I’ll leave off this thread by writing that I agree with the substance of your post - God and Israel, Christ and Church, both used the metaphor of husband and wife. Marriage is a covenant between a man and woman, children may come from it. I simply don’t buy into the legalistic prohibition on responsible family planning by Rome. No one yet has admitted to the condemnation by Rome of sex acts, inside of marriage, resulting in orgasm that is non-procreative, actual or potential. Rome’s position is not scriptural and contrary to reason and nature. Again, more power to the folks who are gratified by various methods of birth control they deem ‘natural.’
To some, Rome’s “position” is considered contrary to reason and nature. So be it.
I am recalling the words of Henry Drummond-—the famed (non-Catholic) nineteenth century evangelist from Edinburgh who wrote “The Greatest Thing in the World”.
He wrote in that book: “The most obvious lesson in Christ’s teaching is that there is no happiness in having and getting anything. I repeat—there is no happiness in having or getting anything, but only in giving” Drummond understood the difference between the temporary moment of pleasure and the lasting status of happiness. He also wrote: “Some of us have not much time to love. Remember once more that this is a matter of life and death. I cannot help speaking urgently—for myself, for yourselves. It is better not to live than not to love...love is unselfishness, which does not seek its own.”
Henry had it right.
And it is the whole ethos of married love.
Aside from hurling drivel around, there is plenty of "Failure to communicate" going on. Could you say again the question you think we aren't answering? I ask because I thought I saw a charge of an unanswered question and I thought I tried to answer it.
And if you want, could you explain the word "legalistic". In my experience that word mostly generates heat and obscures the little light that might be floating around.
I simply don’t buy into the legalistic prohibition on responsible family planning by Rome.
Of course this is a highly tendentious way of expressing what nearly all Xtian denominations taught until less than 100 years ago. "Rome" is not against family planning and "Rome" is not against being responsible. "Rome" generally thinks that sin is intrinsically bad for one, not in terms of a future punishment but also in terms of a current hindrance in one's walk in Christ. "Rome" thinks, I'd venture to say, that while not all married couples are able to fulfill the archaic command to be fruitful and multiply, inability is one thing and setting out deliberately "with - if not malice, certainly disobedience aforethought" is not just a blot in one's copy-book, but contrary to how God intends and designs redeemed humans to be healthy, holy, and happy. And she sees artificial birth control as such an act, bearing its consequences within itself.
All the dire threats made by the fuddyduddies in reference to ABC have come true. They were pooh-poohed at the time, But homosexual genital activity has gone from the love that dare not speak its name to a civil right, promiscuity beggars the imagination, mothers dress their pre-pubescent daughters like trollops, TV advisors think adolescents should be sexually active and say so, illegitimacy is, unexpectedly at a very high rate and so on. When I was a deputy just a few years ago we transported some kids from the Juvie to Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court and heard the young men bragging about the bastards they'd sired -- Juveniles! Under 18! Students at UVA had their underthings all in a twist because the state subsidy - SUBSIDY! - on Artificial Birth Control was being reduced and they were going to have to pay more for their pills.
All this, though not in such detail, was predicted when the Anglicans at Lambeth in 1930 decided to come out in favor of "responsible family planning".
Of course, at the last Diocesan Council I attended as an Episcopal priest, the argument was seriously raised that the old notion of marriage being lifelong was made popular when people died younger and women died more often in childbirth. But now that we have the curse of better medicine and it's diabolical result that our wives actually hang around for a while, the burden of lifelong marriage had become just too much to expect of the modern Christian. Artificial Birth Control was going to reduce sexual frustration in marriage and so reduce the impetus for infidelity and the resultant divorce. But the unintended consequence of women living longer was now offered as a justification for MORE divorce!
Consequently, I think a little disagreement about what exactly constitutes responsible family behavior is not out of order and the view opposing yours is not fit to be dismissed as a legalistic condemnation of responsibility.