The Life Challenges Podcast
The Life Challenges Podcast
2 Week Birth Control Series: Week 1 Motive: Navigating Faith, Stewardship, and God’s Blessing
Birth control is a topic that touches on our deepest values around family, faith, and God's design for marriage. In this thoughtful exploration, we dive into the motives behind contraception decisions and how Christians can approach this sensitive subject with biblical wisdom.
We start by clarifying important distinctions between contraception (preventing the meeting of sperm and egg) and birth control methods that might prevent implantation after conception occurs. This foundational understanding helps frame the discussion around when and why Christians might consider family planning methods.
Scripture consistently portrays children as blessings from God – gifts to be received with gratitude rather than inconveniences to be avoided. Yet contemporary Christians face complex questions around stewardship, timing, and medical necessities that weren't explicitly addressed in biblical times. We examine how the church's position has evolved from nearly universal opposition to birth control before the 1940s to the more nuanced approaches many denominations take today.
Our conversation tackles challenging questions: Does responsible stewardship sometimes mean delaying children? Are there legitimate medical reasons that make contraception necessary? How do we discern between cultural preferences for comfort and genuine wisdom in family planning? The answers require balancing faithful trust in God's provision with thoughtful consideration of specific circumstances.
What emerges is a framework for decision-making that places glorifying God at the center. Rather than following cultural norms or prioritizing convenience, we encourage couples to seek pastoral counsel alongside medical advice, approaching these deeply personal choices with prayer and biblical wisdom.
Have questions about this topic or other life challenges? Connect with us at lifechallenges.us or email podcast@christianliferesources.com. We're here to help you navigate these complex issues with biblical clarity and compassion.
Would you like to learn more about different birth control methods? Stay tuned for next week's episode. You can also purchase a copy of our book, "The Christian and Birth Control" here: https://christianliferesources.com/product/the-christian-and-birth-control-book-second-edition/
The Balance of GrayGod, doubt, and proof walk into a podcast... it goes better than you’d expect!
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On today's episode, control or forbid having it. And the reason you start from that perspective is that you kind of ask yourself why am I doing this in the first place? And that is your entire life is a statement of thanksgiving to God. So you're always digging deep into Scripture, finding out what it is that pleases God not to earn salvation, but because of the salvation we have. So you're always looking not to earn salvation, but because of the salvation we have.
Speaker 3:So you're always looking. Welcome to the Life Challenges podcast from Christian Life Resources. People today face many opportunities and struggles when it comes to issues of life and death, marriage and family, health and science. We're here to bring a fresh biblical perspective to these issues and more. Join us now for Life Challenges.
Speaker 1:Hi and welcome back. I'm Krista Potratz and I'm here today with Pastors Bob Fleischman and Jeff Samuelson, and today we're going to talk about birth control motives. Birth control is a topic that I don't think we've ever devoted a whole episode to the podcast before, and we do want to tackle birth control in a few episodes here, but we did want to start by talking about the different motives.
Speaker 2:First of all, let's just answer the question what do we mean by birth control? It sounds dumb. I mean it sounds like we're talking about controlling birth. But you have to remember that, really, truly, it could be divided into two categories there's contraception and there's birth control. And the reason I make the distinction is contraception. I make the distinction is contraception prevents the beginning of life, whereas birth control prevents birth. And when we get into methods, we're going to be talking about some forms of birth control. Don't even have life beginning. That's a true contraceptive. But then birth control. There are some methods of birth control in which life begins developing, it ends forming, it's coming down the fallopian tube and then it's somehow terminated. So sometimes the loose word, the loose phrase is birth control. But we'll define that a little bit later when we get into the methods.
Speaker 2:But you know my motive is that a lot of times we get lost in do I want to start a family now? Do I want to wait? Do we want to wait till he's back from the military? Do we want to be? There's many reasons why, and what we do is when you're talking about reason, why. Remember that's what the topic motive is, we're talking about. Why am I even engaged in this discussion?
