Sex Au Naturel by Patrick Coffin Page A

the Lord’s vehement response to children being prevented from coming to Him have a more-than-literal meaning? Could He have been referring to children who would “come to Him” through the unsterilized sex acts of His followers through time until He returns?
     
    Since He is the Word through whom all things are made (including babies, cf. Jn. 1:1–3), it seems logical to see a parallel between the disciples’ hindering of the infants and the hindering that is the essence of contraception.
     
    The writings of Saint Paul develop and deepen what is implicit in the Gospel. On the subject of Christian marriage in Ephesians 5:21–33, he teaches that wives ought to be submissive to their husbands “in the Lord,” while also emphasizing that the husband is to love his wife “as Christ loved the Church,” which is to say, by giving His entire self—body and soul—to her. The passage is, in fact, recommending the opposite of female slavery and male tyranny. The interpretive key here is the phrase “in the Lord.” The wife’s submission (which means “ordered under”) to the love and sacrificial mission of her husband in no way implies her inferiority. They are utterly equal, and are equally called to “give way” to one another out of love for Christ. Christ Himself was submissive to his Father while remaining equal to Him.
     
    The union of husband and wife is therefore a mirror of Christ’s union with His Bride. At a minimum, this means that the bodily surrender in sexual intercourse must not be tainted by a clinging to self. To simultaneously say with one’s body, “I give you my all,” and “I hold back my all,” is the height of sexual schizophrenia. As we will see in Chapter Five, in His consummation of His marriage vows upon the cross—the ultimate exemplar of love’s willingness to self-donate—Christ held nothing back.
     

Final Converging Clues
    Saint Paul’s writings often address certain errors floating around in the community. In 1 Timothy 2:15, he probably had in mind those false teachers who forbade marriage (see 4:3). The apostle’s conviction that “women will be saved through childbearing” is a clear affirmation of motherhood as integral to married life, and a strong clue as to how the early Church valued fertility. While not an explicit “thou shalt not contracept,” it is another sign that the New Testament viewed marriage as bound up with motherhood. If some birth control is morally okay, then what could be wrong with marriage entirely characterized by it to the point of deliberate childlessness? This would seem to contradict Paul’s whole point.
     
    In the original Greek, the New Testament also contains several references to pharmakeia , which is translated variously as sorcery, medicine, or drugs associated with magic (Gal. 5:20; Rev. 9:21; 18:23; 21:8; 22:15). The word carries overtones of the occult in connection with Babylonian practices, and many scholars identify pharmakeia with contraception, which was widely practiced by Israel’s neighbors throughout history in Babylon, Egypt, Rome, and Greece. It is well-known that, in New Testament times, various potions were mixed to suppress or stop a pregnancy. Each mention of pharmakeia is set in the context of condemning sexual immorality, and even murder (see Rev. 9:21: 22:15). The early Church held a dim view of the first century equivalent of the birth control pill.
     
    The biblical injunctions against homosexual behavior are clearly set forth in both Testaments (see Gen. 19:1–19; Lev. 18:22–23; 20:13; Rom. 1:24–32; 1 Cor. 6:9). Sodomy in particular has something essentially in common with contraception; namely, sex without babies. From a strictly biological point of view, heterosexual couples who nullify their fertility through contraception (especially via sterilization) have dismantled the logical basis on which to criticize homosexual acts. The more honest and consistent Catholic dissenters have admitted that