Science
in Christian PerspectiveScience
in Christian Perspective
Rethinking Christian Perspectives on Family
Planning and Population Control
JOHN H. SCANZONI
Department of Sociology
Indiana University
From: JASA 28 (March 1976): 2-8.
Historical Christian Views on Contraception
Christians have a long history of pronouncements when it comes to
issues related
to population control. These pronouncements have been many and
varied, but their
traditional content is caught by Martin Luther's argument. "'Propagation,'
wrote Luther, 'is not in our will and power ... creation is of God alone'"
(Thomlinson, 1965:188). But John Calvin went one logical step further
and condemned
the one form of contraception with which most people at that time
were familiar.
Coitus interruptus or withdrawal was "'doubly monstrous'" to Calvin
for "it is to extinguish the hope of the race and to kill before
he is horn
the son who was hoped for'" (Petersen, 1975:519).
The obvious thrust of statements such as these has been pronatalist in nature,
i.e., Christians have supported the idea of children-"The more
the more meritorious."
One outgrowth of that view was strong Protestant opposition to
"artificial"
contraception and to abortion during the 19th century. In 1869, for instance,
Anthony Comstock and The Society for the Suppression of Vice got the New York
state legislature to pass a law defining birth control writings as
obscene (Thomlinson,
1965:207). Most states followed suit and in addition banned "the
manufacture
and sale of contraceptives or the dissemination of birth control
advice. In 1873
Comstock was instrumental in passing federal legislation which made
it a criminal
offense to import, send through the U.S. mails, or transport between states any
article of medicine for the prevention of conception or for causing
abortion" (Thomlinson, 1965:207). And while most Protestants have recently changed their
position regarding contraception, the official Catholic position
remains consistent
and against both contraception and abortion. Indeed, "Some
Catholic theologians
consider contraception a worse crime than abortion because whereas fetieide is
only the murder of a human being, contraception involves prevention of both a
human life and an eternal soul. After feticide, so runs the argument, the soul
continues, but in the case of anticonception techniques, the soul is
never created
in the first place-a far more heinous sin" (Thomlinson, 1965:199-200). The
point is that toward the end of the last century American Christians of varied
persuasions shared a common abhorrence against practices that would prevent the
union of sperm and egg, and against practices that would destroy the developing
outcome of that union. Opposition to abortion and contraception was
all one package.
Only recently have official Protestant statements cut up the package
and allowed
the legitimacy of contraception. However, it seems clear that reinterpretations
by Protestant theologians regarding contraception came in response to
the behavior
of Protestant laypersons. Laypeople were in
fact using contraceptives (and so were the theologians, one suspects), and so
the churches moved to justify the practice.
Much the same thing is now occurring among Catholics. Many local parish priests
and even more parishioners are not listening to the Pope. Evidence
gathered over
the last 15 years shows increasing convergence between Catholic and
non-Catholic
contraceptive practices (Ryder & Westoff, 1971). While Catholics continue
to have somewhat larger families than nonCatholics, and continue to he somewhat
less rigorous in their contraceptive behaviors, the trend is clearly
in the direction
of convergence with white nonCatholics. But even nonCatholics who are
more theologically
conservative are likely to feel more uncomfortable with
contraceptives, and likely
therefore, to have larger families (Ryder & Westoff, 1971).
Views on Abortion
Abortion represents the other part of the package where Christians
have traditionally
taken pronatalist positions-positions that encourage population
growth. Nevertheless
prior to the 19th century Anglican ecclesiastical law held that, "The soul
entered the body at the moment of quickening of the embryo, that is, the first
time the woman felt movement in the uterus," (Thomlinson,
1965:200), Generally
this occurs during the fourth month and English laws reflected this theological
notion. Prior to 1803 abortion was punishable only after "quickening"
(ihid). But subsequent to 1803, English laws became more stringent in
also prohibiting
"prequickening" abortions.
Recently modern governments have begun to reverse those laws and to
allow abortions.
All of us are familiar with the dramatic 1973 decision by the U.S.
