Prefer to listen? Listen to the full episode here.
This one’s a hot topic—and we know it. đŸ”¥
Juli sits down with Dr. Christopher West to talk about birth control, self-control, and God’s design for our bodies. Whether you’ve wrestled with this teaching or never thought twice about it, this conversation invites you to pause, listen, and seek truth with us.Â
Juli (00:00.12)
Hey, friend. Welcome to another episode of Java with Juli. My name is Juli Slattery and I will be your host today. This podcast is an outreach of Authentic Intimacy, which is a ministry all about helping people make sense of God and sexuality. And boy, a key part of that is asking the question, what is the purpose of sex? What is the purpose of sex in marriage?
Today you’re going to hear a conversation that might challenge how you think about sex and marriage. And I know it has challenged me. I’ve invited Dr. Christopher West as my guest to talk about birth control. As you’re going to hear, Dr. West has some really strong opinions about birth control rooted in how he understands the purpose of sexuality within marriage. I want to tell you out of the gate that this is a deep theological conversation.
You’re gonna hear Christopher’s passion and you’re gonna hear me pushing back a bit with some hard questions. Now, you’re gonna have to wait until the second half of our conversation to hear some of those practical questions, but I don’t want you just to skip ahead because Christopher is laying a foundation of why he believes what he believes. I also know that this is a very sensitive topic for many people. It has some practical implications for choices that you are making today, and for choices that you’ve made in the past. So I’m going to encourage you to listen with an open mind and heart. And at the end of the conversation, I’m going to wrap up with some of my thoughts in response to what Christopher has shared. So listen to the end if you want to hear how I’m processing this conversation.
Juli
Let me tell you a little bit about Christopher West. He is one of the founders of the Theology of the Body Institute. He’s written bestselling books, including Our Bodies Tell God’s Story, and is one of the world’s most recognized teachers of Pope John Paul II’s theology of the body. So he’s coming from a perspective of a lot of study and a lot of passion related to theology of the body. And that’s going to be the framework of what you’re going to hear today. So let’s head to the coffee shop for my conversation with my friend Dr. Christopher West.
Juli (02:14.99)
Well, it is my distinct pleasure to have you, Christopher, back on Java with Juli. You have been one of the formational thinkers that have helped me as I’ve been in this space of biblical sexuality and helping people steward their sexuality. So I think every time I talk to you, I tell you that and I just thank you because your work has been so formative in the work that God’s called me to do.
Christopher
Thank Juli, and I’m a big fan of what you’re doing and I just admire your courageous yes. We live in such confusing times and voices like yours and mine are not often, we’re often resisted, let’s put it that way. And I just admire the courageousness with which you continue to give your yes to the Lord and speak so bravely into these issues. So thank you.
Juli
Thank you. It’s great to partner with you in that. Yeah, and let me just ask you, you mentioned that. How are things? Do you feel like you’re getting a lot of pushback from the message that you’ve been teaching or is it mainly received well?
Christopher
You know, I started this work over 30 years ago and I was so naive because I had received this vision called Theology of the Body from the late John Paul II. I had received it with such enthusiasm and joy because it was so liberating. It was, I really felt like I had discovered the cure for cancer, the cancer in my own life and the cancer in the world. And I thought, 30-whatever years ago when I started doing this, I thought everybody was just gonna be as excited as I was. And I’ve learned the hard way, know, the questions of sexuality take us to the core of our humanity and the things that we hold most dear.
Christopher (04:18.594)
And when those things we hold so dear are challenged, When we’re invited to look at things that are this challenging, challenging us to our core, a lot of resistance comes with that. And I understand that, and I’ve learned through my own challenges that I’ve had to face. I rest so often in that gospel scene when the rich young man turns away from Jesus. Jesus just held out to him a real challenge. Sell everything, give it to the poor, come follow me.
And the rich young man turns around and walks away, and this is my favorite line in the story. Jesus looked at him not with scorn, he looks at him with love. He looks at him with love. I have prayed to take on, even when I propose this with joy, with celebration, and people turn around and walk away and say, nah, no, no, no, to look at them with love. It’s not about competing egos or “my argument’s the right one”. It’s about learning how to love as Jesus loves. That’s the whole question right there. And so we need, if we’re gonna be inviting other people to that, we need to be examples of that ourselves. And not that we’ll ever do it perfectly, but learning to look at people with love even when they reject what I have to say or propose, that’s the call of Christ.
Juli
Yeah. And I think you hit on something early there to really embrace this theology of the body and the message behind it calls every single one of us at one level to say, I choose Jesus. I’m laying down the thing that sex means to me or marriage means to me or whatever. Like I’ve got to let that go and choose Jesus. And that always has been the dividing wall in Christianity. Like I’m just reading right now, you know, John chapter six and seven and people are wrestling with, I receive him or not? Like, is he offending me too much? Will I stay with him or not? And that’s the bottom line issue. And that’s certainly going to be the cases we grapple with kind of an extension of this conversation about sexuality, which is the whole topic of birth control.
Juli (06:37.282)
And I would love Christopher for you to start just giving briefly some foundation that is important to understand as we talk about birth control and your view of birth control. You’re coming from the perspective of the Catholic Church. I’m coming from a more Protestant perspective. But both of us agreeing that our sexuality is revealing God’s love and His covenant. So that’s gonna be the foundation.
