Summary:
In Godly Seed:
American Evangelicals Confront Birth Control, 1873–1973, Allan Carlson documents the change from
a “no birth control” to “pro-birth control” mentality within the evangelical
community. In other words, he notes “how
American Evangelicals, so defined, moved from fierce opposition to quiet
affirmation of the practice of birth control” (11).
He begins the book by
stating:
For most contemporary Americans, contentious
questions about birth control are considered a peculiar “Catholic” problem.
With the use of contraceptives at some point being nearly universal among
fertile adults (and quite common among teenagers as well) and with birth
control enjoying a blessing of state and federal governments as the alternative
to both “unwanted” births and abortion, only a minority of especially devout
Catholics seem to be left to puzzle occasionally over the issue. Even their
interest is commonly understood to be a consequence of medieval thinking
codified in Pope Paul VI’s reactionary 1968 Encyclical, Humanae Vitae.
Mostly forgotten
is the fact that, as recently as one hundred years ago, it was American
Evangelical Protestants who waged the most aggressive and effective campaigns
against the practice of birth control within the United States; Roman Catholics
quietly applauded on the sidelines. It was Evangelicals who—starting in 1873—successfully
built a web of federal and state laws that equated contraception with abortion,
suppressed the spread of birth control information and devices and even criminalized
the use of contraceptives. And it was Evangelicals who attempted to jail early
twentieth-century birth control crusaders such as Margaret Sanger. All the
same, by 1973—the year the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the abortion laws of
all fifty states—American Evangelical leaders had not only given a blessing to
birth control; many would also welcome the Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade as a blow for religious
liberty. (1–2)
He then very briefly traces the position of the church on birth control from
the Fathers to the Reformers, as they argued against both variations of Gnosticism
(antinomian and ascetic) that moved against the act of procreation, and then proceeds to note that it
was Protestants, not Roman Catholics, who led the charge against birth control throughout
history, the last notable figure spearheading the crusade against it being
Anthony Comstock, to whom an entire chapter is devoted, and who Carlson calls “the
last and—in a certain respect—the greatest of the Puritans” (15).
After discussing the biography and amazing accomplishments
of Comstock, as well as the uniformity of all Christendom (Evangelicals and
Catholics and even the Social Gospel advocates alike) in what was clearly as
much of a hostile environment when it came to sex as our current culture (with
the exception of having much support in more civilized places within society as
opposed to our current state which sees these things as normative for
mainstream society and not just from within the lowest sectors of it), Carlson moves on to discuss the part that the
Post-Millennialism (the dominant view held by most American Evangelicals during
the nineteenth and early twentieth century), combined with an Anglo-Saxon
ethnocentricism, played in the acceptance of birth control in society as a
whole.
Carlson argues that this idea, that society was moving, and
needed to continue to move, toward a majority of evangelical Christians led to
the idea that, although wrong for evangelical Christians, who were largely
Anglo-Saxon, stunting the now growing population of other religious and
irreligious groups, which were largely made up of the immigrants coming into
America, was a part of the work of the kingdom—thus sanctioning the use of
birth control for those groups.
Furthermore, birth control had been “silently” accepted
within evangelical circles largely due to three main shifts in thinking within
the movement:
1.
The removal of marriage from an understanding
that saw it as a sacred event under God.
2.
The Protestant emphasis on the individual that
eventually overshadowed seeing the family as the “germ cell” of society and
lifted up individual concerns over that of familial ones.
3.
The move from defining marriage as primarily for
purposes of procreation , and instead, emphasizing the institution as one which
was primarily meant to foster companionship.
On the last point, Carlson comments:
While innate to understandings of
Christian marriage since at least the time of Augustine, the mutual
relationship of husband and wife was always linked, or even subordinate, to
procreation. Over the course of the nineteenth century, though, Protestant
writers tended to give more emphasis to the companionship ideal. Typical was
George Weaver’s The Christian Household,
published in 1856: “The grand idea of companionship is unity, and companionship
is perfect just in the degree that unity is secured.” Procreation and the
nurture of children subtly gave way to a focus on the moral, physical,
psychological, and intellectual development of the couple. In turn, this tended
to legitimate sexual pleasure as an end in itself, making companionship “a
significantly receptive value for conception control” (63).
He also cites an article which noted the shift in attitude
within our society when it came to parents with large families. It stated that “once
such fathers and mothers [of large families] were considered by the wise, the
good, and the great as public benefactors; but now their conduct is not only
questioned and censured, but by some they are regarded almost as human monsters”
(64).
Hence, despite the call to advance the purity of culture
through evangelization and procreation, most nominal Christians had so
practiced various forms of birth control that the population that was made up
of the descendents of the Puritans was reduced to an “insignificant minority”
(67), a phenomenon among these evangelicals that Carlson notes soon gained the
designation “race suicide” (68).
