NFP evangelical authors now divorced

This is disappointing news:

An Evolving View of Natural Family Planning

Josh Anderson for The New York Times

Bethany Patchin, 30, at home with her four children. When younger, Ms. Patchin saw contraception as contrary to God's will.

By MARK OPPENHEIMER

Published: July 8, 2011 In August 1999, Bethany Patchin, an 18-year-old college sophomore from Wisconsin, wrote in an article for Boundless,
an evangelical Web magazine, that Christians should not kiss before
marriage. Sam Torode, a 23-year-old Chicagoan, replied in a letter to
the editor that Ms. Patchin's piece could not help but "drive young
Christian men mad with desire."






The two began corresponding by e-mail, met in January 2000 and were
married that November. Nine months later, Ms. Torode (she took her
husband's name) gave birth to a son, Gideon. Over the next six years,
the Torodes had four more progeny: another son, two daughters and a
book, "Open Embrace: A Protestant Couple Rethinks Contraception."

In "Open Embrace," the Torodes endorsed natural family planning
-- tracking a woman's ovulation and limiting intercourse to days when
she is not fertile -- but rejected all forms of artificial contraception,
including the pill and condoms. The book sold 7,000 copies after its
publication in 2002 and was celebrated in the anticontraception
movement, which remains largely Roman Catholic but has a growing
conservative Protestant wing. As young Protestants who conceived their
first child on their honeymoon, the Torodes made perfect evangelists.

That was then, this is now.

In 2006, the Torodes wrote on the Web that they no longer believed
natural family planning was the best method of birth control. They
divorced in 2009. Both now attend liberal churches. Ms. Patchin -- that
is her name once again -- now says she uses birth control, and she even
voted for Barack Obama for president.

"I was 19 when we got married," Ms. Patchin said by telephone from
Nashville, where she and her former husband live and share custody of
their four children. "And I was 20 when we had Gideon. My parents
weren't anti-birth-control; they were pretty middle-ground evangelicals.
So I kind of rebelled by being more conservative. That was my
identity."

Read more at The New York Times

Praying that the mom and dad will find it in their hearts to remarry for the sake of their children. And yes, that is a good reason to keep a marriage together, because it's really not all about us.