9.      THE QUESTION WAS: Since the first century, the Catholic Church has said contraception is a serious evil. Even before the first century, the Jewish faith also condemned it. Protestants also regarded it as a grave evil until what century?

a.      5th

b.     10th

c.      15th

d.     20th

 

THE ANSWER IS…… D….20th century. That’s right, all Protestant denominations taught contraception was a despicable sin, contrary to God’s creation, until the 20th century. The Anglican church caved on the issue around 1930 marking a total break with all Christian and Jewish teaching on this moral truth. The other Protestant denominations later followed. The Catholic Church remained unwavering.

If you look at the writings of St. Augustine, St. Jerome and St. John Chrysostom, you’ll find they all condemn contraception. You won’t find any Early Church Fathers or documents approving it.

In “The Bible and Birth Control,” Protestant author Charles Provan writes:  "We will go one better, and state that we have not found one orthodox theologian to defend Birth Control before the 1900s.  NOT ONE! On the other hand, we have found that many highly regarded Protestant theologians were enthusiastically opposed to it, all the way back to the very beginning of the Reformation."

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Morality Web Sites

http://www.geocities.com/peterpaulmin/ProtestantsandBirthControl.htm (Quiz on what the Reformers said about birth control)

http://www.catholic-defense.com/contrcpt.htm

http://www.catholic-pages.com/morality/

http://www.catholic-pages.com/dir/contraception.asp

http://matt1618.freeyellow.com/birthcontrol.html

Books on the topic include “Catholic Theology of the Family” by Dave Armstrong and the famous audiotapes, speeches and book “Theology of the Body Explained” by the popular speaker Christopher West.

Other books include Of Human Life by Archbishop Charles Chaput and Contraception: Fatal to the Faith by Fr John Hardon SJ.

Also Answers to some common misconceptions by Paul McLachlan

http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ415.HTM

 

For info on Natural Family Planning, see

http://www.catholic.net/rcc/Periodicals/Issues/NFP2.html

http://www.cin.org/nfp.html

Historically, devout Catholics ranging from Augustine to my grandmother point to the Biblical story about Onan as one clear condemnation of contraception.

So did Protestant Reformers Luther and Calvin.

MARTIN LUTHER: "Onan must have been a malicious and incorrigible scoundrel. This is a most disgraceful sin. It is far more atrocious than incest or adultery. We call it unchastity, yes, a Sodomitic sin. For Onan goes into her; that is, he lies with her and copulates, and when it comes to the point of insemination, spills the semen, lest the woman conceive. Surely at such a time the order of nature established by God in procreation should be followed."

 

JOHN CALVIN: “Deliberately avoiding the intercourse, so that the seed drops on the ground, is double horrible. For this means that one quenches the hope of his family, and kills the son, which could be expected, before he is born. This wickedness is now as severely as is possible condemned by the Spirit, through Moses, that Onan, as it were, through a violent and untimely birth, tore away the seed of his brother out the womb, and as cruel as shamefully has thrown on the earth. Moreover he thus has, as much as was in his power, tried to destroy a part of the human race.”

 

One popular book you might be interested in reading is…”Good News About Sex and Marriage” by Christopher West

 

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