My short response to another Christian blog article supporting immoral and unjust actions

MY RSPONSE TO “After Francis: What’s Next in the Vatican?”
By Professor Phillip Jenkins
On ANXIOUS BENCH
a Christian site, which DELETED my comment.
So strange that such Christian sites won’t post comments that
support NT moral truths:_(

Your article oddly states, "...divorce, abortion, clerical celibacy, homosexuality, and same sex marriage, with transgender issues rising on the horizon. A good Pope will change church stances on those things, a bad pope won’t, end of story. Onward to the Third Vatican Council!."

Well, changing back "clerical celibacy" to what Christianity originally supported, would be a powerfully good, true action.
But all of those other topics are not only contrary to the New Testament moral truths of Jesus, some of them are scientifically wrong.

For instance, biologically there are only 2 sexual genders, man or woman. Check out for instance, Professor Jerry Coyne of the University of Chicago and Richard Dawkins' many recent articles and book.

While it is sad that a few humans do have gender dysphoria, there are no nonbinary humans, no individuals with a penis, etc. who are women, no individuals who have ovaries and a womb who are men.

The immoral actions of abortion and divorce have become rampant in modern society. Abortion (except in obvious tragic biological errors such as tubular pregnancy) is the killing of human lives.

Divorce was condemned by Jesus. Yet many Christian couples divorce causing hardship, sorrow, and, often, severe problems for their children.

Strangely, divorce has become so bad, that now Protestant Christians in some surveys actually have more divorces than non-religious individuals.
Jesus weeps.


In the LIGHT,
Daniel Wilcox

Blessing, Not Killing

Waiting by their front door,
For their romantic hug,
He's expectant,

Her eager lover,
Next to their 3-year-toddler;

Returning with groceries,
She enters front-packing Huggies

Above her plump-growing belly;
Blessed, expectant

3 years ago, 2 became one equals 3,
Ago

And now 4
'Amore'

What a wonder conceiving each new life, humans get to experience in marriage!
Such a powerful, blessed photo of an infant in the womb at about 16 weeks.

What a contrast to the U.S. modern delusion of "abortion rights."

HOW ABOUT HUMAN RIGHTS?
Especially for the youngest, tiniest humans, the infants in the womb.


What also needs to be emphasized is that the mother is the individual to decide (NOT the GOVERNMENT) in tragic cases of her life being endangered, of biological errors such as her infant having severe physical deformity, and, of course, in worse cases involving rape and abuse.


In the LIGHT of PRO-LIFE,

Daniel Wilcox

"Leave the Door Open" or Birth Control?

Historians are puzzled by the extremely low rate of birth in some Quaker communities in New England in the late 1700's. They speculate and ponder on whether this was a natural occurrence, or because of stringent abstinence or a method of very successful birth control.

With all the current tragedies, controversies, disasters, and debates centering in the news, we seldom hear any more of the ethical question of birth control, except from the creedal wing of Christianity, the Roman Catholic hierarchy.

But, historically, and now in the news again, birth control has been a huge controversy.

After the American Revolution, "it seems clear that Quakers had begun to practice some kind of family limitation involving birth control. Such planning did not occur in the generation before 1730..."

"The questions of how and why Quakers began to practice birth control cannot be answered with any certainty."
The Quaker Family in Colonial America by J. William Frost

"Quakers on the whole remained conservative on matters of sexual ethics until the early part of the 20th Century."

"The first open discussion of sexuality by Quakers came in 1924, when a group of British Friends published, "Marriage and Parenthood: The Problem of Birth Control."

"This pamphlet advocated a qualified use of family planning and opposed the idea that the use of contraceptive devices promoted promiscuity."
http://www.quakersintheworld.org/quakers-in-action/170

from The voice of Whittier College:

"Access to Birth Control Is a Right"

"In the U.S., 68 percent of women who are at risk for pregnancy use a form of contraception. However, the use of birth control by women is still often stigmatized. People who are against the use of birth control argue that it promotes sexual behavior in young women."

"First of all, so what if it does? What’s wrong with that? If women choose to have sex, it’s no one’s business."

"Birth control should be easily accessible so that if they do choose to have sex, they can do so without worrying about the risk of pregnancy."
by Quaker Campus
https://thequakercampus.com/2015/02/26/access-to-birth-control-is-a-right/


"Contraception
Quakers don't have a collective view on the rightness or wrongness of contraception. Many Quakers do use artificial methods of birth control."
http://galwayquakers.com/Quaker-Beliefs-and-Practise

Officially, Catholics leaders still claim that artificial control of the birth of children is morally wrong--
that it is interfering with the natural order, playing God, and contrary to the will of God.