Speaker 2:There was a time where people didn't worry about this. It's just like we're married, we're having sexual relations, oh, you're pregnant, okay, and that's why oftentimes the families, large number of women who were dying in childbirth, and that raised a question about, well, maybe you shouldn't have such large families if it's going to terminate the life of the mother. So the questions started coming up there. And then the questions would come up due to other circumstances, as our medical practices improved and we began to understand well, there's a cancer diagnosis, there's something else that might make it difficult, again, the focus very much on maternal health, that she might not be able to carry a pregnancy at this time, and so is there a role for birth control.
Speaker 2:The cervix is not able to sustain a pregnancy. So if a couple engages in some sort of sexual activity and you don't want a pregnancy to occur because she'll miscarry, the body can't handle it. So as we began to learn more about these things, all these reasons started coming up as to maybe we shouldn't have too many children, or something. But then, human nature being what it is, it begins to get off rails. Then, all of a sudden, it's like well, we don't want a world population bomb to occur. We don't want too many children. We want to pursue certain material things in this world, we want to wait to get our career under order. And then all of a sudden you get all these other things and now motive starts getting very complex.
Speaker 4:Yeah, with Bob's mention of world population, and wanted to just go back a bit to the term birth control. Birth control is a great term when you're talking about populations and when you're talking about politics and policies, when you're talking about large groups of people and statistics. We want more of this, we want less of that. So you talk about birth control but see that it doesn't work so well when you bring the term down to the level of the couple, because the couple cannot really control. Yes, we're going to control that we have a birth, because that's not entirely possible. All you really can control is stopping that from happening. And so what most people really, when they're talking about this, when they're considering it, it's pregnancy control that they're really interested in. How can I keep from getting pregnant? How can I keep my wife or my girlfriend from getting pregnant? And that's really what it comes down to, and not so much birth control. Yeah, no, I mean that's real interesting and that's really what it comes down to, and not so much birth control.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I mean, that's real interesting. And I mean I just remember too, talking with a friend years back and she had done some sort of pill type of birth control, and then they were ready now to have kids. And she's like and now I want to get pregnant and I can't, and so kind of just to your point of like just this idea, I think, in our society of it being the pregnancy control aspect of it.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of this notion that it's almost like a matter of the will, like, oh yeah, we want to start right off by having children or we want to hold off having children. And I like the way Jeff described it, because you're really talking about blocking a natural process. You're not talking about enhancing natural process. Now, when there's infertility issues and we get into infertility discussions, there are things they can do to enhance fertility, but generally all we're talking about here is stopping something that otherwise occurs naturally in God's timetable.
Speaker 1:Now, Bob, you did touch on contraception. Can you expand a little bit more on what is and isn't contraception?
Speaker 2:The goal of contraception is to prevent the meeting of the sperm and the egg. So you're trying to prevent conception. That's the distinguishing mark between that and what might be other forms of birth control. Which other forms of birth control? Some will specifically work in an abortifacient way, some will have an abortifacient way as one of the possible mechanisms, and you know we'll do a deeper dive into that when we get into those episodes. But contraception itself is just how do we prevent sperm and egg from meeting? And that occurs through a lot of times, through barrier methods and so forth.
Speaker 4:And I'll just mention one of the advantages of limiting our discussion to contraception is that in that broader term birth control some people have included abortion in various places and times and things and for various purposes, and we want to keep that far from our discussion when we're talking about this, which is why they always include it under the umbrella of reproductive rights.
Speaker 2:They talk about, like we're talking about reproduction. No, no, when we're talking about abortion, reproduction's already taken place. We're talking about again ending a different natural process, which is life. Dr Justin Marchegiani.
Speaker 1:Now just maybe kind of shift a little bit into talking about the church and talking about what the church's stance is. I guess maybe they're for or against birth control. Just I feel like, okay, catholic against. But I mean, even that kind of seems to be changing too a little bit. So can you just tell us a little bit of where the church stands with this?
