Trying times

I remember running into a Hallmark card once which congratulated the recipient on a pregnancy. The inside read, "Thank you for not telling us you were 'trying'."

I despise "trying" as a concept and a casual conversation piece. It is freakin disgusting. He who has ears, let him hear: anyone with potential reproductive function who is not celibate is "trying;" those who use contraception are actually trying to pretend they aren't trying (as any parent of an "unplanned" child or any Christian fornicator can testify, although you'll probably have better luck with the former). Neither is wanting or not wanting a qualifier for "trying" or "not trying." This was all covered long ago in a galaxy far, far away.

What the existence of "trying" means is that anyone who's not pregnant must be not trying, and anyone who wants to be pregnant and isn't needs to try harder, and what could be evident through the modest disclosure of nature is instead an incessant topic of indiscreet and tasteless dialogue. Like all sin, it cannot but be confessed, and where there is no private confession, it must be shamefully public.

try

 [trahy]  Show IPA verb, tried, try·ing, noun, plural tries.

verb (used with object)

1.

to engage in sexual intercourse without use of contraception with the intent to achieve pregnancy: We're trying!

Expert opinion

Here you may read a graciously sympathetic post from the Anchoress, who kindly takes the time to consider what the life of a mother of many young children is really like, and a vision for a program of care to such mothers. Also included is this link to a writing from a Roman Catholic mother who is upfront about a hard fact of perpetual parturition: it places extreme demands on a marriage (NFP or not), even a strong marriage, even a strong marriage between two people equally convicted about the catholic teaching on marriage. The writer told her husband,

The worst part is, I blame the Church. I blame the ban on birth control, the fact that NFP doesn’t work for us, the reality that I will never, ever have a chance to get a handle on things because I’m constantly pregnant or nursing. I can’t crawl out from under the pregnancy-and-postpartum rock because the rock follows me everywhere, just waiting to smash me again. Intellectually, I believe the Church. I understand the arguments against birth control. I agree with them, even. I just no longer think I’m a good enough person to follow the rules.

There are many reasons people use contraception, and no one understands them better than people who don't. I have no use for the faux-debaters who will bellow forever about binding consciences, the first and last refuge of the lazy Lutheran. The loyal opposition I DO respect is comprised of those who are honest enough to say: "The church might really be right about that, but we just can't do it. It's too hard." They're right. It IS too hard. :P

The Anchoress' vision is unlikely to become a systemic reality anywhere. It may happen in individual Roman Catholic parishes where someone with a "heart for that ministry" undertakes it. Much less will it happen in our Synod where anybody with more than four kids is a caricatured joke, the lowest of the evangelists and the blandest of persons. The Republican Party at Prayer will never stop secretly wanting us all to be Michele Bachmann (physically attractive, kid count in the high-reasonables, bonus good-personism, successful career, and of course "conservative"). I can only be thankful for the dear people in my parish who are kind to me and help me as they are able simply because we are sisters in Christ, not because they share an interest in my personal pious cause. Developing a fantasy about some kind of formal support system serves merely to depress; my recommendation is don't bother.

BUT--I will remember what this is like. When these years end for me, I will try to be the loving presence; the listening, understanding, forgiving ear; the willing hands for any young mother who needs them so much, who is so disrespected and alone, beginning with the mothers of any grandchildren God should see fit to grant me.

Two to tango

This is one of those posts that will likely make no one happy, but I promised it to someone so here it is. Sorry, folks. Remember, I’m neither your doctor nor your mother; I’m just some blame fool on the Internet. 

Here’s a crazy notion: A Christian wife’s fertility is best managed by her Christian husband, because he is her loving lord and her appointed head. The approach any given husband takes in managing his wife’s fertility—which is a gift to him from his loving Lord and eternal head—is a matter of faith for that husband.* Additionally, the wife does well to recognize that her body and its life-giving capabilities are gifts, and to submit to her husband as to the Lord in childbearing.

Not all Christian husbands choose to manage their wives’ fertility like my husband chooses to manage mine. Each man has his reasons, his circumstances, and his conditions, and I don’t presume to know anything about his life or his crosses.

That said, there are women in our congregations who have encountered upsetting information about the Pill and its kin, and yet are still “on it” because it’s what their husbands insist that they do. There are women who trust that it is Christ who opens and closes the womb, and yet these women use prophylactics because their husbands do not desire more children, or because their husbands are not convinced that now is the right time for more children.

And sometimes a Christian sister, plagued by her conscience and/or the chaffing of disagreement with her husband, approaches a CSPP and asks something along the lines of, “What do you think I should do?” This is what the CSPP has to say to such a question: “God bless you, honey, you have to obey your husband. I’ll pray for you both.”

