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The Bible and Birth Control
Martin Luther once proclaimed that "the purpose of marriage is not pleasure and ease but the procreation and education of children and the support of a family.... People who do not like children are swine, dunces, and blockheads, not worthy to be called men and women, because they despise the blessing of God, the Creator and Author of marriage" (Christian History, Issue 39, p. 24).
Luther also said that birth control was the equivalent of sodomy (probably because of the likeness between homosexual wickedness and impotent sex).
John Calvin declared that birth control was the murder of future persons and the Synod of Dort issued a Bible commentary which stated that contraception was the same as abortion.
If you are shocked by the strong statements from these Godly men, that really is not too surprising, because Protestant opposition to birth control has largely been forgotten in our decadent 21st century.
If you want to know about Biblical principles which oppose contraception, or wish to know what the Reformers and their heirs thought about this important subject, we certainly hope that you will get this book!
Luther also said that birth control was the equivalent of sodomy (probably because of the likeness between homosexual wickedness and impotent sex).
John Calvin declared that birth control was the murder of future persons and the Synod of Dort issued a Bible commentary which stated that contraception was the same as abortion.
If you are shocked by the strong statements from these Godly men, that really is not too surprising, because Protestant opposition to birth control has largely been forgotten in our decadent 21st century.
If you want to know about Biblical principles which oppose contraception, or wish to know what the Reformers and their heirs thought about this important subject, we certainly hope that you will get this book!
98 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
4 people are currently reading
50 people want to read
About the author
Charles D. Provan
5 books4 followersChristian theologian.
Provan was an advocate of a strict constructionist stance on contraception. His book The Bible and Birth Control is regarded as providing theological justification for adherents within the Quiverfull movement.
Provan was an advocate of a strict constructionist stance on contraception. His book The Bible and Birth Control is regarded as providing theological justification for adherents within the Quiverfull movement.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 20, 2013
A frank and uncompromising (that's a good thing) look at birth control from a strictly biblical and Protestant viewpoint. Extremely good.
August 23, 2009
This book will change the way you look at birth control. A well written book with scripture to back up every word.
January 10, 2026
This book takes the position that any form of contraception is a horrible sin. It does so from a historical Protestant point of view, relying heavily on the scriptures while also bringing in many voices from (mostly Protestant) church history to support this view.
I found the biblical case against all forms of contraception presented here to be quite weak, often reading much into the text. For example, using the sin of Onan in Genesis 38 as his primary proof text, the author never untangles the sin of Onan from his breaking of the Levirite marriage duties recorded in Deuteronomy 25 enough to be able to claim this passage condemns all forms of contraception. The author states that the only difference in the man from Deuteronomy 25 that is publicly shamed when he chooses not to fulfill his duty to his deceased brother and Onan is that Onan spilled his seed. But this is not the only difference. Another major difference is that Onan went through with marrying his brother’s wife. This makes it difficult to discern whether Onan’s sin was spilling the seed or purposefully failing to fulfill a duty he agreed to. If anything, reading the story of Onan made me lean toward thinking that all forms of contraceptive are not forbidden in the Bible since 1) Onan’s intentions to not raise up offspring for his brother is mentioned right after the mention of spilling his seed, a seemingly needless addition if spilling the seed itself was the primary evil and not the motive behind it 2) there is only one law recorded in the Bible that Onan broke and that was the levirite marriage laws of Deuteronomy 25 and 3) and the flip side of number 2, there is no explicit forbidding of spilling seed in the Bible, which would seem odd for something that is supposedly a great offense and a widespread practice in all cultures. While I don’t think this is a strong case FOR contraceptives, it makes me lean more toward the story of Onan being unusable to condemn contraceptives of all kinds.
