Dean Inge believes Birth Control is an essential part of Eugenics, and
an essential part of Christian morality. On this point he asserts: "We
do wish to remind our orthodox and conservative friends that the Sermon
on the Mount contains some admirably clear and unmistakable eugenic
precepts. `Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? A
corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit, neither can a good tree
bring forth evil fruit. Every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit
is hewn down, and cast into the fire.' We wish to apply these words not
only to the actions of individuals, which spring from their characters,
but to the character of individuals, which spring from their inherited
qualities. This extension of the scope of the maxim seems to me quite
legitimate. Men do not gather grapes of thorns. As our proverb says, you
cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. If we believe this, and do
not act upon it by trying to move public opinion towards giving social
reform, education and religion a better material to work upon, we
are sinning against the light, and not doing our best to bring in the
Kingdom of God upon earth."
As long as sexual activity is regarded in a dualistic and contradictory
light,--in which it is revealed either as the instrument by which men
and women "cooperate with the Creator" to bring children into the
world, on the one hand; and on the other, as the sinful instrument of
self-gratification, lust and sensuality, there is bound to be an endless
conflict in human conduct, producing ever increasing misery, pain and
injustice. In crystallizing and codifying this contradiction, the Church
not only solidified its own power over men but reduced women to the most
abject and prostrate slavery. It was essentially a morality that would
not "work." The sex instinct in the human race is too strong to be bound
by the dictates of any church. The church's failure, its century after
century of failure, is now evident on every side: for, having convinced
men and women that only in its baldly propagative phase is sexual
expression legitimate, the teachings of the Church have driven sex
under-ground, into secret channels, strengthened the conspiracy of
silence, concentrated men's thoughts upon the "lusts of the body," have
sown, cultivated and reaped a crop of bodily and mental diseases, and
developed a society congenitally and almost hopelessly unbalanced. How
is any progress to be made, how is any human expression or education
possible when women and men are taught to combat and resist their
natural impulses and to despise their bodily functions?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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