Because what else is there to say? When a woman is given in marriage, she promises to submit, to obey, to be a wife to her husband in sickness and in health. Physical sickness or spiritual sickness. The Christian husband who falls short on the matter of contraception is not equivalent to the abuser or the drunkard; he merely suffers the infection of the age. Sarah was not given to pack up and leave Abraham, who had his fair share of marital fumbles. Neither did harassing him do her much good. Sarah was given to wait and to pray. We are Sarah’s daughters. It is given to us also to wait and to pray, whatever our circumstances.

However, there is one caveat, and it’s Portia’s: while Shylock has a right to his pound of flesh, he may not shed a single drop of Christian blood in getting it. It is excusable and correct for a wife to refuse abortifacient forms of birth control, which is to say, pills, patches, rings, herbs, foams, jellies, injections, implants, and IUDs. When and where the universe has misinformed the Christian husband, the Christian wife is encouraged to help her husband become aware. I’ve no scruples about telling my Christian sister that she can pitch her pills. Just do it. OK?

But prophylactics and true contraceptives are a different deal. As these devices are not deadly to newly conceived children, and as they do no salient harm to women, their use in Christian marriages is difficult for contemporary Americans to condemn outright. Don’t misread me: the use of such things is problematic, but those problems are more difficult to discern in our day’s prevailing darkness. And while wives everywhere find such things humiliating and otherwise sad-making, well, what are we going to suggest these dear sisters do? Make a mess of their marriages? No and thousand times, no. Again, a husband’s stance on such things is a matter of faith for that husband.* Better for a wife to keep the peace and work gently and lovingly to change her husband’s heart. Such change takes time. And, like, dozens of pies.

So it goes for the modern woman. Turns out being a modern woman is pretty much exactly like being a woman at any other point in all of human history. We’ve come so far as not to have gone anywhere at all. But the news is still very good: We wives, whether suffering from inflicted barrenness or no, are given to lift up our heads and open our hearts, for Christ is coming (the signs abound!) and it is He who is the perfect Bridegroom, who makes us to be the perfect Bride, who gives to us the countenance and the fortitude to flourish within our marriages. To be married is gift in itself, for thereby is each woman given a companion to comfort her as best he can as she waits for Christ’s return. Take heart! The duty of the wife is to submit; in doing so her conscience is clear. Bide your time, sister. He works all things to the good of those who love Him.

*Yes, dear anonymous, you’re right; it’s not a matter of saving faith. A man need not ever conceive a single child to merit the righteousness that Christ freely imparts to His people through His cross. Nonetheless, “be fruitful and multiply,” a law spoken to all people by the one true and triune God, is accepted and enacted by people through faith in that God. You know: did He really mean it? But how much did He mean it? But does He still mean it? OK, but does He mean it for me? That sort of faith. Just so we’re clear. 

One of those comments that becomes a post

I don't expect anyone to be persuaded by the following arguments which I find persuasive. I offer them as a courtesy to the polite sister in Christ who requested them, not as a call to warfare, and I have neither the time nor the desire for a spitting match. I'm sure everyone who disagrees with me is much, much smarter than I am; I forfeit. If you've already heard all this and it will make you sad, don't read it. Talk to a pastor.

1. I've said here before that the contraception question is not one of chapter and verse, but of interpretation. Until the 1930 Lambeth Convention (Anglican--a tradition founded on divorce and now swirling down the drain with a bunch of lesbians impersonating pastors), the Church catholic considered contraception an unchaste practice. There was more ecumenical unity on contraception than there was on the sacraments. As late as the 1950s publications of the LCMS condemned contraception (then they just got quiet on the topic). Interpretation belongs to the whole church, not me and my B-I-B-L-E, and that's what the whole church understood Scripture (Onan et al.) to be saying for 1930 years (and all the time before that).

This one is really the bottom line in my personal view which, again, I can't imagine being of value to anyone. But here are a few more ways of thinking about it:

2. Imagine a pastor and his parish saying, "We've made some disciples of all nations, and we're happy with them. We're going to take care of them and enjoy our time together. If we made more we might not be able to give them everything they need. Making disciples makes us tired and sick and poor. No more disciple-making." I bet the DP would love it.

3. Christians put a lot of stock in condemning fornication on the grounds that sex and marriage go together. (Chapter and verse for that? Adultery, huh? What does "adultery" mean?) Babies and sex are connected far more inextricably than marriage and sex are. It's easy to engage in intercourse outside of marriage; you don't even have to think about it, as many hungover teenagers can testify. It is normally not so easy to engage in intercourse and not have a baby happen, as many pregnant teenagers can testify. Contraception requires planning and deliberate action; it is a multi-step process (acquisition, possession, use) that can never occur in a moment of lapsed judgment. God made it harder to separate babies from sex than marriage from sex. Little wonder we should see it the other way.