Another section based on biblical data that I found quite contrived and outright false at times was the references to sexual sins in Leviticus. The author lists 4 kinds of sexual sin punishable by death (besides the sin of Onan according to the author), 1) Male homosexuality 2) Male bestiality 3)Female bestiality and 4) Intercourse during menstruation. The author says that the reason all of these were punishable by death is because they all involve spilling seed (even animal seed in the case of female bestiality). The author goes on to point out that lesbianism is not actually condemned in the Old Testament, and from this he draws the conclusion that it is not condemned because no seed is being spilled. The author goes so far as to say that while male homosexuals are sentenced to death in the Old Testament, female homosexuals are “prescribed life because only the male homosexual spills seed.” There are several obvious problems with all of this so far. Firstly, it is a great leap to go from the Old Testament’s silence on lesbianism to claiming that the Old Testament “prescribes life” for lesbians. This seems flatly false, making any efforts to guess at why God would “prescribe life” for lesbians but not male homosexuals quite futile. Additionally, for several of the sexual sins the author says are condemned because of the spilling of seed, the Bible gives the reasons for condemnation, and they are not for spilling the seed. For example, menstrual sex is condemned because “he has made naked her fountain, and she has uncovered the fountain of her blood.” Whatever the reasoning is here, it seems to be focused on the woman and not on the spilling of the male seed. These are the strongest pieces of biblical support the author gives, and they leave much to be desired. While searching for different opinions on this issue I ran across a Catholic apologist that admitted that without the Church giving it’s guidance, the Bible itself does not condemn all contraceptives, and this seems correct to me.
Speaking of the church then, the most persuasive part of the case of this book for me was that of the witness of those in church history. The author provides many quotes from historical Protestants condemning contraceptives of all kinds. While I haven’t dug deeply into church history on this topic, I think it’s highly plausible that this was the nearly unanimous position of the church until only the last 100 years, and that shouldn’t be taken lightly. It is difficult not to consider that you may be blinded by your cultural lens. At the same time, most of the quotes given are simple opinions on what the sin of Onan entailed with no more good reasoning from the text than the author provides. Is it possible that they were the ones with the cultural blinders? It certainly seems like most otherwise godly pastors and theologians today find some exceptions for the use of contraceptive unobjectionable, but are they blinded by their culture?
From all of this I’m left in a precarious position. If I were to bet my soul now on the basis of the Bible alone I would certainly bet against the idea that contraceptives of all kinds are condemned. On the other hand, the stakes are raised in that the vast majority of the church before me saw this as a damnable offense on the level of murder (again, partly based on the reasoning that the male seed was seen as human life). Perhaps one should take a sort of Pascal’s wager and err on the side of caution? After all, I can’t prove that contraceptives are permitted from the Bible either. And, I’m (for better or worse) not hard to scare into thinking I’m doing something that displeases God.
The last thing I noticed is that the arguments in this book seem to leave no room for even “natural family planning” in which a couple could abstain from sex entirely in order to avoid children. The author seems to see male semen itself as constituting human life, and the command to be fruitful and multiply to be for all married couples at all times. The author praises Rachel and Sarah for their desire for children, and Rachel specifically for her desire to have children being even greater than her desire for life (I found the use of these role models a little ironic since both appear to be examples of women who overemphasized the bearing of children such that they would give their husbands away to concubines to have more). I would have liked to ask the author some questions based on these views. Is it wrong even to abstain from sex to avoid children since our command is be fruitful and multiply and since the semen (that is human life) that I retain may die away in my body in the meantime? If I can, do I have a moral obligation to save nocturnal emissions for later use? The views in this books raise all kinds of difficult questions. As far as I understand, the current state of the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches allows natural family planning, and even approves some forms of contraceptives on a case by case basis due to risks to the life of the mother or other extenuating circumstances. But this book’s arguments would seem to condemn all of this. My concern is that I’m not sure, if I were to come to believe that all contraception is wrong, how I would not be forced to go all the way and condemn natural family planning and all exceptions. I feel if I accepted the argument of this book I would truly be left asking, “who then can be saved?” If I were to fall on the side of rejecting all contraceptives, I can’t imagine feeling like I could come to a strong enough conclusion on it to try to persuade anyone else that they should join me.
Having said all of that, I would recommend this book to help you think through the issue of contraception. Be open to where an honest look takes you as you seek God.
