A few years ago, somehow I was engaged in an email debate with a person who said he was Orthodox and accepted the current Orthodox opinion dealing with their acceptance of contraception and second marriages. He was bragging that in his church there was all peace and no upsetting division, debate, etc. I explained to him that the Orthodox leadership had simply caved on Christ’s teaching on the permanence of marriage and the once universal condemnation of marital contraception.
One trouble with the current Orthodox teaching is that it has no logical way of condemning sodomy even if pretending to be marriage. The whole purpose of contraceptive practice is to render the marriage act just as sterile as homosexual sodomy. Luther caught that one in his commentary on the Sin of Onan. And by that same logic, the current Orthodox opinion cannot logically say “no” to married couples engaging in the same anatomical acts that homosexuals engage in if that’s what the couple want to do by way of avoiding pregnancy.
As Walter Lippmann wrote back in 1929 as he reviewed the thinking of the revisionists of the 1920, the self-styled progressives “have followed the logic of birth control, not human nature.” Oh, various Orthodox clergy may offer opinions on various forms of birth control, but they remain opinions. The logic of birth control remains. It’s an all or nothing at all situation.
John F. Kippley
Sex and the Marriage Covenant