LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1998, Page 354

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354

THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS

We have already noticed that the image of “one flesh” in Gen. 2:24
may include reference to the children that issue from the married couple.
Now we see that both Matthew 19 and Mark 10 closely link the discussion
of marriage with the presence of children. We must be cautious about
putting too much weight on the mere sequence of the material in Matthew
19 and Mark 10. But at least three reasons suggest that the progression may
well be meant to help us ponder God’s guidance that links marriage and
parenting in the ordinary course of life.

First, we have just seen that God’s Word rejects making marriage a
function of indefinite and inconstant human choices. Instead, it describes
the joining of husband and wife as permanent and final, just as the linking
of children to their biological parents is ineradicable. Second, we have
noted that a child “makes physical and represents in the flesh” the unique
relationship of a man and woman who come together sexually. Third, the
creation narrative explicitly links the creation of man and woman with
God’s command to be fruitful and multiply: “So God created man in his
own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he creat-
ed them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and
multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it’” (Gen. 1:27-28).

Practical observations concerning the contrast between how the world
and God's Word view marriage also recommend strongly linking marriage
and parenting. One of the most persistent and pernicious lines of attack on
God's guidance concerning marriage is the one that seeks to separate the
relationship of husband and wife from the relationship of parents and chil-
dren. Even the disciples were tempted by this stratagem. Once the nature
of the union of husband and wife is made a separate question from that of
the relationship of parents and children, then the essence of marriage can
be significantly obscured. People can more easily begin to view marriage
as a contractual arrangement for the purpose of companionship or friend-
ship. Asa result, Jesus’ word that none should divide what God has joined
becomes more and more difficult for them to trust.

When sexual intimacy and parenting in this way become separate
issues, people also begin to doubt God’s guidance concerning lifelong
commitment in marriage. What God's Word says about how a child’s
father and mother should live together and care for their children together
begins to be seen as only one possible approach among many. The unity of
the family is then fractured—the union of husband and wife and the rela-
tionship of parents and children, contrary to God's intent, are both severed.

In our discussion of artificial insemination by donor in case 2 and of
surrogacy in case 1 we argued that God’s Word wams us against disturbing
the one-flesh unity of marriage by third-party intrusion into procreation.

only with the peculiarities of first-century sexual experience. Instead, he
went back to the beginning: “Have you not read that he who made them
from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason
a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the
two shall become one flesh’ ?” (Matt. 19:4-5).

Other passages in God’s Word support and confirm the central signifi-
cance of the one-flesh union we have been studying. Because God has made
marriage such a special and unique relationship, both the Old and New
Testaments can use marriage as a profound and mysterious image of the
relationship between God and his people. Your study group might, for
example, look at Isaiah, chapters 54 and 62; Hosea 1-3; John 3:29; 2 Cor. 11:2;
and Rev. 21:2. Ephesians 5:21-33 ties together the mystery of the institution
of marriage with the mystery of Christ's faithful love for the church. When
Christian husbands and wives trust what the Bible says about their union
and live out what God has given them in marriage, they powerfully and
beautifully reflect something of God’s gracious faithfulness to his people.
“When transfigured by Christian faith and love, the intimate lifelong union
between a man and a woman—while never sacramental or redemptive—
becomes the most profound human parable there is for the gracious activity
of God.”

One of the church’s ancient prayers for families captures this beautiful
mystery of marriage well: “O God, you are our dwelling place in all gen-
erations. Look with favor upon the homes of your people; enfold husbands
and wives, parents and children, in the bonds of your love; and so bless
our homes, that they may be a shelter for the defenseless, a fortress for the
tempted, a resting place for the weary, and a foretaste of our eternal home,
through Christ our Lord. Amen.”!

For the reasons given above we have come to the conclusion that for
men and women joined in marriage voluntary childlessness is not a choice
to be made lightly. In marriage the sexual joining of a man and a woman
also joins them ina relationship as potential parents. Christians who believe
that they are called to married life will listen closely to God's guidance con-
ceming what they are doing. They will not be misled by a culture that has
carried out to a remarkable degree the Pharisees’ vision of autonomous
choice, which manifested itself in their attitude toward divorce.

We hasten now to repeat the caveats with which we began this discus-
sion. We readily admit that in special circumstances there can be reasons for
choosing childlessness. We have not, for example, been examining what
Christian husbands and wives might be advised to do about procreation

“W. Lazareth, Luther on the Christian Home, 200.

“The Occasional Services from the Service Book and Hymnal Together with Additional Orders
and Offices (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House and Board of Publication of the
Lutheran Church in America, 1962), 88.

