by John Holbrook Jr.
A Biblical View, Blog #023 posted December 19, 2016, edited March 9, 2021.
Last week, I wrote about what happened to Ana Rosa Rodriquez in 1991 and wondered what had happened to her since then. This week I wonder how many people know the social consequences for a nation which touts contraception and abortion, where women put their careers before their family, practice contraception, and abort their babies when they regard the latter as inconvenient. These consequences are worth thinking about.
God’s Plan
God has designed mankind in such a way that producing a child requires both a man and a woman. Moreover God has endowed each man and each woman with a strong sexual interest in members of the opposite sex to ensure that men and women will reproduce and thereby populate the earth. Because sexual desire is a bit like fire, however, it needs to be controlled. God has established two institutions to contain it: first, marriage, with its public rite, to bind a man and a woman together in a covenantal relationship for life and second, the family, with its different and complementary roles, to ensure a loving, harmonious, and secure social unit. The husband protects and provides for his wife and children. The wife helps her husband and nurtures their children. The children inherit many of their parents’ traits, learn from their parents, support their parents in their old age, and inherit their parents’ estates after they die. In addition, if each individual family contains several children, over three or four generations the size and extent of the common family grows into a multigenerational network of great-grandparents, grandparents, parents, brothers and sisters, great-uncles and great-aunts, uncles and aunts, first and second cousins, etc. who know, love, and care for one another in a myriad of ways.
What disrupts God’s Plan?
What disrupts the above plan? Among others are the following:
First, sexual relations outside marriage.
Second, using contraceptives to avoid pregnancy. Doing so severely limits the number of children per family.
Third, pregnancies outside marriage. In a previous era, a pregnancy would propel a couple into marriage. Today, however, the father often ducks his duties and responsibilities and abandons the mother to face three choices: abortion, single motherhood, or adoption.
Fourth, abortion. It has killed almost 60 million babies in the US since 1973 and more than 1.4 billion babies worldwide since 1980 – statistics hardly pleasing to God, who is the giver of life.
Fifth, single-motherhood. It condemns children to a fatherless childhood in a home where the mother usually struggles to survive.
Sixth, homosexuality. It is a barren activity, removing people from the possibility of becoming parents. Various attempts are made to circumvent this problem. Both male and female couples adopt children or use surrogates to produce children for them. Both methods condemn children to either a fatherless or a motherless childhood without experiencing a normal family.
In addition to thwarting God’s intentions for them, all of the above disruptions encourage men and women to focus on satisfying their own ambitions and desires, not on fulfilling their God-given roles in the scheme of creation.
The Results
What then are the consequences of these departures from God’s plan? Among others are the following:
Men without manhood – Before the era of contraception and abortion, nothing propelled a young man from boyhood to manhood quicker than marriage, in which he had to undertake the duties and responsibilities of protecting and providing for his wife and the children who started arriving soon thereafter. Now, absent the incentive to marry in order to obtain ready access to sexual relations, young men remain boys for years. They lead self-centered and frivolous lives, focused on attending sporting events, watching them at sports bars, going on canoeing and fishing trips with their buddies, and often living at home, where their indulgent mothers provide them with meals, laundry service, etc.[1]
Women without womanhood – Before the era of contraception and abortion, young women looked forward to marrying, home-making, and child-rearing. With the help of their mothers, they prepared for it. Now, absent young men’s interest in marriage and the drumbeat of feminism, they lead self-centered, competitive, and often barren lives in the workplace, which accustoms them to putting the demands of their careers before the needs of their current or future families.
Children born well after their mothers’ prime child-bearing years. In previous years, women bore most of their children before they reached age 30. Now they bear most of their children after the age of 30. That people, including children, today are beset by a bewildering array of previously rare illnesses is becoming increasingly obvious – e.g. allergic reactions to dust, eggs, hay, milk, nuts, pets, pollen, wheat, etc.; autoimmune diseases like coeliac disease, diabetes type 1, lupus, multiple sclerosis (MS), myositis, etc.; digestive troubles like Crohn’s disease, irritable bowel syndrome, ulcerative colitis, etc.; mental health problems like attention deficit disorder (ADD), autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder, (OCD), Tourette’s syndrome, etc.; obesity; etc. These conditions are being called “21st century illnesses” and are ascribed to many causes. I have yet, however, to see the lateness of their mother’s age at birth identified as possibly one of them. Is not that lateness worth considering? (Another factor here may be what years on “the pill” do to a woman and later to her children.)
