Why Did God Kill Onan? Luther, Calvin, Wesley, C.S. Lewis, & Others on Contraception

Biblical Evidence for Catholicism ^ | Monday, February 09, 2004 | Dave Armstrong

[GonzoII]

Why Did God Kill Onan? Luther, Calvin, Wesley, C.S. Lewis, & Others on Contraception

Genesis 38:9-10: “But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so when he went in to his brother’s wife he spilled the semen on the ground, lest he should give offspring to his brother. 10 And what he did was displeasing in the sight of the Lord, and he slew him also.”

It is an historical fact that no Christian communion sanctioned contraception until the Anglican Lambeth Conference in 1930. Protestant historian Roland Bainton states casually that the Church “very early forbade contraception” (Early Christianity, 56). According to The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, “many Christian moralists . . . repudiate all methods of family limitation” (Cross, 889). Ronald Knox eloquently recounted how Christians used to detest contraception:

Practices hitherto connected with the unmentioned underworld have found their way into the home . . . it is not merely a Christian principle that has been thrown overboard . . . Ovid and Juvenal, with no flicker of Christian revelation to guide them, branded the practices in question with the protest of heathen satire. It is not Christian morality, but natural morality as hitherto conceived, that has been outraged by the change of standard.

(Knox, 31-32)

Christianity (Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Protestantism alike) had always opposed contraception as gravely sinful. When I first learned of this in 1990 (as an inquiring evangelical pro-life activist curious about the “odd” and inexplicable Catholic prohibition) it was a shocking revelation to me and the first step on my road to conversion to Catholicism.

Today, probably upwards of 90% of Protestants and 80% of Catholics use contraceptives. It is a mortal sin in Catholicism, and used to always be considered an extremely serious sin in Protestant circles. How things change. The great Anglican apologist C.S. Lewis, for example, opposed contraception:

As regards contraceptives, there is a paradoxical, negative sense in which all possible future generations are the patients or subjects of a power wielded by those already alive. By contraception simply, they are denied existence; by contraception used as a means of selective breeding, they are, without their concurring voice, made to be what one generation, for its own reasons, may choose to prefer. From this point of view, what we call Man's power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument.

(The Abolition of Man, 68-69)

Genesis 38:9-10 (about Onan) has been one of the main prooftexts traditionally used to oppose contraception. Observe how Martin Luther interpreted this biblical passage:

Onan must have been a malicious and incorrigible scoundrel. This is a most disgraceful sin. It is far more atrocious than incest and adultery. We call it unchastity, yes, a Sodomitic sin. For Onan goes in to her; that is, he lies with her and copulates, and when it comes to the point of insemination, spills the semen, lest the woman conceive. Surely at such a time the order of nature established by God in procreation should be followed . . . He was inflamed with the basest spite and hatred . . . Consequently, he deserved to be killed by God. He committed an evil deed. Therefore God punished him . . . That worthless fellow . . . preferred polluting himself with a most disgraceful sin to raising up offspring for his brother.

(Lectures on Genesis: Chapters 38-44; 1544; LW, 7, 20-21)

John Calvin, in his Commentary on Genesis is no less vehemently opposed to the practice (what would he think if he knew about the vast majority of Calvinists today who regularly contracept?):

I will contend myself with briefly mentioning this, as far as the sense of shame allows to discuss it. It is a horrible thing to pour out seed besides the intercourse of man and woman. Deliberately avoiding the intercourse, so that the seed drops on the ground, is double horrible. For this means that one quenches the hope of his family, and kills the son, which could be expected, before he is born. This wickedness is now as severely as is possible condemned by the Spirit, through Moses, that Onan, as it were, through a violent and untimely birth, tore away the seed of his brother out the womb, and as cruel as shamefully has thrown on the earth. Moreover he thus has, as much as was in his power, tried to destroy a part of the human race. When a woman in some way drives away the seed out the womb, through aids, then this is rightly seen as an unforgivable crime. Onan was guilty of a similar crime, by defiling the earth with his seed, so that Tamar would not receive a future inheritor.

The New Bible Dictionary concludes, on the other hand, “this verse does not pass any judgment on birth control as such” (Douglas, 789). The reasoning often used to overcome the force of the verse is that Onan was punished by God (with death) for disobeying the “levirate law,” whereby a brother of a dead husband was to take his sister-in-law as his wife and have children with her (Deuteronomy 25:5-10).

