Rethinking Contraception — A Younger Generation Ponders the Question

When “The Pill” was introduced in the 1960s, most evangelicals responded with eager acceptance. The century had seen the discovery and invention of modern antibiotics, the development of the Salk and Sabin vaccines againt polio, and countless other medical breakthroughs. The Pill just seemed to be the next great thing.

Of course, what The Pill offered was sex without babies — a fact that for many evangelical Christians posed no apparent conflict of conscience.

Now, a new generation of evangelicals is rethinking the question. This has caught the attention of reporter Judith Graham of The Chicago Tribune. In a recent article she took a look at a conference on the issue. As background, she asked me for comments.

From her article:

“It is clear there is a major rethinking going on among evangelicals on this issue, especially among young people” disenchanted with the sexual revolution, said Rev. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. “There is a real push back against the contraceptive culture now.”Whether or not Mohler is right about young people, the sympathetic sentiments of a key leader in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination adds fuel to the debate.

This new generation of young Christians is rethinking the issue because we can now see many of the negative effects of the contraceptive revolution. We discussed this issue on a recent edition of The Albert Mohler Program [listen here].

For other resources on the issue see my article: Can Christians Use Birth Control?.