LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1998, Page 349

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THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS

and what is not. As we work together, listen to each other, and pray togeth-
er, we often increase our ability to find what is most important. But we must
first have the patience to let some disorder come into our deliberations.

So, the first phase of practical reasoning requires tolerance for a kind of
disciplined disorder. Christians, like any thoughtful people, need to have
the patience and courage to resist taking an early shortcut to solutions that
may leave important matters insufficiently examined.

If we close off study and discussion too quickly, we risk errors that
might have been avoided had we asked more questions. Even if our short-
cut leads to a correct answer, we risk leaving brothers and sisters unper-
suaded and alienated by the fact that they have not been given a thorough
hearing. The apostle James advises that everyone should “be quick to hear,
slow to speak” (1:19). In this way Christians create a nurturing and forgiv-
ing environment that can free people for thorough and careful thought.

The initial phase of our engagement with a problem is not simply
chaotic, however. It is also disciplined, because we do not look just any-
where for help with our puzzles. We are Christians, so we turn early and
diligently to God’s Word. We are members of the body of Christ, so we
expect that fellow Christians both near and far in space and in time may be
able to speak faithful words that can help us attend to God’s guidance. We
are Lutherans, so we are especially attuned to lines of questioning provid-
ed by our church's confessional principles. Because Christ is in our midst
and the Spirit guides us to the truth, we expect to be able to make progress
with our problems.

We also look beyond the Christian community in the first phase of our
reasoning. St. Paul reminds us in Rom. 2:14-15 that thoughtful non-Christians
may be able to point us toward features of our problems that deserve careful
attention. Paul writes: “When Gentiles who have not the law do by nature
what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not
have the law. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts,
while their conscience also bears witness.” Our faith in God the Creator teach-
3 us to recognize his good gift of reason at work in non-Christians.’

“Gordon Rupp summarizes Luther's teaching regarding the positive aspects of natur-
al reasoning in this way: “We are not to think that God is only interested in Christians and
has left the world to its own devices. God has given all men the light of reason and the law
of nature. Luther accepts the fact that natural law is reflected in the legal systems of
mankind, in the accumulated wisdom of the past, and in the common proverbial wisdom of
the people” (The Righteoustess of God |London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1953), 297-98). In the
Apology of the Augsburg Confession we read that “God wants this civil discipline to
restrain the unspiritual, and to preserve it he has given laws, learning, teaching, govern-
ments, and penalties. To some extent, reason can produce this righteousness by its own

though it is often overwhelmed by its natural weakness and by the devil, who drives
it to open crimes. We freely give this righteousness of reasom its due credit; for our corrupt
nature has no greater good than this, as Aristotle correctly says, ‘Neither the evening star nor
the morning star is more beautiful than righteousness’” (IV, 22-24). Plainly, however, the
“righteousness of reason” is not the righteousness of God that justifies the sinner (see Apol-
ogy IV, 25-47)

to trust God’s promise that they would have a child. That problem is not
involved in Genesis 30.

God's Word also speaks positively to the relationships of parents and
children in the Fourth Commandment and in passages such as Eph. 6:1-4
and Col. 3:20-21. In the parable of the waiting father (Luke 15:11-31) Jesus
uses the relationship of parents and children as an image of our relation-
ship to God. Scripture often speaks of us as God’s children, and most
importantly, Jesus is uniquely God’s Son and has taught us to pray “Our
Father...” On the other hand, various passages in the New Testament—
such as Luke 14:26; Mark 3:33-35; Matt. 19:29; and 1 Cor. 7:8, 28—caution
us against idolizing human masriage and family.

Martin Luther apparently thought that the biblical material on Levi-
rate marriage (Deut. 255-10; Genesis 38) suggested that in cases where a
husband was infertile the wife might legitimately seek to become pregnant
with the help of the husband’s brother.

Uf a woman who is fit for marriage has a husband who is not ... she
should say to her husband, “Look, my dear husband, you are unable to ful

fill your conjugal duty toward me; .... Grant me the privilege of contract-

ing a secret marriage with your brother or closest relative, and you retain

the title of husband so that your property will not fall to strangers.”*

Your group might look up the full text of Luther's discussion of this
approach to infertility and discuss the background and basis of Luther's
advice. Helpful (and critical) commentary is provided by William Lazareth
in Luther on the Christian Home? and by Gerhard Lenski in Marriage in the
Lutheran Church?

Luther provides another perspective on marriage and family that may
be helpful in our deliberations. He praised family life over monastic life,
not because it satisfies human desires but because it puts people into a
truly spiritual struggle. Marriage is understood biblically as a relationship
in which wife and husband, parents and children are challenged to live by
faith in God rather than by human efforts and attempts to protect them-
selves from their vulnerabilities to each other.’ Luther was critical of the
notion that marriage and family are mainly a means of fulfilling our
human desires. Thus he might not be sympathetic to the plea that infertile
couples should be prepared to use any and ail means to satisfy their desire
for a child.

* Martin Luther, “The Estate of Marriage” (1522), Luther's Works, American Edition
(hereafter LW] (Philadelphia: Fortress Press and St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House,
1958-67), 45:20; see also “The Babylonian Captivity of the Church” (1520), LW 36:103-5.

