Birth Control & Dominion

One of the things that is very striking and obvious if you look around on a Sunday morning is that we love children. The Bible teaches that children are the inheritance of the Lord, a great reward, and faithfully raised children are a central part of our warfare against all unbelief. And because of these things, someone might be forgiven for assuming that we must have some kind of rule against birth control or that we think that it is necessary for every family to have as many children as they physically can. But we don’t. 

We certainly are at war with many modern assumptions about children. We hate the idolatry of moderns that prizes barbie bodies and vacation homes and careers over the gift of children, and the modern assumption that children are a bother and a nuisance. We hate all of that. And we hate the whole abortion culture, which includes many so-called forms of birth control, which are frequently harmful to the bodies of women and are often aimed at snuffing out the lives of newly conceived babies. We are at war with all of that. 

But Christian Dominion cannot be reduced to thoughtless breeding. A husband is required to love his wife as his own body, and that means protecting her health and life as well as providing for and raising their children in the Lord. There are methods of farming, mining, logging, fishing, and hunting that really do destroy creation long term, and are not good stewardship. Christian Dominion is not merely a matter of raw, immediate numbers. Christian Dominion requires wisdom, love, thoughtfulness, and some measure of planning. 

God is the Lord of the womb; He opens and closes the womb according to His good pleasure, but that does not therefore necessitate that husbands and wives have no responsibilities in this regard. On the whole, many moderns need to come to see the strategic value and overwhelming gift of children. Walking by faith often means welcoming more but sometimes not. Godliness is not measured by sheer number of children. Godliness is measured in gratitude and joy and faith, which often results in bigger families, but not always.

Photo by Filip Mroz on Unsplash