian couple could decide that remaining childless would facilitate their single-minded focus on ministry, especially in a period of crisis or urgency.
Yet the choice to remain childless, like all choices Christians make, must grow out of reflection on God’s revealed truth and on his continued guidance. It must not be inspired by society’s climate of self-indulgence. Our decisions must be shaped by God-honoring principles rather than by the molding influence of the age. The ultimate motivation for whatever we decide must be rooted in a desire to see God honored by our choices, and to see his reign extended.
If a couple comes to the conclusion before God that they can best serve him without children, two cautions are in order. First, because a couple without children runs a special risk of growing self-centered, and because they are not experiencing the kinds of growth that sometimes only child rearing can produce, the couple should consider cultivating relationships with those—children or adults—who can help in the ongoing task of growing up spiritually. Second, in that the Spirit may prompt a later change of mind, the couple would be wise not to take any irreversible steps, such as sterilization.
The changing role of the family in the economy of God offers Christians a variety of possibilities through which to serve our Lord. Despite the dangers their misuse entails, believers can welcome a number of modern birth-control methods as gracious gifts, as God-given means for widening the contexts of Christian service. More important than the context we choose, however, is our faithfulness to the responsibility entrusted to us, our steadfastness in following the Spirit, that we may do all “for the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31).
Eugene H. Peterson is pastor of Christ Our King Presbyterian Church, Bel Air, Maryland, and author of A Long Obedience in the Same Direction (InterVarsity) and Answering God (Harper & Row), both of which are about the Psalms.
