Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A good source for *honest* Christians, September 10, 2001
By A Customer
Provan's book makes a very good case against contraception and the contraceptive mentality. "Very good" is an understatement -- "airtight" is more fitting.His presentation is excellent and his provision of church leaders to prove that prior to the 20th century *all* Christians new that contraception was sinful. Unfortunately, I have a hard time getting people to read the book. They will dismiss it apriori by saying that the world "needs" contraception, or that "scripture doesn't specifically forbid it" (which is semantic dancing), or "since contraception didn't exist in biblical times, it can't have said that". I fear for those who dismiss Provan's arguments based on the thought of the worldly. They may call themselves Christian, but they are not following God or Christ.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good but be cautious, September 28, 2009
I LOVE any non-Catholic book which discusses the evil of contraception and I am always happy when Protestants discover that contraception is against God's law. However, while this book is very good in that regard, it borders on hearsay, as the author seems to look at sex ONLY for procreation, neglecting any unative aspect (that aspect of the marital act which unites the spouses). I say this because there are passages in this book which seem to indicate that the author believes that sex while infertile (already pregnant, past menstruation, etc.) is considered contraception and hence gravely immoral. Now the author never says this, but I was left wondering if he believes this. So I have to say that one must be a little bit cautious when reading this because sex is BOTH procreative AND unative, and the two should never be artificially separated.
Other than that, the book is very good. It is full of bible verses illustrating that children are a blessing from God and barrenness is always something that is considered bad. There are also a plethora of quotes from Luther and many, many, many other PROTESTANT reformers on the evilness of birth control. It is important for the Protestant to realize that EVERY Christian denomination prior to 1930 unequivocally reject birth control as gravely immoral. Why? That question is worth looking into, and this book is a great place to start. It contains an essay by the author published in an article some years ago, as well as two responses to the article (the first is really, really bad, as it consists entirely of consequentialist thinking... very sloppy thinking for a Christian), and finally the author's final rebuttal. It ends with pages after pages of quotes from Reformers on the evilness of birth control, as I mentioned above. Very short, and can probably be read in one sitting.
Again, if you are a bible Christian, you owe it to yourself and the Lord to find out why Christians opposed birth control for the first 1900 years of Christianity.
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49 of 74 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Nice exegesis, but..., December 29, 1998
Provan builds a great case for the Biblical teaching against contraception, utilizing scripture, the testimony of Protestant church fathers (Luther, Calvin, Zwingli and the like), and the testimony of various Protestant church councils. What one finds most tragic, though, in reading this book is that nobody in the Protestant church is listening. This is the fruit that the Protestant reformation has sown. In rejecting the teaching ministry of the Church in favor of Sola Scriptura, the individual Protestant can look at the scriptural arguments Provan makes and say "nice exegesis, but I don't agree". Likewise, the individual Protestant can look at the testimony of the Protestant fathers and Protestant Councils and say "well, they're not infallible". Another irony...Provan takes great pains to show his readers that he's no Catholic, by including several anti-Catholic quotations. Yet here he is, reinventing the wheel on an important Christian doctrine, on which the Catholic church's teaching has been consistent. If he is right in his exegesis, and the Bible forbids contraception, his next question should be "what church teaches this? Where I will find the truth?" When he finds that there is only one church that teaches this, he would know that that is the church that God established, one, holy, catholic and apostolic... In making his case against contraception, Provan ultimately makes a case for the Catholic Church and against the Protestant Reformation. And thats a case that needs to be made, again and again, until once again the Christian church can stand unified before the world.
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