4. "But what strikes me as truly extraordinary is the implication that there is something low about the objective [of marriage] being the birth of a child. Whereas it is obvious that this great natural miracle is the one creative, imaginative and disinterested part of the whole business. The creation of a new creature, not ourselves, of a new conscious centre, of a new and independent focus of experience and enjoyment, is an immeasurable more grand and godlike act even than a real love affair; how much more superior to a momentary physical satisfaction. If creating another self is not noble, why is pure self-indulgence nobler?"

G.K Chesterton, "Blasphemy and the Baby," Brave New Family

I am mystified by the elevation of the "unitive" aspect of marital love by anyone with a sacramental confession. It's not magic. The unity is REALIZED in the literal one flesh who comes from two separate people. The rest is happy thoughts, and whatever esoteric thingy seems to be indicated in 1 Cor 6 (if some qualified person would care to explain that in the comments, I'm all ears). How can unity possibly be enhanced/increased by cutting out its fullest manifestation?

5. Would it be ethical to use some method or device to remove pleasure from conjugal relations?

6. Every marriage is an icon of Christ and his holy bride, the Church, who give themselves utterly to each other and whose love is ever-bearing. Contraception is antithetical to self-giving, other-accepting love. It introduces disintegrity to the marital union. There is ample evidence that it will not necessarily kill a marriage (although we would be foolish to disregard the correspondence between the rise in contraceptive use and divorce, however it may be interpreted), but it will compromise it. It is likely to leave one spouse feeling used, even if both want to or feel they must prevent conception. Marital love normally has a consequence which causes both partners to count its blessed cost. To eliminate the cost (actually an investment) is to cheapen the act and actors. If a baby were not the act's weightiest meaning and effect, we wouldn't be having this conversation at all.





Phew. Is it hot in here?

Single persons wishing to avoid all this trouble have an opportunity to do so by remaining celibate. To the married who feel they cannot have more children, the Church has historically held out the option of continence. The present day is not this option's most popular era. :P It is still an unnatural and disintegrative separation of three things God has bound together (marriage, marital intimacy, marital fruitfulness), but conforms to the "less un-divinely ordained" view of argument 3.

I'm going to stop typing now.

Why casuistry should be left to the professionals

A post you won't like if you don't like this blog. And if you don't like this blog, I urge you again, don't visit it.

If you want to me to pray, tell me about the Kerlumpkins and their seven unruly children and poor Mrs. Kerlumpkin whose health is so bad. Tell me about the Sammyads and how chronic unemployment has ruined their marriage and their family life. Tell me about the Bagginses and their terrible pregnancy losses. Tell me about the Ottery-St. Catchpoles and their two-bedroom apartment and their second set of twins. Tell me how Mrs. Spumoni is penguin-guano crazy and their kids' lives are wrecks and Mr. Spumoni gets blamed for it all.

If you want to see my eyes glaze over, tell me about all those people and then look at me with the squinting frown which asks, "And NOW what do you think of your judgy convictions, you judging judger?"

I'll tell you right now what I think about every single one of those situations. They're unspeakably awful. Lord, have mercy. They also have nothing to do with how I should live my life. The personal experiences of the Kerlumpkins or the Ottery-St. Catchpoles or anyone else have zero bearing whatsoever on what constitutes sin in the court of God Almighty. Hard cases make bad law, and sometimes the Law makes hard cases.

As big of a deal as a sick mom or a lost income or a bunch of people just plain coming apart are to the individuals under scrutiny, it does not change the answer to the question of whether it is OK to enjoy sex while avoiding children. That question I must always answer the same way whether I like it or not. I have all kinds of sympathy for those who grew up and got married without ever being taught the whole truth of such things (which my beautiful associate has written about so well in the previous post) and are now mucking through a muck they didn't know existed. I am one of those people. It's been, you know, rough. It still is.

The question of the what the poor Spumonis should do about their situation I am in no way qualified or authorized to answer. I'm a freakin housewife who doesn't even know those people. I also can't help noticing that no amount of stories about the marvelous Sarsparillas and their 14 marvelous, talented, successful children who made it through on powdered milk and prayers or Ethel Kennedy and her 11 C-sections (before the bikini cut!) manage to convince anyone on the other side. Hasn't TLC alone provided us with ample evidence that the anecdotal approach to persuasion or proof on this topic is completely fruitless?