Christopher
Yes, and I think it’s also really important, especially when a Catholic and a Protestant are having a conversation about this together, to look at the history. A lot of people in the modern world, modern Christians, don’t know the history on this issue. And this was really illuminating for me. I, just so people know a little bit of my background, I was raised in the Catholic Church in the 70s and 80s, but I rejected my faith as a teenager over the sexual questions. I was promiscuous, was out living what the world told me would make me happy, and at first what the world told me would make me happy seemed to be panning out. Right? We all have this hunger in us. The version of Christianity that was presented to me when it came to that hunger was what I’ve come to call, “the starvation diet gospel”. And by that I mean the basic message kind of hanging in the air for me growing up in Catholic schools in the 70s and 80s was your desires are bad, your hunger is going to get you in trouble, you just need to repress all that and follow these rules and you’ll be a good upstanding Christian citizen. Well, I was very hungry and the starvation approach was not cutting it for me. So I became a quick convert in my teenage years to what I’ve come to call the culture’s, the secular culture’s fast food gospel.
And by that, mean the culture’s promise of immediate gratification for the hunger. And if you’re hungry and your only two choices seem to be starve or fast food, I’m going for the chicken nuggets because I’m hungry. And don’t lie to me. Those chicken nuggets taste good going down. But if we go with that metaphor, eventually, if that’s your diet, fast food, the grease and the sodium is going to catch up with you.
Christopher (08:54.796)
And that’s a picture of me spiritually speaking in my college years. Now we’re into the late 80s. And I’ve eaten a lot of fast food and the grease and the sodium is catching up with me and I am in pain. And I fall on my knees in a college dorm in 1988 saying, God in heaven, if you exist, you better show me and you better show me why you gave me all these desires because they’re getting me and everybody I know into a hell of a lot of trouble. What is your plan? And I’m condensing a lot here, but I came in contact with a lot of evangelical Christians who were studying the Word of God, and they were alive with something I had never seen. They had a real relationship with Jesus Christ, and it had changed their lives, and they took seriously studying the Word of God, and I was invited into this to study the Word of God.
And over a period of about three years, this would be from 1990 to 1993, studying the scripture every day, I had given my life to Jesus Christ, I’m studying the Word of God, and I’m studying the Word of God with one specific purpose. I want to understand why God made us male and female. I want to understand this sexual question. And if this is the Word of God, the Bible must have something to say about it. And over a period of about three years, I came to see what I would now call this grand spousal vision of the Bible. That the Bible begins with the marriage in an earthly paradise. Throughout the Old Testament, God speaks of His love for His people as a love of a husband for His bride. When Israel is unfaithful to the Lord, the prophets say you have committed adultery against the Lord.
Christopher
In the New Testament, the love of the eternal bridegroom is literally embodied when the Word is made flesh. God sends His Son born of a woman. Questions of the body and fertility and sexuality and marriage are just intertwined and interwoven with the whole biblical story. Go to the end of the story. The book of Revelation describes heaven as an eternal marriage. So you have these two bookends in the Bible.
Christopher (11:20.354)
The Bible begins with the marriage in an earthly paradise. It ends with the marriage in a heavenly paradise. And the whole purpose of this marriage, the marriage that starts the Bible, is the foreshadowing of the marriage that ends the Bible. The whole reason, the whole reason, this was what was getting illuminated for me. I’m in my early 20s studying the Bible. I’m alive with the Holy Spirit. I’ve had this encounter with Jesus Christ that has changed my life. The scriptures are coming alive for me. And I came to understand the whole reason God made us male and female is to reveal in this world, to be a sign in this world of what the apostle Paul calls the mystery hidden for eternity in God. What is that mystery? Paul says, Paul says in Ephesians 3, it is my mission in life as an apostle to make plain to everyone the mystery that has been hidden in God for eternity. Well, what is that mystery? And how is it made plain? How does Paul make it plain to us? The mystery hidden in God for eternity is that God is an eternal exchange of life-giving love. Our creation is male and female. It’s right in the book of Genesis.
We are made in the image of God as male and female, and the call to be fruitful and multiply, our ability to generate sons and daughters, is an echo in the created world of the eternal mystery of the generation of the Son by the Father to share in the life and love of the Holy Spirit. And God wanted it to be so plain to us– this invitation to the life of the Trinity, this invitation to the marriage of the Lamb– God wanted it to be so plain to us that he chiseled an image of it right in our bodies by making us male and female and calling the two to be fruitful and multiply, calling the two to become one flesh.
Juli (13:40.942)
Yes
Christopher (13:45.43)
The problem is we don’t see this when we look at our bodies and our sexuality. Jesus diagnoses the whole problem when he says, you look but you do not see. But the good news of the gospel is that Christ came to give sight to the blind, to open our eyes, to open our eyes to who we really are. And so that’s what I’ve been proclaiming for 30 years.
Juli
Yeah. And you proclaim it very well and passionately. I know, I mean, Christopher, we could spend hours and I could just sit here and let you go. And I had before like explain the nuances of that and the beauty of that. And, um, I highly recommend people if they haven’t read it, read your book, Our Bodies Tell God’s Story because it gets into that.
