Isaiah 47:9-11
Psalm 106:36–38
AC 23.7: “Gen. 1:28 teaches that people were created to be fruitful.” It goes on to refute the notion that this was a specific promise/command for Adam and not a universal (8): “The Word of God did not form the nature of men to be fruitful only at the beginning of creation, but it still does as long as this physical nature of ours exists. Just so this Word makes the earth fruitful (Gen. 1:11), “Let the earth put forth vegetation, plants yielding seed.” Because of this ordinance, the earth did not begin to bring forth plants only at the beginning, but yearly the fields are clothed as long as this universe exists. Just as human regulations cannot change the nature of the earth, so neither vows nor human regulations can change the nature of man without an extraordinary act of God.”
John M. Riddle. Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance. Harvard, 1994.
“at reipublicae tam necessarium hinc subsidium est, ut caelibatus
affectatores
dicantur obstringi homicidio, cum negligant gignere, quos existere fas
erat; impietate,
cum majorum decus ad mortem agant; sacrilegio, quòd humanum genus, ceu
maximum
donariorum divinorum, aboleant, eoque templa Dei arasque evertant;
perduellione &
excidio reipublicae, quum, adversus leges, patriam, quae viris, non
domibus, porticibus &
foris hominum inanimis, constat, sterilitate prodant & orbam
destituant.” Dedekenn and
Gerhard, Thesauri Consiliorum Et Decisionum Volumen Tertium, fol. a2 r
– v. This is a
contradiction of the Lutheran confessions: Ap XXIII (XI) 38, 69
(Triglotta, pp. 373, 383;
K-W, pp. 253, 257). cited by Mayes dissertation, p.153; what would they
say of contraception among non-celibates/married!
Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius, Divine Institutes 6:20 (A.D. 307): [Some] complain of the scantiness of their means, and allege that they have not enough for bringing up more children, as though, in truth, their means were in [their] power . . . or God did not daily make the rich poor and the poor rich. Wherefore, if any one on any account of poverty shall be unable to bring up children, it is better to abstain from relations with his wife.
Martin Luther, Luther's Work, Vol. 5, p. 332: Although it is very easy to marry a wife, it is very difficult to support her along with the children and the household. Accordingly, no one notices this faith of Jacob. Indeed, many hate fertility in a wife for the sole reason that the offspring must be supported and brought up. For this is what they commonly say: "Why should I marry a wife when I am a pauper and a beggar? I would rather bear the burden of poverty alone and not load myself with misery and want." But his blame is unjustly fastened on marriage and fruitfulness. Indeed, you are indicting your unbelief by distrusting God's goodness, and you are bringing greater misery upon yourself by disparaging God's blessing. For if you had trust in God's grace and promises, you would undoubtedly be supported. But because you do not hope in the Lord, you will never prosper.
To the extent that we moderns have understood the family as a problem to be mastered, and not a mystery to be explored faithfully, we have quite naturally come to adopt a certain attitude toward our children. They have been produced, not out of any spontaneous confidence in life, but as the result of our own planning.
Parents are not reproducing themselves; they are giving birth to an-other human being, equal to them in dignity and bound to them in ties of kinship, but not created for their satisfaction. Biological parenting does not confer possession of children. It calls us to the historical tasks of rearing, nurturing, and civilizing our children so that they next generation may achieve its relative independence.
Self-giving and not self-fulfillment, lies at the heart of the parents' vocation.
Ergo: children are treasures (Ps. 127) not pleasures. Children as false gods.
Quotes showing that Lutherans hold to the traditional interpretation of Gen. 1:28 and Gen. 38:9, namely that contraception is contrary to God's express will.
The purpose of marriage is not to have pleasure and to be idle but to procreate and bring up children. - Luther's Works, American Edition (LW), volume 5 page 363.
Birth control, that is, the frustration of conception or the limitation of the number of children by the use of artificial means, by drugs or unnatural practices, is a sin that has become widespread in modern civilization.- John H. C. Fritz. Pastoral Theology, 2^nd^ Edition (St. Louis: CPH, 1945), p 162.
Luther on Onan:
This is a most disgraceful sin. It is far more atrocious than incest and adultery. We call it unchastity, yes, a Sodomitic sin. For Onan goes in to 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. Accordingly, it was a most disgraceful crime to produce semen and excite the woman, and to frustrate her at that very moment. (LW 7.20-21).
Chemnitz was the greatest Lutheran theologian of the generation that formed a bridge between Luther and the age of Lutheran Orthodoxy. Here Chemnitz, like Chrysostom, draws a distinction between contraception and abortion but condemns them both as contrary to God's will of life for humanity.