Speaker 4:Well, if you had checked just about I think, probably just about any Christian church and their teaching, I'll say anyone that presumed to actually try to follow God's will on things up until the 1940s probably, it was pretty much universal that said, no, this is really something that they would at least say it's not best for Christians, because for them any method of birth control was seen as somehow trying to get around God's will for a marriage or get around God's will for procreation, and it was just pretty much generally said no, no, no, this is not something you do. And so, although we tend today to associate primarily as a Roman Catholic issue, it really was a universally Christian issue for most of Christian history that this was not something that you would mess with. But in the 20th century, particularly starting in the 50s or so, birth control became much more available, became much more effective and, because of that, started becoming much more common, and so the church had to deal with it and some adapted in some ways and some adapted in other ways. It's interesting.
Speaker 2:In ancient history there were proposals on birth control, let's say, because it almost always was a cover-up for adultery. You know, the soldiers would be out fighting in the Roman army, their wives back home would have relations with other men or servants and so forth. There'd be a pregnancy In the writings, like Serranus of Ephesus would write different methods a woman could try to do, to try to kind of force a miscarriage and so forth, and different chemicals that they could use Seaweed was one I remember, but it always was kind of a cover for infidelity and so the church seemed to walk into it, kind of naturally. It's interesting. I've been in the middle of watching a film series and I saw this incorrect historical reference talking about Thomas Malthus in the late 1700s. The Malthusian theory was that we were going to overpopulate the world and not have the resources to feed the world, and so they said well, Thomas Malthus really kind of kicked off the interest on controlling birth and so forth.
Speaker 2:Thomas Malthus was a minister and he was against contraception. He was simply creating this idea that maybe we shouldn't have as many children. It wasn't nearly as inflammatory as this video had made it out to be, but the point is, is that up until that time, even when there was concern about the size of families and so forth, the church always kind of stayed away from the topic because it was so tied to infidelity. And then, like Jeff said, you get into the early 1900s and that's kind of where it had its close tie-in with eugenics and with that tie-in there was a concern about people, especially people with money, who maybe were worried about proliferating schizophrenia and so forth. They were interested in being able to still have intimate relations but not creating the child. I think it becomes an issue when it came into the marriage bedroom. If we confine this discussion that's where it is is when we're talking about when it gets into the marriage relationship.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean. Obviously the words birth control are not in the Bible, but—.
Speaker 4:Not in that order anyway, are not in the Bible. Not in that order anyway. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1:Yes, birth and control are in the Bible. But what can we kind of draw from with the Bible, with what it says, at least about ideas around birth control?
Speaker 4:The main thing is the positive that we take from Scripture, which is that children are consistently referred to in the Bible as a rich blessing from the Lord. It's a good thing. Children are great. What a wonderful, amazing, miraculous thing it is when women are able to conceive. There are stories of barren women who want nothing more than to have children.
Speaker 4:I mean, the idea of bearing children is something that's put forward as very much a positive. Nowhere is it referred to as a negative, except in the cases of some of the laments and things like that, where it talks about things are going to be so bad that women are going to be wishing they never had kids. That's actually making the point with the negative language there. But the other thing is that children are an essential feature of marriage. They're not a bug and marriage is expected in most cases to produce children.
Speaker 4:And the idea of birth control or contraception or whatever wording you use for it to deliberately tell God, yes, we want the pleasures of marriage but no, we don't want your gift of children it's a kind of rebellion if you put it in that extreme way. And Bob talked about bringing things into the marriage bedroom way. And Bob talked about bringing things into the marriage bedroom, and that's part of it is that, since scripture is very clear that people who are not married to each other should not be having sexual relations and should not be doing the thing that creates babies, there's really no need for them to be taking any steps to keep from becoming pregnant, and so that's again one of the reasons why it's not directly addressed, and so that's again one of the reasons why it's not directly addressed.
Speaker 2:Remember that this topic centering on the word motive, and when we look at motive we ask ourselves why do I look at this? Why would I, as a married couple or as a couple looking to get married, consider that I would want to control or forbid having it? And the reason you start from that perspective is that you kind of ask yourself why am I doing this in the first place? And that is your entire life is a statement of thanksgiving to God. So you're always digging deep into Scripture, finding out what it is that pleases God, not to earn salvation, but because of the salvation we have. So you're always looking, you're always asking. So the first time you encounter this is you know, he created man and woman. Be fruitful and multiply. It's a command, it's a blessing.
