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Al Mohler Responds: The Evangelical Unease Over Contraception
Charisma News ^ | 1/10/14 | R. Albert Mohler Jr.

Posted on 01/10/2014 8:06:50 PM PST by marshmallow

Is evangelical unease about contraception really just a cover for conservative white male evangelical leaders to keep women out of pulpits? Evidently some think so, or fear so, or perhaps even hope so.

That was made clear in a recent Religion News Service op-ed by Jacob Lupfer, raising a key question about the controversy over the Obama administration’s contraception mandate: Are evangelical protests rooted in concern about religious liberty or about birth control? The answer is yes.

Lupfer argues that while the concerns are ostensibly about religious liberty, evangelical leaders are actually “attempting to sow seeds of doubt about the morality of birth control itself.” On that count, he understates his own case.

A good many evangelicals hope to do far more than sow seeds of doubt about the morality of birth control. Our concern is to raise an alarm about the entire edifice of modern sexual morality and to acknowledge that millions of evangelicals have unwittingly aided and abetted that moral revolution by an unreflective and unfaithful embrace of the contraceptive revolution.

Lupfer observes that the embrace of contraception “has become a fact of life in America.” Thus, those who push back against the contraceptive revolution are the standouts in this cultural moment, and Lupfer clearly asserts that something other than concern about birth control must really lie behind the evangelical urgency.

What would that be? According to Lupfer, “the intended effect of bemoaning contraception is to idealize pre-feminist conceptions of marriage and family.” Futhermore, he says, the concerns about contraception are “a mere skirmish in a larger theological and ideological battle.”

According to Lupfer, those larger theological and ideological battles include an evangelical ambition to increase “market share” by out-breeding those with other worldviews. He also suggests that male evangelical leaders operate out of a logic that..........

(Excerpt) Read more at charismanews.com ...


TOPICS: Evangelical Christian; Moral Issues; Theology
KEYWORDS: christianity; contraception; contraceptives; margaretsanger; plannedparenthood; prolife; sexualrevolution
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To: marshmallow
Lupfer observes that the embrace of contraception “has become a fact of life in America.”

A common way of framing an argument. It's so old (and still so false) that the Romans named it: Argumentum ad populum.

21 posted on 01/11/2014 4:58:00 AM PST by Jim Noble (When strong, avoid them. Attack their weaknesses. Emerge to their surprise.)
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To: thecodont
You can’t talk about contraception without talking about fornication

And fornication is even more popular than birth control.

22 posted on 01/11/2014 4:59:31 AM PST by Jim Noble (When strong, avoid them. Attack their weaknesses. Emerge to their surprise.)
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To: Brian Kopp DPM

In the last several months I’ve been looking into this issue. My wife has been on the pill for years, and I don’t like the health side effects. I started looking at other methods, then I looked at how some work, and I was horrified.

The UED I think they are called are inserted. They don’t stop the sperm from reaching the egg, just stop the egg from travelling down the tube. It essentially aborts the inseminated egg.

To all who say getting snipped is harmless and a good route, I would have to disagree after reading some Christian authors on the subject too, along with some other research. People don’t even fully comprehend the long term health hazards from this, not to mention it can go wrong to begin with.

If anyone has good suggestions on birth control, by all means, let me know, until then I’m looking at the calendar method (forget what the correct terminology is), and praying for God’s will. We have three kids already, and not really wishing for more, but who am I to even make that call?


23 posted on 01/11/2014 5:19:25 AM PST by Bulwyf
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To: Elsie

I also don’t get why they flat out refuse to believe Jesus had siblings, when it’s very clear he did.


24 posted on 01/11/2014 5:25:14 AM PST by Bulwyf
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To: Jim Noble

I myself am very unpopular with most people I work with and talk to in general because I say sex is for saving for marriage. The common argument is that if you were buying a car wouldn’t you want to test drive it first? I find that argument ludicrous on a few levels. My views aren’t popular, but they’re biblical, and that’s what matters to me.


25 posted on 01/11/2014 5:26:55 AM PST by Bulwyf
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To: Bulwyf

-— The common argument is that if you were buying a car wouldn’t you want to test drive it first? -—

They’ll probably be surprised to learn that cohabiting couples are far more likely to divorce, if they get married.