For the sake of this conversation, now we’re gonna take all of that and apply it specifically to the conversation of birth control. And I wanna talk about this specifically within a marriage relationship. We’re gonna take for granted or assume we’re not talking about two singles hooking up, this is in marriage. And the Protestant view is pretty much, I mean, it varies, but pretty much that birth control is okay, something like, getting a vasectomy is okay. Some Protestants would be against what we might call like an abortifacent birth control where conception happens but you’re not allowing the fertilized egg to implant. We’d be fine with contraception. So Catholics, from what I understand it, and this would be your view, is that no form of birth control is okay other than what we might call family planning or the rhythm method. Is that correct?
Christopher
I would want to correct some of the terminology here, which we can get to. The rhythm method is kind of an outdated understanding of things, but we can address that a little bit later. But what I want to underscore right now, Juli, is I don’t believe this because I’m Catholic. I believe this because I’m a Christian. And one of the most illuminating things for me was studying the history. I mentioned this a little while ago. A lot of Christians don’t know this history. Up until 1930, every Christian denomination every Christian body understood that to, and this is this is the right way to understand it, to activate our generative powers and thwart them at the same time right, let me say that again, to activate our generative powers in the marital embrace and thwart them at the same time is a contradiction of God’s plan for married love. Every Christian denomination, without exception, until 1930, taught that unanimously and compellingly and forcefully.
Juli
So if you were when when you use those words like activate generative love, what does that practically mean? Like what are you what are you?
Christopher
Activate the generative power, meaning ears are meant for hearing, right? Nobody would argue with that. Eyes are meant for seeing. Nobody would argue with that. Lungs are meant for breathing. No one would argue with that. Genitals are meant for generating. That is their function. That is their biological, God-given function. Just as eyes are meant for seeing and ears are meant for hearing, genitals are meant for generating new life and it’s in the marital act, genital intercourse, that we activate our generative power. Right? Seed comes forth from the man’s body to enter his wife’s body and the natural goal of that, in God’s design is the generation of life.
Christopher (17:47.726)
So what does contraception, listen to that word, contra… It’s a shortening of against conception. I’m doing something that naturally leads, is meant to lead to conception in the natural design of things, but I’m doing something else to thwart its natural goal. Right? That’s what I mean when I say to activate the generative power, that is to pour my seed out into my wife’s body, but then do something else to thwart that natural act or the natural goal of that act. That’s what we define as contraception. And it’s not so, I think terminology is very important here so that we can get down to the reality of what we’re actually discussing. Right? Birth control is a more vague term, right? Christians until 1930, and this is across the board, Christians until 1930 unanimously understood that the only form of birth control in-keeping with God’s design was self-control. If you have a good reason not to have a child, then don’t engage in the act that is designed by God to generate a child. It would be like if you have a good reason not to gain weight, health reasons or whatever, then don’t eat the food and then gag it up.
Well, I want the pleasure of the eating, I just don’t want the result of it. Well, I’ll just eat it and then I’ll vomit it up. Well, we’re acting contrary to the very way God made us when we do that. There’s a big difference between someone who eats and then vomits so as not to gain weight and someone who gains the self-control to say, I’m not going to eat. Right?
Juli
Okay, so yeah, let me dive in with some of things you’re saying there. I wanted to ask, were there forms of contraception before 1930 or is it just that? Were there condoms?
Christopher (19:49.198)
Condoms go back hundreds, thousands of years even. Attempts to render the act sterile is nothing new, right? So there have been, ever since the dawn of original sin, there have been attempts to render the sexual act sterile. I want to get the pleasure out of the act, but I don’t want the sacrifice of raising another child. So yeah, this is nothing new. What is new in the modern world is a technology that allows very effective contraception, right? The galvanization of rubber first allowed for a condom that was more effective than what they used to use like animal intestines and things. The galvanization of rubber was the first, and then in 1960 the release of the birth control or contraceptive pill. These have been game-altering, civilization-altering technologies.
And I would just ask all believers to reflect. All believers. This is not a Catholic versus Protestant issue. When you look at the history of the issue, all believers until 1930 understood that to render the sexual act sterile, right, to render our genitals unable to generate, eventually will lead the whole of culture to degenerate. The predictions that were put forth by wise men and women around the world, and not just believers, but wise men and women around the world when the Anglican Church in 1930 was the first denomination to change 1,930 years of unanimous Christian teaching, and say Christian couples can now use contraception. There was an outcry around the world of predictions that civilization will eventually, and Christianity, will eventually collapse. Why? Because wise men and women throughout the world have understood that marriage, sex and babies go together and in that order.
Christopher (22:14.54)
Right? And as soon as you remove fertility from the equation, the goal of sexual activity is no longer marriage and family life.
Juli
Can I ask you about that? I want to make sure I’m getting some questions in. Yes, please. Because this stuff is so good. Do you believe that there are other reasons that a husband and wife have sex besides just having…? I mean, like when we read Song of Solomon, we see the intimacy, the pleasure, there’s no mention of bringing it forward at all.
Christopher
Very clearly, the biblical vision of human sexuality is singular in this regard. There is one reason, one reason that justifies sexual activity: to image the love of God. To participate in the love of God. That is what justifies, that’s why God made us sexual beings. To be a sign, a bodily presence, a bodily sign, an incarnation of divine love. That’s why God made us male and female. In His image and likeness He made them. Male and female He created them and He blessed them and said, be fertile and multiply. Here’s the thing, to image God’s love, means to embrace that God’s love is a generative love. God’s love is life-giving. God’s love is generous. It generates. And this is why God gave us genitals. If we willfully, and this is the key word, willfully render our genitals unable to generate.