Speaker 2:People will argue about that till the end of time, but you know, for the most part it's been fulfilled. I mean, we have filled the earth, there are people all over, and that's good. And it involves the human activity between two people. So there is always a choice involved, because you make a choice for the intimate relationship, so you always have a choice involved for that. So God actually gives you that. Involvement in the process. So there's an implied choice involved. Involvement in the process so there's an implied choice involved. But you can't overlook what Jeff has pointed out, that children are always defined as a blessing and something that you desire. And barrenness is something that's wept about in Scripture, it's mourned about, so it gives God's attitude about it.
Speaker 2:So I think you always want to remember that from the biblical perspective, you're making a choice to say I wish to forego something God has decided as a blessing and you have to frame it that way. Now that doesn't mean that you're wrong because we forego a lot of blessings God has. You know, like we say God has blessed you with a lot of money, we call it a blessing, I can use it to further the kingdom and so forth. But you actually may say God has blessed you with a lot of money. We call it a blessing, I can use it to further the kingdom and so forth. But you actually may say enough is enough, I don't want more money. I don't play the lottery, I win all that money. What am I going to do with all that money? It corrupts everybody. I don't want to be corrupted. So sometimes you step back from blessing. So you can certainly do that, but again, where's your motive? What are you looking to accomplish? How are you trying to walk in a way that's consistent with which telegraphs to God?
Speaker 1:I adore you for what you've done for me, and it does seem like you know, once we have a proper understanding of that, that really does help and has a place in this discussion too.
Speaker 4:Do principles of stewardship have a place in making decisions about contraception? I'd say yes, they have a place, but not the primary place. There will be short-term considerations of stewardship. Say, a couple is about to move across the country and the new job's not going to start for a couple of months yet. It may be a good decision of stewardship to say now is not the best time for this gift, but soon it will be. You're not closing the door on it in any way. There might be medical insurance concerns or the need to. You know that there's some medical issues, so you want to make sure you've got a nest egg in place before you proceed with something like this. Those can be legitimate. Again, short-term stewardship considerations.
Speaker 4:But it's really important to remember that stewardship does not mean it's all up to us to take care of us. Stewardship is it means that we do the best that we can with what God has given us. But we recognize in the end it's all up to him and the sentiment that is well, we just can't afford to have a child, another baby, is absolutely more than we can ever handle. These are taking things a little farther because they're well. It often shows I'm not going to say always or necessarily, but it often shows actually a lack of faith that God can actually provide you what you need to take care of that child.
Speaker 4:All sorts of stories of people who said, oh yeah, we thought we were done at two, we had our hands full and then boom, what a surprise. And boy, we can't imagine life any different. This is so wonderful. Maybe we'll have another. You really have to have an openness of faith to say that, yeah, we're going to make our decisions about what seems best in the short term, but we're going to trust that, whatever God wants to give us is for our good and that he's going to make sure we're able to handle it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean I seem to remember, recall Bob saying that God always gets his way.
Speaker 1:That's kind of what it reminds me of when you were talking too. I mean, I think I do have like a little it is a little hard right Like just the planning aspect that goes into it, because we are I do feel like that is one thing that is has gotten more and more acceptable to like okay. I mean, yeah, maybe wait till you're out of school or wait for this or wait for that or that type of thing, but people have been having babies while they were in college or seminary, or people have brought babies into apartments and, you know, haven't waited for the house yet. I don't know, it's just sometimes. I think some of that maybe does get into the way, as you were saying, of just really trusting on what God has promised for us too.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, stewardship issues are a topic all of their own because we're very conditioned by our culture, the idea like, well, we can't have another child or a child because we can't afford it, and we both have to work, you know, and then somebody has to stay home and child care is so expensive. We got all of these things and that's our culture. And yet, you know, you poke around a little bit, you find other people who show you that you might be wrong on that, that there is a way to get around it and there is a way to do it, and so forth, but it's very difficult.
