Over the years, there has been no stone unturned when it comes to moral compromise at Christianity Today. They will call illegal immigrants Christians who should not be deported and de facto endorse Kamala Harris while their employees donate to her campaign. On the issue of homosexuality, they have promoted Side B Preston Sprinkle but also endorsed the so-called Respect for Marriage Act back in 2022, which codified gay “marriage” at a federal level. They are globalist, civil rights maximalist Christianity.
Although Russell Moore has functionally stepped aside from leadership, being replaced by a liberal DEI hire, the direction of Christianity Today has continued. In their latest piece entitled, “Men Should Bear the Brunt of Contraception,” they attempt to initiate a broader conversation in the church about male sterilization. The article is written by Justin Whitmel Earley, a Richmond lawyer and author who has specialized in self-help and relationships.
I vividly remember crying in the kitchen with my wife, Lauren. I was doing some dishes when Lauren put a pregnancy test on the counter next to me. That moment was totally unlike the others, where there was waiting, joy, and celebration. This one felt like a punishment and a total surprise. We already had three rambunctious boys under the age of 5. What’s more, the pregnancies had been hard on Lauren’s health. Her midwives had recommended against having another pregnancy for a while.
A year later, two things were true. First, we did what many faithful people of God have done before us when faced with unexpected children. We wrestled with God. We fought with each other. We talked with friends. And we changed. We made our peace with God’s plan. That fourth boy is now 7, and we love him with that indescribable love that is the blessing of parenting. He is a gift unlike any other.
This is an effeminate way to react to an unexpected pregnancy, especially from a husband and father. It is not a death in the family or even tears of joy (by his own admission) so crying like a woman over this is rather unbecoming of a man. The notion that this child was “unexpected” despite the well-documented connection between sex and pregnancy is a ridiculous appeal to self-pity. Treating what faithful men perceived to be a blessing as a punishment from God is deeply unbiblical.
The second truth is I got a vasectomy. Lauren scheduled it for me. We didn’t need to talk about it. It never occurred to me to pray about it. I never consulted a friend about it. I did not research it. I just tied off my ability to reproduce. But that way of making such a morally fraught decision was a mistake.
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Given that he was crying over a pregnancy reveal, no wonder she wore the pants on this decision. He literally let his wife get him snipped without a second thought. While he already had three sons at this point, he is still a lawyer so it is not like he lacked the means to afford another child or hire a maid to alleviate his wife’s burdens.
He proceeds to outline how his vasectomy was performed in an environment built upon the Sexual Revolution. This guy is not some convert to Christianity but had already spent time as a missionary in Shanghai before writing this cope statement. This is just retroactive ignorance from someone who was likely a name in Christian circles at the time.
When I ran to the doctor to get a vasectomy in my mid-30s, I had no idea I was standing in a world created by such chaos. I was just trying to care for my family. Having now learned much more about the history of sex ethics and a theology of the body, here is what I would recommend as a primer:
First, I have come to believe that Christians should have a strong preference for natural family planning. Even my Catholic brothers and sisters admit and allow for natural family planning through abstinence at certain times of the month. I used to find their arguments cheeky: Don’t ever separate the unitive and procreative aspects of sex (unless you want to separate them by natural family planning, wink, wink). But I give it much greater respect now.
The essence of the sexual revolution was the disconnection between sex and procreation. His initial hesitancy towards natural family planning perhaps reveals a perception that it was “low status” compared to the modern solutions.
Second, male contraception should be cautiously permissible. While natural family planning seems the wisest and safest choice, I find condoms or vasectomies permissible for a few reasons.
To start, they put the burden on the male and require him to take initiative to control himself and alter his life when it comes to sex. This is healthy for men. When sex is offered to men with no responsibilities or restrictions attached, men, women, and children suffer. When men are required to be responsible for sex, men, women, and children benefit.
One of the underlying premises in the article is that male sexual recklessness is worse than female sexual recklessness. Historically, a society can still survive when male promiscuity is regulated or restricted to “red-light districts,” but female promiscuity is a sign of decay. While prostitution and fornication are sinful, a man’s participation is always restricted by his means, so a man who is chasing sex is always paying for it. Part of the reason for a tradition of abstinence during periods of war (ex: Uriah the Hittite refusing to sleep with his wife) was to channel male drive towards the mission and away from sex. There is always an opportunity cost to chasing sex for a man, and it inhibits his potential. This should be a primary motivator against pornography, not how it affects women.
Male contraception also helps a man care for his family by allowing good and beautiful intimacy to flourish while stewarding his family’s stage of life. But it should not be encouraged outside marriage, since according to Scripture there is no place for sex outside of marriage. I also believe this should not be used lightly to delay children for a long period of time or to create a culture where children are optional in marriage.
But when you are in a committed marriage with children and having more would create unwise health or mental health issues, I stand by the idea of male contraception as a possibly wise option for a man to care for his wife and family.
The problem is that encouraging male vasectomies is inherently disconnecting sex from procreation and inevitably would be used to justify a “Christian” couple that seeks to be DINKS (Dual Income No Kids). In churches today, a pastor refusing to wed a couple that did not want children would be controversial. This is in spite of the traditions that Catholics and Protestants have held for centuries.
His appeal to mental health is a sign of mental weakness, but it should be noted that the abortion industry uses this same appeal to justify abortion. Just as it is not a legitimate reason for murder, it is not a legitimate justification for male contraception.
Third, female contraception should be strongly avoided. It is simply wrong for men to put the burden of family planning on altering more complex female biology. It may even be evil when it is driven largely by a willingness to complicate or damage the female body to simplify and increase the pleasures of the male body…
Of course, some women use birth control for medical, hormonal, and health reasons. But the default assumption that women should be altering their bodies to give men sex with no side effects puts the burden in the wrong place. Men and women are better off when men are held to the very highest responsibility for sex.
He is articulating that men put women on birth control for their own hedonistic desires which blames men for the sins of women. This is long-house reasoning. Men did not “put the burden” of contraception onto women. Women have been procuring abortions since ancient times, often finding plants that terminate their pregnancies or outright sacrificing them to the gods. Sinful women like committing sexual sin. Even when women have the means, they will still want to be perceived as sexually desirable.
There is much to be said about certain nefarious groups involved in promoting the pill, but ultimately, women were the ones who championed it. The feminists of the 1960s were the most prominent proponents of birth control and abortion. When men fool around, there is always a cost, but the pill gives women moral hazard to be whores without immediate costs. When women have license for sexual sin without consequences, social destabilization follows. The marriage and fertility crises seen in 2026 are the results of feminism and the pill, not men participating in the world’s “oldest profession.”
Earley concludes the article by saying that if he could do it all over again, he would but with “sobriety and reverence.” He thinks his problem was not in his actions, but his attitude at the time. Ultimately, he punts on the question of male contraception for Christians to reconsider, despite the issue of contraception having been thoroughly considered throughout Church history and found contrary to his actions.
Even when Christianity Today introduces compromise on male contraception, they do so in a flaccid article like this which is dependent on feminist reasoning written by a man who let his wife geld him without objection.