’ William Lazareth, Luther on the Christian Home (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1960),
188-98.

“Gerhard Lenski, Marriage in the Lutheran Church (Columbus, Ohio: The Lutheran Book
‘Concern, 1936), 175-80.

* LW 28:17-20.

Where Does the Disciplined Chaos Lead Us?

Jot down some of the information you would expect to find by taking
some of the first steps you and we have listed. What might come out of lis-
tening in detail to the two couples discuss their plan? (Perhaps members of
your group could role-play a discussion between the couples and other
members of the congregation.) What biblical passages do you think may
be relevant? Are you or others in your group aware of discussions of this
sort of issue by other Lutherans and/or non-Lutheran Christians near or
far? Do any of you know what kinds of “pros” and “cons” are discussed in
the secular literature about surrogacy?

None of us actually knows Harriet, Albert, James, or Rachel, so we can
only imagine what details were important to them for how they arrived at
their plan. Researchers tell us that perhaps two million couples in Ameri-
ca struggle with infertility. Every year infertile American couples spend an
average of $2,500 for diagnostic and medical expenses to combat infertili-
ty. If technological methods of reproduction are attempted, the expense is
far higher—from $6,000 to $100,000 depending on the number of attempts.
Some of this cost is covered by insurance companies and, as such, passed
on to others. Some is borne by the individuals themselves. No matter who
pays, the financial expenses associated with infertility are significant and
exact a considerable toll in individual and social resources. And these costs
are but a small portion of a larger cost involving dignity, emotion, and spir-
itual health paid by the infertile couple and those closely related to them.

Sympathetic Christians will likely be able to imagine the complex of
reasons and feelings that would enter into a choice like that proposed by
Harriet, Albert, James, and Rachel. Rachel and James no doubt have the
natura! desire to be parents. Harriet and Albert are already parents and
would naturally sympathize with their friends over their infertility. We can
imagine that they had many conversations in which they explored the
pluses and minuses of their proposal.

Surveying Possible Points of View

We have ample testimony from God‘s Word concerning the human
dimensions of infertility. The accounts of Abraham and Sarah (Genesis 16),
Isaac and Rebekah (Genesis 25), Rachel and Jacob (Genesis 30), Hannah
and Elkanah (1 Samuel 1), Elizabeth and Zechariah (Luke 1), all depict sor-
row over infertility and happiness when a child is conceived. Several of
these accounts tell of the use of surrogacy as a response to infertility.

Your group might take some time to study the accounts of surrogacy
in Gengsis 16 and 30. In a very few verses Genesis 16 paints a vivid picture
of a surrogacy plan gone sour. Genesis 30 seems somewhat more neutral
about the practice. Genesis 16 also reflects on how Sarah and Abraham fail

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Over the centuries Lutherans have consistently returned to Luther's
thoughts about how marriage provides a spiritual testing place for faith.
Lutherans have less often applauded Luther's speculations about possible
applications of the Otd Testament’s teaching on Levirate marriage.

In its 1981 report Human Sexuality: A Theological Perspective, the Com-
mission on Theology and Church Relations had the following to say about
third-party intrusion into the procreative aspect of the marriage relation-
ship:

Although the Scriptures do not deal directly with the subject of artifi-
cial insemination by a donor other than the husband (AID), it is our opin-

jon that such a practice must be evaluated negatively. Whatever the rea-

sons offered in support of AID, whether eugenic or simply concern that an

infertile couple be enabled to have a child, the process of fertilization is
removed from the personal context of the one-flesh union of husband and
wife in a way that not even their consent can allow."

The understanding of marriage and family on which this line of reasoning
is based would ina similar way provide a negative evaluation of surrogacy
in the case here being considered.

Oliver O'Donovan, a Christian theologian teaching at Oxford Univer-
sity, raises some different questions regarding how couples might respond
to the problem of infertility. In his book Begotten or Made? O'Donovan
argues that when reproductive technologies divorce procreation from sex-
ual intimacy in marriage, we risk turning children into projects and prod-
ucts. He writes:

(When procreation is divorced from its context in man-woman rela-
tionship, it becomes a proyect of marriage rather than its intrinsic good, the
Means to procreation become the instrumental means chasen by the will,
rather than themselves being of the goods of marriage. ... It is no longer
the case that the gift of self in sexual communion is at the same time a gift
to the other of the possibility of parenthood. The divine blessing of chil-
dren is no longer a blessing conferred upon this relational union of bodies
with its promise of permanent affection and affinity. ... [In divorcing pro-
creation and sexual relation we are] abandoning the underlying concep-

Gon of that link as part of the ontology of marriage, the conception which

originally made that form of social order [marriage] seem necessary and

right."

Your group might profitably discuss strengths and weaknesses of
these perspectives and also consider the effect of this surrogacy plan on
children in the parochial school and on the congregation generally. What

* Human Seruality: A Theological Perspective, A Report of the Commission on Theology
urch—Missou:

and Church Relations of The Lutheran Chi
Concerns Committee, 1981, 38-39.

™ Otiver O' Donovan, Begotten or Made? (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), 39.

ri Synod as prepared by its Social

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