I’m Albert Mohler and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.
Part I
Baby Formula is the Key to Marriage Equality? This is Where the Liberationist Logic Leads
Every once in a while there’s a development in the media, an article and argument that catches our attention because it raises creation order issues, but it sometimes does so in a context which threatens something that is extremely intimate. It’s not just something vast, big structural issues in society. Sometimes it gets down to the smallest part of society, the most basic foundational part of society, marriage and children, parenting and children. Sometimes the relationship between parents and a child, sometimes between a mother and her baby. That’s what shows up in a recent article that appeared in The New York Times, and it’s one of those that sneaks up on you because when you look at the editorial page in The New York Times, you’re not looking for breastfeeding, but it turns out that that’s political too and it’s also a part of the moral revolution all around us. Really, really interesting.
The headline in this article is “The Secret to Marriage Equality is Formula.” All right, this is even more interesting than I thought it might be. The secret to marriage equality we are told is baby formula. Okay, this is going to be an interesting article. “Every new parent instantly learns that feeding is paramount.” This is written by Nona Willis Aronowitz, who’s identifies a writer, a critic, and editorial director of the site known as The Meteor. Again, every new parent instantly learns that feeding is paramount to continue, “it’s entwined with sleep, soothing the fundamental process of becoming attuned to your baby. Perhaps that’s why breastfeeding, whatever its pluses can kick off an undesirable, often stubborn imbalance between parents. One that extends beyond the act of feeding. So in an age (she writes) when the vast majority of parents support the concept of equal parenting (she then puts in parentheses) (Even as dads still don’t share the load equally) why don’t we openly discuss one of the best ways to avoid that imbalance?” All right.
Now, sometimes I see something like this and I think, I don’t know what’s more amazing, the fact that someone wrote this article or the fact that some editor of The New York Times thought this belonged in the editorial section of The New York Times. And also I have to ask the question, how would the readers of The New York Times judge this article? Because evidently some significant proportion are expected to say, “This makes absolute sense. This is exactly right. We need to basically ditch breastfeeding and turn to formula because otherwise women are never going to be liberated and there’s going to be this imbalance of responsibilities.”
That article appeared just as I said it, and just as I read it to you, it goes on, by the way, there are deeper issues here because listen to this, “Baby formula has been hotly debated ever since its invention as a commercial product in the century when the German chemist, Justus von Liebig devised a powder that may have caused the deaths of several babies. By the 1960s, the recipe for formula had vastly improved. Ad campaigns promoted its use as medically endorsed and superior to breastfeeding.” That again, ad campaigns. And that’s true. Such ad campaigns actually did happen. I’ll go back to the article, which was at a record low 25% among new mothers, “Then amid criticisms of formula companies including their aggressive marketing to women in developing countries who lacked access to clean water with which to prepare their product. Feminists were among the groups who pushed for a return to breastfeeding, arguing that it gave women bodily autonomy in an over medicalized world.” However, there were other very influential feminists who argued against it referring to motherhood in this precise endeavor as, “exhausting servitude.”
One of the things I’ll simply remark is how many feminists who were never actually mothers, evidently were quite ready to moralize on the issue. Okay. So the bottom line in all of this is that this author is making the point that women will never have equality in the workplace so long as, or in terms of the duties of raising children in so far as breastfeeding is still a part of the picture, that requires so much time of mothers. It interrupts the sleep of mothers. It becomes a consuming responsibility for mothers. And even as this mother does understand that there’s a real bonding process that takes place. Here’s what she says, “The bonding effect with the baby was real, but it also meant my ability to understand the contours of her needs deepened as her husband became more and more sidelined, the resulting resentment nearly broke us as a couple. The unfair burden in sleep deprivation nearly broke me.” Okay. Just does get really interesting here. In other words, mothers experience something through that natural process of feeding that fathers do not get to experience with the baby.
Now let’s just state that that is evidently, let’s just put it as plainly as possible, a long-standing problem. And that just goes back to the fact that fathers have to develop bonding and relationships with babies and with their children in different ways. And I can say as a father, one of the things I quickly learned is that there are things I can’t do. There are needs I cannot provide when it comes to this baby. My wife who was so committed to this, unquestionably, she experienced this, she bore the burden, but she also experienced the joys of making that provision for this sweet baby. But you know what? If people are going to point out that this is all of a sudden an imposition on women, let me just say you’re going to have to take this argument further back because pregnancy is an unfair, by that evaluation, it’s an unfair imposition upon women because after all, women have to go through all the process of pregnancy, which let me just state to men is just an amazing thing. It is simply something that doesn’t begin with the baby’s birth and with all of a sudden the issue of feeding the baby.
