Sex is for Kids

‘Each and every marital act must remain open to the transmission of life…that teaching is founded upon the inseparable connection between the two meanings of the conjugal act: the unitive meaning and the procreative meaning…By safeguarding both, the conjugal act preserves in its fullness true mutual love’ (Humanae Vitae 11,12).

One of the strangest truths I encountered as an evangelical (and seminarian) was the encyclical Humanae Vitae, written by Pope St. Paul Vl in 1968. In less than 7000 words, he kindly refused to separate sexual intercourse from conceiving new life. How? By prohibiting birth control.  

What? In the middle of the sexual revolution? No little pills for those who want to space out kids or wait until after grad school or refuse them altogether?

I was big on the unitive dimension of intercourse. Nothing better conveys and confirms one flesh, a dynamic replay of the covenant we made with our bodies. But no contraception? A decidedly non-Protestant demand. Too much, like indissoluble marriage. Let us plan our family our way, and if that doesn’t work out, no-fault divorce!

Humanae Vitae shocked, and convicted, me. Pope St. Paul VI was one brave man to not bend the Catholic knee to separating sex from kids, as did all his Protestant counterparts. Scientific advances in birth control gave people authority over their bodies. Instead of chemistry, Catholics insisted on smart chastity.

Pope St. John Paul ll helped by pastorally accompanying men and women seeking to live Humanae Vitae. He wrote Theology of the Body (from ’79-’84) to form those seeking to honor God in the whole of their lives together. Masterful in its biblical and spiritual depth, TOB casts vision and awakens hope that life in Christ can free man and woman from lust, for love, and establish a relational base sound enough to welcome new life until death do us part. 

Smart chastity. In marriage. Read the seasons. Use self-control; learn to love the whole of your spouse without orgasm. No power plays. Open to the life that may be conceived in every act of intercourse. Welcome and cherish the fruit of becoming one flesh.

Holding tension between the unitive and procreative is tough. I didn’t agree with Paul Vl way back when. But it rang true. Without settling the HV question, Annette and I had babies rapid-fire and were stopped only by a secular doctor who advised us to have a tubal ligation, a ‘yes’ we regret to this day. (We wanted more kids!)

While pondering Humanae Vitae, I noticed something else at my seminary. A well-known and respected professor there, Dr. Mel White, came out of the closet, left his family, claimed to be intrinsically ‘gay,’ went on 60 Minutes, got a partner, invoked sympathy, etc. (His son, btw, is Mike White, boy wonder of the razor-sharp and salacious The White Lotus series.) Other leaders followed Mel, and the seminary became wary of my claim that people could actually come out of homosexuality and embrace marriage happily.  Philosopher Lew Smedes, a friend of White’s and former advocate of mine, prodded me: ‘When are you leaving your wife for a man?’

Perhaps White had lived two lives for so long that he couldn’t imagine transforming lust into love. It takes Jesus’ full gift, a patient community, and complete surrender. Instead, White divided the seminary.

I wondered then about this link between contraception and the weakening of marriage. If marriage is just about two people enjoying themselves, with or without kids, then why not switch partners? In ‘80’s California, Christian marriage was dissoluble, and birth control gave couples as much freedom as they wanted to not even bother with kids.

In a way, Mel’s changing partners made sense. No-fault divorce—justifiable. The man apparently ‘needed’ gay sex and partnership. Why not dignify it with ‘gay’ marriage? After all, ‘marriage’ need not involve kids.

That was forty years ago. The road goes down and down. If Joe and Jane can do whatever they want with their bodies while preventing the transmission of life, then why shouldn’t Mel and partner? Why shouldn’t anybody?

Thanks Pope St. Paul Vl and Pope St. John Paul ll. You saw further than we did. Your light still shows us the Way.