Christopher (24:10.754)
When we do the theological math, when we understand that our bodies are not just biological, that our bodies are theological, right? Our bodies are designed by God to be prophetic, to prophesy in the world about God’s life-giving love. This is what our bodies are designed by God to do, to proclaim the life-giving love of the Lord. When we willfully, that’s the key word, willfully render our genitals unable to generate. What we are saying, knowingly or unknowingly, this is not about assigning culpability, right? For example, if this is poison and I don’t know it’s poison and I drink it. Have I committed suicide?
Juli
No.
Christopher
No, because I didn’t know it was poison. But will it still kill me? It will still kill me because whether I know it’s poison or think it’s poison or not has no bearing on whether it is poison or not. So this is not about assigning culpability. But if you know it’s poison and I don’t and you see me going to drink it, what’s the loving thing to do?
Juli (25:34.134)
Stop! Don’t drink!
Christopher
It makes no sense for me to say, how dare you impose your morality on me? Right? You’re doing this out of love and out of love, all Christian denominations until 1930 told married couples, don’t poison the love of marriage by rendering your genitals unable to generate. The response to that was it will make marriages better because we won’t have to worry about raising so many kids. It will, it will solidify marriage. That was the argument. Well, the evidence is in. If the last hundred years of contraceptive use led to better marriages, led to better families, healthier families, led to a healthier civilization, I would be 100 % for it. But Juli, what has happened to marriage and family and civilization over the last hundred years?
Judge the tree by its fruit. And if you like the direction the world is going in, where we no longer even understand the meaning of the sexual difference, where there is an all-out raging war against the meaning of gender in the modern world, if you like that, you have contraception to thank for it.
Juli
Okay. Yeah. And it is such a strong argument. I mean, when we look at what happened with the sexual revolution that was really prompted in large part by contraception, where sex becomes recreational, becomes about self-discovery, 100%, you can see the threads of hookup culture and divorce and all of it. Like it all flows from that. Here’s where I want to push a little.
Christopher (27:31.257)
Keep pushing, I’m open to anything.
Juli
Yeah, so sex between a husband and wife is the bodily celebration of their covenant together. And it is meant to be life-giving. But when we look at Genesis and we see, you know, the command, be fruitful and multiply, a lot of people would say we look at the New Testament, and we see that Jesus takes what is physical and makes spiritual even with the Great Commission Like be life-giving in disciple making like go into all the world and make spiritual babies. And I think that there are life-giving elements of sex and marriage beyond just reproduction.
Chrisopher
Of course, of course, of course, of course.
Juli
And and and there are situations, you know, whether it be medical situations or financial situations where if any form of contraception is not allowed or it’s a moral sin, then sex becomes less life-giving in other areas in marriage in terms of the freedom to celebrate. That’s, that’s just an argument that again, real practical. What people are saying is “We’ve got five kids. We can’t afford another kid. I have some medical issues. The doctor’s saying we should get a vasectomy”. You know, like, this is where people live in that tension.
Christopher
I know they live right there. This is where I live in my ministry for the last 30 years is speaking right into this. We have to back up to make sense out of these very practical questions. We have to take a few steps back.
The new commandment that Jesus gives all of us is love one another as I have loved you. That’s the commandment. How did Jesus love us? This is the question. And we can recognize Christ loved us freely, right? He says, they do not take my life from me. I lay it down freely. Christ loved us faithfully. He says, I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. Christ loved us fruitfully. I have come so that my bride might have life and have it to the full. The proposal, which we can embrace or reject, but the proposal, the scriptural proposal to the world is that, and this is St. Paul, that our bodies are created by God and we join in one flesh to reveal bodily to reveal in our bodies, right?
Christopher (30:17.55)
We have to come back to this over and over again. This generative power that God has given us right from the first pages of Genesis was given to us to be a sign, a sign of the life-giving love of God in the world, right? We are God’s greatest work of art.
Juli
Mm-hmm.
Christopher (30:46.772)
Male and female. And that work of art is no more exquisitely demonstrated, God’s work of art is no more exquisitely demonstrated than in the marital act. This is the crown of the created order, that the two become one flesh. The call to be fruitful and multiply, the call to enter that union as God designed it. That’s the key. As God designed it is the crown of the created order.
Could we say that we love the artist Michelangelo if we took a hammer to his pieta?
Juli (31:32.718)
I, yeah, I mean, I guess not. Yeah. I mean.
Christopher
How could you love Michelangelo?
Juli
I mean, I see where you’re going.
Christopher
Then let’s go there. Let’s let’s be willing going to go. Okay. Let me just okay play this out a yeah If it would be wrong to take a hammer to the Piata, because it is in and of itself an affront to Michelangelo and his masterpiece. Are we not also saying when we render, again this is why the terminology is so important, when we render our genitals unable to generate, are we not saying, I don’t like the way you made me God, I don’t like the way you made sex? I’m going to change it, my design for sex is better than yours.
Are we not robbing the sexual act of something God put into it? That he wants to be part of it. He designed it to be part of it. Here’s the thing: the consequences of doing that have been drastic. And yet we still stubbornly cling to, I’m allowed to do this. There’s nothing wrong with doing it.