Speaker 2:And I probably would have advised differently on this younger than I do, older found that no matter how often I invoked the name of God, no matter how often I talked to God in prayer, I oftentimes was always trying to manipulate God to pretty much follow my plan. So you're always kind of talking to God okay, we'd like a child. Now would be nice, this would be a good time to have a child, or this would not be—we're getting ready to move. I used to joke that God always planned that there would be a pregnancy in our family right about the time I was ready to move. So the wife could not lift boxes and stuff. And with five children and having gone to college and the seminary as a married student and my first call and then it was a temporary housing we were living into and moving in it just seemed like every time we had to move she was pregnant.
Speaker 2:So you find yourself kind of negotiating with God a little bit, but very much. We got past all that. It's not a big deal, but the thing is, is that motive? I think when you think about motive and stewardship, I like the way Jeff put it. You know it's a component, but it's not the component. The component is the hardest component of all, and that is how may I best glorify God with this decision? And we don't like to start with that one, we'd like to solve all the other ones and then say do I feel comfortable that I'm still glorifying God with this? No, no, start with the glorifying God and then work down the line.
Speaker 4:One of the things I like about this question asking about stewardship and its place in the decision is because stewardship putting it in quotation marks, you know it's too often used in as kind of a Christian-ish way to say, well, we don't want to interrupt our comfortable lifestyle to have children now or maybe ever. But you know it's kind of selfish and self-centered to be saying that. And so you say, well, you know, we've just considered we don't really have the resources for that right now and we may never. And it's really just saying, well, we want what we want right now and we're not going to trust well, we want what we want right now and we're not going to trust that if God gives us a kid that we're going to be happy with that.
Speaker 2:That's why we got to be careful to make sure that stewardship is in its proper place when we're making decisions about contraception and such you know, when you look at God's original blessing of be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth, god's original blessing of be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth, it's one of those kind of really unique out of all the blessings that life comes out of the woman and it perpetuates and it creates further life and then it keeps going down through the generations. And you know, when we think about motive and we look at children, a lot of times we think about the here and now, like maybe it's not the right time, maybe it's not a good time and so forth. Children are an incredible blessing when you're older and you know, I had a sciatic nerve issue and one of the kids came over and helped me take down Christmas decorations and stuff. They're adults, they got families of their own. The children helped me in caring for Diane.
Speaker 2:I have dealt with couples who had made a conscious decision when they were childbearing years not to have children and then, as they got older, they were filled with fear over how they would be cared for and without the children to be there to carry that on. And one of the things that's been very indoctrinated in our family is we take care of our parents and even though I'm the one who lives closest to my parents. My brothers are always checking in anything we can do. How are things going? That's part of the responsibility. So when you're told to be fruitful and multiply, stewardship also says maybe not a bad idea for you later on.
Speaker 4:One of my vices is I read advice columns and things like that, and a number of people have written in with situations that I've noticed over the last few months or whatever where, and I was like, well, aunt Mary is has moved into town and you know she doesn't have any kids and she's not married and she seems to be expecting me and my wife to take care of her as she ages and we never really volunteered for this. You know we love her, but why should we be on the hook for this? And you know I was like, well, and it's a repeated kind of thing that is like, yeah, what? Who is going to take care of you? Who's going to look out for you when you reach there? And a lot of people are thinking, ok, well, what about when I'm at the nursing home stage? For most people, there's a very long period in between the nursing home stage and not completely able to do everything I want on my own, completely able to do everything I want on my own.
Speaker 1:So a question here are there any situations in which there are really no questions? Birth control would absolutely be necessary.
Speaker 2:Definitely, I think, health issues with one of the parents, like there's been a cancer diagnosis. If the body can't handle it and people will say, well, you've got to trust God. You also have to use judgment. That's part of managing. A blessing is that you use judgment. And there are the really clear cases where she might not survive.
