In the previous post, I attempted an 8000 year history of metaphysics as revealed by sex. In this post, I want to discuss only the last century or less, and how radically we have shifted in our views of sex.

This post is not intended to bemoan the moral slide of the West, as ably covered in Bork's book "Slouching Toward Gomorrah", rather this is a more clinical analysis of the disease. For PostModernism is much more than a ethical relativism or a moral decadence, it is the re-introduction of a polytheist worldview with its own internal logic and consistency. It is a grave mistake to think that all one needs to repel a new ideology is to show its irrational inconsistencies and inferiorities, for there are often quite illogical reasons for adoption of an alternative world view starting from unrequited desire and ending with unresolved anger.  As Jesus demonstrated in his earthly ministry, however, by naming the demons one can then potentially drive them out. Power is accrued through naming, through classification. Therefore let us triumphantly continue with the nomenclature of PoMo sex.

Contraception Philosophically

In an eye-opening history of 20th century Protestantism, Allan Carlson writes at Touchstone how the church evolved its stance on contraception throughout the 20th century. The universal Church, throughout 19 centuries, whether Orthodox, Catholic or Protestant, was surprisingly united in its condemnation of birth control. Unlike the Catholic and Orthodox churches,  however, Protestant clergy were nearly always married, and therefore one had an objective measure of the theology practiced. (Once again, sex shows itself to be the best measure of metaphysics.) The first inkling of change could be observed in church statistics from the late 1800s in England.

But again, for nearly four centuries, where it held sway, the Protestant family ethic, exemplified in the pastor’s family, worked to reshape the culture in family-affirming, child-rich ways.

Indeed, the large families of Anglican, Lutheran, and Calvinist clergy became something of a problem for relatively poor rural parishes, and something of a comic image for novelists. In Oliver Goldsmith’s 1766 book The Vicar of Wakefield, we find a country pastor with six children who ends up (with his brood of children) in debtor’s prison, only to be rescued from his misfortunes by a benefactor.

As late as 1874, the average Anglican clergyman in England still had 5.2 living children. In 1911, however, just three years after the bishops had condemned contraception, the new census of England showed that the average family size of Anglican clergy had fallen to only 2.3 children, a stunning decline of 55 percent. The British Malthusian League—a strong advocate of contraception—had a field day exposing what it called the hypocrisy of the priests.

And herein lie the roots of both Modernism and Post-Modernism. For the pro-contraception Malthusian League, despite being named for Anglican priest, Robert Thomas Malthus who considered birth control a "vice", was nevertheless founded by George Drysdale, a "Freethinker" and atheist. If we consider "Freethinkers" to be early Modernists, then the societal benefits of a smaller family size and higher income were attributed to an atheist, Modernist ethical system. The choice was brutal: either one remained traditional and had 6 children on a vicar's salary, or one adopted an atheistic ethic that restricted family size while pretending it had no effect on one's profession.

It is a classic case of cognitive dissonance, when our actions don't match our words, and something had to give. The Malthusian League kept up the pressure from all angles: economic, philosophical, practical, and finally in 1930, the dam broke.

Pressures culminated at the 1930 Lambeth Conference, where bishops heard an address by birth-control advocate Helena Wrighton on the advantages of contraception for the poor. On a vote of 193 to 67, the bishops (representing not only England but also America, Canada, and the other former colonies) approved a resolution stating that:

In those cases where there is such a clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood, and where there is a morally sound reason for avoiding complete abstinence, other methods may be used, provided that this is done in the light of the same Christian principles.

This was the first official statement by a major church body in favor of contraception. Thus was Christian unity on the question broken.

In rapid succession the flood overwhelmed the other Protestant denominations, and the Church that had done so much to counter the moral slide of Christianity, claiming submission to the Word of God alone and resisting cutural pressures, succumbed.

But this led to an even greater problem. How does one reconcile this modern practice with traditional belief without suffering philosophical contradiction? How does one adopt a Modernist liberty without losing the entire corpus of Christian ethics? Various solutions are found, from "pick-and-choose" Biblical interpretation, to inclusive "everything goes as long as you are sincere" relativism. Regardless of the merits of the arguments, the point remains that the unity and coherence of a Christian dualist philosophy had been dealt a blow, that Modernism had scored a win. In rapid succession came "pick-and-choose" arguments for the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, the ordination of women, and now, the ordination of homosexuals. Truly, the death of God could not be far behind.

Out of the ashes of this Modernist victory, came a religious philosophy that needed no commands, that needed no ethics, no history, no absolutes; out of the ashes came PoMo religion, such as Bishop Spong's "New Christianity", or the less inflammatory "Open Theology" which claimed that Christianity, like Truth and God Himself, was embedded in the process, in the flow of the inexorable river Time; that no firm ground could ever be found, no fixed position could ever be established other than the certainty of change itself.

So the history of the 20th century supports the claim that contraception plus religion equals PoMo.