What was it that Christians understood for 1930 years that we don’t understand any longer? What they understood is the theological meaning of the body. And to alter the body, to alter the body in a moment of such theological significance, where we are meant to be proclaiming the life-giving love of the Trinity, with the language of our bodies.
Christopher (33:21.878)
We alter it and we end up telling a lie. What our bodies are saying when we render the sexual act sterile, we are saying God is not Father, God is not life-giving love. I don’t want to image God, it demands too much of me. I’m going to alter God’s plan. And here we can recognize…
Juli
So if, yes. So let me ask you, how is it different then for a couple to say, we don’t want to have kids and we’re just going to use family planning methods where we abstain during seasons of fertility. Why is that different? Because they’re still married and they’re still saying, we want to enjoy the unity of sex and the pleasure of sex, but we don’t want to have children. mean, I don’t understand why.. It sounds like it sounds legalistic to me to say, let’s take it. The condom is wrong.
Christopher
Let’s take look.
Juli
Yeah. Okay.
Christopher
Let’s take a look. So let’s take two couples and here let’s assume that they both have a legitimate reason to avoid a child, right? We’re not talking about buying into the modern mentality of children are to be rejected for selfish reasons. We’re talking about let’s say a legitimate situation where a couple they’ve been generous, they’ve had several children and maybe there’s a health concern. Maybe there is a financial issue. They honestly can’t afford to feed another mouth, okay, another child. You can have legitimate reasons, legitimate reasons, not to bring another child into the world. You might in fact have a moral obligation not to bring another child into the world. What we are proposing is that every time you engage in the marital act, you must put the possibility of new life in God’s hands.
Christopher (35:25.762)
You must surrender your fertility to God. That’s the proposal. You must be open to the Holy Spirit. And just on that front, let me share a story that really impacted me. Years ago, I was just starting this work and I was giving a presentation and I was outlining that we’re made in the image of the Trinity, that the life-giving love of a husband and wife is a sign in the world of the life-giving love of the Trinity, that the Holy Spirit is the Lord and giver of life, that the husband and wife should be welcoming the Holy Spirit into their marriage bed. And a woman raised her hand and she said, Christopher, I’ve never heard any of this. This is amazing. I never had any idea how sacred and holy sex is, but I have a question: What if I want to have sex with my husband and we don’t want the Holy Spirit there?
And I was like, whoa, you have just put your finger exactly on why contraception is so damaging to marital love. Because that is exactly what a couple is saying when they render willfully their sexual act sterile. They’re saying, I don’t want the Holy Spirit to be here. Who is the Holy Spirit? Not only is the Holy Spirit the Lord and giver of life. The Holy Spirit is the love of the Trinity. So when we willfully block the Holy Spirit from being part of the act, I don’t know what’s happening, but it’s no longer an act that is participating in the life-giving love of the Trinity. It’s no longer an act that images the mystery hidden in God for eternity. It’s something else. So let’s just assume for the sake of argument that a married couple understands the mega mystery of their sexual act. And that couple has a serious reason, maybe even a moral obligation to avoid a child. And they know based on understanding how God designed fertility, that if they came together in their marriage bed tonight, a child could come into the world. In fact, there’d be a high probability a child would come into the world.
Christopher (37:44.086)
What could that couple do that would not violate the meaning of the sexual act and not bring a child into the world? What could they do?
Juli (37:59.991)
Not have sex.
Christopher
Exactly! They could refrain from the marital act. In fact, every married couple knows, every married couple knows, that abstaining from sex can be a profound act of marital love. And in fact, married life oftentimes, love in married life oftentimes demands that you abstain. Maybe one of you is sick.
If you cannot abstain in this situation, your love is called into question. Maybe it’s after childbirth. If you cannot abstain in this situation, your love is called into question. Maybe you’re at the in-laws, and there are thin walls. If you cannot abstain in this situation, your love is called into question. Maybe you’re in a public place. If you cannot abstain in this situation, your love is called into question.
Christopher
And maybe you have a serious reason, maybe even a moral obligation, not to bring another child into the world. If you cannot abstain in this situation, your love is called into question. And let me keep going with this. I’m going to say something that’s going to sound very strange at first, but please give it some thought. And I invite all the listeners to give this some thought: Contraception was not invented to prevent pregnancy. We already had a 100 % safe, 100 % reliable way of doing that. What’s it called?
Juli
Abstinence.
Christopher (39:37.998)
Abstinence. So why was contraception invented?
Juli
Because we want to have sex without-
Christopher
Exactly. So I wouldn’t have to abstain. So I wouldn’t have to abstain. What does that become? Eventually, a culture trained by contraception is a culture that no longer has the ability to abstain because we’re not training ourselves in self-control of our sexual desires. And I’ll ask you this, Juli, and I’ve asked hundreds of thousands of women this question around the world, over the last 30 years. Would you ever want to be married to a man or in a relationship with a man, say you’re a single woman, do you want to be in a relationship with a man who cannot control his sexual desires?
Juli
No
Christopher
No. Because you intuit, and rightly so, you intuit right away. And men intuit this too, but it takes them little bit longer. They can get there, but it takes them a few extra steps.
