Case study: Bible studies help revitalize family planning

Case study:
       Bible studies help revitalize family planning
      Family planning programs in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic
Republic of Congo, began in the 1960s in a Protestant health center and later
expanded to other centers run by the government and churches. During the 1980s,
major donors funded efforts in clinical services, as well as public education through
posters, flip charts, radio, and television.

      During the 1990s, military and civil unrest led to the abrupt departure of
nearly all donor organizations and, with them, the funding for family planning.
Stocks of contraceptives in Kinshasa dwindled, and many experienced Congolese
family planning workers turned to other activities, including HIV/AIDS

      Eventually the health office of the national Protestant coordinating agency
(Eglise du Christ au Congo, or ECC) began to revitalize family planning clinical
services in about 30 church and government health centers in Kinshasa. The health
centers were again able to offer oral contraceptives, injectables, and IUDs.

      In the process, we and our colleagues at the ECC discovered that the lack of
public information over several years had allowed opposition to family planning to
grow among pastors and church members. They were simply misinformed about
reproductive physiology and the action mechanisms of modern contraceptives.
Their objections, however, were phrased in religious and biblical terms. Some
individuals were quite outspoken, spreading their message through radio preaching
and neighborhood prayer groups.

     Our team adopted two approaches to family planning education.
   • We emphasized clear explanations of contraceptives and methods of action.
   • We sought advice on the Bible passages that family planning opponents
      most often cited.

      The Bible study process covered several months. First we studied each
passage in our team's weekly Bible study. Then we asked a number of pastors and
theologians to comment on the passages. Finally, we submitted the Bible passages
to public discussion, both in churches and in health centers.

        Religion and the Bible were lively current topics of conversation in Kinshasa.
In fact, biblical arguments were often overheard in crowded public markets. Thus,
discussing the Bible during health talks (even in government health centers) was not
at all unusual. Health workers were quite comfortable citing and discussing Bible
passages. They encouraged questions and comments and later made notes for us on
what different people had said.

The ECC medical office then produced a booklet in French entitled, "Be
Fruitful: Bible Studies on Responsible Parenthood". The booklet contains the
following 11 one-page studies:

         Genesis 1:27-28         At the Creation
         Genesis 2:22-24         One flesh
         Genesis 3:16-19         After sin
         Genesis 38:6-10         The story of Onan
         I Samuel 1:1-8          A sterile couple
         Psalms 127 and 128      An inheritance from the Lord
         Matthew 24:15-22        Woe to those who are pregnant ...
         Luke 14:25-30           Be my disciple ... count the cost
         I Corinthians 7:1-6     Do not refuse yourselves to each other
         Ephesians 5:21-23       Submit yourselves... Love
         Ephesians 6:1-4         Children and parents

       On each page, a Bible passage is printed in full, followed by questions for
reflection, and a number of comments from men, women, pastors, a grandmother, a
teacher, and others are shown verbatim (see examples in accompanying boxes).
Readers were encouraged to think about the passages themselves and to discuss
them with friends. The passages stimulated much discussion and helped shed light
on the subjects of parenthood, husband-wife relations, and planning for the future.
During the Bible studies, participants frequently asked for technical information on
modern contraceptives, which the ECC team provided in a companion booklet.

      Two sample pages (in English) are shown below.

A sample page from the booklet "Be Fruitful"

GENESIS 1:27-28 AT THE CREATION
God created man in the image of himself, in the image of God he created
him, male and female he created them. God blessed them, saying to them,
"Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Be masters of the fish of
the sea, the birds of heaven and all the living creatures that move on
earth."

Questions for reflection
-- Reflect as a group on the meaning of the words "image of God" and
"subdue the earth".
-- To whom did God give these instructions: to the first human beings long
ago, or to us also in our day?
-- Do these verses say anything on the subject of family planning?
-- Do they forbid the use of contraceptive methods?

Some comments
A woman: "The image of God" means a being who acts with love, wisdom,
intelligence, and reasoning.
A theologian: The idea of "the image of God" is the foundation of human
dignity. Thus it is with dignity that the human being must be conceived and
born. We must take human dignity into account when we "fill the earth".
A pastor: This commandment to "fill the earth" -- it's probably the only
one we have obeyed!
A man: Children? Yes, you should have them, but not in a disorderly way.
"Be fruitful" and "multiply" -- those are not synonyms for disorder.
A pastor: Yes, these verses say something about family planning. God
gave the couple the ability to have children and to reason, in order to plan a
birth in an orderly way, with wisdom.

Another sample page from the booklet "Be Fruitful"

GENESIS 38: 6-10 THE STORY OF ONAN
Judah took a wife for his first-born Er, and her name was Tamar. But Er, Judah's
first-born, offended Yahweh, and Yahweh killed him. Then Judah said to Onan,
"Take your brother's wife, and do your duty as her brother-in-law, to maintain
your brother's line." But Onan, knowing that the line would not count as his, spilt
his seed on the ground every time he slept with his brother's wife, to avoid
providing offspring for his brother. What he did was offensive to Yahweh, who
killed him too.

Question for reflection
-- Why did God punish Onan?

A conversation among Christians
-- God punished Onan because he wasted his sperm. Nowadays, our word for
  doing that is "withdrawal".
-- No, that's not what his sin was. What he did wrong was disobey his father.
-- No, it was God that Onan disobeyed, and the law of Moses.
-- It seems to me that Onan's sin was selfishness. He didn't want to produce
  children in his brother's name, because they would compete with his own
  children for the family property. It was for his selfishness that he was punished.
-- His hypocrisy brought on the punishment. God sees the heart, not the outside of
  a person.

Comment from a Christian health educator:
        I remember one pastor who would not let me talk about sexuality or
condoms in his parish. Even after a long conversation about the story of Onan, he
wasn't convinced. Finally he asked me: "Have you ever used condoms yourself?" I
answered: "Of course, many times." Then he said: "Okay, fine. Go ahead and talk
about them to our church people."

The full booklet in French (produced in DR Congo) is available at this website:

http://www.ccih.org/doclibrary/bible_studies_on_fam_plan-eng-be_fruitful.doc

     A similar booklet, translated into English and adapted for use in Kenya, is
available at this website:

http://www.ccih.org/doclibrary/bible_studies_on_fam_plan-fr-soyez_feconds.doc

     In conclusion, we encourage readers to read, reflect on, and use these and other
Bible passages on the subjects of sexuality and family life. We welcome comments
on these passages, especially from Christians in the Global South.

        Judith and Richard Brown, Retired medical missionaries ( DRC, Haiti & Kenya)
                              Email: judithevansb@yahoo.com