A loving couple ought to welcome as many children as God gives them.

What is intriguing, shall we say shocking, however, is that most Catholics, in contrast to other issues, don't obey this teaching of the Church. 86% of Catholics in the U.S. view artificial birth control as acceptable! That's only slightly behind the 90% of all respondents.

But who then are the 10% rejectors of the "all"?

Probably conservative Mormons and fundamentalists such as the "Quiver-full" movement; both also oppose birth control and emphasize large families as the direct blessing and will of God.

And in contrast, even Roman Catholic leaders at times seem to bend their own rules, or at least their natural law rhetoric.



For instance, the current controversial Pope, St. Francis, said that couples don't have to breed "like rabbits."

On the other hand, many Protestant leaders before the 1960's, also, opposed birth control. An anti-birth control article was published in the Baptist Standard.



One Christian leader, William Bell Riley, called birth control a "menace to humanity." "When the primeval lust of the beast is the basis of union, the divorce mill is sure of its grist," he warned.

Presbyterian Professor James O. Buswell told ministers "not to practice birth control." James M. Gray, President of Moody Bible Institute, also, opposed artificial control.

Moderate Baptist J.C. Massee stated, "Pleasure without children is legalized concubinage" and a "blight."

The infamous Bob Jones Sr., president of Bob Jones University, (which refused to admit "colored" students for many years) condemned, "husbands who hellishly limit the size of their families because they are too damnably mean and selfish to raise children."
Selling the Old Time Religion by Douglas Carl Abrams, University of Georgia Press

"Being pro-life...its about opening ourselves to the risk and mess and uncertainty that accompany any God-sent guest we allow into our lives. The least we can do is leave our doors unlocked."
Agnieska Tennant, an Editor of Christianity Today

And, some leaders still associate birth control with abortionist Margaret Sanger. Professor Albert Molher of the Southern Baptist Convention wrote we have "unwittingly aided and abetted that moral revolution by an unreflective and unfaithful embrace of the contraceptive revolution."
Religion News Service

Molher has stated, "I do indeed believe that the development of the Pill 'has done more to reorder human life than any event since Adam and Eve ate the apple'...sex, sexuality, and reproduction are so central to human life, to marriage, and to the future of humanity."

"The Pill turned pregnancy — and thus children — into elective choices, rather than natural gifts of the marital union. But then again, the marital union was itself weakened by the Pill, because the avoidance of pregnancy facilitated adultery and other forms of non-marital sex."

"In some hands, the Pill became a human pesticide."
http://www.albertmohler.com/2010/04/26/the-pill-turns-50-time-considers-the-contraceptive-revolution/

Since these views are all from religious conservatives, many might think that the whole issue of birth control is only a medieval hold-over.


However, it so happens that the famous atheist psychiatrist Eric Berne, founder of Transactional Analysis, emphasized in his book Sex in Human Loving that openness to procreativity in sexual relations is best. Dr. Berne states that his reasoning is biological.

Contradictorily, some current secular thinkers think that a woman getting pregnant is to be infested, having a "parasite' living in her.
(More later on this shockingly negative, almost nihilistic, view of pregnancy).

Professor Peter Singer supports infanticide, as sometimes moral.

He argues that born infants aren't persons and thus may be killed if the parents choose to do so!

According to this modern ethicist, a professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, some animals have more value than human infants.

So, see like in many ethical topics, humans' attitudes and outlooks toward birth control are very different.

What do you to say about birth control and sexuality and children?

What is your perspective on these very important ethical topics?

Reasons?


My own view is experiential, not especially theological or philosophical.

On both sides of our extended family in the past, the parents having more than a limited number of children seemed to lead to favoritism and neglect of at least one child. I don't think that had to be, but at least it occurs fairly frequently in large families.


When parents are hardworking, and they have a number of children, it seems that not all of their kids can get an equal amount of quality time, attention, and guidance.

Yes, I know there are famous families who claim this doesn't have to be so.

But consider that in one such well-known poster family, the Duggers, where everything was supposed to be wonderful and sacred, it turned out that the happy facade actually hid deep troubles.

How or why one of their older teens could end up molesting his younger sisters isn't clear.

But probably such a large family made unethical actions easier to commit and to hide.

In contrast, recently, I took an elderly woman to the doctor who has 16 children, 48 grandchildren, and 14 great-grandchildren. At 82 years of age, she is still a bundle of joyful energy, said she enjoyed everyone of her children.