I found the biblical case against all forms of contraception presented here to be quite weak, often reading much into the text. For example, using the sin of Onan in Genesis 38 as his primary proof text, the author never untangles the sin of Onan from his breaking of the Levirite marriage duties recorded in Deuteronomy 25 enough to be able to claim this passage condemns all forms of contraception. The author states that the only difference in the man from Deuteronomy 25 that is publicly shamed when he chooses not to fulfill his duty to his deceased brother and Onan is that Onan spilled his seed. But this is not the only difference. Another major difference is that Onan went through with marrying his brother’s wife. This makes it difficult to discern whether Onan’s sin was spilling the seed or purposefully failing to fulfill a duty he agreed to. If anything, reading the story of Onan made me lean toward thinking that all forms of contraceptive are not forbidden in the Bible since 1) Onan’s intentions to not raise up offspring for his brother is mentioned right after the mention of spilling his seed, a seemingly needless addition if spilling the seed itself was the primary evil and not the motive behind it 2) there is only one law recorded in the Bible that Onan broke and that was the levirite marriage laws of Deuteronomy 25 and 3) and the flip side of number 2, there is no explicit forbidding of spilling seed in the Bible, which would seem odd for something that is supposedly a great offense and a widespread practice in all cultures. While I don’t think this is a strong case FOR contraceptives, it makes me lean more toward the story of Onan being unusable to condemn contraceptives of all kinds.
Another section based on biblical data that I found quite contrived and outright false at times was the references to sexual sins in Leviticus. The author lists 4 kinds of sexual sin punishable by death (besides the sin of Onan according to the author), 1) Male homosexuality 2) Male bestiality 3)Female bestiality and 4) Intercourse during menstruation. The author says that the reason all of these were punishable by death is because they all involve spilling seed (even animal seed in the case of female bestiality). The author goes on to point out that lesbianism is not actually condemned in the Old Testament, and from this he draws the conclusion that it is not condemned because no seed is being spilled. The author goes so far as to say that while male homosexuals are sentenced to death in the Old Testament, female homosexuals are “prescribed life because only the male homosexual spills seed.” There are several obvious problems with all of this so far. Firstly, it is a great leap to go from the Old Testament’s silence on lesbianism to claiming that the Old Testament “prescribes life” for lesbians. This seems flatly false, making any efforts to guess at why God would “prescribe life” for lesbians but not male homosexuals quite futile. Additionally, for several of the sexual sins the author says are condemned because of the spilling of seed, the Bible gives the reasons for condemnation, and they are not for spilling the seed. For example, menstrual sex is condemned because “he has made naked her fountain, and she has uncovered the fountain of her blood.” Whatever the reasoning is here, it seems to be focused on the woman and not on the spilling of the male seed. These are the strongest pieces of biblical support the author gives, and they leave much to be desired. While searching for different opinions on this issue I ran across a Catholic apologist that admitted that without the Church giving it’s guidance, the Bible itself does not condemn all contraceptives, and this seems correct to me.
Speaking of the church then, the most persuasive part of the case of this book for me was that of the witness of those in church history. The author provides many quotes from historical Protestants condemning contraceptives of all kinds. While I haven’t dug deeply into church history on this topic, I think it’s highly plausible that this was the nearly unanimous position of the church until only the last 100 years, and that shouldn’t be taken lightly. It is difficult not to consider that you may be blinded by your cultural lens. At the same time, most of the quotes given are simple opinions on what the sin of Onan entailed with no more good reasoning from the text than the author provides. Is it possible that they were the ones with the cultural blinders? It certainly seems like most otherwise godly pastors and theologians today find some exceptions for the use of contraceptive unobjectionable, but are they blinded by their culture?
From all of this I’m left in a precarious position. If I were to bet my soul now on the basis of the Bible alone I would certainly bet against the idea that contraceptives of all kinds are condemned. On the other hand, the stakes are raised in that the vast majority of the church before me saw this as a damnable offense on the level of murder (again, partly based on the reasoning that the male seed was seen as human life). Perhaps one should take a sort of Pascal’s wager and err on the side of caution? After all, I can’t prove that contraceptives are permitted from the Bible either. And, I’m (for better or worse) not hard to scare into thinking I’m doing something that displeases God.