So, Bagginses and Spumonis and all you other people I know only through the bald gossip of Christians, I am sorry that you have been turned into situationally ethical footballs. I am sorry your names have become bywords among those who ought to be treating you with the most charity rather than the least. The details of your situation are between you and God and your pastor. If you wish for me to be involved, I will pray for you. That is absolutely all I can do.

Personhood

The reason Mississippi's "personhood" initiative is getting attention is its implication for contraception. If personhood begins at fertilization, the initiative would de facto illegalize hormonal contraceptives. It is abortion advocates, not crazy anti-contraceptive people, making the noise. Abortion supporters are completely comfortable with hormonal contraceptives' failsafe mechanism of creating a uterine environment unfavorable for the implantation of a fertilized ovum.

Diane Derzis, who runs Mississippi's only abortion clinic, said most people don't understand how far-reaching the amendment could be. "By this very definition of this bill, a fertilized egg is a person, so that does away with the IUD and most forms of birth control," she said.

More here: Why Mississippi's 'Personhood' Law Could Outlaw Birth Control

Pro-contraception Christians are the only people who have ever balked at accepting the potential for all forms of hormonal contraception to function as an abortifacient.

Disclaimer: Mea maxima culpa.

Fish, flesh, good red herring, and the Church of the Augsburg Confession

This thingy was at Mere Comments a while back. It looks at the "religious fertility" of a variety of traditions and categorizes them into four groups:

Religious Malthusianism idealizes 0-2 children

Implicit Natalism idealizes 2-3 children

Patriarchal Moderate Natalism idealizes 2-4 children

Patriarchal Extreme Natalism idealizes "the more, the better"

This struck me as another one of those times when we just don't fit. I have never heard any CSPP type say or imply, "the more, the better" (although they have been caricatured by their detractors as saying so, and worse). Once again, we are not Quiverfull™. The theology of the cross tells us that some won't get many or any and some will be overwhelmed. There is no right or wrong number. There is only faith's response to the gifts God would give, and faith's response to the gifts it does or does not receive.

Crazy like a Fritz

"Women with many children are in middle age much more beautiful than those who have few children and who owe this misfortune not to a hard blow of fate . . . ." Oscar Lezius, Lehre und Wehre, qtd. by John H.C. Fritz, Pastoral Theology

My husband maintains this is demonstrably true, but I'm disqualifying him on the basis of a conflict of interests.

Hard to swallow

"It was as if, every month of that former life, I had walked into an abortion clinic and said, 'I’m probably not pregnant, but if I did conceive, take care of it,'" Mrs. Kevin Golden writes in the current issue of the Missouri Lutherans For Life newsletter.

I am not a scientist. When I read something about how a particular drug works, I can't assess the scientific accuracy of that statement. But any lay person can consider the implications of scientific statement and make a personal decision about potential risks.

7.5 years ago I had my life overhauled by Randy Alcorn's booklet "Does the Birth Control Pill Cause Abortions?". Not everyone agrees with the case Alcorn makes. But there is evidence that the birth control pill can cause abortions. I speak not as a scientist but as a Christian when I say that the pill is not a risk married (or fornicating) Christians can be willing to take. This is not a statement about contraception, but about hormonal contraceptives (pills, rings, patches, IUDs, etc.). Don't want to get pregnant and don't buy the anti-contraception business? That's an argument for another day. This post's argument is that non-abstinent Christians cannot take the pill. A scientific ambiguity with implications for morality (and morality here means human mortality) requires Christians to err on the side of caution. There are other ways to engage in intercourse and avoid its results.

Thank you, Missouri Lutherans For Life, for publishing Mrs. Golden's candid article, and Joy, thank shrew. I mean you.

What will the Amish think of next?

And when will the Lutherans learn?

Amish Population Boom

For your Friday

I commend to you a dad's experience with the Doneness question and related thoughts from Father Ball.

Guest Post: NFP: Why we don't bother

CSPP recently received a request for a post on the topic of Natural Family Planning. We are pleased to offer a guest post from Pastor H.R. Curtis of Gottesdienst Online, Four and Twenty Blackbirds, and the International Defensive Pistol Association.

First, a little disclaimer. The world is a very sadly broken place.

Any discussion of God's gift of children and our receiving of it inevitably introduces several elephants into the room. What about the hard cases? What about when disease and hardship disrupt God's world?

