The Church’s Changing Mind

Throughout Christian history, two questions have dominated the discussion of birth control and family planning: What are the purposes of marriage and sex? and, When and why is it permissible to “interfere” with nature to prevent conception or birth?

The earliest Christians followed their Jewish forebears in emphasizing sexual abstinence outside of marriage and children as God’s gift within marriage. Belief in a divine command to procreate generally led Jews away from contraception.

In the pagan world, however, contraception and abortion were generally accepted, as was exposure of infants. By A.D. 100, Christians were expressing clear opposition to those practices.

Early in the second century, some ascetic gnostic Christians condemned sex and procreation, while certain libertine Gnostics permitted sexual activity as part of their worship rituals.

The church’s response to pagan and gnostic sexual practices was threefold: to condemn lustful passion, rejoin sex and procreation, and proclaim the sanctity of human life and the entire life-giving process. The result was an emphasis on sexual propriety both outside and inside marriage, with celibacy the ideal, self-control the norm, and procreation the goal of sexual relations.

The development of these attitudes from about A.D. 150 (Justin Martyr) to A.D. 400 (Jerome) appears to have begun with the Christian community’s defense of its sexual conduct and treatment of children against false rumors. Next came an understanding of procreation as the sole purpose of marriage; then, prohibition of sexual acts within marriage not intended for procreation, followed by condemnation of contraception as a form of murder. Only a few church fathers recognized any nonprocreative purpose for sex.

Augustine articulated and established the church’s emerging suspicion of sex and its opposition to contraception. He maintained that sex after the Fall was always tainted with “cruel and rebellious lust.” For him its only redeeming feature was its procreative function. He labeled sterilization, contraception, and abortion as murderous.

Medieval church law reinforced this position, making contraception a crime. The theologian Thomas Aquinas renewed an argument based on “natural law”: sex and the genital organs have an obvious, natural function—procreation—which the use of contraceptives violates.

During and after the Middle Ages, most Catholic theologians continued to label contraception homicidal. Still, many laypeople used whatever contraceptive means they had at their disposal.

The Sin Of Onan

Although the Protestant Reformers believed that marriage and sex had functions other than procreation, they did not relax the ban on contraception. Calvin condemned “the sin of Onan” (withdrawal, also known as coitus interruptus) as murderous in intent. Luther believed that sexual fulfillment was a marital right, but he also assumed that sex and procreation were inseparable. John Wesley and the early Methodists, emphasizing sexual restraint at all times, taught that procreation was the primary purpose of marriage and sex, implicitly opposing contraception.

During and after the Counter Reformation, a number of Catholic theologians began to teach that nonprocreative sex is permissible. Early modern Catholic theologians took this view, and some permitted the limitation of family size for economic reasons, although they still forbade contraceptives.

Protestants continued officially to prohibit artificial contraception until 1930, when Anglican bishops at the Lambeth Conference lifted the ban. Other Protestant theologians, denominations, and councils followed suit between 1930 and 1960. This shift had roots in late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century developments, such as technological innovation, world population concerns, the changing roles of women, and increased theological emphasis on the legitimacy of erotic love.

Some recent Protestant debate has made contraceptive availability an issue of social and global justice. Also figuring in discussions is the morality of abortion, the IUD, and the early-abortion pill (RU 486). A few evangelicals criticize family planning as usurping God’s sovereign role in procreation.

The once-unified Catholic position has also turned into debate. Traditional Catholics follow papal teachings such as Humanae Vitae, advocating “natural” methods, while others defend and use artificial birth control.

Lessons From The Past

Most Christians—Catholic and Protestant—believe that family-planning methods can be a gift to enjoy and use wisely (even if they disagree on which are morally appropriate). And while we may welcome the church’s relatively recent liberation from its negative, Augustinian attitudes toward sex, cautions are also in order.

Modern society tends to so exalt sexual pleasure as to separate it entirely from sex’s procreative context. For centuries the church has correctly understood that this has dangerous consequences. Has not such a separation contributed to increased acceptance of premarital, extramarital, and homosexual sex, as well as abortion?

Christians can learn from the church’s centuries-old emphasis on marriage as the only appropriate context for sex and from its reminder that the overall sexual relationship is connected to procreation. Without these lessons, birth control can be a curse as much as a blessing.

By Michael J. Gorman, author of Abortion and the Early Church (InterVarsity). He has taught at the Stony Brook School and now teaches church history and moral theology in the Ecumenical Institute of Theology at Saint Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore.

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