26 posted on 01/11/2014 5:38:56 AM PST by St_Thomas_Aquinas ( Isaiah 22:22, Matthew 16:19, Revelation 3:7)
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To: St_Thomas_Aquinas

I wasn’t aware of that stat, but it makes perfect sense to me.


27 posted on 01/11/2014 5:43:37 AM PST by Bulwyf
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To: Bulwyf
I wasn’t aware of that stat, but it makes perfect sense to me.

For interested Freepers to file away:

Couples who live together before marriage more likely to divorce.

28 posted on 01/11/2014 6:17:40 AM PST by St_Thomas_Aquinas ( Isaiah 22:22, Matthew 16:19, Revelation 3:7)
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To: daniel1212
Why don't you discuss the article (which is *about* Protestants, *by* a notable Protestant), instead of attempting a thread hijack to slam Catholicism?
29 posted on 01/11/2014 6:40:39 AM PST by Campion ("Social justice" begins in the womb)
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To: St_Thomas_Aquinas
There was an interesting sociological study on that a few years back. It was on the net; I wish I could find it again. It was trying to determine exactly why cohabitation correlated with increased divorce rates.

The investigators noted that the divorce rate among couples who cohabited only after they were engaged wasn't elevated by much.

Then they questioned whether it was serial cohabitation which was making people take marriage less seriously. So they looked only at cohabitators who cohabited with only one partner (but without being engaged first), but saw that their divorce rate was still much higher. So that explained some of the difference, but not all, or even most.

Their conclusion was that couples who cohabited before deciding to marry (that is, before engagement) were basically putting themselves on a short path to marriage (and therefore divorce) without really consciously realizing or choosing it.

Either they conceived a baby, or they simply decided it was much easier to marry than break up, or one party made life miserable for the other party until they agreed to marriage. But in any case, they ended up getting married "by default," often without really wanting to be married, and even though there were often issues in the relationship which were glaring red flags warning against marriage.

30 posted on 01/11/2014 6:53:44 AM PST by Campion ("Social justice" begins in the womb)
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To: boatbums; Brian Kopp DPM
". . . knew that there was a secondary purpose of the pill which was to make the uterine lining inhospitable to implantation of a fertilized egg."

Other than before clinical trials were even begun, there was never a time when "a handful of people" knew how such "contraceptives" worked nor was there ever a time when anyone who wasn't deliberately hiding from reality didn't know that such "contraceptives" were reliable only because their primary function was to ensure conception would nearly always result in an abortion. Any woman taking "contraceptives" of that sort who has had a late period followed by "heavy flow" has had a "contraceptive" induced abortion and that is exactly what formulations like "the Pill" have always been intended to do.

Any time after the early sixties, there is no way anyone honestly interested in the moral implications of such "contraceptives" could avoid knowing that endorsing their use was endorsing abortion. Going along to get along was and is the overriding "theological" dogma of those "leaders" who approved of such contraceptives, period. Any time after mid-1971 anyone who "didn't know" didn't want to know just like anyone who "didn't know" about the greatly increased cancer risk didn't want to know.

Starting in 1960 Barbara Seaman made a LOT of noise over the Pill causing abortions and greatly increasing the risk of cancer for those who use it. Her activism, articles, and especially her testimony before a Congressional committee not long after her book, The Doctors' Case Against The Pill, came out in 1969 are what led to all prescription and OTC medications having the lengthy and detailed package insert that is now required.

She was absolutely an abortion supporter but she was also absolutely against women taking a "contraceptive" that worked primarily by causing an abortion. She considered that point not being made clear on the outside of every package a deliberate violation of "informed consent" laws and therefore she fought the rest of her life to have a warning label clearly stating that a product worked primarily by causing abortions on any contraceptive formulation like "The Pill". She also wanted a warning about the huge increase in cancer risk associated with regular Estrogen use and the negative effects of multiple abortions whether they were done by invasive means or induced by a "contraceptive".

There was never any question of how such contraceptives work, only a question of whether the average consumer should be well informed. Overall I'm no fan of Barbara Seaman, but was right about "the Pill" and similar "contraceptives". She paid a heavy price for fighting for women having full knowledge of how "the Pill" worked, a battle she won as far as having the facts clearly stated in the package insert but lost with regard to the warning label on the outside of the package. Given the fact that warnings about even trace amount of peanut oil are stated on the outside of food packaging, she wasn't being the least bit unreasonable for wanting multiple clear warnings on the outside of each package of contraceptives that cause abortions.

