The Advent of Life - 20th Century

December 13, 1959
Akron

The precious legends and lovely carols of Christmas tide tell us that it was "with gladness that the men of old did the guiding star behold." The advent of life of one baby in the first century made such an impact on Christian culture, that within a few decades after the real event, poets and theologians cherished wonder stories and dogmatized beautiful traditions into miracles. The winter festival of gladness has origins in many lands and cultural ways, but exalted above all in Christian lands in the glory of the advent of the living baby, Jesus. In song we rehearse its beauty, but in sermon today, I would speak to you about some stern realities and controversial aspects of the advent of life in the twentieth century.

One of the great religious issues of our day is the enormous growth in population, the capacity of our world to assimilate the increase and the focus of our world to assimilate the increase and the focus of responsibility for constructive, moral programs which will provide that the advent of life will not snuff out the living and extinguish the values humans hold most dear.

In BRAVE NEW WORLD REVISTED, Aldous Huxley pointed out that on "the first Christmas Day the population of our planet was about two hundred and fifty millions - less than half the population of modern China. Sixteen centuries later, when the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth, human numbers had climbed to a little more than five hundred millions. By the time of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, world population had passed the seven hundred million mark. In 1931, it stood at just under two billions. Today, there are more than two billion, eight hundred thousand of us, and tomorrow, what?"

When the President of the United States forcefully said the matter of birth control policy was a religious matter and emphatically stated, "not a proper political or government activity or function or responsibility," he was responsible for numerous waves of political, religious and personal reactions. Politically, the President may have ensured the nomination by the Democratic Party of the Massachusetts senator, Jack Kennedy, by cooling off the political hot potatoes which could have burned Kennedy's chances to a crisp. Religiously, the President was by no means persuasive in convincing all people that the official position of the Roman Catholic hierarchy should be authoritative for the President of the United States, even when election draws near. Personally, his statement and the catalytic agent which caused the production of this sermon.

In this season of carols and candle, when we again sound thee welcome to a baby of long ago, there is a real question of whether there can be too many babies in our world. I would like to offer these propositions: 1) That the whole question is both religious and political; 2) that there is a religious dilemma which confronts both Catholics and Protestants; 3) that the problem which is emerging is not only more complex than the Roman hierarchy asserts, but also is unprecedented in human history; 4) that while any answers are agonizingly difficult, if we are concerned that religion should be good for living, then at the very least we must begin to recognize the dimensions of the issue.

It seems to me that the President was either confused or one-sided when he rejected discussion of the "population explosion" by classifying it as a religious issue only. Because the Roman Catholic Church takes a dogmatic position on a controversial situation is neither reason for acquiescing to their demands, nor assuming that it is not an authentic public issue.

Religious differences and politically controversial matters are seldom mutually exclusive. The principle of separation of church and state has never implied that religious convictions should not confront political questions. Politics is controversial because the social direction of organized parties and governments affect the customs and principles by which people live. The unadorned fact is that this is the stuff of religion, too -- the customs and principles by which people live. Historically, religious attitudes have always molded public laws and attitudes and vice-versa. Furthermore, as one discerning writer to the New York Times pointed out, "If the issue is taken as purely religious, why are the views of but one religious group?"

When the United States hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church strongly opposes the validity of birth control as a matter of public interest, their position is somewhat inconsistent. Historically, the Roman Catholic Church has always attempted to enforce its dogmas through the laws and agencies of government. During a period of controversy with King Phillip IV of France, in 1302, Pope Boniface VIII, issued the famous bull unam sanctum. This is the unmistakable claim, never retracted, that the Papacy has supreme authority over civil powers. All worldly powers must be subject to the Pope. As Church Father, Thomas Aquinas said, commenting on this command, "it is altogether necessary for every human being to be subject to the Roman Pontiff."

