A Protestant View of Population Control

Abstract

To discuss this subject from a Protestant point of view requires some preliminary clarifications. In the first place, there is no systematic or widely authoritative formulation of the Protestant position. That would be contrary to both the history and genius of Protestantism. A study of statements by the various churches in regard to responsible parenthood offers rather convincing evidence that a real and significant consensus is in the making. There is a rapidly growing body of theological conviction on the ends of marriage and the means of family planning. But this emerging Protestant consensus has the incompleteness of an historical evolution. Neither the presuppositions nor implications have been elaborated in a systematic way. Consequently, to present this evolving consensus in a coherent manner requires more than a little personal analysis and interpretation. For this task, no authority can be cited other than the possible sense that the analysis may make. While the writer hopes that this presentation is just to the actual consensus in process of becoming, it should be clear that he writes in a personal capacity. The views here expressed in no way commit either the Commission that he serves or its parent bodies, the World Council of Churches and the International Missionary Council. At the time of writing, the so-called Mansfield Report, the findings of the Ecumenical Study Group on Responsible Parenthood and the Population Problem, appears the most representative expression of non-Roman Christian opinion.1 Yet, as the World Council Executive Committee noted, in authorizing its publication as a document for study, it had not been adopted by any committee of the World Council of Churches.2 Furthermore, while official statements in certain communions have considerable authority for their members, this is not the case in other Protestant churches. Even less can any formulation or application of doctrine be made binding for Protestantism as a whole. The idea is contrary to the ethos of the Reformation and to the nature of the present fellowship of churches. It is only as the insights of ecumenical statements commend themselves to the leaders and members of the churches that they acquire a kind of de facto authority. The distinction made by my Congregational forbears between ministerial or spiritual authority and magisterial authority may have application here. * A.B. 1932, B.D. I935, Yale University. Executive Secretary, Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, The World Council of Churches and the International Missionary Council. Secretary, Ecumenical Study Group on Responsible Parenthood and the Population Problem, Mansfield College, Oxford, 1959. Author, THE POPULATION EXPLOSION AND CHRISTIAN RESPONSIBILITY (1960). 1 See A Report on Responsible Parenthood and the Population Problem, I2 ECUMENICAL REV. 85 (1959) [hereinafter cited as Report], for the text of the Report. 2 Ibid.