Most Evangelical Leaders OK with Birth Control

A majority of evangelical leaders approve of artificial methods of contraception, a new survey reveals.

The National Association of Evangelicals, which represents more than 45,000 churches in the United States, released a report Tuesday showing that nearly 90 percent approve of contraception.

Several leaders, however, expressed opposition to drugs or procedures that terminate a pregnancy once conception has taken place.

"Most associate evangelicals with Catholics in their steady leadership in pro-life advocacy, and rightly so," said Leith Anderson, president of the NAE, in a statement. "But it may come as a surprise that unlike the Catholic church, we are open to contraception."

Evangelicals in the pews hold similar views. A 2009 poll conducted by the NAE in partnership with Gallup, Inc., found that at least 90 percent of evangelicals say hormonal/barrier methods of contraception are morally acceptable for adults.

Surveyed leaders in the most recent poll said the purpose of sex is not limited to procreation but it extends to the consummation and expression of love within marriage.

"Our leaders indicate that contraception can be utilized if all biblical purposes of sex are upheld and that it may actually aid in keeping the balance," Anderson noted.

The survey comes weeks after the NAE released a "Theology of Sex" resource to help inspire discussions about sex within the church and as part of an effort to reduce abortions in the country. The resource lists four reasons for sex, including "one-flesh union" to consummate marriage, procreation, expression of love to one's spouse, and enjoyment and pleasure.

Though overwhelmingly open to various forms of contraception, some leaders gave approval with caution.

While giving his OK, George Brushaber, president emeritus of Bethel University, noted that contraception should be used "with proper biblical and medical guidance."

And Greg Johnson, president of Standing Together, stressed that churches have a responsibility to communicate and preach the importance of family.

"[C]ouples should not carelessly allow themselves to use contraception as a way to avoid having children and a growing family altogether," he said.

Though some have argued that it is sinful to regulate the timing and number of children since children are gifts from God, many evangelical leaders believe otherwise.

Minneapolis preacher John Piper has stated, independent of the survey, that just because something is a gift from the Lord, it does not mean that it is wrong to be a steward of when or whether one will come into possession of it.

Nevertheless, God is in control whether a married couple uses birth control or not.

"The hands of the almighty are not tied by birth control," he has argued. "A couple will have children precisely at the time God wants, whether they use birth control or not."

Randy Bell of the Association for Biblical Higher Education can testify to that.

"I can say from personal experience that God can defeat such methods if he chooses to do so," said Bell, who also believes Scripture does not prohibit most common methods of contraception.

Results are based on a monthly poll of the NAE Board of Directors who include the CEOs of denominations and representatives of a broad array of evangelical organizations including missions, universities, publishers and churches.

Any Catholic who cites the example of Onan as an authoritative statement re contraception should do a study on the "kinsman redeemer" laws in the Old Testament (cf. Deut. 25:5-6). Onan wasn't guilty for ejaculating outside of a woman, he was guilty of willfully trying to utterly disinherit his brother's family from Israel (IIRC the entire Tribe of Judah, as Onan had no children of his own). Any other reading of the text is, IMO, a false exegesis.

Not so

From: http://www.rtforum.org/lt/lt67.html

Now, it has been fashionable among twentieth-century exegetes to maintain that in these verses the Bible condemns Onan's coitus interruptus only insofar as it in effect violated the so-called levirate marriage custom endorsed by the law of Moses at a time when polygamy was not forbidden.7 According to this ancient oriental practice, a man - whether he was already married or not - was expected to marry his deceased brother's wife if she was still childless at her husband's death; and the first-born son of this union was then regarded as a legal descendant of the dead man. In other words, according to those exegetes who focus their attention exclusively on this custom in their reading of Genesis 38, Onan's sin is presented here as consisting only in his selfish intent to deny offspring to his brother's widow Tamar, and not even partly in the unnatural method he employed in doing so.

But, as I hope to show, this reading of Genesis has so little to recommend it exegetically that one can only assume that its popularity in recent decades is due mainly to the modern prejudices of theologians and exegetes who see intrinsically sterile types of sexual activity as morally unobjectionable in themselves (or even as necessary at times) - and who therefore have a strong vested interest in minimizing whatever biblical evidence there may be against these practices.

The classical Jewish commentators - who can scarcely be accused of ignorance regarding Hebrew language, customs, law, and biblical literary genres - certainly saw in this passage of Scripture a condemnation of both unnatural intercourse and masturbation as such.8 A typical traditional Jewish commentary puts it thus: "[Onan] misused the organs God gave him for propagating the race to unnaturally satisfy his own lust, and he was therefore deserving of death."9 And this is undoubtedly in accord with the natural impression which most unprejudiced readers will draw from the text of Genesis 38.

But is this first impression correct? Is the truth really more subtle? Was Onan perhaps slain merely for refusing to give offspring to his deceased brother's wife, as most contemporary exegetes maintain? In answering these questions one must take cognizance of the following significant fact: the penalty subsequently laid down in the law of Moses for a simple refusal to comply with the levirate marriage precept was only a relatively mild public humiliation in the form of a brief ceremony of indignation. The childless widow, in the presence of the town elders, was authorized to remove her uncooperative brother-in-law's sandal and spit in his face for his refusal to marry her. He was then supposed to receive an uncomplimentary nick-name - "the Unshod."10 But since he nonetheless became sole owner of his deceased brother's house and goods,11 it is evident that his offence was scarcely considered a serious or criminal one - much less one deserving of death. Death, however, is precisely what Onan deserved, according to Genesis. It follows that those who say his only offence was infringement of the levirate marriage custom need to explain why such an offence was punished by the Lord so much more drastically in the case of Onan than than it subsequently was under the Mosaic law. If anything, we would tend to expect the contrary: i.e., that after the law was formalized as part of the Deuteronomic code its violation might be chastised more severely than before, not more mildly. Indeed, while it is clear from the Genesis narrative that the practice of levirate marriage already existed in Onan's time, there is no biblical evidence that he would have been conscious of any divine precept to observe that practice.12 This problem seems to have been simply ignored, rather than confronted, by those exegetes who cannot or will not see in this passage any Scriptural foundation for the orthodox Judæo-Christian doctrine against masturbation and contraception.

Indeed, a further problem faces this conventional modern reading of the passage. If simple refusal to give legal offspring to his deceased brother were, according to Genesis 38, Onan's only offence, it seems extremely unlikely that the text would have spelt out the crass physical details of his contraceptive act (cf. v. 9). The delicacy and modesty of devout ancient Hebrews in referring to morally upright sexual activity helps us to see this. As is well-known, Scripture always refers to licit (married) intercourse only in an oblique way: "going in to"13 one's wife, (i.e., entering her tent or bedchamber, cf. vv. 8 and 9 in the Genesis text cited above, as well as Gen. 6: 4; II Sam. 16: 22; I Chron. 23: 7) or "knowing" one's spouse (e.g., Gen. 4: 17; Luke 1: 34). When the language becomes somewhat more explicit - "lying with" someone,14 or "uncovering [his/her] nakedness"15 - the reference is without exception to sinful, shameful sexual acts. And apart from the verse we are considering, the Bible's only fully explicit mention of a genital act (the voluntary emission of seed) is in a prophetical and allegorical context wherein Israel's infidelity to Yahweh is being denounced scathingly in terms of the shameless lust of a harlot (Ez. 23: 20).

footnotes are at the link

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