It would be insightful if one could interview all of her children and see if they agree. But no doubt there are many happy large families, besides our own example of not.

In my own case, having 3 children while working 60-70 hours a week in my career as a teacher, I found it difficult to give to give each of my children time and interaction.

One of them points out now, that when that he/she desperately needed my time, I was too busy. I deeply regret failing that child.

If I hadn't subscribed to birth control, how could I possibly have been there for 6 or 8 or 10 children?

That's the practical, very real, very important quality point for why birth control is so important--it opens the door for a deep meaningful relationship with each child.

Another hugely important value in this topic is that restricting pregnancies gives a woman better health, longer life, and more time to develop her own talents and interests. A quick review of history will show how no birth control often had disastrous and deadly results for women of the past.

Theological and philosophical questions and reflections will have to wait for a later article.

To be continued--


In the Light,


Daniel Wilcox

Romancing Fidelity

Loving is action. Love is choosing. Love is friendship caught fire.

But with exceptionally high divorce rates, high numbers of humans sexually active without commitment, many writers actively negating the ethic of monogamy,
the media emphasis on promiscuity,
polyamory, pornography, prostitution,
etc., it would seem
that romance and fidelity,
commitment and monogamy are in serious trouble.

“…about 40 to 50 percent of married couples in the United States divorce. The divorce rate for subsequent marriages is even higher.”
American Psychological Association

“A 2011 study at the University of Iowa found that a woman's loss of virginity before age 18 was correlated with a greater number of occurrences of divorce within the first 10 years of marriage.”

“A 2012 study cited by Pew Research center found that an estimated 78% of women with bachelor's degrees, and 65% of men with bachelor's degrees who marred between 2006-2010 can expect their marriages to last at least two decades. Women with a high school degree or less, on the other hand, face a meager 40% probability of their marriages surviving the same period.”
Wikipedia

That’s the very negative news of the recent past.

In this New Year of 2016, let's move toward Romancing Fidelity. Aim for the true goal.

Fidelity: Becoming loyal, reliable, consistent.

Love: Choosing commitment.

Romancing love is “friendship that has caught fire.”

Consider the fiery words of Sherman Alexie from one of his famous short stories. Roman and Grace are a married Spokane Indian couple. He is standing close to her with his basketball between them, as if the ball represents the expectant infant they will soon create...

“Michael Jordan is coming back again,” he said.

“You can’t fool me,” said Grace. “I heard it. That was just a replay.”

“Yeah, but I wish he was coming back again. He should always come back.”

“Don’t let it give you any crazy ideas.”

Roman pulled the basketball away and leaned even closer to Grace. He loved her, of course, but better than that, he chose her, day after day.

Choice: that was the thing. Other people claimed that you can't choose who you love—it just happens!—but Grace and Roman knew that was a bunch of happy horseshit...

Damn, marriage was hard work, was manual labor, and unpaid manual labor at that...that was what was missing in most marriages: politeness, courtesy…thank-you notes to his wife for the smallest favors, did the dishes…vacuumed...

...year after year, Grace and Roman had pressed their shoulders against the stone and rolled it up the hill together.

Then he lifted the ball over his head...and pushed it toward the rim...it caught fire.
From “Saint Junior” by Sherman Alexie, Grove Press, pages 176-178, 188
--

Yes, LOVE is friendship that has caught fire.
Love grows like a glowing vineyard in the sunrise,
takes root and develops one day at a time. Love
in maturity is like fine wine, improves with age.

Love is quiet understanding and mature acceptance
of imperfection. Love gives strength and creatively
opens in new ways
to your beloved.


You are warmed by your beloved’s presence,
even when your lover is away. Miles do not separate.
You want your beloved nearer. But near or far, you
know your lover is yours, and you are your beloved's.

Love means patience and trust. Love springs up;
you and your beloved feel more whole. Love fill
the empty spaces in your hearts, leads you both
to look up, and to give out to others.

Love is
creative, compassionate, gentle, and kind,
coming from deep in the heart, essential.

Love is choosing again and again, daily to love
your beloved even in the hard times.

Love is wider
than the widest, deeper than the deepest,
closer than the closest--
a fire of chosen passion.

Anon and adapted


Howard Zinn, who was married for 64 years to Roslyn Shechter, until her death in 2008, has a short pithy comment about individual choice despite the negative world around:

TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives…

And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.
― Howard Zinn

In the Love,

Daniel Wilcox