1986 March/April issue Part 1

Mary Pride's Book

In the July/August and September/October Newsletters of 1985 I mentioned Mary Pride's book, The Way Home. I have received several inquiries as to my views on some of the things Mrs. Pride says. Other NL readers may have wondered about the same things, and lest my mentioning the book be taken as an unconditional endorsement let me say that I did not intend it to be quite unconditional. While I say Brava! to her disavowal of feminism, and applaud the strong encouragement to understanding motherhood as a high form of service to the Lord and her urging women to stay home, I recognize that she is both a young woman and a fairly new Christian. More years and more experience may modify some of her assertions. I would take issue with her on the following subjects:

1. The purpose of marriage. Yes, without question God's original intention was progeny. But the New Testament also reveals a tremendous mystery, signalled in the union of husband and wife: the relationship between Christ and the Church. I see this as a drama or mystery-play in which men and women, by obedience, enact headship and submission as they are enacted both in the Trinity and in the order of the Church. The Christian home, in other words, is a sort of theater where this great truth is represented daily. (See my book, The Mark of a Man.)

2. Contraception. It seems to me that the issue is, May a Christian couple exercise any choice at all? I believe,with Mrs. Pride that a Christian couple may not choose to opt out altogether of the responsibility of having a family. It was what God meant when He ordained marriage. The spacing and number of pregnancies, however, may be a matter for choice. As soon as I say that I must add that what is right for some is not necessarily right for all. Love for God is self-giving, as is His love for us, and we exercise choices as responsible adult Christians in a spirit of total willingness to be and have what in His heart we are meant to be and have. Some believe that the so-called "natural" methods of contraception are acceptable while mechanical or surgical methods are not. This has been the official Roman Catholic position. (For an explanation, see for example the Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Pope Paul VI, Of Human Life, July 1968.) The encyclical presents a strong and reasonable case for using the natural method.

3. On wives earning money at home. Mrs. Pride's belief that women ought to earn money at home, whether it is an economic necessity or not, finds scant support in Scripture. I look on it as a "burden too heavy to be borne" by many young wives and mothers. I do not find it in the New Testament list of women's responsibilities (see Newsletter, May/June 1985).

4. On a man's self-employment. Is it God's ideal? It would appear so when God put Adam in charge of a garden and of all the creatures of the earth. But man demolished God's ideal. In a fallen and broken world we must learn to live a godly, righteous, and sober life in conditions God never intended at the beginning. Employment is perhaps one of those, but was accepted in New Testament times as one area in which Christians may glorify God-by faithful performance of work, by respectful obedience to those put over him.