Okay folks, this gets political. It gets political on multiple grounds because one of the things in this article is basically a complaint that the current Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. went on and called Milk from the Mother, “the infant formula that God made.” That’s a pretty clear statement. I think it’s an absolutely correct statement. It’s an irrefutable statement from any kind of biblical viewpoint. This is indeed the infant formula that God made.
Now, let me interject here very quickly. There may be any number of circumstances including physical circumstances in which a mother is unable to nurse her baby. I understand that, that’s not what this article is about. This article is about the willful re-engineering of society using baby formula so that mothers are not disadvantaged by nursing their babies and they’re as free to be in the workplace or otherwise employed as the father is. Now, I just return to the fact that this is showing up in The New York Times in a very serious way. It’s to be taken very seriously. Here’s how the article ends, “Lots of parenting decisions involve trade-offs. It’s time to explicitly tell parents to be before they’re in the trenches that the two worthwhile enterprises of exclusive (I’ll just say nursing) and equal parenting are a zero-sum game and that it can be utterly life-changing to choose the latter.” So she’s saying explicitly you can have a mother nursing her baby or you can have equal parenting, but you can’t have both.
Okay, so let’s go back to that phrase equal parenting. What in the world is that? Well, I think in many cases I think we can see an imbalance. In many cases there’s a parent that’s negligent and not fulfilling his or her responsibility. By and large, that’s fathers. We know this, this shows up in the Bible, it shows up. There’s a particular danger, or tendency of men to pull back from parenting and from that responsibility. I go back to even some of the earliest people understanding social morality. They came back to the fact that societies have to make men take responsibility for babies. Almost no society routinely has to make women take responsibility for their babies.
So we can understand there are a lot of moral issues at stake here, but this article basically is saying there’s not any real difference between being a mother and a father. And that’s where I think equal parenting is flying against creation order. It is running into the wall of biological reality. It’s also interesting that it is running against a lot of medical advice. So it is, and I waited intentionally for this. I thought there’s going to be some blowback to this even in letters to the editor at The New York Times and one showed up in which you had a pediatrician and mother of two writing for London, and she said, “I found that the article raises important issues around sharing the load of parenthood, but is needlessly antagonistic towards (I’ll just say nursing).” And this article ends by saying that there are very real, she calls them proven medical benefits of nursing that should not be dismissed. So it is interesting here you have a pediatrician saying, Hey, before you dismiss the medical aspects of this, there are, in her words, proven medical benefits to nursing.
All that to say for Christians, you just cut through all of this. Number one, are we committed to parental or to parenting equality? I think the answer to that has to be no, we’re fundamentally not. I think the biblical worldview says we should be committed to being godly mothers or godly fathers. And that means that the child needs both a faithful mother and a faithful father in every conceivable way. But the roles of men and women don’t just come down to a difference when it comes down nursing. There’s also a problem with the word equal here because I can’t think of many circumstances, and I’ll say this just as honestly as I can, I can’t think of many circumstances in which, especially when children are really younger, the equal applies to this except in some kind of construct in which you’re just going to argue, “Look, human beings are just human beings and babies are just babies.”
That takes it kind of back by the way, to the founding Israeli kibbutzs that actually made this declaration. And yet the big story in Israel is not the success of those kibbutzs, but the absolute failure of those kibbutzs. It simply didn’t work to say that here you just have interchangeable human beings. You don’t have parents with their own children responsible for those children, and you don’t have distinctions between fathers and mothers. You can deny it all you want, but it’s going to show up on the kibbutz or in your house. All right, I’ll be honest, things you’d ever thought you’d be talking about in such a way, but here we are, thanks to developments in the culture around us. Again, let’s just be so thankful for creation order. Let’s be so thankful that God created us in such a way that he gave moms this incredible capacity and this incredible gift.
And yes, it’s an imposition on this mother, but I don’t know of many Christian mothers who would ever call it an imposition. There’s another reason by the way, that this picture of love has been so powerful, has come with such moral force throughout the centuries. It is just one of the things that is most right with the universe. I’ll just leave it at that.
Part II
How Should Christians Think About Birth Control? — Dr. Mohler Responds to Letters From Listeners of The Briefing
All right, now let’s turn to questions. I’m always glad to get questions. Some listeners just write me at mail@albertmohler.comm. Sometimes they come in a pattern and that always interests me, sometimes perplexes me, but it just is a thing. Sometimes there’s a pattern of questions. A lot of questions have come in just in the last few weeks and even in the last few days having to do with the birth control, contraception, IVF, in vitro fertilization and other issues.
Now I’ve written a lot about that. I’ve talked about all those issues at length, but I do think it’s good sometimes for me to be put on the spot to offer a short, concise way of thinking about these things. And I always want to say there’s more to say and there’s more for you to think about as Christians. And as a matter of fact, I’ve written about a lot of these things that you can find if you’re interested at my website and books and beyond.