Supreme Court
striking down state antiabortion laws. Among Christians, there is
sharp division
regarding abortion, Most Catholics and many conservative Protestants continue
to believe that abortion is akin to taking a human life. Some Christians favor
a consistutional amendment prohibiting abortions. On the other hand there are
many Christians who fall into two remaining camps regarding abortion. One group
contains women who would never obtain an abortion themselves, and men who would
resist it if their wives wanted it. Yet these same persons prefer the present
law allowing freedom to anyone to have the right to choose abortions. Finally
there are some Christians who not only favor the present law, but
also feel they
have the moral right to have abortions themselves if they felt it
were necessary.
(See Spitzer and Saylor, 1969; also Gardner, 1972, for a spectrum of opinions
among Christians on this issue.) It has been argued that since there
are equally
devout Christians on all sides of the abortion controversy it ought to be declared a matter of Christian liberty. Christians ought
to be allowed
to follow the leading they perceive from the Holy Spirit and the
Bible and church
history. They should seek the counsel of other devout Christians and
make prayerful,
careful decisions as to what God wants them to do in this matter.
It therefore follows that it seems ill-advised for Christians to want to turn
the clock back and do again what we did in the 19th century, i.e.,
impose certain
religious views regarding abortion on nonChristians. The evidence
shows that just
as prohibition of alcohol failed, state laws did nothing to prevent abortions.
Persons who wanted them got them. Women who could pay lived through
their ordeal
because they got good physicians and sanitary conditions. But many
less advantaged
women did not survive the "hack alley butchers," Others who did often
suffered grievous consequences including serious infections that brought great
pain, and often subsequent sterility. Just as important, the evidence
shows that
since the Supreme Court decision, abortion-related deaths have dropped markedly
in the U.S. (Tietze, 1975). To go back to the old laws would probably
raise these
deaths to a higher level than before. In addition one study shows that in New
York City the greatest impact of legal abortion has been to reduce illegitimacy
rates substantially (Tietze, 1973). It is the woman who can least
afford the unwanted
child who is most benefited by safe, legal abortion (Kramer, 1975). For these
kinds of reasons, Christians who are genuinely interested in
worldwide population
control could very well find it quite difficult to defend laws that
prohibit simple
access to safe and sanitary abortions.
Sterilization
In addition, populations are controlled not only by contraceptives and abortion
but also by sterilization surgery preventing either male or female to contribute
to conception. Catholic dogma remains officially opposed to voluntary
sterilization,
while Protestants have not been quite so outspoken here as in the abortion or
contraception controversies (Petersen, 1975). Protestants have rarely if ever
spoken out positively in favor of sterilization.
It is clear that Christians have been strongly pronatalist-in favor
of producing
children. Why should that be? There are at least five reasons we can identify
for this traditional Christian pronatalism.
Interpretation of Old Testament
The first has to do with an interpretation of certain Old Testament
passages that
seem to favor the notion of child-quantity per se. To Old Testament Jews living
in an agrarian society, children were a blessing-or
"positive utility" as the economist would say. The more there were,
the more smoothly and efficiently the agricultural families of that
period could
function. And so "blessed is the man who hath his quiver full of them they
are an heritage from the Lord." However in the New Testament that theme is
missing. Indeed at one point Christ actually warns against the perils
of motherhood
because of the destruction that was coming on Jerusalem. (Luke 23:29)
At another
point, He instructs listeners who had just elevated motherhood that
motherhoodhood
is far less important than obedience to God's will. (Luke 11:27-28)
St. Paul pointed
out that married persons have to think about the well-being of their family, so
that if they wanted to serve God effectively, it might be better not to marry
at all. That statement, of course, has been the rationale behind Roman Catholic
celibacy through the centuries. The strategy of celibacy is certainly
an effective
though perhaps unintended way to control population growth, and celibacy has a
biblical foundation. It seems that Paul, and most subsequent
theologians, assumed
that marriage automatically meant children. Apparently it did not occur to St.
Paul, or else he did not choose to suggest, that persons could marry and yet be
child-free. The firstcentury church believed in Christ's immediate return. The
idea of producing many children for whatever reasons did not appear especially
pertinent as it had in Old Testament times. Nor, on the other side, was there
any reason for the Apostles to warn about a nonexistent
"population problem."
Life-spans were brief, diseases and famines were rampant. Mortality
was high among
persons of all ages. Indeed the concern of the Emperor Augustus was
to find ways
to increase population growth-to encourage Romans to have larger
families (Careopino
1940). When Christ did not return and it became evident that the Church was to
remain here, it simply revived the Old Testament blessing on
"full quivers,"
and did so within secular societies that welcomed that doctrine in
terms of their
own interests. That doctrine has persisted to the present time.
Regard for Human Life
A second reason why Christians are so strongly pronatalist is the high regard
they hold for human life itself. Many thorough-going humanists would also hold
human life with equally high regard. But since Christians believe that people
are made in the image of God, human beings take on an added special, or sacred
significaneg Much of Christian opposition to contraception was and is based on
the assumption that each life is a sovereign and sacred act of God, and to seek
to thwart the union of sperm and egg is to violate God's will. How many times
have we heard stories about the 17th child of a Christian family-such
as Charles
Wesley
John H. Scanzoni is Professor of Sociology at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana. A graduate of Wheatort College and the University of Oregon, Dr. Scanzoni has been associated with Indiana University since 1964. The author of several books dealing with sex roles, women, marriage and the family, Dr. Scanzoni contributes regularly to Christian periodicals and books. He is an Associate Editor of Christian Scholar's Review, a member of the Board of Directors of the Institute for Advanced Christian Studies, and a Consulting Editor for Universitas. He is well known as a speaker at Christian colleges and for campus groups at state colleges and universities.
Christians have traditionally taken also because of the Church's ambivalence toward pronatalist positions - positions that encourage population growth.
who would not have been here had the parents "selfishly sinned"
and used contraception. We are told that church and society suffer great loss
when Christians for "selfish ends" seek to thwart God's
sovereign purposes
in conception. The argument is Luther's-if God creates a sacred or special life
then God will provide for the sustenance of that life.
The concern for life's sacredness also appears among those Christians who oppose abortion. We are told that the commandment against murder underscores the uniqueness of life, and that abortion is the taking of a human life. The Supreme Court, however, ruled that no one can he certain that the fetus is actually "human life." The fetus does have the potential for human life, but so do the sperm and egg. It is for that reason Catholics tell us not to interrupt their union. In any case, there are two points we can make in regard to abortion and life's sacredness. One is that if we are going to interpret the sixth commandment so far as to preclude destruction of fetuses, it would seem that we would also have to disallow the taking of all human life-even, for example, by the military or police. And of course there are Christians in the so-called "peace" churches who, remarkably, are that consistent. But most Christians today who oppose abortion do not seem to be avowedly nonviolent in general.
An additional and more serious inconsistency among many who opposed abortion because of life's sacredness has to do with the narrow way in which they often define life. They are passionately concerned that the law guarantee that any developing fetus be brought to full term. But the evidence shows that the incidence of children born out of wedlock occurs most often among the poor and those less well off. Very often such women are black and still in their teens (Kramer, 1975). Even among married women the proportion of unintended pregnancies increases as education decreases (Ryder & Westoff, 1971). Where are the antiabortion Christians who will argue for laws guaranteeing equal opportunity for those unwanted children? Christian voices are seldom heard demanding that the government provide a guaranteed annual income for women or couples with more children than they can support. Instead, conservative Christians complain about "welfare chiselers" and high taxes, while strongly supporting money for police and military who ultimately have the right to take human life. In short, to be concerned for the sacredness of life is not merely to institutionalize mechanisms assuring that all fetuses maintain physical existence. It also means institutionalizing mechanisms to enhance the quality of the child's life in the economic, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual realms as well. To stop merely at physical existence, is to have a very narrow view indeed of God's image in humankind.
Church's Ambivalence Toward Sex
Third, Christians have been pronatalist not only because of the Old
Testament stress on childquantity, and because of the sacredness of
life, but
sex. The Bible itself takes a very positive view of sex. In reading
Song of Solomon,
for example, one is struck by the robust, pleasant, and pleasurable images of
sexuality that emerge. It was the Church Fathers who gave us a negative view of
sex. For ex ample, "Jerome would not permit married couples to partake of
the Eucharist for several days after performing the 'bestial act' of
intercourse.
'A wise man' (he wrote) 'ought to love his wife with judgment, not with passion
. . . . He who too ardently loves his own wife is an adulterer.' Ambrose made
a similar statement and was quoted with approval by Augustine and much later by
John Calvin in his commentary on the seventh commandment." (L. Scanzoni,
1975: 30-31). This negativism persisted in Catholicism, and permeated
Protestantism
as well.
How do these unbiblical views of sex as "dirty" or "evil"
contribute to Christian pronatalism? How is it that we can view the
means of procreation
as suspect, but the outcome-namely babiesin such favorable light? The fact is
that because sex is suspect Christians have not talked openly about
male and female
sexual organs-anatomy. We feel uncomfortable discussing what God has made even
with our own children, our own husbands and wives, and Christian friends. Not
only do we ignore anatomical discussions, we conveniently ignore the physiology
of reproduction. Most of all we don't talk about the specific
techniques of contraception,
much less techniques of sterilization or abortion. Who can name an evangelical
minister who has ever led a series of meetings on "Christian
family planning?"
For a long time the Church never talked about sex at all, even in the
most general
terms. Finally within the last 15 years or so, in reluctant response
to open discussion
in the larger society, some churches hesitatingly allow their teenage
youth group
to acknowledge that sex is there, all right, but "it's bad and
they shouldn't
do it 'till after marriage."
Failure to take a positive attitude toward sex means that there is no frank and
open discusssion about physiology, reproduction, and contraception.
Lacking this
kind of information, many unmarried couples find that they have
produced a pregnancy
they don't want. There is strong evidence to show that many young
unmarried women
who are sexually active do not practice any kind of
contraception-much less effective
contraception (Kantner & Zelnik, 1972, 1973). And the less education they
have, the more unprotected these women tend to be. Even among married persons
there is a considerable proportion of children born as a result of
what is known
as "contraceptive failure"-the parents really didn't want
the pregnancy
and would have preferred it to be later if at all. (Ryder & Westoff, 1971).
Therefore, many family-planning specialists argue that we need to take a more
wholesome view of sex and discuss it normally and naturally. One way to achieve
that goal is through sex education in schools. Teaching young adolescents about
reproduction and contraception should help to reduce unwanted pregnancies both
outside and inside marriage. Planners contend that such programs
would especially
benefit children and young people from less advantaged homes-the very persons
who are the least well informed about the physiology of reproduction, who are
least likely to use the best contraceptives, and who are the most
likely to bear
the most children, in and out of marriage.
But using the phrase "sex education" is like waving a red
flag in front
of some Christians. Because of the traditions of our Fathers we do suspect sex,
and some Christians feel that learning about sex and contraception will cause
kids "to do it." Adults are dreadfully concerned that adolescents not
learn about sex and contraception because we are convinced that to be ignorant
is to be, innocent; to be informed is to experiment. Therefore the fear of sex
education supports pronatalism, because the fact is that many young
people (including
some Christians) are already experimenting, and children are being
born that were
not planned forchildren that contribute to unwanted population growth. At the
same time many of these unwanted pregnancies are terminated by
abortions-a behavior
which some Christians strongly oppose.
To cope with these unwanted pregnancies, and to cut down on the
numbers of abortions,
some advocates go beyond sex education per se and argue that adolescents ought
to have access to the best contraceptives available-much as they have access to
good medical care-and indeed as a part of medical care. And where
they can't afford
it, advocates argue that it ought to be provided free of charge. A recent study
concluded that over the past decade "the trend has been
consistently in the
direction of liberalization of laws affirming the right of young
people to consent
for their own contraceptive care" (Paul, et al, 1974). What this means is
that virtually all persons aged 18 are free from parental control
insofar as legally
obtaining contraception and abortion is concerned. Moreover among persons under
18 lawyers refer to what they call the "mature minor doctrine,'
This simply
means that increasing numbers of younger adolescents can legally
obtain contraception
and abortion whether their parents approve or not.
These trends pose a genuine dilemma for some Christians, especially those who
are Reformed in their outlook. On the one hand, widespread sex education, and
especially unimpeded access to contraceptives will likely mean that the numbers
of unwanted children, along with the numbers of abortions, should go down. Yet
on the other hand if Christians support such policies, does that mean that they
thereby endorse premarital sex? When St. Paul wrote to Corinth,
Athens, or Thessalonica
he never exhorted them to preach Christian sex ethics to nonbelievers. While he
had a lot to say to Christians about their sexuality, to others the message was
one of simple trust in Christ. Unfortunately over the centuries, not only have
Christians developed a negative view of sex, we have also tried to impose our
own sex ethics on others. We have confused grace with law. And it might be said
that Christian opposition to sex education and to dissemination of
contraceptives
to the unmarried reflects this effort at imposition. Perhaps Christians ought
to make a sharper distinction between what they expect from
themselves and their
children, and what they hope to see in the larger society. We convey to our own
children that since sex is a glorious gift of God, it is never
"dirty".
Nonetheless we also convey our conviction that God's will is that
actual intercourse
be reserved for marriage (L. Scanzoni, 1975). At the same time we
should provide
our children with the fullest and the most explicit sex information available
(L. Sanzoni, 1973). If this strategy were followed, then ideally
Christian single
persons would not need contraceptives, nor abortion, nor would they experience premarital pregnancy. If they
marry, they
would hopefully be better able to eliminate any unwanted pregnancies.
But we can't communicate these same kinds of spiritual motivations to
nonChristians.
Therefore, if ready access to contraception can reduce unwanted
births and abortions,
and thus reduce unwanted population growth, then Christians should not oppose
ready-access programs. Some Christians might go a step further and
strongly support
expanded contraceptive delivery programs. It goes without saying that we ought
to take a positive view of sexuality and strongly support sex education in the
schools and churches.
Earlier we said it was inconsistent for Christians to oppose abortion and yet
not favor full social and economic benefits for fatherless or
disadvantaged children.
It seems to me it is equally inconsistent to oppose abortion and yet
also to oppose
expanded contraceptive delivery systems. No one prefers abortion as a solution.
If abortions can be avoided through expanded contraceptive delivery, then those
who are most anti-abortion should be most procontraceptive delivery.
View of Woman
We come now to a fourth reason why Christians have been so strongly pronatalist.
At least for some Church Fathers, there was a connection between negative views
of both sex and women (L. Scanzoni, 1975). Some Christians still
today take Genesis
3 as a commandand interpret I Timothy 2 as the solution. That is, they allege
that because women are responsible for sin, they must bear children in pain as
part of the curse. And the more they bear, the more they are able to
get out from
under the curse. While such a view may be too extreme for most Christians, it
seems clear that the majority of conservative Christians do view
women as inherently
different from men in ways other than anatomy. The defenders of
intrinsic feminity
sometimes wax very mystical (Howard, 1975) in arguing for the
uniqueness of woman,
and for her subordination. Others argue from interpretations of
certain passages
that women are indeed different in function and essence though not in
rank (Olthuis,
1975).
Modern Christians are not aware of how much they have unknowingly
been influenced
by Freud and Freudian psychology when it comes to women. Though they object to
Freud's preoccupation with sex, they unwittingly concur with his
speculation that
"anatomy determines destiny." And what is the chief end of woman? To
be a mother; to bear children. It is alleged that this is the highest vocation
a female can attain. Moreover, like good Freudians, some Christians allege that
the Mother has a unique relationship with her infant and small child-that only
she can be there providing nurture and training. And so we train young girls to
model themselves after the Virgin Mary or the mother of John Wesley or of John
Calvin. We never think to teach them to use as models Mary the sister
of Lazarus,
or Priscilla, or Lydia, or Catherine Booth, or Mary Slessor or Gladys Aylward.
We effectively exclude women from vocations that would function as alternatives
to childbearing. Some churches still refuse to ordain women, and by
various subtle
means we keep all but a miniscule fraction of Christian women from
participating
in demanding professions, or in the middle or upper levels of management.
It is obvious why such policies are pronatalist. We
tell women "to be fruitful and multiply" and they dutifully obey. By
excluding them from meaningful alternative vocations, we seal them
into this one
vocation. And we create all kinds of guilt feelings within them if they dare to
break out.
Of course it is not only Christian women who are captives of these
kinds of forces.
For example, many women from lower-class and working class backgrounds perceive
that the only rewards in life open to them emanate from motherhood.
Life in general
presents a bleak and dismal picture. Educational and occupational achievement
are simply not viewed as realistic kinds of rewards for which to
strive. And then
think of the great masses of women in the nonwestern World-their sole
opportunity
for meaning in life is to hear children. To come to them with contraceptives in
hand and merely to say, "Look, with this you can have 2 children instead
of 8," has become recognized as an exercise in futility.
An essential part of the overall strategy of effective population
control in every
part of the world must include providing women with rewarding alternatives to
childbearing and encouraging them to seek these out, Oil-rich Iran, according
to one observer, may be a case in point.' With the rapid expansion of business,
education, and government services as a result of their petrodollars, hundreds
of jobs have been created for which there are simply not enough
trained personnel
of either sex. Therefore all talented persons regardless of gender
have been trained
and recruited for these slots. Men apparently have no competitive
edge over women.
It is yet too early to tell whether these trends will mean lowered
fertility among
well-trained women, or an overall reduction in Iran's birth rate. However both
declines should occur if we use the Western experience as a base for
prediction.
In the U.S., Christians should support programs to broaden the
horizons of young
women. In pragmatic terms this means, for example, spending as much per pupil
in Detroit's inner city as in its suburbs. It means saying the same
thing to every
girl that we say to every boy-"You can be anything you want to
be-even President!"
And what an irony it would be if Christians would argue that a woman
can be president
but not a preacher or priest. If we're really serious about effective fertility
control and reduced population growth, then it's time we discard the Freudian
myth about woman's mystical uniqueness and instead include her as a
full and equal
partner in society, church, and home.
Spreading the Faith through Children
There is a fifth reason why Christians have been so strongly pronatalist. And
that is the very biblical notion that children carry on the Faith.
The Old Testament
makes the point that at the heart of the community of God are adult believers
nurturing children from infancy. And in spite of some "covenant
children"
who "fall away" it is clear that the majority of contemporary adult
Christians came from Christian homes. They were "nurtured"
in the Christian
faith as distinct from converts who have been "evangelized" to Christ
from their adolescence onwards. Therefore we have been pronatalist, not merely
because children are a blessing from God and intrinsically rewarding,
but we also
have a worthy utilitarian motive-they maintain the Christian
community. The Shakers,
for instance,
demonstrate what happens when a Christian group rejects sex entirely
and therefore
childrenthey become decimated to oblivion.
In the midst of a world that is overpopulated, and in the midst of a
nation that
consumes far more than its share of the world's resources, the
question of reproduction
for the sake of community is an extraordinarily serious matter. We can modify
the Old Testament praise of children because we no longer live in an agrarian
setting. We can hold life sacred and still opt to limit growth by the
most effective
technologies at our disposal. We can discard our "hangups" about sex,
and our prejudices toward women, and consequently limit numerical growth. But
how are we going to resolve the dilemma of limiting growth and still
maintaining
a viable Christian community? (Bayly, 1975). The Pope is at least
consistent when
he tells the world and the Church that both will prosper if they accept all the
children God sends. But can we legitimately tell the world to cut
back on children,
when we feel Christians should proliferate for the sake of the Kingdom?