Now speaking in this vein may seem to incorporate the flavor of intolerance, but if you subtract this possible bias, you will still be confronted with formidable facts. In countries such as Spain, Italy, numerous Latin American nations, pre-communist Poland and other places where Roman Catholics have been a strong numerical majority, the Roman Catholic hierarchy has maintained control over civil life, public education, and suppressed and censored the teachings and public life of other religions.

We are not exempt. In two states of the United States, Massachusetts and Connecticut, the political efforts of the Roman Catholic church have successfully legislated against the release of birth control information. n these two states, if a physician wishes to advise married couples on how to prevent conception from occurring, he will break the law if he does so. It is of no account, legally, how badly this information may be needed for medical, economic or social reasons. If this information is given, the law is broken.

Thus, the President's adoption of the Catholic viewpoint that birth control is a "religious not political affair," quite overlooks the reality that for long years it has been a public and political affair and the Roman Catholic church would have it no other way.

On the other hand, it is a fact that federal funds are financing material [to] health clinics which provide birth control help and information in seven of our states where such information is not illegal. From either side of the argument, the facts are that the issue cannot be restricted to a private "religious" affair, because it is and has been public and a subject of legislation.

Roman Catholic opposition to birth control research and information is well-known. No so well publicized, but more important to us, is the candid proclamation by our own Universalist Church of America, the American Unitarian Association, the United Presbyterian Church, the Lambeth Conference of the Episcopal Church, the Congregational Church and the Methodist Church among others, that family planning is a matter of individual family conscience. In order to plan parenthood, obviously, information to prevent conception must be the subject of research and the information made easily available.

When the Protestant religions present such a united front, is it because they don't like Catholics, or don't like babies, or both? Or is our concern stirred because increasing population presents mankind with difficult choices requiring wisdom and sound policy?

Let's look at the facts of the population explosion:

Not long ago the United Nations published a report, "The Future Growth of World Population." Since 1944, the net population has been increasing at an amazing rate. In 1957 and 1958 alone, 90 million people were added to the world population. "It took 200,000 years for the world's population to reach 2500 million. According to population experts' predictions, it will take a mere thirty years to add another 2,000 million. If fertility remains at present levels, world population will reach the three billion mark in 1962, four billion in 1977, five billion about 1990 and six billion before 2000," (Editorial in THE CHURCHMAN).

Nearly two hundred years ago, Thomas Malthus, (1798), formulated his gloomy theory that the human population would always increase much more rapidly than the means of feeding it. Therefore, he reasoned, that when human populations were greater than the supply of food, human populations would always be reduced drastically by famine, war and disease.

The Malthusian law has not been validated. The discovery and exploitation of continents abundantly wealthy in natural resources, North America, South America and Australia, particularly, have served to contradict, or at least postpone Malthus' grim prediction of disaster.

But the continents are all discovered now. In these years of our lives the blessing of medical research, application and new understanding of the value of sanitation, have extended the expectancy of life all over the world. Healthier people are living longer although many millions are still in the ragged edge of starvation and fatal disease. Because so many are stronger, the babies are not dying at birth in such high numbers. They are living and will be the parents of still larger families of healthier, longer-living people. But eventually the birth rate must equal the death rate, because human populations cannot increase without limit.

Food production figures have been somewhat contradictory. But even though world-wide agricultural increases are at present slightly in excess of the net population increase, in the less developed areas where starvation has been the rule, much of the increased production lifts some to the subsistence level, but offers no continuing solution.

Sir Charles Galton Darwin in his book, THE NEXT MILLION YEARS illustrated the fact that increased production alone is not likely to solve the problem of over-population.

Not long ago the Indian province of Sind was desert, mainly; the ground was fertile, but there was no rainfall.

Engineering brought irrigation, the desert became a garden and people who previously had been on the verge of starvation were to be fed adequately by means of this agricultural development. But things did not work out that way. After a few years the consequence was that a larger number of people eked out a bare existence, constantly on the verge of starvation.