**
**"The first and most heinous kind is the external deed itself. Scripture speaks of the shedding of blood, Rom. 3:15; Gen. 9:6. In Ex. 21:18-20 and Num. 25:7 certain instruments or weapons are mentioned, such as iron, rock, or club. Rev. 18:23 and Gal. 5:20 mention sorcery [actually Chemnitz notes here the Greek word pharmakeia, 'potions'
- this was also an ancient word used for chemical contraceptives like silphium - +HRC]. But in the Decalog it simply says, 'Thou shalt not kill,' without mentioning either the instruments or the circumstances of the crime. In Judg. 20:5 the wife of the Levite who was ravished by a mob of Gibeanites was said to have been 'murdered.' Pertinent here also are those things which hinder contraception, Gen. 38:9. Likewise, the matter of destroying the fetus in the womb, Ex. 21:22, 'If a pregnant woman is struck. .. .' I Kings 3:19 refers to those who in their sleep lie on and smother children." (Loci Theologici, Preus translation, vol. II, p. 406, first column.)
In 1939, Concordia Pulpit, Volume XI, included a “Series on the Christian Marriage Relation,” which contained the following:
The main purpose of marriage is the propagation of the human race. God Himself clearly stated this purpose: “Be fruitful,” etc. (both a command and a blessing bestowed upon the human family). Also Ps. 128:3,4; 127:3-5. ... Various sinful methods of birth control. Abortion. ...
Second sinful method, the sin of Onan, Gen. 38:9. Very common practice. (Catholic priest in this city told the writer that in the confessional he has learned this to be the most common practice among his people; guilty of the sin of birth control.) Today use of mechanical devices prevalent. Reasons: greed, career, enjoyment of life, lust, fear of labor and pain in childbirth. Additional proof for our position: voice of conscience; terrible consequences of this unnaturalness, such as impaired health physically and mentally.
Some who are not Christians place these practices on the same plane with self-abuse. Bernard Shaw: “Contraceptive practices are reciprocal masturbation.”
St. Augustine: “Contraception makes a prostitute out of the wife and an adulterer out of the husband.” Companionate marriage has been termed “licensed prostitution.”
Dr. Howard Kelly, perhaps America’s ablest gynecologist, neither a Lutheran nor a Catholic, uses these words: “All meddling with the sexual relation to secure facultative sterility degrades the wife to the level of a prostitute.” The preacher will be chiefly positive in this matter and show forth the blessings of parentage.
Dr. Fritz was a professor at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis and wrote Pastoral Theology, a textbook which was used for decades to train Missouri Synod pastors. In this book he speaks at length concerning contraception and how Lutheran pastors should discourage their use as sinful. Here is a small quote from his much longer discussion from the second edition of the book, which was printed in 1945.
Man has no right arbitrarily or definitely to limit the number of his offspring (birth control), especially not if done with artificial or unnatural means, Gen. 1:28; Ps. 127:3-6; Ps. 128:3,4; Gen. 38:9-10; Rom. 1:26-27. . . . Birth control, that is, the frustration of conception or the limitation of the number of children by the use of artificial means, by drugs or unnatural practices, is a sin. . . .Due to the fact that spiritual indifferentism and Modernism have made inroads into the church of our day and have dulled the conscience also in respect to Christian ethics, it is not surprising that birth control is advocated even by men and women in the churches of this modern age (op. Cit. 162).
Dr. Maier was not only a professor at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, but he also founded the Lutheran Hour radio program. In 1931 he said,
Birth Control, as popularly understood today and involving the use of contraceptives, is one of the most repugnant of modern aberrations, representing a 20^th^ century renewal of pagan bankruptcy (cited by J. F. Noll in A Catechism on Birth Control, 6^th^edition. (Huntington: OSV press, 1939) p. 31).
Missouri Synod Lutherans were not alone in the Lutheran world in their condemnation of contraception. Reacting to the Federal Council of Churches decision to allow contraception in 1931 (only the second time in Church history that any body of Christians made such a decision. See below.), the president of the United Lutheran Churches, Dr. F. H. Knubel, wrote in the April 2^nd^, 1931 edition of The Lutheran,
It is of prime significance that the present agitation for birth control occurs at a period which is notorious for looseness in sexual morality. This fact creates suspicion as to the motives for the agitation, and should warn true-minded men and women against the surrender of themselves as tools for unholy purposes.
For those who would say that the early church and the Lutherans didn't understand the difference between contraception and abortion – namely that they thought the semen was a human life – and that that's why they were against contraception:
St. John Chrysostom, 5^th^ century:
Do you see that from drunkenness comes fornication, from fornication adultery, from adultery murder? Indeed, it is something worse than murder and I do not know what to call it; for she does not kill what is formed but prevents its formation. What then? Do you contemn the gift of God, and fight with His laws? (Homily 24 on the Epistle to the Romans)
We can always convict such people of sentimentalism by their weakness for euphemism. The phrase they use is always softened and suited for journalistic appeals. They talk of free love when they mean something quite different, better defined as free lust. But being sentimentalists they feel bound to simper and coo over the word "love." They insist on talking about Birth Control when they mean less birth and no control. We could smash them to atoms, if we could be as indecent in our language as they are immoral in their conclusions. (G. K. Chesterton, "Obstinate Orthodoxy" in The Thing).