The last thing I noticed is that the arguments in this book seem to leave no room for even “natural family planning” in which a couple could abstain from sex entirely in order to avoid children. The author seems to see male semen itself as constituting human life, and the command to be fruitful and multiply to be for all married couples at all times. The author praises Rachel and Sarah for their desire for children, and Rachel specifically for her desire to have children being even greater than her desire for life (I found the use of these role models a little ironic since both appear to be examples of women who overemphasized the bearing of children such that they would give their husbands away to concubines to have more). I would have liked to ask the author some questions based on these views. Is it wrong even to abstain from sex to avoid children since our command is be fruitful and multiply and since the semen (that is human life) that I retain may die away in my body in the meantime? If I can, do I have a moral obligation to save nocturnal emissions for later use? The views in this books raise all kinds of difficult questions. As far as I understand, the current state of the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches allows natural family planning, and even approves some forms of contraceptives on a case by case basis due to risks to the life of the mother or other extenuating circumstances. But this book’s arguments would seem to condemn all of this. My concern is that I’m not sure, if I were to come to believe that all contraception is wrong, how I would not be forced to go all the way and condemn natural family planning and all exceptions. I feel if I accepted the argument of this book I would truly be left asking, “who then can be saved?” If I were to fall on the side of rejecting all contraceptives, I can’t imagine feeling like I could come to a strong enough conclusion on it to try to persuade anyone else that they should join me.
Having said all of that, I would recommend this book to help you think through the issue of contraception. Be open to where an honest look takes you as you seek God.
January 5, 2013
This is a great book for those unfamiliar with the Biblical view of birth control. I felt that the author did a great job on laying out God's created order. Fertility and children are a blessing and great to be desired, while infertility and barrenness is a curse, something to be mourned and seen as undesirable.
It is sad that the author chose the story of Onan to be his platform on the subject. I felt his emphasis was misplaced slightly leaving many that read this to question the rest of his points.
God created man and woman, He joined them together in marriage, and He desires them to be fruitful and to multiply.
It should be enough for the Christian to see God's attitude toward childbearing and be instructed that to willfully desire that which is clearly set forth as unfortunate or a curse, meaning sterility and barrenness, is a perversion and breach of spirit.
This is a good short book that is worth reading.
Those Christians that desire infertility and barrenness should beware. God just might give them exactly what they desire.
It is sad that the author chose the story of Onan to be his platform on the subject. I felt his emphasis was misplaced slightly leaving many that read this to question the rest of his points.
God created man and woman, He joined them together in marriage, and He desires them to be fruitful and to multiply.
It should be enough for the Christian to see God's attitude toward childbearing and be instructed that to willfully desire that which is clearly set forth as unfortunate or a curse, meaning sterility and barrenness, is a perversion and breach of spirit.
This is a good short book that is worth reading.
Those Christians that desire infertility and barrenness should beware. God just might give them exactly what they desire.
December 26, 2024
So many great arguments in this book. I like how Provan has opposing arguments and rebuttals them. He really hit all the points on the topic of birth control. I also learned so much about the Onanistic sin. All of the commentary from theologians against birth control at the end were helpful as well!
May 24, 2017
This book definitely gave me a lot to consider. Though the phrase "birth control" is not in the Bible, it doesn't mean the Bible should not inform our decisions on such matters. If we really want to surrender all to God and seek Him in all our ways, we should study the Bible to see what God's principles direct us to in these decisions. Based on passages in scripture, the author argues that birth control is against the teaching of the Bible. I thought some of the arguments were stronger than others. The argument that was least convincing to me was the one he spent the most time on-- the passage about Onan. He makes arguments based on Old Testament death penalties for sexual offenses and "castration as a blemish," which I thought were a stretch. While I was skeptical and not fully convinced by those arguments, the book did reveal to me principles revealed in the Bible, which show that God is pro-family, pro-child, and there are never "too many" to God. There's no proof the command to be fruitful and multiply was ever reversed. Fertility and children are always blessings in scripture. The reasons most Christians give for using birth control are not supported by the principles in scripture. The motivations are usually rooted in fear and selfishness (e.g. I don't want the responsibility and inconvenience of more children/ I may not be able to provide for them financially, emotionally, etc.) God created human bodies to reproduce, and what are we saying if we acknowledge that God is in control of our bodies, that He knows what is best, that He opens and closes the womb, and yet we intentionally try to hinder the natural course of sex and reproduction the way God intended? I'm considering my own fears, selfishness, doubt, faith, and motivations in light of the Bible. Am I really willing to surrender all? The answer must be yes, but I'm still asking God to help me understand all that means for me.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 10, 2025
Excellent read. Very repetitive, but understandably so. A lot of hard hitting truth on the simple way God made marriage compared to today’s standard!
August 23, 2019
Has a good point but he goes way overboard on everything else. The only good point is 'children are a gift of God'.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews