2.19.2009

Contraception on Issues, Etc.

On Wednesday, February 18, 2009, Revs. Michael Walther and Heath Curtis discussed contraception on Issues, Etc. Pr. Wilken said at the end that he intends to have these guests back again to discuss this issue more.

The show was excellent and should be listened to in its entirety, but near the end of the show, Pr. Curtis mentioned that the Bible texts he likes to use to teach on this are Ephesians 5 (Christ giving His bride everything He has) and John 2 (the wedding at Cana). This reminded me of a recent post on Blogia explaining Luther's Christocentric approach to ethics. We have said from the beginning of this blog that we seek to examine this issue through the theology of the cross. If you have read that post on Blogia, I'd like to hear your thoughts on its application to the ethics of contraception.

4 comments:

Christopher Gillespie said...
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Christopher Gillespie said...

It was an excellent discourse on both "sides."

Having been thoroughly formed by Luther via Pless and Masaki, I would concur that Pr. Curtis's approach is far superior to Genesis 38. Rev. Petersen had a brief post today on some catechism difficulties. He noted that Article three does not mention good works. In his estimation, this is left to law preaching (third use). But he argues and I agree that we don't preach good works from the law (Gen 38) but rather from the Gospel (Eph 5, John 2). Children are good gifts to be cherished and welcomed from the Lord.

Admittedly, Köberle's "Justification and Sancitification" completely renovated my understanding of the terms in light of my latent Calvinism and Barthianism.

I reflected on contraception in light of justification in my inarticulate paper for Ethics class a year and a half ago. My, I would do it differently today! Nevertheless, I think I was beginning to reflect upon this in the conclusion: http://dizzysound.net/blog/2007/07/31/lcms-contraception-text-evaluation/

Erich Heidenreich, DDS said...

Excellent paper, Christopher. I remember reading it back when you first posted it on your blog. I'm interested in what you would say differently today.

As for the "half-way" position argued against by Rehwinkel, please go to the post where I have pasted about this as a new discussion.

Erich Heidenreich, DDS said...

Here's a link to that new discussion.