7/27/01

A recent column by the Rev. Jim Rudd, Director of the Christian Street Preachers Alliance, asked a heartfelt and earnest question:

"Why are the pro-family groups having such a hard time discussing the crime of sodomy?"

He then went on to say:

"What has become evident to me is the fact that most of these groups do not publicly address sodomy as a crime and then demand that our civil authorities arrest, prosecute, and punish the sodomites.

"Christians need to understand that this is the same mistake that the pro-life groups made years ago by not addressing the criminal activity of murder -- by abortion."

His analysis is good, but his conclusions are woefully incomplete. Sodomy is a crime indeed, exactly because it is against Natural Law and the Scriptures. However, there is a far more obvious reason why so many pro-family groups fail in fighting homosexuality and so many pro-life groups fail in fighting abortion.

Anyone wishing to fight abortion and the homosexual agenda must fight from a position that fully embraces the Scriptural and Natural Law principles of the Culture of Life, and God's Will for families and human sexuality. Homosexual acts are condemned in Scripture and Christian moral theology because they violate Natural Law. Any non-procreative sex violates the purpose of sexuality in God's Plan and also violates Natural Law. Therefore any Christian living a lifestyle that embraces non-procreative sex has no moral standing from which to condemn other forms of non-procreative sex, such as homosexuality. Like homosexual acts, contraceptive sex is inherently sinful because it is inherently not open to life. Any pro-family or pro-life Christian that at once condemns homosexual sex yet permits contraceptive married sex as licit will fail in their ministry. They have no moral ground on which to stand.

The Protestant Reformers called contraceptive married sex, even by Christian couples, a Sodomitic Sin. Martin Luther and John Calvin are recognized as fathers of the Protestant Reformation, and John Wesley was the founder of Methodism. Their comments on Genesis 38 illustrate how far removed modern Christianity is from a proper understanding of the gravely sinful nature of contraceptive sex.

Martin Luther (1483 to 1546) - "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 (1509 to 1564) - "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."

John Wesley (1703 to 1791) - "Onan, though he consented to marry the widow, yet to the great abuse of his own body, of the wife he had married and the memory of his brother that was gone, refused to raise up seed unto the brother. Those sins that dishonour the body are very displeasing to God, and the evidence of vile affections. Observe, the thing which he did displeased the Lord - And it is to be feared, thousands, especially single persons, by this very thing, still displease the Lord, and destroy their own souls.

Contraception was considered by all of Christianity to be as atrocious as incest, adultery, and sodomy itself. For Christians to justify "contraception" they must embrace a philosophy that is unscriptural and inherently "against life." Further, as the Supreme Court admitted in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, "in some critical respects abortion is of the same character as the decision to use contraceptives...people have organized intimate relationships...in reliance on the availability of abortion in the event that contraception should fail." The Supreme Court at least understood that contraceptives will always fail, and abortion was necessary in a nation living under the contraceptive mentality, in order to "fix" the "failures."

Abortion grew out of society's rejection, after 1930, of almost 2000 years of continuous Christian teaching and preaching that contraception was inherently evil, in the same class of sin as incest, adultery, and sodomy. In 1930, the Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops stated that, in very strictly defined circumstances, contraception might be morally licit.

What circumstances? Essentially those same circumstances under which, a short 43 years later, the US Supreme Court decided, in Roe v. Wade, that abortion too would now be excusable and legal. Interestingly, the "right to privacy" underpinnings on which Roe v. Wade was decided were drawn from a 1963 Supreme Court decision, Griswold v. Connecticut, that struck down the Comstock laws, laws which prohibited the sale of contraceptives and were written by Protestants in the 1800's.

Christianity must return to a preaching of these undeniable Truths regarding the meaning and purpose of sexuality in the family, in both Scripture and Natural Law. Those preachers that excuse contraception will have no success in the long run in fighting the onslaught of the homosexual agenda, and will continue to be ineffective in fighting the pro-life and pro-family battles in general.