Contraception Empirically

Despite this historical evidence that contraception corrupts theology, one might make the claim that it remains a practical good, an empirically tested virtue, a scientifically productive procedure. If, for example, Anglican vicars could raise a family of four but not a family of eight, then economically contraception was a blessing to the clergy. And if it be an economic boon, why then more priests might consider the priesthood, the ranks of the clergy might qualitatively improve, churches could thrive, and Anglicans would take over the world!  Similarly, societies that practice contraception would economically flourish, raising their GNP, leading to a happier, more productive citizenry and perhaps lower rates of divorce and child abuse. And finally, children born to families of the perfect size would not feel unwanted, but receive better education, better upbringing and as a cohort should outperform their global competitors from more backward societies.

All these predictions are not my invention, nor even a strawman that I set up to attack. Rather these are the claims made for decades by proponents of contraception, and for evidence one need look no further than the literature table at the local Planned Parenthood clinic. Now unlike the theological claims mentioned previously which discuss the eternal benefits of traditional practices, all of these are material benefits and can therefore be tested with the tools of modern science. Since the experiment has continued for some 7 or 8 decades, we should have sufficient data to conclusively evaluate the claims. How have they turned out?

Let us begin with churches that have adopted contraception. Remember that empirical data do not prove causation, they only establish correlation. It is not clear whether accepting contraception makes one PoMo, or whether becoming PoMo makes one accept contraception, the point is that they are correlated. Likewise we find a correlation between accepting contraception, accepting women's ordination, and accepting gay ministers. They are both spatially and temporally related, so that for example, the order is always the same, the advocacy groups are nearly always subsets of the previous one, and the sooner a church advocates one, the sooner it advocates the next. 

Likewise, we find correlated membership for these churches in steady decline, first in relative numbers (as a percentage of the population), and then in absolute numbers (as membership rolls dropped). This has been most severe in the TEC (previously known as ECUSA) which lost some 10-15% of its membership both in 1975-9 with the ordination of women priests, and another 10-15% in 2003-7 with the ordination of gay bishops. Likewise the PCUSA has shown similar declines on both issues.   And America is the bright spot in worldwide church attendance numbers, the disaster is far more apparent in England, where CofE Sunday attendance is now less than Muslim Friday attendance. So empirically considered, contraception and its subsequent developments have been an organizational disaster to the 20th century church.

What about the effects on society? Does this bear up any better under scrutiny? In Robert Malthus' original analysis (the book that provided Darwin with his "natural selection" insight), he proposed that increased population pressure (more kids) would invariably lead to lower income, higher death rate, and crushing poverty unless countered by plague, war, or "vice", which is how Malthus viewed contraception and STD sterility. In mathematical terms, we say the population grows so much faster than food production that it rapidly reaches an equilibrium with death, such that if farmers found a new way to double-crop their fields to produce 50% more food, then the population would grow 50%, and everyone would be just as poor as they had before with hardly a generation benefitting from the temporary riches. 

Yet strangely, the population explosion in England at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, was not due to increased birth rates, but to a decreased death rate. Likewise, a careful review of the historical data that Malthus used, suggest that his model of population growth was too simplistic, leading some scholars to suggest that population doesn't grow faster than production, that individual per capita living standards did increase throughout the Medieval and Industrial Revolutions, that peasants weren't forever on the brink of starvation. For the sake of argument, consider that a city is not just a collection of the population of 4 towns, but an organization that permits factories and production greater than the sum of 4 towns. Thus production can have many of the non-linear properties Malthus attributed to population, maybe even winning the race.

But my point in dragging up all these prolonged academic debates, is to argue that contraception is not the cause of societal health, though it is true that increasing wealth is statistically correlated to decreasing family size above some threshold. Or at least, if we ignore the biggest anomaly of the past 30 years, the USA.

The demographics are striking,  and I recommend going through the entire AEI presentation.
Has this change in birthrate, which now has continued for over a generation and cannot be considered a temporary blip, caused a decrease in per capita income? On the contrary, the US has roared ahead of Europe in both absolute and per capita income, with increases in productivity and wealth that have left the Continent in the dust. So, birth control helps poor countries, hurts rich countries, and is not even correlated for the richest country. Not to mention the demographic disruption to society. Tough times for Malthusians.

Now our last shibboleth, the "quality of life" for children within a single society. In W. Bradford Wilcox's article in Touchstone, he discusses the consequences for the family structure when safe, effective contraception arrived in the 1960's.

In his second article, published in The Economic Journal in 1998, Akerlof argues that another key outworking of the contraceptive revolution was the disappearance of marriage—shotgun and otherwise—for men. Contraception and abortion allowed men to put off marriage, even in cases where they had fathered a child. Consequently, the fraction of young men who were married in the United States dropped precipitously. Between 1968 and 1993 the percentage of men 25 to 34 who were married with children fell from 66 percent to 40 percent. Accordingly, young men did not benefit from the domesticating influence of wives and children.

The consequence of setting the man loose? Single parent families, and spiralling poverty, especially for children. Far from improving society, the law of unintended consequences caused deterioration of the status of children. Now this may not be a philosophically necessary conclusion, but we weren't making an ideological argument, just a scientific observation.

Therefore both philosophically and empirically, contraception has failed to provide any lasting benefit to religion, economics or society, and it's widespread acceptance, therefore, cannot be blamed on rationality or practicality.  The Modernist goal of separating sex from procreation appears to be a bad practice, and if we defend it as still valuable, we are advocating PoMo science.

In the next post, we consider more examples of the collision of natural law & practice.