When in clinical trials formulations with a much higher Estrogen content which actually did mostly avoid conception caused negative reactions (including several deaths) so often, pharmaceutical companies revised their goals and accepted abortion as the primary way to avoid having a child rather than sticking to their original goal of avoiding contraception in the first place. In spite of the questionable legality of inducing abortions at that time, drug companies were intent on marketing an oral contraceptive. A good bit of the big money behind the push to legalize abortion was directly and indirectly from pharmaceutical companies still worried about their legal liability for marketing "contraceptives" that routinely induced then illegal abortions.

31 posted on 01/11/2014 7:33:36 AM PST by Rashputin (Jesus Christ doesn't evacuate His troops, He leads them to victory.)
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To: jobim

A thread is started at 11:06pm and at 1:00am you are accusing Protestants of being absent on a subject?

Can’t speak for other churches, but I will say the following:

-Reformed families are against chemical contraception

-I have had countless Roman Catholic women come into my office asking for oral contraceptives. These are not Christmas Catholics. They are all active in their local house of worship.

-I don’t prescribe oral contraceptives


32 posted on 01/11/2014 7:36:50 AM PST by Gamecock (Celebrating 20,000 posts of dubious quality.)
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To: DesertRhino; thecodont
Benny, Elaine, and Susie won't be going to church with the rest of the family, though. They're as dead as door nails after being conceived then aborted within days thanks to the "contraceptive" Mom and Dad rely on.

It's such a hassle to practice self-control a few days a month when you can just pop a pill and have a quiet abortion with no fuss. An added benefit is that everyone believes Mom and Dad when they say they're pro-Life and against legalized abortion. Their friends don't think about the fact that Mom and Dad really mean they're against the tacky invasive abortions performed at death clinics, not really all abortions.

33 posted on 01/11/2014 7:57:13 AM PST by Rashputin (Jesus Christ doesn't evacuate His troops, He leads them to victory.)
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To: Gamecock
-Reformed families are against chemical contraception"

I'm glad to hear that.

In the materials for their formal pre-marriage courses the SBC differentiates between contraceptives that cause abortions and those that don't then says those that do cause aboetion are unacceptable. Whether the same point is made in the occasional sermon for the congregation as a whole, I don't know.

34 posted on 01/11/2014 8:16:04 AM PST by Rashputin (Jesus Christ doesn't evacuate His troops, He leads them to victory.)
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To: boatbums

Sorry, I hadn’t seen recent threads on this topic, and as I live in Hawaii I come into something 3-5 hrs later than you folks, and I hadn’t checked the posting time.


35 posted on 01/11/2014 8:28:34 AM PST by jobim (.)
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To: jobim
Where is the discussion among Protestant Freepers on this thread? The silence is deafening ((((((((((*))))))))))

Any religion that calls a mere man Holy Father has no business commenting on anything biblical...The Holy Father is God and they can't tell the difference between a man and God...

Peter would have puked all over every one of of them that called him Holy Father...

The least of what you should be worrying about is what Protestants do or don't do...

36 posted on 01/11/2014 8:32:22 AM PST by Iscool
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To: Jim Noble

Of COURSE; with STUPID taxpayers being handed the bill!

COWBIRDS


37 posted on 01/11/2014 9:10:24 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Bulwyf

Yeah, Joseph was around for at LEAST 12 years.

“Not tonight; I have a headache.” would get a little old...


38 posted on 01/11/2014 9:11:20 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Campion
Why don't you discuss the article (which is *about* Protestants, *by* a notable Protestant), instead of attempting a thread hijack to slam Catholicism?

WHO posted it?

39 posted on 01/11/2014 9:14:27 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: daniel1212; marshmallow; Tax-chick
Apart from that, I believe self control is the means by which reproduction is controlled, and not by synthetic means.

I don't believe I've seen any arguments likening birth control pills to diet pills (i.e. appetite suppressants, metabolism boosters, carb-blockers, fat-blockers, etc.). Most doctors will tell the person wishing to lose weight to change eating habits and not rely on a pill. Funny how that doesn't translate to sexual behavior. If you don't want to get pregnant or don't want to pick up a disease, ABSTAIN.

40 posted on 01/11/2014 9:25:24 AM PST by thecodont
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