But that can’t apply in this case (or any other) because the same work informs us that the law “allows the brother the option of refusing.” Thus we find in Deuteronomy 25:9 that a sister-in-law so refused should “spit in his face,” but there is no mention of any death penalty or the wrath of God.

How then, can the New Bible Dictionary be so sure that the slaying of Onan by God had no relation to contraception? God didn’t command Onan in this case – another argument sometimes heard -- , so he wasn’t directly disobeying God (it was his father Judah who asked him to do what he didn’t want to do: Gen 38:8).

Whatever was “displeasing” to God couldn’t have been disobedience regarding the levirate law, since He allowed people to disobey it and recommended that they suffer only public humiliation, not death, which is not nearly as serious as being “wicked” -- the reason God slew Onan’s brother Er (Gen 38:7).

Moreover, the passage which teaches about the levirate law (Deuteronomy 25:5-10) is from God, as part of the covenant and the Law received by Moses on Mt. Sinai, and proclaimed by Him to all of Israel (see Deut 5:1-5, 29:1,12).

If God Himself did not say that the punishment for disobeying the levirate law was death (in the place where it would be expected if it were true), how can modern commentators “know” this? Can it be that their “knowledge” exists in order to avoid uncomfortable implications concerning a prohibition of contraception? Might there be a little bit of bias at play?

Yet the article on Onan in the same dictionary (the earlier comment was in the article, “Marriage”), written by the editor, J.D. Douglas, states:

Onan . . . took steps to avoid a full consummation of the union, thus displeasing the Lord, who slew him.

(Douglas, 910)

Douglas appears to contend that Onan was killed for the contraceptive act, not disobedience to the levirate law. If so, his opinion contradicts the view expressed in the other article by J.S. Wright and J.A. Thompson. The Eerdmans Bible Dictionary concurs:

. . . whenever Onan and Tamar had intercourse he would spill his sperm on the ground to prevent her from conceiving; for this the Lord slew him.

Onan’s tactic of withdrawing before ejaculation . . . costs him his life.

(Myers, 781, 653)

In its article on “Levirate Law,” we are also informed that “the brother had the option of refusing to take his sister-in-law in levirate marriage (652). The logic is apparent: if refusal alone was not grounds to be killed by God or by capital punishment issued by his fellows, then there must have been something in the way Onan refused which was the cause. This was the “withdrawal method,” a form of contraception (probably the one most used throughout history). Therefore, Onan was killed for doing that, which in turn means that God didn’t approve of it.

One might still retort as follows: “it is not contraception per se that was wrong in Onan’s case, but the fact that he wanted to have sex with the woman but not to have children. He had the right to refuse the levirate marriage, but once he agreed to it he was obligated to produce the children which was the purpose of it.”

I would agree with this hypothetical objection prima facie, but (upon closer inspection) I would add that it actually confirms the central moral point on which the moral objection to contraception is based: the evil of separating sex from procreation. It is precisely because the central purpose of marriage is procreation, that the levirate law was present in the first place. If one married, they were to have sexual relations, which was (foremost) for the purpose of having children.

If a husband died with no children, it was so important for children to be born that God commanded the man’s brother to take his wife after he died. But Onan tried to separate sex from procreation. He wanted all the pleasure but not the responsibility of fatherhood or to help perpetuate his brother’s family. He possessed the “contraceptive mentality” which is rampant today, even among otherwise traditional, committed Christians.

This is what is evil: an unnatural separation of what God intended to be together. If Onan didn’t want children, he shouldn’t have agreed to the levirate marriage. Once married, he should have agreed to having children. But he tried the “middle way” of having sex but willfully separating procreation from it. This was the sin, and this is why God killed him. Martin Luther understood the fundamental evil of contraception and the “anti-child” mindset:

Today you find many people who do not want to have children. Moreover, this callousness and inhuman attitude, which is worse than barbarous, is met with chiefly among the nobility and princes, who often refrain from marriage for this one single reason, that they might have no offspring. It is even more disgraceful that you find princes who allow themselves to be forced not to marry, for fear that the members of their house would increase beyond a definite limit. Surely such men deserve that their memory be blotted out from the land of the living. Who is there who would not detest these swinish monsters? But these facts, too, serve to emphasize original sin. Otherwise we would marvel at procreation as the greatest work of God, and as a most outstanding gift we would honor it with the praises it deserves.