As some famous writer once said: people who are happy are pretty much happy in the same way, but people who are unhappy each have a unique story. It is very difficult to speak about the hard cases in a general way. So I'm not going to try. If you are suffering under such a hard case - a life threatening disease (including diseases of the brain), crippling hardship, etc - and wonder how God's gift of children applies to you and your spouse, then stop reading this and find a faithful pastor to talk it over with. If you have a flippant pastor who likes to talk about his elective vasectomy after three kids at age 37, then send me an email and I'll try to point you to a faithful pastor in your area.

But for the rest of us who do not fall into the hard case category - if you are interested in hearing how and why somebody went from being a normal follower of American culture to a reactionary, traditional Lutheran who frowns on all forms of birth control, well, this is just what you've been waiting for.

I grew up in a normal blue & white collar family in middle America: birth control is good, you should wait to be ready to have kids, three or so is a good number. Never heard anything elsewise from my normal LCMS church. She grew up in a Boomer pastor's family: birth control is within your Christian freedom.

Got married with a standard American plan: finish grad school, then have threeish kids. Heard about how the pill could cause her body to expel a newly created baby from Mrs. Gibbs at CSL about a year and a half into marriage. Tossed the pills. Started reading. Ewy-ew: most birth control is, like, totally gross! And now the more we read and think, doesn't sound too godly either. But we still wanted to cling to that plan. Eventually got hold of an NFP book. Bingo: no cross, plan intact, and how can a billion Papists be wrong?

Notice at this point that the plan is still there. But let's be more honest about the "plan." It's not really a plan, it's a metaphysical judgment: a baby right now would not be a blessing. That's what all "family planning" comes down to: in my judgment, a baby right now would not be a blessing. Rather, a baby is to be avoided right now.

What you've got to decide is whether or not you think that is a godly judgment.

[And remember that disclaimer, I'm not talking about the hard cases. I'm talking about normal folks: a baby right now would be annoying, difficult, painful, expensive, etc. I'm not talking about: a baby right now would likely kill me, or be permanently crippled, or cause one or the other of us to starve. If that's the spot you are: stop
reading, don't bother typing anything below, and go talk to a godly pastor.]

Through reading the Bible, our Lutheran fathers, the history of the birth control movement and the church's reaction, etc., we came to think that that statement is just not a godly statement. Children are a blessing from the Lord. Married couples are called to be fruitful and multiply. Trust in the Lord and lean not on your understanding.

Further, note how all forms of birth control share that judgment: a baby right now would not be a blessing. As such, they share the same end - though the means are different.

That is significant and I don't want to downplay it. I'm glad NFP was there as a stepping stone for us when we were too fearful to cast our burdens on the Lord. In my pastoral counseling I've held out NFP as an option for others who are likewise fearful. And there are significant differences between all of the following: a baby is not a blessing now, so I'm going to kill it while it's in my womb; a baby is not a blessing now, so I'm going to ask a man to cut me open and take my baby parts out; a baby is not a blessing now, so I'm going to take a hormone pill that will make be infertile; a baby is not a blessing now, so I'm going to slap a water balloon on my wang (I mean, really?); a baby is not a blessing now, so I'm going to tell my wife that no, we will not be making love tonight - or any night until that temperature of hers comes down.

There is a difference between all those - and yet, there is a similarity, isn't there?

A few more NFP thoughts.

* Remember when you were dating? Remember how you wanted to have sex but couldn't? If you liked that, then NFP is for you.

* I was speaking with a fellow pastor about this just today. He and his wife were also on the NFP wagon for a while. He said, "We determined that you don't really need charts or thermometers. If you wife is really in the mood and wants to have sex: that's the day you can't." Another pastor at the table said, "Hmmm. Almost like God created it to work a certain way..."

* What do you call NFP practitioners? Mom and Dad.

* Why do the Papists allow NFP? It's the only birth control method that doesn't work.

OK, the last two are stale jokes. But there is a truth to them. NFP is frustrating and stupid and so many people give up and many others "fail" at it - that is, they have babies (what a failure!). It's frustrating because marriage and sex go together. It's stupid because because sex and babies go together too, and trying to have the one without the other is just silly.

When NFP was being debated in the early-mid 20th century the Lutherans laughed at it as pharisaical, Papist nonsense. That's kind of where I have come down as well. If you are saying "a baby would not be a blessing right now because _____ (I'm 40 or I'm tired or the youngest is only 9 months old or the car payment is due or....)" then I would encourage you to read the Bible again and lean not on your own understanding, to not be afraid for the Lord will provide. Really, He will. Honest. He keeps his promises. Children are a blessing, the fruit of the womb a reward. It really says that in the Bible. You can trust it.

And one more time: if you are saying "a baby would not be a blessing right now because the doctor says I'll probably die or the baby will have CF or I honestly think I might kill myself or the child will starve" - then please don't comment here. You need more than internet kibitzing, you need to go talk to a godly pastor face to face.

+HRC

Evangelicals get all the press

But we don’t begrudge those with a large pulpit the limelight, particularly when they employ it to address a topic that’s near and dear to the CSPP heart—a topic that’s most often ignored by those near the mike in more Concordian circles.

Albert Mohler has regrettably not followed completely through on marriage and procreation, as evinced by his quote in the TIME article his post references: he toes the annoying party line that so long as a couple is "not seeking to alienate their sexual relationship from the gift of children, they can seek to space or limit the total number of children they have." Perhaps he nuances that more helpfully elsewhere; I haven’t looked to see if that’s the case.

While CSPP cannot therefore offer a wholehearted endorsement, we may yet be grateful that there’s someone who’s willing to stand up and say:

“I do indeed believe that the development of the Pill ‘has done more to reorder human life than any event since Adam and Eve ate the apple.’ Why? Because sex, sexuality, and reproduction are so central to human life, to marriage, and to the future of humanity.

"The Pill turned pregnancy — and thus children — into elective choices, rather than natural gifts of the marital union. But then again, the marital union was itself weakened by the Pill, because the avoidance of pregnancy facilitated adultery and other forms of non-marital sex. In some hands, the Pill became a human pesticide.

"Christians must not join the contraceptive revolution as mere consumers of the Pill or other birth control methodologies…

"Even now, we are unable to take into account the full significance of the Pill and its use. But nothing of this significance should escape the thoughtful concern of faithful Christians. TIME magazine’s current cover story puts the issue of the Pill and birth control front and center in our cultural conversation. It should be an important part of our Christian conversation as well.”

Human pesticide. Not bad.

P.S. I’m particularly amused/consternated by the dude in the TIME piece who thought he’d found in the Pill “an exquisite chemical escape hatch” to the church’s objection to artificial birth control: “With the Pill, there was no barrier preventing the union of sperm and egg; all the Pill did, Rock argued, was mimic naturally occurring hormones to extend the safe period, so that sex was safe all month long. The church wouldn't need to change its historic teaching, he suggested; the Pill just fell outside its definition of contraception.”

Ah, how limitless is the human potential to justify our selfish indulgences! How gladly, how glibly, how gracefully, we dance semantically around our sins!

She does?

The following post references the CSPP hardline at length. Cheerio.

Hilarious message in the CSPP inbox this week: where do we stand on contraception? I told the emailer that maybe our subtext has gotten a little too subtle. The contraception thing is what landed the three of us where we are, so I'm sorry if that's been unclear to the curious. Wait, that's still pretty unclear, so let me try again: at CSPP, contraception is out, what a girl [thinks she] wants or is good at is irrelevant, and casuistry is for Winkels (which is to say, none of us have time for lengthy comment wars).

Back at the original conversion point, it was the pain in the pride and the pain in the neck that made me not like the looks of CSPP. Well, the pride is still there, but it has reshaped itself to destroy things other than my vocational impulse. The pain in the neck is also reshaped. Having older kids has cheered me up, and not just because I'm an aspiring slaver. They're fun. We like them. We'd rather hang out with them than most other people. Bring on the kids.

Alas--that's kids, not babies. Now it is just plain pain that makes me dig in my heels. Cultural inertia still gets most women to at least two babies. But that business about forgetting the pain that we all heard about this past Sunday? That handy little dominical illustration is harder for me to swallow than almost anything else in Scripture. Five kids in, the marks are becoming more noticeable. Fear does not diminish with additional pregnancies, because every single one of them can go bad. Advanced Maternal Age is not getting farther away, and yet there may still be many years before my retirement (and that's if everything goes RIGHT). God help me, I deplore pain. And the pregnancy/delivery/postpartum cycle is nothing if not very, very painful. (You know you're CSPP when months of breastfeeding feel like a tropical vacation.)

But but but but but. A child is born into the world. And since we're on the topic, I might as well mention that he's freakishly cute and baptized for all he's worth. So, self, forget. Forget the pain, because life is pain. Or if you can't forget the pain, forget thinking that deploring it or feeling terribly sorry for yourself or throwing a big fit will get you out of it. Forget that other people don't have to have to spend their whole dang lives getting pregnant and unpregnant. Try not to ruin your marriage and your children and your life by being fleshy and selfish and uselessly afraid. Sorry there's no pep talk for you here, but it turns out you're a big, disobedient, sin-loving crybaby so you don't get one. Buck up, you miserable wimp. Do your job. You're going to hurt more, a lot more. Deal with it. And come back and read this post often since you won't listen to anyone but you, you arrogant B.

