Vic, my Friend,
Have you EVER had an original thought! Or are you just a puppet for the Vatican puppet-masters?
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Pastor Chuck Smith, the patriarch of Calvary Chapel, has once again disappointed Christians by handing out extra-biblical advice claiming that children are a liability and that Christians should use birth control.
"We are deeply disturbed by this latest gaffe by Pastor Chuck Smith. The Bible clearly teaches Christians that children are a blessing, a reward, a joy, and a gift. Grandchildren are a crown to the aged. The Bible nowhere mentions children as a liability," said Troy Newman, President of Pro-Life Nation. "Smith's thinking is of the kind that has given us eugenics, abortion, and other human rights abuses."
The statements came on the radio program "Pastor's Perspective," which aired Monday, April 30, 2012, after a caller named Sophia asked the following question: "I have a question in regards to Christians and contraception. Should we be engaged in taking contraception?"
Pastor Smith indeed recommended that Christians use contraception to control family size and went on to encourage artificial birth control because of the high cost of raising children and because they do not produce any financial benefit to the family.
In addition to advocating for artificial birth control, Smith's co-host, Don Stewart, espoused the false notion that the world is over populated and offended many Christians with strong convictions about birth control by openly mocking natural family planning methods. "Whatcha call people who use that? You call them 'parents' because that never seemed to work there." Smith stated:
You know it used to be that a lot of children were assets. A child coming into the home was an asset because it was an agrarian society and you all had your own farms and the more children, the more help you had on the farm, and all.
But, you know, as time when on and we became really a - no longer an agrarian society, but, you know, one that was really sort of dependent upon manufacturing, and so forth, children no longer became an asset, but they became a liability and I think that when you figure now how much it costs to raise a child through high school and all, a lot of people, you know, they just say, "Well, who needs them?" You know, because it does just cost a huge amount of money to clothe them and feed them and all when they're not really producing or are productive at bringing back into the family, you know, financial assets and so forth, and thus they are a liability, rather than an asset today.
Smith's answer reflected a Malthusian philosophy and utilitarianism, rather than Biblical Christianity. Malthusianism is a philosophy that advocates population control through artificial contraception as a preventative for poverty and environmental harm. Utilitarianismis a theory of pragmatic ethics that teaches things -- and people -- have value only as long as they are useful. Smith blends both philosophies by indicating that if children cannot contribute financially, then they become a liability whose birth should be prevented.
This is consistent with comments made by Smith on the same radio program on Feb 8, 2011, where he advocated for the abortion of conjoined twins.