The answer of some of these leaders was to elevate the
conditions of the lower masses and reduce their population. Carlson notes that this essentially was to “open
a crack between Protestant and Catholic leaders and theologians on the birth
control question” (75).
Carlson ends his chapter by concluding that “the Christian
consensus on the sinfulness of birth control (other than through abstinence)
was subtly undermined by Strong’s new ‘law of population’. Margaret Sanger would soon discover how to
widen that fissure into a virtual canyon, and so transform America” (Ibid.).
On that note, he
begins his discussion of Margaret Sanger and her role in dividing the church
over the issue. Sanger grew up in an atheistic, feminist, and socialist home,
where her father despised Roman Catholicism especially. She originally, and
this perhaps displays her movements raison d'être, argued that women needed to be
freed from men, and that children bound women to men. They needed to have the
same ability that men had to have sexual pleasure without the consequence of a
child that would hinder their advancement within society. She would argue that
women shouldn’t give any more slaves to society, and that they ought to have no
masters and no gods. She was heavily anti-religious at first, but then realized
that her dream of having birth control legalized and widely used by all women would
never be realized in a largely religious society if she was marginalized for
her atheistic stance. Hence, Carlson argues that she used prior animosity and
fear of a Roman Catholic Empire to gain evangelical Protestant support. She
largely pretended that this was only a Roman Catholic issue of domination and
that the Protestants were largely on her side. In point of fact, as Carlson
notes, no Protestant denomination supported her, and all formally condemned the
use of birth control as evil. He states that “another of Sanger’s brilliant
strategic techniques was simply to ignore Protestant writers, preachers, and
churches that continued to denounce birth control. By demonizing the Catholic
Church alone . . . by claiming to defend the Protestant conscience from Roman
oppression, she left the impression that Protestants were on her side, in
apparent hope that this would become a self-fulfilling prophecy” (87).
This would change
when, using another commonly held belief among Protestants concerning their
post-millennial hopes, she argued in favor of the use of birth control as a
vehicle to bring about those hopes through eugenics. Most Christians at this
time were heavily in favor of the eugenics movement in order to bring about a
more civilized, Christian race and usher in the kingdom of God. As such, her
arguments soon won favor among the parachurch organizations that had largely
mobilized for those purposes. Carlson points out that Sanger, the founder of
the American Birth Control League (later joining together with the Birth
Control Federation of American, otherwise known today as Planned Parenthood)
had a direct hand in this change of thought within these groups, and would have
a direct hand in the sudden turnabout of the Anglican Church concerning the
issue at the 1930 Lambeth Conference, where Carlson states: “So ended the
1,800-year-old consensus on birth control” (103).
But he further
notes that the vast majority of Protestants in America still rejected the practice
as evil. Heated debates broke out between liberals and conservatives within all
of the mainline denominations over the issue. Carlson further notes that the
evangelicals, who were now called “fundamentalists” due to their adherence to distinctive
doctrines that fought against the modernity adopted by liberalism, were largely
silent (with the exception perhaps of institutions like Moody Bible Institute).
It wasn’t until a major noted leader of fundamentalism moved toward a more
conservative-liberal hybrid position, now ironically called “neo-evangelicalism,”
even though its ethical positions began to be in conflict with the mindset of
historical evangelicalism, that we begin to see a turn within evangelical
denominations toward a pro-birth control stance. The name of that leader was
Billy Graham.
In his chapter
entitled, “Birth Control in the Age of Billy Graham,” Carlson notes that most
evangelicals condemned birth control as evil until around the 1960’s when
hysteria over apocalyptic visions of an overpopulated world were once again at
the fore. He notes that the turnabout in an article published by Christianity Today in 1968 that argued
that contraception was not only morally acceptable, but was even a good to be
performed.
But Carlson
notes that it was “at a decisive moment” that “[Billy] Graham would also enter the
debate over birth control” (117).
Carlson recounts that Graham woke up in the middle of the night to craft
a magazine that would “give theological respectability to evangelicals” (118).
That magazine, born with the help of Carl F. H. Henry in 1956, would become Christianity Today.
Carlson notes
two important background issues that contextualize the move toward accepting
birth control (and abortion) as legitimate: (1) Neo-evangelicalism during this
period became identified with the “American way of life,” and by this time,
many Americans in secular but conservative culture had adopted a more “family
planning” mindset. The fact that the movement had become amazingly, in the
words of Martin Marty, “theologically inclusive and ethically disengaged” likely
explains the popularity of Graham as the representative of the movement (Ibid.)