(Lectures on Genesis: Chapters 1-5, 1536; LW, I, 118; commentary on Genesis 2:18)

The rest of the populace is more wicked than even the heathen themselves. For most married people do not desire offspring. Indeed, they turn away from it and consider it better to live without children, because they are poor and do not have the means with which to support a household. . . . But the purpose of marriage is not to have pleasure and to be idle but to procreate and bring up children, to support a household. . . . Those who have no love for children are swine, stocks, and logs unworthy of being called men and women; for they despise the blessing of God, the Creator and Author of marriage.

(Lectures on Genesis: Chapters 26-30; LW, V, 325-328; vol. 28, 279; commentary on the birth of Joseph to Jacob and Rachel; cf. LW, vol. 45, 39-40)

But the greatest good in married life, that which makes all suffering and labor worth while, is that God grants offspring and commands that they be brought up to worship and serve him. In all the world this is the noblest and most precious work, because to God there can be nothing dearer than the salvation of souls. Now since we are all duty bound to suffer death, if need be, that we might bring a single soul to God, you can see how rich the estate of marriage is in good works.

(The Estate of Marriage, 1522; LW, vol. 45, 46)

You will find many to whom a large number of children is unwelcome, as though marriage had been instituted only for bestial pleasures and not also for the very valuable work by which we serve God and men when we train and educate the children whom God has given us. They do not appreciate the most pleasant feature of marriage. For what exceeds the love of children?

(In Plass, II, #2834)

Let’s examine more traditional Protestant commentary on Genesis 38:8-9. Matthew Henry decries “the great abuse of his own body” and “sins that dishonour the body and defile it” which “are very displeasing to God and evidences of vile affections.” John Wesley actually quotes Henry, adds that Onan was abusing his wife, and concludes with this powerful condemnation:

Observe, the thing which he did displeased the Lord -- And it is to be feared, thousands, especially of single persons, by this very thing, still displease the Lord, and destroy their own souls.

Sources

Bainton, Roland H., Early Christianity, New York: D. Van Nostrand Company, 1960.

Calvin, John, Calvin's Commentaries, 22 volumes, translated and edited by John Owen; originally printed for the Calvin Translation Society, Edinburgh, Scotland, 1853; reprinted by Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, MI: 1979. Available online: http://www.ccel.org/c/calvin/comment2/

Cross, F.L. and E.A. Livingstone, editors, The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, 1983.

Douglas, J.D., editor, The New Bible Dictionary, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1962.

Henry, Matthew [Presbyterian], Complete Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1706. Available online:
http://www.studylight.org/com/mhc-com/
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/henry/mhc.html

Knox, Ronald, The Belief of Catholics, Garden City, NY: Doubleday Image, 1927; reprinted in 1958.

Lewis, C.S., The Abolition of Man, New York: Macmillan, 1947.

Luther, Martin, Luther's Works (LW), American edition, edited by Jaroslav Pelikan (volumes 1-30) and Helmut T. Lehmann (volumes 31-55), St. Louis: Concordia Pub. House (volumes 1-30); Philadelphia: Fortress Press (volumes 31-55), 1955.

Myers, Allen C., editor, The Eerdmans Bible Dictionary, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1987; English revision of Bijbelse Encyclopedie, edited by W.H. Gispen, Kampen, Netherlands: J.H. Kok, revised edition, 1975; translated by Raymond C. Togtman and Ralph W. Vunderink.

Plass, Ewald M., What Luther Says, an Anthology, two volumes, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959.

Wesley, John [founder of Methodism], Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, 1765. Available (online)

* * * * *

From my book: The Catholic Verses (published in 2004 by Sophia Institute Press)

For further fascinating exegesis of the Onan passage, see Fr. Brian Harrison's comments: “The Sin of Onanism Revisited."

Also of related interest: “Church History and Birth Control” (many full citations).

[metmom]

Based on the arguments I have seen on FR over the years about contraception and Scripture, it is more than apparent that some have built a doctrine and fished for verses to support it, than using a reasonable interpretation of the passage to make the doctrine.

Onan was killed by God for failing to fulfill his obligation under the Law to his brother’s wife.