There are those who maintain that undiscovered ways of manufacturing good -- using the untapped resources of the sea, developing chemically produced food, or even the late Charles Kettering suggested, discovering a way to nourish ourselves directly from the sun by solving the mystery of photosynthesis.

But even if it were possible to solve the problem of feeding constantly increasing billions of people, the space on this planet is limited. From this point of view, few of us relatively, will want to migrate to the moon, even when this journey is possible technically.

Harrison Brown in his book, THE CHALLENGE OF MAN'S FUTURE, told of the English engineer who surmised that in the future, because of the crowded condition of the planet, everyone will live in skyscraper apartment houses and seldom leave their own quarters. Nourishment would be piped in. Social life and entertainment would be conducted by private and public television units. Does that prospect attract you?

Under such ant-hill conditions, the real values we cherish would have disappeared. Life would of necessity be rigidly regulated. Man would be a unit in a pigeon hole, a punch on a card. The qualities that make life worth living -- creativity, freedom, democracy and the supreme worth of the individual would be no more than vague, historic memories, if that.

It is in the face of these probabilities and possibilities that the question of limitation of population assumes its vital nature.

If we provide under-developed countries with the assistance to save millions from starvation, how can we refuse them the help to limit the tremendous population which will be the sure consequence of better living, if unchecked?

The Roman Catholic position is that necessary research and distribution of information is against the will of God, because it will prevent children from being born. To such a claim, one may ask, "is it the will of God that children should be born for the purpose of starving on filthy streets?"

James Reston, Washington correspondent of the N.Y. Times, summarized the case for population limitations (Thursday, 12/10/59): "The issue is not whether the United States should intervene in the affairs of other countries to tell them what they should do about controlling their population. There is general agreement that it should not."

When food or machinery are given to a country, it's possible the allocation means that the population growth will exceed the capacity of the aid given. "When foreign aid funds are given to wipe out disease, and the death rate is reduced without a commensurate lowering of the birth rate, the net effect may be more human misery rather than less."

Through concerned effort in the last five years, Japan has actually reduced the birth rate from 34.3 per thousand (in 1947) to 17.2 in 1957. Japan now has the lowest population growth in Asia. The effort to limit the birth rate began among the young people, one reporter tells us. They were protesting against poverty. As a consequence, the amount of goods per family has increased and the Japanese home is beginning to approach the standard of the European home. In one specific instance, we see that deliberate limitation of population through birth-control has contributed to individual welfare and national stability.

No one should be forced to limit their family, but those who want to provide a life of minimum decency for a smaller, planned number should have available medically approved, low-cost methods and instruction.

Historian Arnold Toynbee points out, "another world war would destroy civilization.... If a major war is avoided, overpopulation will soon threaten the very civilization that has been saved. Too few people will be left if we have a major war; too many will soon crowd the earth if we do not...."

A cynic has said what we need are wars exactly the right size. There is not much consolation in yielding the problem to Time and Nature. Their solution will not please us. It will be crude, cruel and respect persons no more than Adirondack deer....

Under the pressures of the Roman Catholic hierarchy and our own inhibitions, we have been reluctant to conduct full discussions of this problem -- next to radiation poisoning, the greatest threat to humanity. We need not shy away from the search for knowledge and frankness in debate any more than we should feel abashed to discuss cancer or T.B.

Christmas is the advent of light and life. Creation was the signal to sing joyously of peace and goodwill. Few events symbolize more beautifully the worth of every individual in the scale of eternity. It was not enough that Jesus should be born. There was no room in the inn, but there was in the stable. He had to have space to grow in wisdom and stature.

The advent of life in our century need not fear Herod's might, but a more abundant life for more people will be measured by the values created by persons who are able to rear their young under conditions which make living possible and worth-while. Every mother should be able to speak of the life within her with the same joy and wonder as Mary,

"my soul doth magnify the Lord
And my spirit rejoiceth in God, my savior.
......
He hath filled the hungry with good things."