In reality the dilemma is not quite that painful because it appears that many
Christian couples (including Catholics) have begun to follow the lead
of persons
in the larger society and to reduce the average sixes of their
families. But then
the question becomes, how much can Christians reduce family
size-3-2-1-zero? And
more important, is there any way we can seize the initiative and show the world
how we can enjoy the rewards of ehlidren, have sufficient numbers to maintain
viable Christian community, and yet be responsive to the pressures of
uncontrolled
population growth? Are there life-styles that Christians can develop that can
serve as a witness to the world as to how to achieve responsible growth in the
midst of rapidly changing conditions?
The foundations of such life-styles would be based on the twin
elements of individual
freedom and corporate responsibility. Each Christian man and woman
would be more
free than now to produce and/or to care for as few or as many children as they
wanted. Some would produce or care for none-they would be child free
(J. Scanzoni,
1975b). Others would be free to produce and/or care for 1, 3, 5, or 10 if they
wanted to. In other words there would be no negative sanctions taken
against those
who believe that God wants them to be child free-nor against those who feel God
wants them to be prolific. Right now we sneer at the latter, and are
cold towards
the former. Neither would we censure singleness as we do now when we use such
derogatory terms as "old maid." Instead we would affirm the Catholic
concept that for those who are called, singleness is a unique means
to serve God
with unrestricted dedication.
Likewise we would need to change substantially our notions regarding both men's
and women's roles. Earlier we said that the Christian woman should be free to
be "all she can he" (L. Scanzoni and Hardesty, 1974) as far
as vocation
is concerned. The evidence is clear that married women who are oriented towards
occupational achievement in the same sense as their husbands have
fewer children
(J. Scanzoni, 1975a). Trends towards female achievement are likely to
expand among
Christian as well as non-Christian women. We should support the
freedom of those
women to achieve and to have few, if any, children if that is how they discern
God's will. But what of the Christian married woman who desires serious vocation plus some children? One way to
accomplish both goals
is for husbands to take much more seriously than they have the Old
Testament teaching
on fathers nurturing their children. We must discard the Freudian notion that
to achieve emotional health infants and children require their own
natural mothers.
Fathers can nurture just as well as mothers. The Bible makes clear
that Christian
men are supposed to be just as gentle, tender and compassionate as
women. Therefore
Christian husbands and wives should be free to be genuine equals in child care
as well as in occupational achievement. To go one step further, some Christian
husbands may want the freedom not to work at all during some period of time in
order to "stay home" with a child or children. Christians should be
allowed this freedom without the censure that we currently apply.
Child Care by the Christian Community
Now let us become even more heretical and suggest that during this
period of rapid
change the Christian community must begin to assume more responsibility for the
care of all its own children (Henry, 1975). For the past hundred years or so we
have become accustomed to households in which the biological mother
(in most cases)
became uniquely responsible for all phases of the children's
development. As our
society became more urbanized the effective influence of the kin on
child-nurture
became increasingly less. That process was reinforced and made
mysterious by Freudian
notions about various "complexes" between parents and their
own children.
Actually, in most societies, for most of the world's history, children have had
a wide range of significant adults with which to identify besides
their parents.
Actual parents were always important, but so were older siblings and cousins,
aunts, uncles and grandparents. Among the masses of people, prior to
industrialization,
biological mothers had to work as hard and as long as fathers to eke
out a living-usually
from the land-sometimes as small merchants or within the guild system
(Young and
Wilmott 1973). Mothers simply didn't have time to hover over children as many
mothers do today. And among the upper classes where the mother
actually had leisure
to hover, she didn't use it for that purpose. Their nanny, or nurse, interacted
with growing children far more than the mother ever did. And somehow the world
survived in spite of the lack of intense mothering to which we have
become accustomed.
Some Christians even refer to that premodern era as the "golden age"
of Protestantism. But with industrialization a middle class emerged
in which women
had discretionary leisure, but not quite enough wealth to hire
nannies, nor were
the kin as accessible as before. And so evolved what some have called "a
cult of motherhood," in which the woman's whole mission and destiny became
wrapped up not just in bearing children, but also in caring for them.