With the advent of the Draper Report that argued that family planning should be
a part of American development aid programs, to be more respectable within
American society and politics was to advocate the same. Hence, neo-evangelicalism
followed suit. (2) The neo-evangelicals now emphasized a radical distrust of
institutional authority, relied therefore more on parachurch organizations to
feed them their beliefs on issues due to a new and more radical form of sola Scriptura, which excluded all other
authorities rather than just set it up as supreme. By doing this
neo-evangelicalism was able to reinterpret passages for its own culture and
shake hands with those within the Protestant mainline who had come to accept
birth control (now called “family planning” in order to put a better face on
what constituted the intent of the practice) as morally legitimate and a matter
of “responsible parenthood.”
When society had
become hysterical with reports that the world would soon be overpopulated,
leading to starvation, wars, and many other unimaginable horrors,
neo-evangelicals considered it just as much of a crisis as did anyone else.
This fear was necessary to move them to adopt the practice as something that
would stay the hand of such an apocalyptic vision.
What follows in
Carlson’s book is an account of one denomination falling after another to
societal influences that originally caused the mainline liberal churches to
adopt these practices, only for evangelicals, abortion would be included as
that which was considered morally responsible together with other forms of
birth control. Carlson summarizes by saying that the neo-evangelical argument
now became one where “the two purposes of the sexual act were ‘separable’ and,
in a way, procreation became subordinate to companionship” (124). Seeing
relationships in this way, then, allowed one to argue that there was no moral
obligation to have as many children as God gave him, or even have children at
all, since marriage could rightly be fulfilled by a healthy companionship with
one’s mate instead [Note that, although Carlson does not point this out, this
is the argument that seeks to legitimize homosexual marriage as well].
Carlson writes
that many evangelical leaders began to say that the Bible said nothing toward
the issue, and therefore, it fell under the category of Christian liberty.
There was also a conscious effort to re-read the Bible in light of the
imagined crisis of overpopulation in order to look for a legitimization of the
sexual act separated from its procreative function.
Billy Graham,
therefore, concluded in an interview with the New York Times that there was nothing wrong with using birth
control and it was very much needed across the globe in order to fight the
crisis of overpopulation and its terrifying and tragic effects. Soon after,
Graham and Henry began to use their magazine to paint a neo-Malthusian picture
of the contemporary world and the absolute need for birth control. This became
an obsession, particularly for Henry, who believed it would be, not communism,
but overpopulation that would destroy America. Carlson notes the irony that “in
an odd way, evangelism was blurring into birth control” (128). Indeed, Carlson
notes that the world had gone mad with overpopulation paranoia, so much so, as
to affect even a liberalization within the Roman Catholic Church as well.
Therefore, in
1966, an article by TEDS professor John Warwick Montgomery, sought to “lay out
a case for a distinctive New Evangelical acceptance of birth control” (130). As
is often typical amongst neo-evangelicals, Montgomery took the middle ground
between Catholics and secularists to be the balanced position. His argument was
essentially to argue against the lex
naturalis as having the ability by itself to convey a normative ethic and
then to argue that Genesis 1–2 was not the central marriage passage in the
Bible, but instead, Ephesians 5 had replaced it as center. Hence, it was not to
be seen in terms of a union primarily for the purposes of procreation and
family, but primarily as an analogy of Christ’s relationship with His Church.
Hence, the Christian can pursue birth control as a means to subduing the earth
for Christ, as marriage is fulfilled as a love relationship.
Carlson notes
that evangelicals pointed to Montgomery’s article as the new justification for
using birth control. Indeed, based upon Montgomery’s argument, the response in
an editorial in Christianity Today to
Humanae Vitae argued that “the Bible
says clearly that marriage alone sanctifies sexual intercourse.” They rejected
the notion that the goal of procreation legitimized the sexual act, and the millennia
old interpretation that Onan was killed for his use of a contraceptive method.
As Carlson notes, the novelty of the new evangelical interpretation went unnoted by the editorial.
Carlson also
notes a haunting statement by Billy Graham in his response to the encyclical: “In
general I would disagree with it . . . I believe in planned parenthood” (133).
Carlson further
alludes to Christianity Today’s
continual war to advocate for the use of birth control among Christians by
using the same tactic used by Sanger in
downplaying that Protestants had opposed the practice for the previous 450
years as well. Instead, it was merely presented as a Catholic issue.
Carlson notes a
string of scholars who now began to argue for the pro-birth control side,
marked by a special symposium that included arguments from Bruce Waltke, Paul
Jewett, Kenneth Kantzer, and a host of other evangelical leaders. They argued
that the Bible did not prohibit the control of reproduction, including the use
of abortion; and instead, that its use might even be the means through which we
subdue the earth.