Children without homes – Before the era of contraception and abortion, children grew up in houses filled with the almost full-time presence of their mothers, brothers, and sisters. These houses were called “homes” and they were the crucibles of development and socialization, where young people learned how to live, play, and work in a rough and tumble environment, among others with different ages, different genders, and different personalities, each with his or her own abilities, aspirations, desires, needs, strengths, and weaknesses. Now such family life is impoverished in many ways. With wives/mothers working, husbands assume household duties that distract them from their main job – protecting and providing for their families. Working wives/mothers are torn between the conflicting demands of career and family. They try to ameliorate the situation by having few children – usually two, often one, sometimes none. Children often return from school to empty houses, in which TV sets and electronic devices are the only sources of companionship and entertainment. Soon bored, they seek out their peers on the streets, where they often get into trouble.
Families without both parents – Before the era of contraception and abortion, single parent households were relatively rare – usually due to workplace disasters in the case of men, birthing complications in the case of women, and lethal diseases. Now single parent households are ubiquitous, and the percentage of them is growing at an alarming rate.
A missing husband/father – Without a husband, a woman often falls into a series of temporary relationships which lack commitment on the part of both parties – a poor example for any children in the house. More often than not, single-motherhood results in both poverty and troubled children. Without fathers to discipline and mentor them, boys seek out the company of their peers and follow the downward trajectory of rebellion, hooliganism, crime, prison, and often death. Without fathers to love and protect them, girls grow up unable to discern between immature, unreliable boys and mature, reliable men and follow the downward trajectory of careless liaisons, pregnancies, and abortions or single-motherhood. The life of a family without a husband/father is usually somewhat desperate.
A missing wife/mother – Wife/mothers’ abandoning their families is on the rise. Many young women are unprepared for the sacrifices necessary to help a husband, make a home, and rear children. They bolt, leaving the husband to figure out how to protect and provide for his family, maintain a home, and rear his children without a woman’s touch. Without a mother, boys grow up unable to discern what kind of a wife and mother a potential mate might make. Without a mother, girls grow up without models or mentors – let alone the mother-daughter intimacies that best come from their own flesh and blood.
Families without relatives – Before the era of contraception and abortion, large families and even clans were common. Each member knew dozens of people to whom he was tied by blood and on whom he could rely for companionship, mentorship, support, etc. Now, with each relative having only one or two children, the extended family has shrunk markedly. How many people now attend family gatherings on Thanksgiving or Christmas where 20-30 family members show up?
Nations without people – Before the era of contraception and abortion, nations could count on their populations growing – of course absent wars, epidemics, or natural catastrophes. Now, with couples deciding on two, one, or no children (an average of 2.2 children per couple is required to maintain a stable population), many nations find themselves in an abrupt decline in population.
Nations without workers – The first consequence of a decline in population is a reduction in the number of workers. Fewer people are entering the workforce, but more people are leaving the workforce as the population ages and the oldest retire. This hits the more socialistic nations the hardest. Basing their projections on a ratio of 7-8 worker to 1-2 pensioners, they granted generous social security benefits to their citizens in the expectation of rising productivity and tax revenues. Now, with that ratio dropping inexorably toward 1 to 1, many nations find themselves on the road to bankruptcy. The problem is particularly acute in nations which provide other social benefits like small business loans, free health care, low-income subsidies, unemployment compensation, retraining scholarships, single-mother support, disability pensions, old age homes, etc. For such nations, bankruptcy is approaching at the rate of a speeding express train.
Nations without a future – The ultimate consequence of a decline in population is such a severe loss in numbers that those who remain lose the ability and even the inclination to protect themselves from foreign invasion and occupation. As nations, they lose the will to live.
What is the lesson in all of the above? For me, it is, “Be not deceived, God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (KJ21 Galatians 6:7). If we refuse to do things God’s way and insist on doing things our own way, we will pay a heavy price.
Not wanting to end on a negative note, I refer to what God said to ancient Israel when it had strayed from honoring him and obeying his commandments: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land” (KJV 2 Chronicles 7:14). God intended Israel to be a light and an example to the Gentile nations. I believe that he will treat the USA today in the same way that he treated ancient Israel. Christians, let us hurry to repent of our individual and collective sins and call upon the Holy One to show us mercy.
© 2016 John Holbrook Jr.
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[1] I am grateful to my mother for not indulging me. A week following my graduation from college, she informed me that I had three months to get out of the house and start making my own way in the world. I used those months to prepare myself for the rigors of boot camp in the US Marine Corps.