Okay, so here’s the question coming in from a 23-year-old young man who’s about to get married, and he asked the question, what’s your position on birth control? And he says that he and his fiance, they’re about to get married, are trying to figure out what forms of contraception, if any, are morally acceptable and wise for our situation. They both just graduated from college with debt they hope to pay off in a couple of years. So they say financially it would make sense to wait to have children. I also understand that Scripture calls them a blessing, which makes me wonder if it’s better not to delay it. I want to say that this is one of those issues in which it really is important to think as a Christian, and that means the think part as well. You do have to think through these issues in ways that previous generations did not. So I wrote a book project on this some years ago. One of the things that really came as a strong impression of me at the time is that even as birth control or contraceptive attempts, and I’ll define that in just a minute, have been made throughout the centuries, a lot of it was absolutely laughable. I mean, for instance, during the medieval period, there was one medical advice book that said that the man should put his foot on the body of a weasel to avoid conception.
Well, I think that could avoid conception, but for all kinds of different reasons. But I mean this is just the insanity of how intent certain people have been not to have babies. And by the way, throughout most of human history that has had mostly to do with illicit sex, that is to say sex that should not have taken place in the first place. So only in the modern era with all kinds of modern developments and technologies do you have this now? What’s the distinction between contraception and birth control? Well, speaking specifically, contraception is limited to that which prevents conception. That is the coming together of the sperm and the egg in fertilization. All right, well you say that’s pretty technical. Well, that is important because let me tell you morally it’s very important. It’s very important to know that in the popular culture around us, including among some medical authorities, contraception has been redefined, which is now at any point short of the successful implantation of the fertilized egg of the early embryo in the uterine wall.
And you say, what difference does that make? It means that you can have early abortions that are not considered abortions by those who promote this redefinition. We as Christians understand that every single human life made in the image of God can be traced to the moment when God said, “Let there be life.” And that is when the sperm and the egg come together and there is that absolutely astounding supernatural moment in which life is given. Life is created. Okay. Birth control is anything that prevents birth. So technically abortion can be a form of birth control because it is preventing birth or controlling birth. I know it’s not usually used that way, but that’s one of the reasons why there is a distinction between birth control and contraception. Birth control is a far wider category and it really comes into play on the definition of such issues as IUDs and other kinds of longer term, I’ll say birth control.mThey’re sometimes called contraceptives, I think in most cases that’s an over claim, but nonetheless, a lot of moral significance there.
But here you have a young couple, they’re about to get married. I simply say the default position for Christians is have the baby. That’s the default position. The default position is that all our reproductive capacities are fully present when they are absolutely lawfully and rightfully righteously present. And that is when the husband and wife come together. So in other words, that’s the default position. The use of birth control or any sort of contraception should be what is justified, not the non-used. And of course that assumes the fact we’re talking about marriage is the context. And of course that’s the big issue, isn’t it? Because the moment you try to take sex out of the context of marriage, wow, you have all kinds of motivations to try to come up with birth control in a hurry.
And by the way, you can’t have the sexual revolution that has happened in western societies since the 1960s if they did not come with contraception and birth control. And by the way, that’s not an accident. I’ve just finished a book manuscript on that, read the book, don’t wait for the movie. But to this young couple, I want to say there really are a gradients of position on this. So I want to be intellectually honest. You have the Roman Catholic position, which is that each and every marital act must be accompanied by openness to the gift of life, that’s the way it’s stated, in such a way that there is no legitimate use of any kind of contraception or birth control. That’s a very straightforward position.
The more liberal secular perspective is, “Hey, there are no moral issues here to be concerned about, so just don’t worry about it. Just plan whatever you want, avoid children.” And of course, now we’re looking at this radical reduction in the birth rate that threatens the future of human societies. It basically is a contraceptive mentality that’s infected the entire society. You just separate sex from human reproduction and then you just end the reproduction and expand the sex. That’s what’s going on in our society around us.
I think most Protestant evangelical Christians are going to be actually, I think if thoughtful a lot closer to the Catholic position than to the secular position. And that’s because we do understand, even as the secular world does not that every single marital act is filled with moral consequence. And that is to the glory of God within the context of marriage. And that’s what we’re talking about here. We’re not talking about anything outside the context of marriage. And so I think there are forms of birth control that are a lot more problematic than others.
And so the least problematic are barrier methods, etc. The most problematic are those that involve some question as to at what point there is a medical intervention. But in any event, I think Christian parents should see this in the context of the fact that the marriage must be fully open to the gift of children. I think that is the biblical issue. The marriage must be fully open to the gift of children. And that does not mean I think an evangelical couple can never use a true contraceptive that would actually function as a true contraceptive. I’m not saying they can’t ever do that. I don’t think they’d be honest. I don’t think that would be necessary. But it is the use rather than non-use, which should require the moral justification. And I’ll also simply say that I just find great joy in seeing families with many children, lots of children. And I know I’m not going to define a number, but I’ll just say these days, if you show up with more than a couple, then you’re considered a mass breeder. I’ll simply say that’s to the glory of God.