Christopher (40:44.034)
But women know this right away. If a man cannot control his sexual desires, the woman becomes an outlet for him to indulge his desires in a disordered way. She becomes a sexual object. And this was one of the predictions in 1930 that has come dramatically true that women will be utterly degraded by a culture that embraces contraception. Because when we remove fertility from the sexual equation, what is left is pleasure. And pleasure is a great good of God. God created the sexual act to be pleasurable. But he didn’t create pleasure to be the goal. He created love to be the goal. Love of the whole person. Love of the way God made the person. Right? Would you think it loving for a husband to say to his wife, I’ll only have sex with you if you get a nose job?
Juli
No.
Christopher
Absolutely not! Well, is it any less loving to say I’ll only have sex with you if you sterilize your womb?
Juli (41:59.502)
Okay, mean, I mean, are making no, I mean, you are making a great argument.
Christopher
We haven’t gotten to the question yet about the difference between sterilizing and
Juli
Okay, because, I want to make sure we have time. have a few more questions, practical questions I want to ask.
Christopher
But I have to answer your last question. This is so important. So for the sake of argument, we’ve agreed that the loving thing to do, if you know you have a moral reason not to have a child and you know tonight if we have sex you could get pregnant, the loving thing to do is to abstain. Say it’s another time of the month and you know with 99.8 % accuracy..
Christopher (42:49.09)
… because you have been properly trained by in modern methods of fertility awareness and natural family planning, you know with 99.8 % accuracy, if we have intercourse tonight, it won’t result in a child. Is there any reason you need to abstain on that occasion?
Juli
No, not unless you’re afraid of the 0.5%.
Christopher
Point two percent or whatever it might be. is what? No method of contraception is a hundred percent effective. Okay, but what’s the difference? What’s the moral difference? People will say, oh come on, Christopher. What is the big difference between sterilizing the act yourself and just waiting till it’s naturally infertile? The end result is the same thing. Both couples avoid children. To which I respond, oh come on. What is the big difference between killing grandma and just waiting till she dies naturally. The end result is the same thing: dead grandma. Yes, the end result is the same thing. In both situations grandma is dead. But let me point out a very significant moral difference. One is a serious sin called murder. And in the other, Grandma’s dead, but there is no sin involved whatsoever because Grandma’s death is an act of God.
Christopher (44:23.928)
Think on it. Think on it long and think on it hard, Juli. If you can tell the difference between euthanasia and natural death, you can tell the difference between contraception and natural family planning. It’s the same difference. In one, God remains God. In the other, we, creatures, take the powers of life into our own hands and make ourselves like God. Wasn’t that the original sin?
Juli
Yes, it was. Yeah.
Christopher
Think on it.
Juli
Yeah. All right.
Christopher
This is poison! If this is poison and you don’t know and I see you drink it
Juli
No, I get it. I get it. I mean, it’s a lot to think about. It is a lot to think about. I don’t know that we can 100 % equate the two with murder.
Christopher (45:25.038)
I didn’t equate it with murder. I equated it with taking powers of life into our own hands.
Juli
Are you equating it with sin?
Christopher
YES! YES!
Juli
So you don’t feel for couples that this is a matter of conscience? No. You think that this is a moral wrong?
Christopher
What is conscience? Juli, what is conscience? We don’t get to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We don’t get to decide what is good and evil.
Juli (45:51.278)
I mean, I think when we see in scripture, are very clear, thou shalt not, thou shalt not commit murder, thou shalt not commit adultery. There are very clear things.
Christopher
Can I tell you what adultery means? Can I tell you what the word adultery means?
Juli
Yeah, but let me just finish my thought. We don’t see clearly in scripture anywhere that says, thou shalt not have sex with your spouse without having the capacity for life.
Christopher
Well, hold on, hold on, that’s not what we said. It’s not because old couples past childbearing years my wife and I are past childbearing years. We don’t even have the capacity to generate life, but we’re not contracepting. Right? We are accepting God’s order. God is the one who designed a woman not to be able to conceive after childbearing years, right?
Juli
Right.
Christopher
God is the one who designed a woman cycle that she can only conceive in a limited window of the month. This again is why language is so important so we know what we’re talking about and we’re comparing apples to apples and oranges to oranges. We’re not saying you have to intend to have children every time you engage in sex. What we’re saying is every time you engage in sex you must not adulterate the act. And let me define adultery. The biblical understanding of adultery, yes, one sense of it is having sex with someone who is not your spouse or having sex with the spouse of another. But the word adultery means, ad alter, in Latin means to alter something from its original purpose. To alter something from its original design. And when we render, willfully render, this is what we’re talking about. We must never willfully this is what we have to be very clear on what we’re saying and what we’re saying is this what is a sin? Always and everywhere and in every situation, is to willfully render our genitals unable to generate, and if we don’t see that in the
Juli
And that would include using a condom, would include using a pill…
Christopher
… it would include anything that…
Juli
… it would include getting a vasectomy
Christopher
Vesectomy, triple ligation, withdraw, right? In the Old Testament…
Juli (48:24.344)
Wait, and would you say, let’s say you have an example of a spouse who is paralyzed and they want to enjoy their sexual relationship. Intercourse is not possible, but they bring their spouse to climax. Is that sinful?
