Connecting the Dots: Is Birth Control Just a Personal Issue?

This is important…I think it’s worth the reading and pondering 🙂

Everything’s connected…that’s my theory about how the universe operates. I think the scientific explanation says something like “for every action there is an opposite an equal reaction”…or maybe that isn’t it at all, but I vaguely remember something like that from Science class 🙂

Why do I “harp” about things like birth control, women in the work force, and other issues related to feminism? Why am I willing to go against the current so regularly? Believe it or not, it’s not just a way I get my kicks.

In my finite understanding of the world around me, I see an ever-changing, perpetually moving current of thought, action and consequence. And for whatever negative situation is at hand at the moment, it can be chased back to a diverting from God’s prescribed laws for living.

In other words, for every negative consequence we experience now, somewhere, at some point, it can be traced back to wrong thinking, wrong choices or wrong behavior, measured by God’s standards.

That’s what makes the issue of birth control so tricky to me. Someone has asked, “do you think it is a sin to prevent children”…I can’t answer “yes” to that. But I can see principles from Scripture that indicate that the common practice of preventing children can lead to a multitude of problems, both personally, and corporately as a society.

So, when someone says “if birth control is not a sin, why don’t you leave everyone alone and let them make a personal decision”…I struggle with that. Because I see it as a personal decision only for a moment; and then I see how that personal decision quickly blossoms into a societal problem.

Example:

God set forth tons of laws for His people in the OT. Laws like, if your house has mold on it, wash it with water, but if the mold spreads to a certain degree, burn the house down.

There are many like that one…how to handle disputes over lost cattle, what to do if someone strikes a woman…etc.

Seems a bit tedious. AND, not observing that law did not constitute sin exactly. But the implications from not practicing that part of the cleansing ritual had a huge impact on the people–and could even cause death. And those implications spread as more and more people failed to observe it.

The laws were for their good; if they did not obey them, they only hurt themselves.

I think of this issue of BC a little like that…principles have been set forth (in the mere law of nature, if nowhere else), and God’s Word is full of the confirmation of His design to give His people children. The actual failure to accept children may not be a sin; but the implications could bring curses that multiply the more widely the practice of preventing children spreads.

A wise, older gentleman and I were talking the other day; he accurately pointed out that the downfall of our nation was at hand, because, in a nutshell, our land was full of foreigners who worship other gods. We have ceased to be a Christian nation because we allow that worship of other gods. And we have become a “tolerant” people, refusing to protect the name of our one true God.

Newsflash: God is not tolerant. Not even a little bit. The one thing that He became outraged at the fastest was following after other gods.

Now bear with me as I connect the dots…

The gentleman went on to say that one of the reasons for the streaming in of these pagan cultures is that Americans have an insatiable appetite for “stuff”. So much so, that the entire culture is driven by consumerism. We want, we buy, and businesses become greedy and begin to export cheaper goods from foreign nations, changing our relationships with them, etc. (I’m no expert in foreign affairs, I’m just giving a very sketchy outline.)

At the root of it all, he said, is “the love of money”. That’s the root of the evil, just as was predicted from Scripture.

Immediately, my mind connected another dot. Maybe, just maybe, when God commanded us to be fruitful and multiply, there were many protective elements, for our good, wrapped up in the command.

Maybe, unlike the “how can you afford more children” quip, God knew that a house full of children might divert our attention some from such a materialistic lifestyle. That being wealthy could become a curse, and being stretched a little thin sometimes might not be a bad thing.

Maybe large families would be prone to successful industry, changing the whole dynamics of the commercialized world.

Maybe having more children would protect the economy by preventing 2-household incomes.

Maybe there are all kinds of implications! And just maybe, this one area that we have taken away from God has proven to be disastrous in ways we are not even aware.

Connecting the dots is so important to affecting the way we live our lives. We have to look ahead to where we want to go, in order to determine now how we should live.

These are the things I lie awake at night and think about…therefore, I blog.