But I’ll also say that this is within the context of issues such as the mother’s health, and there are other considerations which are quite legitimate. I think believing evangelical Christians gathered together in the context of the local church can develop friendships in which you can talk about some of these things openly and in the context of seeking to be fully faithful to everything God has given you and expects of you in marriage. The issue of finances is raised here, and that’s never irrelevant in terms of our responsibility, but I will simply say, don’t let the financial argument interfere with your life and showing the glory of God in your marriage that would prevent you from having children, I’ll simply say, in due course,
And I’ll go back to the fact that a lot of the problems that arise in terms of reproductive health have to do the fact that you have women in particular, but now we know both men and women waiting too long. And so I’ll simply say in a healthy situation, I think it’s always seen as a provisional technology to be used within defined limits within the context of saying, “Yes, we do to everything God has given and expects of us in marriage.”
Part III
Is It Wrong For Men to Donate Their ‘Reproductive Cells’ to a Fertility Bank? — Dr. Mohler Responds to Letters From Listeners of The Briefing
Okay. So the next one is something that I have had to deal with, pastorly I’ve had to deal with personally in terms of conversations here. A mother is writing in about her son. He’s in his twenties and he wants to donate his, I’m simply going to say his reproductive cells. And there are reproductive cell banks and reproductive cell firms out there that will buy reproductive cells by sample.
And this mother, she’s saying she tried to talk about this with him, but she says, “Can you please explain the biblical view on this for him?” And I’m going to say, yes, I’m going to say this. The most important thing for the biblical worldview is that God has given a man a reproductive capacity, which is to be exercised within the context of marriage. In other words, that is God’s plan and thus no man with his wife who is the agent of, in this case, the male agent of bringing about a baby has anything to be embarrassed about because everything is right within that context.
The next thing is, and this gets to a technical ethical argument, which is the alienation of goods, but let me just bring it back to this. In other words, every step you take or every centimeter you move away from the perfect picture, the righteous picture, then you’re bringing in moral risk. I want to get to the bottom line in this, and that is I can see no good reason nor good justification for any Christian young man to sell his reproductive cells, period. And I have had situations in which I was asked to speak to these issues in the context of local church. I had a young man who was a college student meet me in the hallway and just start bawling because he all of a sudden had been convicted of what he clearly came to understand was sin over a period of time. And you know what? Feeling for that young man in that crushing moment of the realization of what he had done. And it came about because at one point I’ve simply said, “Every man needs to know where every one of his reproductive cells goes, period.”
And I raised the specter saying, “No, you are having children. The potential of this technology is that you are having children you don’t even know. You don’t even know of your paternity of that child. That has to be in a biblical concept, a very important morally binding category.” And this young man said to me, “I have just with my girlfriend, been at a local mall,” that was back when malls were a thing, and he had seen someone pushing a cart, a mother pushing a stroller, and he all of a sudden realized, “That could be my child.” And it was a crushing weight upon him. I think that’s an appropriate moral weight.
I do appreciate these questions being sent in. And by the way, there were other questions on this topic. We just don’t have time unfortunately to get to. And my hope and prayer in every one of these situations is that I answer in an appropriate way and discuss this in such a way that we as Christians can say, “Okay, this is the way we should think. This is the way we should talk about these things.”
Learning this requires, I mean, frankly, a solid grounding in Christian truth. It requires an absolute commitment to develop a Christian worldview. And so I just want to mention the fact that at Boyce College we’re about to hold a preview event, particularly for high school students or young people who are now making decisions about college. We’d love to invite you to come to Boyce College. We believe the Christian life is about absolute faithfulness in the church, the workplace, the family, the world. That’s why our determination is to prepare students to know the truth, follow Christ with conviction, and be prepared for all that the Lord calls them to do. I’ll simply say, I even say that in light of what we were just talking about. We want to raise young Christians to grow up for the fullness of all that God has called them to be and to do.
I’d love to invite you to experience Boyce College preview. It’s going to be on March the 26th and the 27th in Louisville, Kentucky, right here on the campus. We want to show you what sets Boyce College apart. Your visit will include two nights of complimentary lodging along with meals, the registration fee, by the way, this is important, listeners to The Briefing can have the registration fee entirely waived when you just use the promotional code, now hold for it, THEBRIEFING, one word, all caps. Come see how Boyce College prepares students for a lifetime of faithfulness. I look forward to meeting you at this event. Register at boycecollege.com/preview. I’ll hope to see you there.
For more information go to my website at albertmohler.com. You can follow me on X or on Twitter by going to x.com/albertmohler. For information on the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For information on Boyce College, just go to boycecollege.com.
I’ll meet you again on Monday for the Briefing.