Christopher
What is the purpose of sexual climax? We have to understand God’s purposes for sexual climax to understand what is contrary to his purposes. Right? And the purpose of sexual climax is to image the life-giving love of the Trinity. That’s the purpose of sexual climax. The purpose of sexual climax is hidden in Jesus’s words, “Love one another as I have loved you. I tell you this, so that my joy might be in you, and your joy might be complete”. Hidden in those words of Jesus is the purpose of sexual climax. And any grasping at sexual climax apart from God’s purpose is contrary to God’s purpose. And the very definition of is to act contrary to God’s purpose.
Juli (49:39.32)
I feel like there’s a logical argument there, but I think there’s some theological leaps. Like again, in Song of Solomon, why do we see this book of erotic literature that is about, I mean, God’s love is also enjoying Him and there are different seasons and purposes and expressions of that.
Christopher
Exactly, there are different seasons, different purposes, but we must never, ever, not even once, be at cross purposes with God’s intention for the sexual act. Is it ever right, even once, to utter blasphemy? Is it ever right, even once?
Juli
No.
Christopher
No. And what we’re proposing is the body in a biblical view is meant to proclaim prophetically the truth of God. You are not obligated to engage in the sexual act all the time. In fact, you have often times in married life, the loving thing is to refrain from it. But if you choose to engage in the marital act, you are obligated to speak theological truth through the language of your body. If I think I can call conscience my freedom to decide what is good and evil. I’m committing the original sin all over again. I’m eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and I’m taking to myself the ability to establish the moral order. I don’t have that ability because I’m not God. I’m a creature and I must accept the moral order that he has established and he has established it in and through what he has made. Romans chapter 1, we can tell what God intends from what he has made. And God is the one who inscribed in our genitals the power to image his eternal generative love. And I, if I choose to activate that generative power and thwart it at the same time, I am robbing my body of the image of God willfully.
Christopher (51:56.268)
That’s what we have to wrestle with.
Juli
So your position would be that God sees man for sex.
Christopher
It’s not my position.
Juli
No, I mean, in some ways it is.
Christopher
I ascend to this position because it’s true.
Juli
No, I mean, there are a lot of people who study the scripture from cover-to-cover, study church history, study theology, and have come to a different conclusion on this issue.
Christopher (52:22.03)
And I would say they are deceived. They are in the dark, and I long to turn the lights on for them because much is at stake Because it puts us right at the very center of the battle between good and evil. It puts us right…
Juli
But if I could clarify, what you’re saying is sex within marriage should always be intercourse, and it should always be intercourse where you have taken no steps to prevent conception.
Christopher
Well, here again we have to very careful about our terms because what you just said needs some nuance and clarification, which I’m happy to provide. The affections of a man and a woman are certainly not limited to sexual intercourse.
Juli
Okay.
Christopher
However, sexual climax, orgasm, if we understand it in God’s design as learning to express divine love, the climactic moment of the gift of self. Right? The climactic moment of union. The climactic moment. What is, especially in the man, this is very clear. Sexual climax, or orgasm in the male, is connected precisely with the activation of his generative power. Right?
Juli
Okay, so in that setting what you’re saying is you know, a guy gets paralyzed. He’s not able to have an erection They’re in their 30s though. He is not able then to bring his wife to climax.
Christopher
What is purpose of sexual love?
Juli
Well, I think one of the purposes again, it’s the celebration of union. It’s the worship of
Christopher
There’s an orgasm happening without a union.
Juli
Yeah, but it’s, I mean, it’s, they’re celebrating this together though. I mean, this is something that
Christopher
What is the difference between that and masturbation?
Juli (54:20.332)
You’re together. You’re not alone. Not a self-focus.
Christopher
So why can’t two men do that for each other?
Juli
Because they’re not in covenant.
Christopher
But why aren’t they in cov- why can’t they be in covenant?
Juli
because they’re not male and female.
Christopher (54:36.014)
Exactly, and what is the purpose of male and female? Why does a man have a penis? Why does a woman have a vagina?
Juli
But it’s more than, it’s physical, but it’s more than physical. And I’m just saying, like in this situation, in this situation where I said that I’m giving, like for example, you have an illness, you have something where they can’t have intercourse. And we’re not just talking about for a short period of time, we’re talking about for a long period of time. I would see this as, you know, God understands the brokenness of our world. And there’s more to the sexual union than just procreation.
Christopher
But there’s no sexual union taking place. Let me, I would put it this way, if he can engage in sexual union, he can bring his wife to climax. But if I can’t engage in sexual union, to bring to climax is nothing but masturbation. And as soon as you accept this, as soon as you accept that, there is no logical reason any longer for saying two men can’t do that for each other.
Let me give you this as a little window into what contraception has done to our mentality here. When we understand what a man and a woman are capable of doing with their genitals, that is generating new life through sexual climax, that’s what its goal is, right? We have such a high value for it because there’s nothing more valuable in God’s creation than human life.
Christopher (56:13.612)
And when we see that the genital act is designed by God to generate new life, we know, we know it is impossible, it is utterly impossible to raise to that level what two men or two women are doing with their genitals. It’s impossible. Are you following me there?
Juli
No, I’m following you, and I get what you’re saying. I know that we’re out of time, and I want to ask you a follow-up question.
Christopher (56:46.498)
Okay, but let me just raise this one point. It’s critical. It’s critical.
Juli
Okay, please. Yeah.