31

However strongly we share the sorrow of infertile couples, we are all cau-
tioned against consciously choosing to separate the conception of children
from the one-flesh union of marriage. Such disconnection distorts and dis-
turbs this union and tempts all of us to interpret marriage and family
according to our own wisdom rather than God’s. When we are thus tempt-
ed, anonymous donation of sperm for artificial insemination begins to
appear plausible as a way of employing a man’s ability to be a father. Sur-
rogacy with the intentional unwillingness to care as a mother for the child
borne in a woman’s womb becomes plausible as a way of employing a
woman's ability to be a mother.

In contemporary society we see the drive to separate what God has
joined emerging in many configurations. Two women who have not found
their way into marriage nevertheless compact together to have a child by
contriving to arrange for one of them to become pregnant. Two men who
have not found their way into marriage nevertheless arrange for a surro-
gate to carry the child that they think they have a right to parent in their
own way. Single women and single men decide purposely to bring a child
into existence through the use of artificial insemination or surrogacy,
because, after all, being a parent has little to do with the one-flesh union of
the child’s father and mother.

In this same society age-old sexual temptations are given new strength
as sexual intimacy is recommended simply for the purpose of enhancing,
adult friendships and relationships. Once sexual intimacy is no longer
inextricably linked with parenting, then the notion that God joins a man
and a woman in a lifelong, one-flesh relationship becomes implausible.
Instead, people substitute their own notion that sexual intimacy is simply
an especially wonderful possibility for close human relationships.

Lutheran political scientist Jean Bethke Elshtain comments that “all the
eugenic world-views with which I am familiar—from Plato's Republic to
Hitler's Reich—-aimed to eliminate, undermine, or Seap-frog over the fami-
ly in order to achieve their aims.”? She argues that human attempts to put
something new in place of ordinary family units, even when well-inten-
tioned, again and again open up human lives “to more extensive forms of
control.””

The Commission is aware of readings of the biblical texts about mar-
riage that allege that they are time-bound and no longer relevant in a day
of reliable contraception and of autonomy for both women and men. But
we note that the Pharisees of Jesus’ day, and the disciples as well, under-
stood and were tempted by a form of sexual liberation—at least sexual lib-
eration for men. Jesus did not teach in a time-bound way, offering hetp

Jean Bethke Elshtain, “The New Eugenics and Feminist Quandanies,” Lutheran Forum
(Advent 1989), 27-28

“Ibid.

when in this fallen world pregnancy and childbirth become threats to the
health of a woman, or when the probability of severe genetic disease afflict-
ing a potential child becomes known. Just as in a fallen creation some cou-
ples are inexplicably infertile, so also some couples are faced with specific
threats and dangers attendant upon a choice to procreate.

Furthermore, we have not been suggesting that contraception and
family planning are wrong. God's Word urges us to recognize the close
connection between the relational and procreative aspects of marriage, but
no rules are laid down concerning how many children a couple should
conceive and raise in faithful response to how God has joined them. Nei-
ther do there seem to be any rules that prohibit temporary childlessness in
the early years of a marriage.

We also recognize that people can be faithful to God’s will for mar-
riage when circumstances of age, physical disability, or illness prectude
conceiving and/or caring for children. And we further acknowledge that
there may be circumstances we have not yet mentioned that might lead a
Christian couple to conclude that they will better serve God and their
neighbors by choosing not to have children.

The guidance we find in God’s Word concerning voluntary childlessness
does not suggest that involuntarily childless marriages are for this reason
incomplete or less pleasing to God. All Christians find that some of their
plans are reshaped and even completely rewritten by circumstances beyond
their control. When plans are rewritten our faith in God is challenged, but
that faith gives us confidence that “in everything God works for good with
those who love him, who are called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28).

Mindful of the foregoing qualifications, we once again note how the
nature of the marital relationship as presented in Scripture urges couples
ordinarily to choose for, rather than against, children in marriage. So we
have come to the conclusion that the burden of justifying voluntary child-
lessness should not be undertaken lightly.

Summary of Insights from Cases 1-3

Acommon theme runs through our reflections on the first three cases:
the choice to procreate, to bring new human life into the world, should be
a choice responding to and closely connected with God’s joining of a
woman and a man in marriage. In case 3 we have argued that God’s Word
urges husbands and wives in ordinary circumstances to conceive and raise
children as part of their faithful response to his joining them together. In
cases 1 and 2 we have argued that, despite the frustration and sadness that
infertility may bring into a marriage, faithful Christian response to God’s
Word concerning the one-flesh unity of marriage wil! mean refraining
from disturbing that unity by conceiving a child outside this union.