Reprint

An article I wrote for the Jan/Feb issue of Touchstone has been reprinted at Generation Cedar.

In these rhetorically destitute latter days, it seems prudent to state upfront that the points presented are in no way a slam dunk regarding contraception. They are merely observations of how the Christian ethical milieu in relation to chastity and marriage has changed since procreatively inhibitive intimacy became the norm among practicing Christians.

I am indebted to my reverend father for much of my thought on this matter, whose emphasis in confirmation class on the necessarily public nature of marriage really stuck with at least one sixth grader.

A wordle for the short on time:

Random inflammatory thoughts on the perplexing prevalence of TMI

Rebekah’s last post reminded me of something I’ve had occasion to ponder:

Great icebreaker: Joking about being out of the baby business, two being enough birth control for me, etc.—the more vehement, the funnier.

vs.

Instant conversational freeze: Declaring, however gently (even nonverbally), an openness to an unknown, “unplanned” quantity of children.

I have a few quarter-baked thoughts on the topic of TMI. Just a couple of crackpot theories, people. Consider the source, remember your blood pressure, and try not to get unduly exercised. :)

1) Overmuch protesting? Most larger families I know are simply living their lives. They don’t feel compelled to issue public statements on private matters.

2) Less action, hence more talk. (<:-O!) 3) Oblique natural law? Perhaps there’s some instinctive connection here: once marital integrity has been breached,* once a wall of the temple has been compromised, sacred things become vulnerable, exposed, common. . .

*Just in case our standard disclaimer hasn’t been issued lately: Of course I’m not referring here to those who have grappled earnestly, and reached a place other than standard-issue CSPP. (Recall that your humble blogresses generally consider themselves to be temporarily avowed, and on good days at that.) I don’t think the folks who have sincerely struggled with their decision to avoid conception are the ones who think that oneself or one’s spouse should be discussed with vocabulary that could also refer to the family dog’s inability to have young. In fact, the people who so proudly announce not only their Doneness but the precise mechanisms thereof are probably not aware that they may be causing pain to people whose decisions are not so lightly made. (To say nothing of the even deeper pain that such hilarity may cause women who’d give anything to have just a few years of the fertility that is so wantonly destroyed.)

More good times:

standing around awkwardly pregnant while every other mom shares the approach she took to ending her fertility, and that approach's advantages, disadvantages, and hilarious moments.

Despite my fogginess over where I fit into this jocose exchange of shockingly personal information, it was quite informative. There are tricks out there I'd never heard of before our little chat. I also know now why I keep running into people who took an epidural for the first time on their last baby. Silly me.

Sad and tired person tries to explain herself once more without any hope of it helping.

I don't know if this is even worth writing or posting, but whatever. As I've said before, the main person to whom I write is myself. So here you go, self. I'm sorry about how this is bound to make someone cry and someone angry and someone hate me even more. I'm sorry I exist.

The contraception question is one of interpretation. Both sides claim that Scripture supports their position. Those who see no problem with contraception say that it's not addressed in Scripture. Those opposed to contraception appeal to catholicity: for nearly all of its history, the church interpreted various passages of Scripture as saying that sexual intercourse which deliberately avoids conception is unchaste and sinful. Pointing to chapter and verse does not help in this argument, because the disagreement is over what chapter and verse mean.

This also means the matter of procreation is not a purely Gospel question. If contraception is not ok, well, that's Law. And the Law of God is good and wise, and it always accuses. That's why people on both sides get really hot whenever this question comes up: each is accusing the other of sin. It's no better to be a binder of consciences than it is to violate the marriage bed or be a tax collector or whatever. So those who believe that contraception is prohibited in Scripture cannot just put smiles on their faces whenever a family with a bunch of kids walks by and leave it at that. If it is under normal circumstances contrary to God's will for a married couple to avoid having a child, that must be openly condemned by the Church.

There is nothing I would love more than to be Done. I am tired and and pained in body and mind and soul, not least by the ongoing animosity and passive aggression and thuggery, of which I am chiefly guilty, among my brothers and sisters in Christ over this topic. The vision of enjoying my 30s with my five super kids and not bringing any more crying and hunger and whining and fighting and sewage into this house looks like such a blessed relief. My flesh and the world tell me that it would feel great to tell my daughters, "Thank God women's lives have gotten so much easier!" But for me and, moreover, my husband, catholicity is persuasive. God help me. God help us all.

I'm going to make pancakes, wake up the babies, and go to church. See you there.

A chaste and decent life

Wonky and CSPP.

