Transcript: Lesson 19 - Sex, Procreation and Contraception

Friends, welcome. As we begin this new unit, I want to just remind us again, that part of what  we're doing as we track through this course, is think about the big story of Scripture about  who God is as Creator and Redeemer, how he's revealed Himself to us and, and how our  stories are called to participate in this bigger story of which we're a part. And in particular,  we're thinking about how our marriage our singleness, how our sexuality is called to  participate in the story, the Gospel story of Jesus and of his life giving love for us and what it  looks like for us to live that out in these different modes in these different ways of life, in our  marriage, in our singleness. Well, in this unit, and actually the next couple of units, we're  going to be thinking, especially about how the biblical story contrasts with the story of  naturalism the story, especially of technology. Now, earlier, in an earlier unit, we talked about  how the story of naturalism is one that really pervades much of our culture that we view our  bodies we view the world around us as, as purely material, we don't recognize the deeper  spiritual personal dimension to who we are, and the reality of who God is, as supernatural  creator, but instead reduce everything to just matter in motion. And so in the next couple of  units, we're going to think about some specific areas of bioethics that are very closely related  to our bodies and to our sexuality. So we're going to be thinking in this unit specifically, about  how to think about procreation, and contraception. And then in the following unit, we're going  to be thinking about assisted reproductive technologies. Both of these are our bioethical  concerns, because they have to do with the creation of new life or the prevention of the  creation of new life. And so when we think about these, we're, we're not just thinking about  medical procedures, even though we will dig into just a medical ethics and thinking about  those to some degree. But we have to realize that much of what shapes our our way of life  and our patterns of thinking around these things, really, is this the broader cultural story of, of technology as safer that, that we can essentially use technology, including medical  technology to, to alter to change to interact with our bodies. And oftentimes, we don't even  pause to think about, are there theological or moral or biblical concerns in play here. And so  my guess is, as we walk through a topic in this unit, like contraception, this is something that  a lot of people, you know, when I bring this up, they scratch their head a little bit, because  even folks who've raised them, who've been raised in the church, or even people who have  been part of the faith for a long time, and sometimes never really thought of contraception,  procreation, children, assisted reproductive technologies, they've never really thought of  those things as theological, biblical moral issues. They just think of them as medical issues  that each person kind of explores and investigates and kind of does what seems right to them as they think about that particular topic. But if we're going to think about how our bodies, how our sexuality are incorporated into this broader story of who God is, as creator, as Redeemer,  then we need to actually consider these things and reflect on them. And so my goal as we dig into these is not to say, you know, everybody has to think exactly like I do on this topic, or, or  everybody has to hold the exact same perspective that I do here. My goal really is, is it's just  to ask questions is to think about this a little bit more deeply. I know, I don't know about your  journey. But part of the journey that my wife and I have have walked is something similar to  what I what I just described, we both grew up in Christian homes. And, you know, never really  thought about procreation or contraception in any kind of biblical or theological framework.  We just thought about this, as you know, as the broader culture largely does that, as we were  approaching marriage, we were considering different modes and methods of birth control, and just explored that and thinking about those things. It was after we'd been married, probably  two or three years that we first encountered somebody who kind of asked us questions and  prodded a little bit in terms of thinking about the biblical and theological implications of  contraception and of procreation. And so, you know, my goal here is really just to to start the  ball rolling and thinking in your own mind how to, how to ponder this and especially how to  think about this from a biblical and theological perspective, rather than just kind of going with the flow. As I mentioned, when when we think about out the story of Scripture, we want to do  our best to realize that the story of Scripture often does come in conflict with the broader  stories of our culture. And so we need to raise questions about the naturalism that we often  just assume and think about how scripture might be calling us to think, think differently on  this particular topic. And so as we dive into, dive into this topic, I want to just reflect a little bit

on the Bible's view of children. And there are a number of different passages here, I'm not  going to look at them all in detail, I would encourage you if you have to take some time on  your own to look at some of these different verses. But let me just state a couple things I  think you'll see if you start to if you start to peruse this, obviously, we have a picture here the  illustration of Jesus with the children well known to his as the disciples trying to keep the kids  away. Jesus says, No, let's let the children come to Me. Well, Genesis 1 talks about in the in  the very beginning, God creates male and females says be fruitful and multiply. That's  actually the first command slash blessing that you see God giving to humanity, that there's a  sense in which just this God creates all of these other things, plants, and animals who  reproduce after their kind that human beings part of our call is actually to be fruitful and  multiply. Within this context of marriage that we see in Genesis 1 and 2. You see in Genesis  38, there's an example of a man named Odin who essentially tries to have sex. But apart from procreation, and actually, God judges him quite harshly in this. And so this, this text is one  that if you look at it, it probably sounds very foreign. Maybe almost crazy to us, like what is  happening here, we don't don't quite make sense of all this. But part of what we see in this  text is that God actually really values procreation as a key part of sexual union, that part of  the meaning of sex as we talked about earlier, not just that it's free, faithful and total, but that it is also fruitful, that that's, that's one of the key inherent meanings of our sexuality, that it, it draws us out of ourselves, and produces new life. You see in Psalm 127, Psalm 128, Psalm  139, all Psalms that talk about children as God's blessing that talk about the fact that God  knows us, even in our mother's womb, that God is involved in the creation of children, just as  he was involved in the creation of Adam. And so there's this recognition that God is creator is  intimately involved with each of us, as children. Even in the Song of Songs, which which  speaks very strongly to the power of sexual love the power of romantic love between a  husband and wife between a man and a woman. One of the key things that you'll see in the  Book of Song of Songs is that there is this metaphor fruitfulness is is everywhere. And so even though Song of Songs is not focused specifically on procreation, there's this recognition of  fruitfulness as being a key part of a component of our sexuality and our sexual love. Romans  1:26-27. Part of this is a text that speaks against same sex sexual activity, in part, because  the text uses the phrase unnatural, but what what it really means by that is non procreative,  it's the part of the reason that God speaks against same sex sexual activity is because it lacks this reality and possibility potentiality of procreation. So we'll come back to thinking in a later  unit thinking more about how do we respond and connect with gay and lesbian Christians, gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, as well as treating gay and lesbian people in general. But  that I think it is important to note that that's in Scripture that that part of the criticism of  same sex sexual activity is there, because it lacks this reality of procreation. And then finally,  Ephesians 6 talks about children as being in the Lord So children are not seen as sort of  second class citizens, but children are dressed as members of the church members of the  church family. And all throughout Scripture, there's this value to, to valuing children to valuing life to, to raising up children to understand who God is and to follow Him. And so what I just  want you to note here is that scripture overwhelmingly sees children as positive. Children are  never seen as just an undue burden or something legitimately to be avoided or a problem but children are always seen as this blessing new life is really seen as this blessing that God pours out. So as we think about procreation and this, this reality of fruitfulness that is built into our  bodies, I want to take a step back before we dig into the biblical and theological discussion  around this, to think about the question of medical ethics and technology. Because this is  actually a broader framework that we need when we when we think about how much our  culture depends on technology around how we use medical technology, because what we're  gonna see is both contraception and assisted reproductive technologies are, they're both  forms of medical technology. And so it's important to distinguish between medicine that seen  as remedial or therapeutic. So when we use those terms to remedy something, means to set  something right, that has gone wrong. A similarly a kind of therapy or to use this phrase  therapeutic, part of what that's speaking to is a sense that, again, it's meant to fix something  that is not working quite as it should, it's meant to set something right. So that, you know, if  somebody, for example, injures their knee, they tear their ACL, what they do, then is typically 

