Baby or no baby?

     America takes pride in saying it is a Christian nation and is polarized politacally along those lines with Republicans declaring Democrates sinners. One area of polarization among the politcal parties has been the right to choose abortion. But the Pope has thrown another log onto the fire and said it is selfish to have pets and not children. OH NO HE DIDN'T!! Oh yes he did.

    If you are familiar with the Christian Bible it commands us to be fruitful and multiply. There is no if ands or buts about it. As soon as God created anything be it plant or animal he wanted more of the same procreated in abundance. So I asked my fellow Christians, How many children fill the criteria of being fruitful and multiplied?

    There are many Christian households consisting of one or two children. Are two children enough to fulfill the command of being fruitful? Has some measure been employed to STOP procreation and if so is that sinning? In Genesis 23:8-10, we have an account of a man named Onan who spilled his seed (practice of the withdrawal method for contraceptive) and it was viewed as wicked in the Lord's sight. I go into full detail about this in my book When Will Eve Be Forgiven?, chapter 9. Christians do not consider these questions preferring to focus only on abortion alone.

    While in seminary a fellow student asked, "Can a woman be a Christian if she does not have any children?" The instructor said 'no' which I wholeheartedly disagreed with. If we are to judge sinner or saint based on whether we have children or not we must apply that same standard of logic to the restrictions of births. Thus, you are sinning if you are not continually producing.

    God gave women a natural biological start and stop to her ability to have children. An average woman is born with, while a fetus in utero, one million eggs. By puberty 300,000 of those, 300-400, are ovulated. Men make 1,500 sperm per second releasing 20-300 sperm cells in a milimeter of sperm. It seems men have a higher biological propensity to be fruitful and multiply than women. Men then, have a longer window to be a sinner for not procreating than women if sinning is not having children. Those men who choose to take Viagra and are not being fruitful still - well, I'll draw a conclusion about them another day.

    The Catholic church speaks against contraceptives because it limits the number of potential Christians in the world. But Roman Catholic women have abortions at a significantly higher rate than Protestants. The abortion index by religion during 1994-95 was found to be: Protestant 0.69%, Catholics 1.01%, and Jews 1.08%, and I promise those stats have continued to increase as birth rates have decreased along with marriage rates.

    Declaring ourselves a Christian nation then picking which Scriptures we want to enforce upon each other is hypocritical to the onlooker making people lose faith in the faith. It's clear to see in the pews on Sunday families are restricting the number of children they are having by contraceptive means. One preacher said, "By limiting the number of children you have for economic reasons is showing a lack of faith in God to provide for those obeying his word to be fruitful and multiply." 

    When we decide as a fallable human who is a sinner by a measuring stick or standard we decide demonstrates Christianity, we are playing God. We are not as Christians given a mandate to be God on earth but to demonstrate the love of Jesus to others.

For more in-depth discussion on this topic purchase my book When Will Eve Be Forgiven? Available on amazon.com