I'm not terribly familiar with Pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill beyond what one reads about him as a, you know, dangerously edgy and cool pastor (whoa, sweet idea! we've never had one of those!). But Justin Barnard takes him apart handily at Touchstone's Mere Comments. Driscoll is one of those sex pastors (it's hard to be cool without sex, after all), edgily talking about edgy specificities with edgy language, which makes SOME people edgy.

Barnard argues that Driscoll's message is far more problematic than his edgy presentation. That message is the one with which I think most contemporary Christian kids are brought up: Having sex before marriage is the worst sin ever. Once you're married though, oh boy, wink wink, nudge nudge. You made it! The rules are off! Have fun and be careful, ha ha ha!

Not be be the first girl ever to learn Hebrew (that was Mrs Stuckwisch), but the sixth commandment says "Lo tin'aph." We translate this, "You shall not commit adultery." What does this mean? Well, we should fear and love God so that we lead a sexually pure and decent life in what we say and do and husband and wife love and honor each other. But what does that mean? My Hebrew lexicon and my English dictionary tell me that n'ph and adultery both mean a married person having sex with someone other than the person to whom s/he is married.

But Scripture defines sexual immorality is more broadly. Fornication (premarital sex) is not ok. Homosexual acts are not ok. Prostitution is not ok. Rape is not ok. Provocative dress is not ok. Pornography is not ok. Polyamory is not ok. Lust is not ok. The Church also condemns what used to be called, before it became a societal joke, solitary vice. Uh oh--but old Onan wasn't quite solitary, was he? Maybe that's why the Church also universally saw, until almost ninety years ago (wow, has it really been that long?) more than one sin in that unpleasant Onan sitch.

Not all of these things are explicitly condemned in Scripture. The Church didn't need a commandment that said, "You shall not rape," or "You shall not offer sexual services for money" or "You shall not belong to the Hustler Club," or for that matter "You shall not pull legs off kittens" or "You shall not eat three tubs of Mission to Marzipan in one sitting." The Church understands that n'ph is a bigger word than it appears, and not subject to the etymological fallacy. (By the way, I believe one is also not supposed to covet his/her neighbor's husband, although the text is not so specific.)

Here is where Barnard's comments at Mere Comments get interesting. Barnard appears to believe that, as I read in a book on hermeneutics once, interpretation belongs to the Church. You know, that big catholic thing. That thing that confesses a husband to be his wife's loving lord, not her boytoy. That thing that confesses a wife to be her husband's helpmeet, not his whore. The rules are not off once you're married, because marital intimacy is too important to be abandoned to a closed system of anarchy. A wife or a husband can still be a direct victim of her/his spouse's lust. Chastity includes thoughts, words, and deeds within the marriage bed. Just because two people are willing to sin together does not make it ok. Kind of like one person's being willing to sin alone does not make it ok. Exactly like that, in fact.

I wonder what the seminary faculties, or the CTCR*, or Synodical bureaucrat X, or Pastor Joe LCMS down the road would have to say to all this. Is the LCMS effectively more Driscoll or Barnard when it comes to the less discussed aspects of the virtue of chastity (we know it's not "officially" anything)? If a person's spouse has problematic appetites, where do the theological sympathies of the LCMS lie? Does Spouse 2 need to repent and get his/her mind out of the brothel, or does Spouse 1 need to lighten up? Clearly we have begun to lose our way, but it is not clear to what extent. Those who usurp the Church's authority of interpretation and take the broader road of Bibliolatry become deaf to the voice of Natural Law and slaves to the perversity of their own flesh.

*I include the CTCR just to be polite.

Me, me, me

If ever there were a soundbite to remind me of why my conscience is convicted about the slippery slope from the contraceptive mentality to the abortive mentality, this would be it:

“When a woman becomes pregnant within a loving, supportive, respectful relationship; has every option open to her; decides she does not wish to bear a child; and has access to a safe, affordable abortion—there is not a tragedy in sight—only blessing. The ability to enjoy God’s good gift of sexuality without compromising one’s education, life’s work, or ability to put to use God’s gifts and call is simply blessing.”

Thus stated Episcopal priest Katherine Ragsdale, quoted by Marvin Olasky in WORLD magazine. Ragsdale also referred to pro-abortion lobbyists and abortion-industry workers as heroes and saints who are engaged in the “holy work” of protecting the “blessing” of abortion.

Olasky concluded his column with the following meditation:

“The tragedy of abortion is bad enough, but the origin of the tragedy, and so many others of our time, emerges from worship not of Christ but of “me, me, me.” Katherine Ragsdale may show this tendency in a heightened form, but all of us display it to some degree. May God have mercy on her, on her students, and on all of us.”