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Presbyterians and birth control
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AP photo/ ... from the state!
As I mentioned in my last article ("Presbyterians and overpopulation - part 3"), contraception will become a standard cost-savings measure for most American families that feel threatened by our blossoming recession. After all, contraception is synonymous in these modern days with fiscal responsibility. So the typical road to romance progresses in the following manner: responsible boy meets responsible girl; new responsible couple decides to get married after a two year engagement which roughly coincides with the end of a bachelor's degree for one or both of them; the couple agrees to delay a family until a master's degree is obtained by one or both of them; the couple marries in a lavish wedding; the couple embarks as one responsible family, two last names, and two careers; the responsible couple obtains at least one post-graduate degree and a small load of government debt; the responsible couple decides to forego having children indefinitely until a sufficient standard of living is obtained and all debt is paid off; the responsible couple has a single responsible child.
It is amusing that a common conservative outcry is that government spending is ensuring the gross indebtedness of future generations. This is amusing because it grants too much consideration to the government from the outset – the relatively recent historical fact is that the government doesn’t care about future generations, and it presently is at work to eradicate even the idea of having a family. The state’s ambition is to destroy the single-wage family by taxation so that husband and wife must both work, so that husband and wife are both exhausted at the end of each day, so that husband and wife ignore each other and ultimately divorce, so that in the end the husband and wife do everything but what God intended – propagate his righteous image-bearers on the earth for the expansion of His Kingdom. The government/state does Satan’s work, and Satan wants to eliminate the image of God from the earth by creating hostility and irrelevance in the Christian home. His competing kingdom is having remarkable success lately; so will we let sin be fruitful on the earth and have dominion?
The pragmatic answer to this question for the purposes of this brief article is NO! Instead Christians need to have large families and give their children to God as babes (infant baptism), all in defiance of the prevailing momentum of the world. It is at this point that we desperately need faith in God’s providence and blessing to sustain a large family even in the face of looming economic disaster. It is at this point that we need creativity and ingenuity so that we no longer impoverish ourselves by accepting the conventions of a pagan culture – banal four-year degrees at pagan universities, over-priced youth sports programs that demand family sacrifice, reckless diets that ensure constant doctor visits and geriatric life support, hospital births that impoverish new families. There are many more ways to enrich ourselves at the expense of this wicked world, and they are discovered along the path of covenant obedience to our Lord.
God’s designs are impractical and burdensome from a pragmatic and pagan evaluation. Namely, children are a hindrance if we suppose that a family is a zero sum proposition, but it is the biblical testimony that children bolster a family’s status more than any advanced degree could possibly bestow. More than this, Christians need to be convinced that the decision to reject contraception as an indefinite default practice will be blessed by God, especially in a depressed economy. Dogged obedience to God that is motivated by a vision for His kingdom victory actually provokes His blessing. We need not suppose that the addition of a child to a family is solely another threatening expense; rather, it is another reason for God to bless the family so that the woman’s seed’ vanquishes the serpent’s (Gen. 3.15). Will God not provide for His own children? Will He not provide everything they need for life and godliness so that they do not need to become wards of the state/Satan (2 Pet. 1.3)? Will He not provide for their daily needs better than the birds so that Christian families can fix themselves on God’s kingdom and righteousness (Matt. 6.30-36)? Will He not give us our daily bread, forgive our sins, and deliver us from evil in accord with his Fatherly and Kingly authority? God will do all these things for his obedient children because the kingdom and the power and the glory are His now and forever. Amen.
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