participate in in quite an extensive process of therapy, to get their to get their damage joint  working as it should. And so part of when we think about medical ethics, it's really important  that this concept of fixing something that has broken, that has broken, or that is going wrong,  that is different, especially from medical technology as enhancement. When we use a phrase  like enhancement, we're talking about not fixing something that's gone wrong. But we're  talking about actually extending our our powers or extending our abilities beyond our normal  natural capabilities. So, for example, this might sound like science fiction, but it's, it's amazing what people people can and do actually undertake. Now in the field of technology. You know,  somebody could adjust the human eye, in essence, so that you have built in night vision  goggles, right, something that usually people might use this in military situations or  elsewhere, where they use night vision goggles to enhance their vision at night, if there were  a way to do that, to the actual lens of the human eye, that would not be that would not be  remedial, it would not be therapeutic, it would actually be an enhancement, it would be doing  something that's it's not really necessary to fix something that's broken, but simply to alter,  to change to improve something that is fine. But you just you want something beyond your  something beyond normal human capabilities, you want something beyond normal human  limits, you can see something like this as well, even in the broad area of plastic surgery,  where the goal there many times is not necessarily to fix something that's gone wrong. But  it's simply somebody who maybe doesn't like some feature of their body or something about  the way that they look. And so they change it not because there's anything medically wrong,  but simply because they want it to be different. Now, you can even think about how the same  procedure could be used remedially or in an enhancing way. So for example, a lot of plastic  surgery was originally pioneered, for people who were say burn victims, where there really  was damage that had been done, where something had gone wrong, that needed fixed. But  then that technology gets applied to people who had not suffered anything like that, but  simply didn't like the way that they looked. So this distinction is really important, because  most Christian bioethicists would say that the first use is legitimate, it is legitimate, right?  That's proper medicine is to be remedial to be therapeutic, but would raise real questions  about using medical technology, just to enhance the human body in a way that goes beyond  our human limits or, or alter something that is not in any way broken or is any way damaged  or diseased. And so the key question here, that we have to ponder is this is contraception.  And when I say contraception, I mean, I'm talking about here, any human device. A lot of  people if I'm saying this, you might think about the pill. But it can include things like the  condom, it can include IUDs intrauterine devices, really any human device or means that is  meant to effectively stop procreation to stop conception. Is that is that use of technology is  that fixing something going wrong or altering Something that's working as it should. This is a  this is a key question. And I think when you stop and think about it, we realize that most of  the time made, maybe you can think of some exceptions, maybe there are some exceptional  cases, but most of the time, we utilize contraception, not to fix something that's going wrong,  but actually to stop the normal. The normal processes, the normal reproductive capabilities of  human beings, from going right. And so this is, now here's, here's where the struggle comes  in. If I think about the different stories in play, if the main story that you buy into is a kind of  naturalism that says, we're really nothing but matter in motion, and so it's no big deal, if it's  the procreative capacities of human being are, are disabled, or that the procreative potential  of sexual union is interrupted. That's not a big deal. From a naturalist perspective, that makes  perfect sense. The question is, if our bodies really mean something, and a sexual union really  means something, Are we free to actually? Or should we actually alter our bodies in such a  way that we we take away those procreative capacities? That's that's a hard question. That  it's a difficult question. But it's one that I think we have to at least wrestle with, as we think  about how we embody the story of who God is as Creator and Redeemer and who were called  to be as His people. And so, in the next video, we'll dig a little bit more into the biblical and  theological rationale, behind affirming procreation as a as a central part of sexual union as a  central part of marriage, and process that a little bit more deeply. But it's important to have  this medical, ethical question in the background, as we do that, and so next time we'll dig 

more into Scripture will reflect on that a little bit more theologically, and think about how  procreation is connected to the story of who Jesus is for us. Until next time, blessings