To attempt to fight the Culture of Death utilizing a Culture of Life deprived of one of its fundamental underpinnings, namely marital chastity and scriptural openness to life, is similar to preaching the Blessed Trinity but forgetting one of the Three Divine Persons, such as Jesus Himself. Some converts might be made, but to what are they converting? There is no draw in a Trinity devoid of one of the Three. Likewise there is simply no powerful witness in preaching a Gospel of Life that is closed to life by failing to preach openness to life. In failing to condemn contraception, preachers and priests fail to strike at the root cause of abortion, a big contributing cause of divorce and abuse, and a sin that shares with homosexual acts the identity of Sodomitic Sin.

"Why are the pro-family groups having such a hard time discussing the crime of sodomy?"

Because in living a contraceptive lifestyle, they are guilty of the same crime. Nothing undercuts the authority and conviction of the preacher as much as being guilty of the same type of sin he is preaching against.

To his credit, the Rev. Jim Rudd responded to me when I raised these points with him, in part by replying:

"I agree that contraception is a crime and a perversion of Natural Law and Holy Scripture. The use of contraception is evidence of man in rebellion to God. Man perverting God's planned use for his seed is a perversion of nature -- Man changing his own manhood to that which is less than manhood is effeminacy: To unman; to make womanish; unmanlike softness; to weaken.

"Isn't it interesting how the definition of effeminacy describes the American Christians' attitude toward sin -- "soft" and "weak" ?

"Also, husbands that allow their wives to use birth-control is a perversion of God's plan for the woman, making the wife into a sex toy, a whore, just to be used for sexual pleasures. Clearly, the spiritual ramifications of Contraception Degradation has aided to the destruction of marriage.

"I would also add that "a position that fully embraces the Scriptural and Natural Law principles of the Culture of Life, and God's Will for families and human sexuality" cannot happen in the Untied States until the men regain their legal rights to be husbands and fathers at the moment of conception. The three major Court opinions that legalized contraception in the Untied State "did not" force "all men" to use contraception. However, Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton strip "all men" of their legal rights and "headship" to be husbands and fathers at the moment of conception."

How refreshing to hear such strong, clear, true words from a Protestant preacher. What a great ally we have in fighting the Culture of Death in this preacher, and so many others like him, who are now recognizing the apostasy of "Bible Christianity" of this past century in the area of moral theology.

Yet it gives us a moment of pause. If Protestants like Rev. Rudd can see this so clearly, where is the loud voice of the Catholic bishops, priests, and laity, heirs to 2000 years of continuous clear teaching against contraception?

To whom so much has been given, so very much is expected. Our Church was given the beauty of Humanae Vitae over three decades ago. The open dissent against Humanae Vitae in the West is the cornerstone upon which rests the deafening silence of the Church in the West in the face of the homosexual agenda. By rejecting Humanae Vitae, the Church in the West rejected the very platform from which to fight the homosexual agenda.

This begs the question, "Which came first?" Was the rejection of Humanae Vitae by many bishops and priests the result of an advanced progression of the homosexual agenda in the priesthood itself, even in the 1960's? Clearly a priesthood undermined by Sodomitic sin run rampant in its own ranks would itself lack the moral authority to hold married laity to the truths of Humanae Vitae. Obviously it would gut any outcry against all forms of Sodomy.

In order to be effective in preaching to those in the Culture of Death, we have to present the Culture of Life in its fullness. Anything less is a lie and a distortion and a disservice to the souls of those we are attempting to save from the self destructive grasp of the Culture of Death. This is a reality that must be grasped and embraced by all of Christianity, immediately, or we will lose this battle against the homosexual agenda just as we lost the battle against the legalization of abortion. These Culture Wars will be won or lost based upon a return to and an embrace of the constant teachings and undeniable truths of Humanae Vitae, and an uncompromising condemnation of all Sodomitic Sins.