Saying that he was killed for using contraception is a very loose interpretation of the passage, to put it mildly.

If contraception were such a serious issue, then God would have far more clearly spelled it out and there would be many more passages of Scripture dealing with it.

God never leaves us in doubt about what He considers important, but always emphasizes and reiterates those matters.

All we have here for the anti-contraception camp is one obscure passage that can be legitimately interpreted in other ways.

[Mrs. Don-o]

"[Onan's sin was] He was unwilling to fulfill his role as his brother’s keeper and provide for his brother’s wife and her children."

Actually, that's not what the text says. The text says "God slew him for the thing which he did." It doesn't say "for the thing which he didn't do."

It also doesn't say, one way or the other, whether Onan provided for Tamar. That isn't even mentioned in the account. It just says "the thing which he did." Which was immediately described in the previous verse: deliberately impairing the fertility of the act.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Sin can be --- usually is -- part of a spiral of falling away from God, in which it plays the part of both symptom of moral decay and cause of further decay.

It's very hard to think of a sin which doesn't have that dual role of being, in part, both the effect of previous sin and the cause of further sin.

"To say that contraception causes moral failure denies the empowering work of the Holy Spirit to give people the ability to resist sin."

Not so: that does not follow. Nobody said that sin is an irresistable or inevitable cause of further sin. We all agree with the "empowering work of the Holy Spirit to give people the ability to resist sin."

Don't we pray for that every day?

[DarkSavant]

We came to the the conclusion that contraception really launched our society off in the wrong direction, It is a choice against the normal and in favor of the subnormal. It is a choice against whole sex in favor of fragmented, functionally impaired sex. It is a thread which, if you cut it and then start pulling it out, necessarily unravels the whole sweater.

Very well put. This is why every Church before the 1930s condemned it.

[Mrs. Don-o]

You might notice that the article at the top of this thread is not about the "anti-contraception camp," it's about the Scriptural/moral reflections of Luther, Calvin, Wesley, Lewis and other Reformed and Evangelical writers and leaders.

There are many things which are morally objectionable which are not specifically mentioned in Scripture. Sex-change operations ("gender reassignment surgery") based on radical gender theory would be one. It is not mentioned, but it can be reasoned out with reference to the goodness of God's design of male and female, and the wrongness of altering and rearranging this design at will.

A very similar line of reasoning apples to contraception, which is, like sex-reassignment surgery, a deliberate impairment of our normal, healthy sexual design.

[alexander_busek]

But if God killed Onan (either for thwarting levirite law or for simply practicing coitus interruptus) - then why hasn't He killed everyone else then who has committed either one of those two sins?

I suppose that one could devise an argument that God was making an example of Onan, and thus didn't feel that it was necessary or practicable to likewise kill all those who subsequently committed the "Sin of Onan," but that seems to me to be a rather weak argument, so my question stands: Why has God been so lax with the billions of other people since Onan's time who have likewise sinned by "spilling seed?"

(Also: How did the exact circumstances of Onan's behavior become known to the writer of this particular passage of the Bible? Were there other witnesses to Onan's deed, did it simply become "common knowledge," or did Onan's wife denounce him? And who's to say for exactly what reason God then killed Onan? I mean: If God smites your neighbor, how are you to know for exactly what reasons God did that? How are you to even be sure that it was in fact God, and not just some random stroke of lightning, or a blood clot, or any of countless other possible causes of death?)

I realize that it might appear as though I were attempting a reductio ad absurdum here, but I'm not. Rather, this particular conundrum seems truly baffling to me.

Regards,

[Mrs. Don-o]

I meant to ping you to this, too:

#25

[metmom]

We came to the the conclusion that contraception really launched our society off in the wrong direction, It is a choice against the normal and in favor of the subnormal. It is a choice against whole sex in favor of fragmented, functionally impaired sex.

Until God greatly increased Eve's conception after the fall, sex was as much for fun and relationship as it was for procreation because most sex would NOT have resulted in conception.

Just where did this mentality come from that sex was only for procreation and that sex without that intent is morally bankrupt, or subnormal? Did GOD state that somewhere?

All that does is diminish sex, which was GOD'S idea in the first place, in the eyes of humans to something less good than it is.