We must begin to think very hard about what it means to distinguish
childbearing
from childcaringthe natality function from the nanny function. We must begin to
think about a far wider range of nurturing mechanisms than we have envisioned
for the past hundred years. We must think about what it means to
relieve the Christian
nuclear family of the total burdens of both bearing and caring for
all the needs-emotional,
spiritual, social and economic-of children. Many Christians object to the State
assuming more responsibility
There are five reasons for the traditional Christian view: interpretation of the Old Testament, regard for human life, the Church's ambivalence toward sex, our views of women, and the fact that children carry on the Faith.
than it already has for the care of their own children. But who could object to
the Christian community itself-denominations and local churches
becoming the servants
of Christians. These are Christians who perhaps would like to bear a child or
additional children but who feel they cannot because they claim they
can't afford
it, or because both partners are involved in serious vocation, or because for
any reason they feel they would not be adequate parents if left to
themselves.
The forms of the Church's servanthood on behalf of such persons would be many.
Expansion of existing religious legal adoption services is one. We
would not discourage
adoptions by single persons as we do now, nor should we discourage interracial
adoptions. There are some Christians who have not had the chance to
marry or else
do not wish to marry, yet they desire the experience of parenthood. They should
be encouraged in this desire. The facilities of local churches that often stand
idle during the week could be used to provide loving childcare on a
daily basis.
Senior citizens could be used in these arrangements, along with arrangements to
provide childcare within private homes if some parents prefer that. The list of
specific forms of the church's commitment to childcare is virtually endless and
obviously situational. The basic policy point is that Christian parents could
always count on the Christian community to provide whatever resources
are needed
in the care of children.
And that includes economic resources. The financial cost of children
in the next
few decades is going to continue to rise markedly. Add that cost to the equally
marked rising aspirations of Christian women for vocation, and we can see how
the quantity of covenant children available to nurture could decline
significantly.
The concept of making the whole Christian community responsible for the care of
all its own children could be a means to balance those two economic and social
trends. In this way the quantity of covenant children could be kept
at a reasonable
level-hut far more important the quality of their care would not
suffer and might
even be enhanced.
Such patterns could also serve as examples to the larger society of
how to maintain
continuity in responsible fashion while living in a world of
shrinking resources.
Such patterns could also be mechanisms whereby nonChristians might be willing
to entrust the care of their children to the Christian community, and
thus provide
us with means of evangelism for both parents and children. In
addition, some nonChristian
women who are pregnant but considering abortion, might instead be
willing to give
up their infant to a community of this sort. Finally, nonChristian women who do
not wish to keep their newborn or other children might be willing to give them
to the community for adoptive purposes, if they saw that it cared vitally about
the well-being of children.
Conclusion
In concluding, we may say that in the past Christians have been
strongly pronatalist proclaiming
for themselves and for the world the virtues of childbearing and
caring. But "times
are changing" and we can no longer advocate the same modes of reproduction
either for ourselves, or much less for society. We may have to make
clearer than
ever before the distinctions between Christian and nonChristian ethics on sex,
abortion, and contraceptive delivery systems. Christians should be in
the forefront
of efforts to control population growth here and around the world so that the
interests of nations, families, and individuals are best served. Yet
we must recognize
that those interests vary. An American view of population growth may be quite
different from views held by nonwestern politicians, or some black
leaders within
our own country.
At a general level there is a connection between
those peoples seeing their identity and power threatened through reduction of numerical growth, and the Christian community seeing
its identity and influence threatened as a result of fewer children being born
into it. And while we cannot deny the freedom of individual Christians to avoid
or to severely limit childbearing if that is how they perceive God's will, we
can take bold and perhaps daring steps to encourage reasonable continuity. In
the days ahead may God grant us grace to know how to maintain that precarious
though necessary balance between individual autonomy and our
corporate responsibility
to see all Cod's children as our very own children as well.
FOOTNOTE
1In conversations with a native Iranian who works for her government, and who
is presently taking graduate studies in the U.S.
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