Speaker 2:Another one, another pregnancy, and I've been involved where families have called me and have said you know, we just got married and she just was diagnosed with a cancer and it's going to require aggressive treatment, and we're told that with the treatment she might survive, but without the treatment it's very likely she won't survive and if she's pregnant, the treatment will harm or kill an unborn child. I think that that's a crystal clear case. You just got to wait. And it's interesting because the couples who call with those questions are heartbroken that they have to wait. You know it's interesting. The ones who don't call with those questions oftentimes are the ones that seem to be almost like looking for an excuse, but the ones who call genuinely love children and just feel like, are we all right with waiting. I think it's a wise thing.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and another medical condition I think Bob alluded to this earlier would be maybe there's something with the mother where, if she were to get pregnant, she would not give birth to a. Maybe there's something with the mother where, if she were to get pregnant, she would not give birth to a live child, or high likelihood of miscarriage, or high likelihood of a birth defect or something like that. Again, a case where the child might be wanted, but making a responsible decision in that case says well, we don't want to bring life into the world only to see it destroyed because of the medical condition. And we can even bring psychological conditions into this. Perhaps the mother has some kind of situation where she is not in a proper mental state to take care of herself, let alone the child within her womb or, after birth, to be able to take care of that child. Those would be cases where you might say, okay, yeah, this is not an environment in which to bring a new life into the world.
Speaker 1:What does God leave to our judgment when it comes to contraception?
Speaker 2:Well, scripture would say, and then Adam lay with his wife. I mean, there's a conscious decision to have intercourse, which is the method that God's given us to result in childbirth, and so there's a conscious decision there. And when we get talking about methods, we'll get into a discussion on natural family planning method and so forth, where couples will maybe make a conscious decision that that's their birth control method and they will withhold having sexual relations and so forth. First of all, there's just a natural built-in mechanism of a matter of the will to do it. It gets to be hard. When we got the child number five.
Speaker 2:I can't deny the fact that you do get weary, that you do get weary. But when the doctor had suggested to us that this is creating serious problems on the wife, the mother, that she was retaining way too much fluid, the last pregnancy was particularly difficult and so forth, it hurt a little bit. It's kind of one of those things where, well, maybe we can't have more, it just felt bad a little bit. It's kind of one of those things where, well, maybe we've had, well, we can't have more. It just it felt bad a little bit. And so when you begin to keep shifting your focus from yourselves to God, from yourselves to God, you begin to view it a lot differently and you begin to feel bad when you can't and are excited when it works, are excited when it works.
Speaker 4:Yeah, just the only thing I'd add is that you know when we're exercising our judgment when it comes to contraception, that who is it that people usually go to? They listen to their doctors, maybe. They maybe do some research on the internet, probably. They just, you know, say to their friends who are already married, or whatever it's like what do you use? What do you?
Speaker 3:do you know?
Speaker 4:it would be really good, because this is a matter with spiritual implications. Talk to your pastor about it, and probably not just in your premarital counseling sessions, where I think most pastors cover contraception at least briefly in it, because it's a decision that you'll probably revisit a number of times during your marriage.
Speaker 4:You know what about now, what about tomorrow, and things like that. It should be the kind of thing that you know you're free to talk about, and it's a good idea to, particularly because there are so many things out there that people think they know that they don't really know when it comes to contraception, and when we get into the other episode on birth control methods, we'll probably reveal a few of those.
Speaker 1:LESLIE KENDRICK. Thank you both for this discussion on birth control motives and we'll definitely tackle more on birth control in the future, but we just thank everyone for joining us today and if you have any questions on this topic at all, you can reach us at lifechallengesus. We look forward to having you back next time. Thanks a lot, bye.
Speaker 3:Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Life Challenges podcast from Christian Life Resources. Please consider subscribing to this podcast, giving us a review wherever you access it and sharing it with friends. We're sure you have questions on today's topic or other life issues. Our goal is to help you through these tough topics and we want you to know we're here to help. You can submit your questions, as well as comments or suggestions for future episodes, at lifechallengesus or email us at podcast at christianliferesourcescom. In addition to the podcasts, we include other valuable information at lifechallengesus, so be sure to check it out. For more about our parent organization, please visit christianliferesourcescom. May God give you wisdom, love, strength and peace in Christ for every life challenge.