It would be just like the enemy to take something that is good and right and bind humans with all kinds of guilt and hang-ups about it by implying that they're not *doing it right* if they don't have the right intent for having it.

At that point, it simply provides some people the opportunity to point fingers and sit in judgment of others who aren't doing it the way they think it should be done.

[Mrs. Don-o]

" Why has God been so lax with the billions of other people since Onan's time who have likewise sinned by "spilling seed?"

Why has God been so lax with the billions of other people since the times of Sodom and Gomorrah who have likewise sinned by acts of sodomy? or rape? or murder? or blasphemy?"

Unsearchable are His ways. But the best explanation I have hears is simply, "Normally, God acts normally."

That is, God does not usually intervene in human affairs via miracles. (This is why "miracles" are considered exceptional and are called "wonders" and "marvels".)

God allows people and societies to experience the natural and logical consequences of their evil deeds.

Our natural and logical consequence for rejecting natural procreation (via contraception, sterilization, abortion, buggery, and the general aversion to natural sex as it was designed) will probably be the success of the Islamic jihad. Jihad will be the scourge upon the backs of faithless, fruitless Europe and America.

I don't wish it. But I can see it down the road.

The demons say "Inshallah." The believers say, "Holy God, Holy Mighty One, Holy Immortal One, have mercy on us and on the whole world."

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

I once had a long car ride with a Unitarian-Universalist

A Unitarian Universalist? They are hell-bound, filthy heretics. They are not Protestants, and they aren't Christians.

[DarkSavant]

God never leaves us in doubt about what He considers important, but always emphasizes and reiterates those matters.

Some say that God never directly condemns homosexual marriage in the Bible using the exact same logic.

All we have here for the anti-contraception camp is one obscure passage that can be legitimately interpreted in other ways.

We also have:
Genesis 1:28
Galatians 5:20: Witchcraft in ancient times included contraceptives.

I know you give no credence to Catholic teachings on natural law, which is your loss.

A previous post of this subject

[southernmann]

Not all of us pray for that, or even think about sin on a daily basis.

When I pray, it’s not to ask God to help me NOT do something, but to thank Him for what I have.

[Mrs. Don-o]

" Until God greatly increased Eve's conception after the fall, sex was as much for fun and relationship as it was for procreation because most sex would NOT have resulted in conception."

We don't know whether God increased Eve's conception because He made her more fertile, or whether He increased Eve's conception because --- as a natural consequence of sin -- concupiscence took root and Eve and Adam's sex drive become more irrational, loveless and lust-driven.

Perhaps a case can be made for either. However, I doubt God would have "cursed" Eve through improving her fertility per se, since an increase of fertility is consistently seen in the OT as a blessing, and barrenness as a curse.

Therefore I am inclined to say that lust came and infected their sexual relations, so that they had sex for reasons like selfishness, domination, bribery, conquest, and exploitation for personal gratification --- all of which can cause unintended and even disastrously untimely pregnancies, and all of which are also anti-love. And fun? It's not even user-friendly.

"Just where did this mentality come from that sex was only for procreation and that sex without that intent is morally bankrupt, or subnormal? Did GOD state that somewhere?"

Um... no. And my Church doesn't teach that. Does yours?

Of course people are not *doing it right* if they don't have the right intent for having it. But that :"right intent" is not procreation alone. It is also giving gifts of joy and satisfaction to one another, which heightens the happiness of marriage.

Lust is the enemy of love. But I think you know that. Anyone who uses sex selfishly or heedlessly, without honoring its delicate and powerful love-making and life-making capacities, is falling short of what it;s supposed to be. Intentionaly impairing either its natural fertility, or it's natural satisfaction ("fun" to you your term) is like saying, "No, God, I don't like the way you made sex. But that's OK. It'll just make some cuts here, here and here, throw away this part and that part, and then it'll be fine. Too bad you made it wrong, but I fixed it."

[Zuriel]

**Well, Judah reneged too,**

Judah, a widower at the time (not that that okayed unmarried sex), THOUGHT he messed around with a prostitute, for Tamar veiled her face, and dressed the part (nowadays, dressing like a harlot seems to be the norm. But, that’s a whole nuther topic). Tamar turns up pregnant. Judah had no idea he was the father, UNTIL presented with his signet, bracelets, and staff, which he had given to the ‘harlot’.

Judah acknowledged then and there. No renegging.