Christopher
You can’t raise what two men or two women are doing to this level. But we can lower what a man and a woman are doing to this level. And this is what we’ve done with contraception. When we remove the element of fertility from sexual climax, the goal of sexual climax is now the exchange of pleasure. And when the goal of climax is the exchange of pleasure, any means to sexual climax becomes justifiable. The only thing that retains, logically, sexual climax within marriage is its link with fertility. Remove fertility from the sexual equation and now people will say things like marriage equality, and love is love. But what they’re really saying is lust is lust and they’re right.
When we view the world through condom colored glasses, there is no reason not to justify gay marriage and the whole cultural agenda that we have embraced. It all goes back. Everything we’ve lived through, all the hell of the last hundred years, goes back to embracing contraception.
Juli
Okay, so yeah, and again, people are gonna listen to this not just once, but they’re gonna listen to it more than once, and really think through this. But taking that argument, you and your wife are past childbearing years. You cannot have children. So why is your sex not falling into that same argument of, let’s say you have two 60 year olds get married.
Juli (58:40.962)
Right. can’t create children. So should it, would it be okay? Would it be okay for two 60 year old men to get married? I’m just saying if the whole purpose is because it’s reproductive.
Christopher
Juli, you’re not hearing me. It’s not the whole purpose. The whole purpose is to love as God loves. And God’s love is generous. It generates. That’s why God gave us genitals. It is impossible for two men to engage in the act designed by God to generate new life. It is impossible.
It’s not impossible for my wife and me to engage in the act that God designed to generate new life. But guess what? By God’s own design, because we’re past childbearing years, God does not desire for us right now to generate new life. We have five children, right? Every time we’ve come together over our 30 years of marriage, we have prayed, Lord, if it is your will, let there be life. It’s only been God’s will five times. But never, never, never have we rendered our genitals unable to generate. Because we understand that to do so would be to turn the theology of our bodies into blasphemy. And I have a salvific fear of never uttering blasphemy with the theology of my body. I will not do it, I cannot do it, I absolutely refuse.
And if we don’t see it that way, I am proclaiming to the world, I am proposing to the world, we look but we do not see. Right? Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see the mystery of God. We are blind to the mystery of God revealed through our bodies, I believe, because we have been duped by a lie, by the father of lies. Every single one of us must face this issue. We must.
Juli (01:00:44.526)
Well, I want to thank you for your passion and the way you articulate this topic. It’s making me think, it has been making me think ever since I read your last chapter in Our Bodies Tell God’s Story. I’ve also been deeply impacted by Abigail Favale’s book, The Gender of Genesis, that gets into some of this too, which I will encourage people to follow up. And thank you also for letting me push back and ask difficult questions. That’s how we learn.
Christopher
I come with my passion and my zeal because I know what is at stake in this and I know we all feel how heavily at stake it is. is a serious reality to wake up and realize, oh my God, I’ve been deceived by the father of lies in such a way that I have been contradicting the mystery of God revealed through my body. That is a serious thing to come to terms with. And it reminds me of what all the people that Peter was preaching to on Pentecost when they were cut to the heart and they said, shall we do?
Repent and believe. Repent. That’s what we should do. The only sin, the only sin we should be afraid of is the rationalization of sin. Let’s not rationalize.
Juli (01:02:04.974)
Well boy, if you’re like me, you feel like you’ve just been drinking water from a fire hose. Christopher is so passionate about this topic and I appreciate that he let me push back because that is frankly how we learn and it’s how I learn. Christopher’s perspective challenges me to go back to the scripture and to prayer and to continue to press into what is true about God and how he created our sexuality.
I want to take a moment to share with you what I’ve learned from this conversation from Christopher and where I’ve come to some different conclusions than where Christopher is. Now, I love that he emphasized that marriage is a picture of our relationship with God and that our relationship with God is life-giving. I also agree that birth control in general has separated our understanding of sex from reproduction and procreation.
Instead of sex being seen as something that is pro-creative, we now think of it as something that’s just pleasure-focused and recreational. And I’m thankful that he’s calling us back to that and raising an alarm. I believe that married couples should be open to children. It’s important to pray about and be open to creating that spiritual heritage. That’s one of the primary reasons that God calls us into marriage. But I don’t see in the Bible where every act of sex needs to be open to procreation.
Now God was very clear in the Levitical law, he spelled out a lot of laws around sexuality in our bodies, as well as in the New Testament to define sexual sin and immorality, but birth control or preventing birth isn’t mentioned. And you know there are so many aspects of covenant love in addition to procreation, aspects like intimacy and pleasure.
Juli (01:03:59.35)
And all of those aspects of our covenant love point to our covenant relationship with God. And healthy sex and marriage should always be life-giving in many ways. As I mentioned to Christopher, the Song of Solomon is a book of the Bible specifically geared towards teaching us about sexuality and marriage. And it emphasizes the beauty of intimacy and pleasure between a husband and wife without any mention of reproduction. So I think we have to take that into account.
I’ve come to the conclusion that this really is an issue that every couple and individual needs to grapple with. And we need to seek the Lord for His wisdom and guidance. And I will continue to do that. But I am so grateful for teachers like Christopher who can challenge me to revisit my understanding of biblical sexuality. And I hope that happened for you today. Well, thanks for listening. And I look forward to having coffee with you next time for more Java with Juli.