[Note: I had tried in writing this post to imply that, when speaking of the connection between sex and children, I was referring only to fertile married couples. It was not at all my intention to suggest that there is anything wrong with infertile couples (including older ones) having sex. However, to make that more clear, since writing this post, I've changed a reference implying that people should not have sex "without desiring to have children"—replacing the phrase "desiring to have" with "being open to having."]

Part of being a Christian or Jew is realizing that God's word places responsiblities upon oneself. His commandments necessarily go against human nature. That's why they are called commandments. He even has to tell us to rejoice in Him always, because it's not natural to us to have joy in all cirumstances—and when we do, we often forget that we should be doing so in Him.

And so we live knowing that we shouldn't lie, even when it would be easy to do so. ("I didn't realize I was speeding, officer.") That we should turn the other cheek—even when someone's just cut in front of us on line. And that we should love our neighbors as ourselves—even when they're trying their best to be unloveable.

I'm not perfect at keeping those or other commandments, and I don't think anyone is. But there's no relativism allowed—they're all commandments, and we're required to have a heart to follow them, trusting that Jesus' grace is greater than our sins. (See 1 John 2, verses 1-11.)

As times change, humanity faces moral questions that appear, at least on the surface, to be beyond the scope of the Bible. But they're not as unanswerable as they seem. They all boil down to issues of life, family, and the relationship between the individual and God—the very issues on which the Bible speaks with resounding clarity.

I'm a nondenominational, small-"e" evangelical Protestant, and I essentially take a sola scriptura approach to moral issues. I believe that the Bible is the inerrant word of God. From such scriptures as Revelation 22:18-19, which states that God's word is not to be amended or edited, and Revelation 19:10, which states that "the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy," I believe that for moral teachings to be true, they must have a solid scriptural basis.

Keeping in mind that Scripture clearly states that sex is to occur only within marriage, the biblical issue of contraception boils down to two questions: whether God meant for couples to have sex without being open to having children, and whether God approves of people who take measures to avoid conception. The answer to both is unmistakeably "no."

The story of Tamar in Genesis 38 is an object lesson in the sinfulness of attempting to alter the nature of a marriage so that children are willfully and permanently excluded. Judah's son Onan, out of resentment, shirks his duty to father a child to Tamar, his brother's widow. As a result, he is evil before the Lord, and God strikes him dead.

Judah then shirks his own duty to Tamar by refusing to give her another of his sons, Shelah, to carry on her late husband's line. When Tamar then deceives Judah into fathering a child with her, Judah is forced to admit, "She hath been more righteous than I; because that I gave her not to Shelah my son" (verse 26). If Tamar is more righteous than Judah, then it is because Judah sinned by not fulfilling his duty to insure that she—and therefore his own son's line—would have an heir.

Flash forward to Luke 3:33, and we find that Pharez (also spelled Phares), Tamar's son by Judah, is in the messianic line—a direct ancestor of Jesus. What does this mean, that this baby—whom two men tried to prevent from being born—became part of the Messiah's bloodline? When I read that, God is saying something: Don't mess with fertility.

Likewise, Scripture makes it clear that not only is adultery a sin, but even looking upon someone lustfully is wrong. What is lust? Lust is the desire to gain pleasure from another person without having to give fully of one's self in return. Contraception by its very nature prevents the man from fully giving what nature as God created it would have him give in the sexual act. For the man to give fully, both he and the woman would have to be open to the possibility of the woman's fully receiving, according to the way God created her.

Contraceptives are all "barrier methods," because they put up physical, emotional, and spiritual barriers to the true meaning of the sexual act. They make sex transactional—and I don't mean because the wife says to the husband, "I'll do it if you take out the trash." They turn the intense bonding that occurs during the sexual act into a more superficial version—founded on the understanding that God's gift of sexual intimacy is accepted, but His potential corresponding gift of children is not.

When God gave humanity His one and only commandment with regard to sex—His first-ever commandment, in fact—He said to be fruitful and multiply. He didn't say, "Go have fun!"

This realization does not make my life easier. I'm currently on the abstinence 'til-marriage track—a radical change from my pre-"conservative Christian wingnut" behavior—and I've yet to feel a strong desire to have children. It's possible that when I do meet my future husband, I may change. But if I don't, the only option open to me is Natural Family Planning—and if that doesn't work, I'll have to bear the child.

Even the idea of using Natural Family Planning in such a situation doesn't feel right to me, because it treats children as an acceptable risk rather than a welcomed gift. So this commandment not to use contraception—and it is a commandment, filed under "Thou shalt not commit adultery," "Thou shalt not kill," and, "Be fruitful and multiply"—feels, on the face of it, like a burden. But Jesus says that His yoke is easy and His burden is light—and I have to believe that all God's commandments with regard to sex between a loving husband and wife are truly good news.

TRACKBACK: On the Heart, Mind and Strength blog, Kevin Miller has an intriguing response to my discomfort over treating children as an acceptable risk: "I think the point is made well by Wojtyla/John Paul II in passages I've blogged before. In a nutshell, if recognition of the great value that children have as a gift from God is what motivates a couple to want to be fully prepared to accept that gift, and if the prayerful and thoughtful decision to use NFP is part of that preparation, then there is, I think, no problem."

Kevin's post also includes a link to a must-read essay in PDF format, "Anthropological Differences between Contraception and Natural Family Planning."

Alicia of Fructus Ventris references this post in a long, thoughtful, and powerful entry about pregnancy, abortion, and life issues. Sample quote:

There is a large and vocal group that states the way to prevent abortion is through the promotion of effective contraception, and (though this part is usually whispered) encouraging the sterilization of 'the unfit'. It seems logical - people who aren't pregnant don't usually get abortions. It takes a lot more thinking to see how contraception, by encouraging 'free sex' and by disconnecting sex from babies, can actually lead to an increase both in abortion and in unexpected parenthood.