Onan basically performed deceptive practice, before God, and man (especially Tamar).

Couples that use the monthly timing practice are using contraception. They just don’t use any devices. But, the ‘pill’ has got to be one of the most society and health damaging man-made creations ever. We’re not Catholic, and my wife has never used it. The side effects alone should be enough to shun it.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Wow. I can feel the love.

Look, Christians and Unitarians are still allowed to ride in the car and talk. There can still be respect for one another as human beings. That is basic.

There are people I wouldn't want to have a long car ride with, but she wasn't one of them.

Tagline.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Well, I do pray every day for the power to resist sin. I ask --- I beg --- God to enlighten my mind and strengthen my will to do good and avoid evil.

And I thank Him for all His gracious gifts to an unworthy being like myself.

God never stops loving me, and for this I am grateful. It's as if I can feel Him squeeze my hand.

[daniel1212]

There are many things which are morally objectionable which are not specifically mentioned in Scripture. Sex-change operations ("gender reassignment surgery") based on radical gender theory would be one. It is not mentioned, but it can be reasoned out with reference to the goodness of God's design of male and female, and the wrongness of altering and rearranging this design at will.

It can be Scripturally judged based upon precepts and principals, but making the sin of Onan to be that of using contraception will not do. It was selfishness, not wanting to raise up children for his brother's wife:

And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother's wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother. And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother. (Genesis 38:8-9)

And the thing which he did displeased the Lord: wherefore he slew him also. (Genesis 38:10)

But from the beginning creating two uniquely compatible and complementary opposite genders, and such becoming one flesh, "cleaving," goes together with multiplying, (Gn. 1:26-28l cf. 2:24)

And Scripture knows nothing of either a sexless marriage btwn virile believing partners or one in which such couples choose to have no children (using Onan's method for instance), as well as restricting conjugal relations to that purpose.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Sin is in the heart before it is in the act, and Judah did not intend to fulfill his kinship obligation toward Tamar. He intended only a quickie with a whore. Therefore in his heart, he was turned away from his obligation.

That';s why he said, when the truth came out, "She has been more righteous than I." He knew he was unrighteous because he had had no regard for the Levitie obligation.

Contracepted sex is, in itself, a deceptive practice. It has the form of a natural act, but it is not because it has been impaired in some way, either in the act itself, or before or after, so that the act us rendered null.

That is why NFO is not contraception. At no point does it alter or impair the act of intercourse.

NFO cana rightly be called "Family Planning," and even, technically speaking "Birth Control,: but it is not contraception. It consists only of periodic abstinence, either to achieve or to avoid conception.

The Jews, interestingly, starting in Biblical times, used periodic abstinence as a means of achieving pregnancy. If you abstain from sex during menstruation, and then count 7 days after the last show of blood, then have a mikvah (purifying bath) and resume relations, you have just done 12-13 days of abstinence which puts you on the 12th or 13th day of the cycle, so the man's sperm count is high and the woman is just on the very verge of ovulation. This is the time of absolute maximum fertility.

That is, precisely, using NFP to optimize the likelihood of conception.

So. You want to do it the Biblical way? There you go! Mazel tov!

[Mrs. Don-o]

Not sure what your point is. Onan's sin was selfishness, VIA not wanting to raise up children for his brother's wife, VIA nullifying/impairing the natural fertility of the act of intercourse.

It was sin in attitude AND in its intended end AND in his chosen means to that end.

This explains more:
#38

All of Christendom rejected contraception until the Anglicans broke ranks in 1930. You will not find any Christian endorsing contraception in he whole history of Christian life, almost to millennia, although it was known and practiced in the ancient world ("Pharmakeia").

By what legitimate innovation did contracepted sex acts become OK in 1930? And why didn't anybody see it up to that point, except the Anglicans?

[Jonty30]

It says very much what Onan did.

Genesis 38:8-10New King James Version (NKJV)

“8 And Judah said to Onan, “Go in to your brother’s wife and marry her, and raise up an heir to your brother.” 9 But Onan knew that the heir would not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in to his brother’s wife, that he emitted on the ground, lest he should give an heir to his brother. 10 And the thing which he did displeased the Lord; therefore He killed him also.”

The heir he would have raised would have supplanted his own sons for the inheritance. That’s why he failed to follow through fully.