Here Carlson notes
something of which most evangelicals are unaware. The fear of overpopulation
and the desire to be respected by mainstream America, together with the
argument that the Bible does not explicitly condemn controlling birth, led most
evangelical leaders to conclude that abortion was a perfectly acceptable
practice. In fact, Carlson notes that most evangelicals were in full agreement
and had nothing but praise for the decision made in Roe v. Wade. John Scanzoni argued that abortion was not the killing
of a human being, but even if it was, there were perfectly acceptable cases in
the Old Testament where one was justified in taking human life, the most
notable cited as being a wanted child, which trumped the right to life.
Some arguments
were made from genetics. Some from poverty. Some from Christian freedom. But
all in the end concluded that there was ample justification for the Christian
to use birth control and abortion as he or she saw fit.
Whereas people
like Montgomery argued that abortion was murder, he believed that to be simply
a Christian position that should not be pressed upon secular society through
law, and that, therefore, abortion on demand should be legal with no stated
limits (138).
At the same
time, Carlson notes that some were distorting the ethics of Luther and Calvin
in order to gain a hearing amongst the more conservative Lutheran and Reformed
elements of the church, and they argued that love was the very essence of
marriage for the Reformers, not procreation and family. Carlson notes how
completely incorrect this truly is.
Carlson notes
that the conclusion of many evangelical leaders that contraception and abortion
are permissible options left up to the individual Christian conscience had made
Margaret Sanger’s victory complete. But a question one woman asked of the
subsequent articles in Christianity Today
that followed the previous symposium is sobering: “Why was the question of God
determining and limiting the number of children in a given family of believers
not mentioned even once in the articles on contraception and abortion?”
Carlson notes
the irony that the evangelical view, far from being in the middle, was even
more liberal than that held by the more liberal mainline churches at the time.
He states that the mainline churches at this time condemned abortion,
sterilization, and emphasized the covenantal nature of marriage that should
seek children when it can. The evangelicals, by contrast, attempted to legalize
abortion, embraced sterilization, and emphasized freedom of self conscience in
the gospel to do as one sees fit.
The next
argument that Carlson makes as his reason for above is even more sobering. The
neo-evangelicals, who thought their foe was Roman Catholicism, were actually
encountering a far more threatening belief system: Christianity’s ancient foe,
the sexual anarchy of the Gnostics.
Carlson now
turns to his final chapter where he discusses the fact that neo-evangelicalism,
in its adoption of Sanger’s position, has returned to a Gnostic view sexuality.
In fact, he notes the eerie uses of Gnostic terminology in court decisions
determining the privacy of marriage the right not to procreate therein. He notes
that, by 1972, the courts essentially removed “the substance of publically
sanctioned marriage and its grounding in the natural law” (150). Finally, in
1973, the abortion laws of all fifty states were swept away at the applause of
many evangelical leaders.
Here Carlson
notes the work of Harold O. J. Brown, Francis Schaeffer, and C. Everett Koop,
who successfully convicted neo-evangelicals finally to condemn abortion. The
free sexuality with which evangelicals had flirted was stayed by arguments
condemning abortion and gay marriage. However, as Carlson notes, “at the same
time, though, contraception or birth control was rarely—if ever—discussed. The
implication was quiet approval. In short, following a delay of several decades,
Evangelicals had followed the Protestant mainline in this accommodation to the
new sexual order” (155).
Carlson ends his
book by noting that there may be roots of a return within evangelicalism to the
position that all of Christendom has held from the beginning. He states that “thousands
of Evangelical young adults have renounced the use of birth control—even the rhythm
or natural family planning method—and have placed decisions regarding family
size back ‘in the hands of God’” (159).
My Thoughts:
I enjoyed this
book thoroughly. In fact, as soon as I got it, I could not put it down. I, of
course, am well acquainted with the subject, but even I was unaware of many of
the leading figures who had sold out on the subject. Carlson’s book is more
descriptive than prescriptive, as it is a history, not an ethical treatise.
Still, there are so many things he notes in the book that should give any
evangelical today pause in his or her use of contraception, I can’t but help
feel that this book is a great argument against the use of contraception in and
of itself. I highly recommend it, not only because it serves to give an
understanding of the history of evangelicalism’s modern relationship with
contraception, but also because it ties all of that in to the movement’s larger
shifts in thought throughout the past century and a half.
In a day when
sexual ethics are still at the forefront of most conversations, what is needed
is more, not less, understanding of how we got where we are today in our
thinking about the sexual act. Carlson’s book fills a gap, even one in my own
book (as I only very briefly cover this period), that is very much welcomed by
anyone who would free his mind from the enslavement of our sexually-antinomian culture.
