Background. 1.
There is nothing new or revolutionary in any of the sexual immoralities practiced today. They were existent in Old Testament times and were common in the Roman Empire before Christianity led to the revolutionary rejection of these behaviors as sinful. What has been revolutionary in the last couple of centuries has been the rejection of biblical and Christian sexual morality by people who still call themselves Christian.
How did we get to this state? The Apostle John wrote: “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.” (1 Jn 4:18) I submit that something like the opposite is also true. Perfect fear casts out love. That’s where we are today. I suggest that we can, for practical purposes, date the start of the modern sexual revolt as 1798. That was when Thomas Robert Malthus, a 32-year-old economist and Anglican clergyman published An Essay on the Principle of Population. He alleged that population will grow geometrically while food supplies will grow only arithmetically. Fear of overpopulation and starvation. Malthus advocated self-control for family limitation and perhaps late marriage. Self-control in 1798 would have meant total abstinence until menopause.
In 1823, the neo-Malthusians continued the fear factor but dropped Malthus’ morality and recommended contraception via condoms. By 1873, the birth control debate came to the United States and the Comstock laws, passed by essentially Protestant legislatures for a basically Protestant country, made illegal the sale and distribution of birth control devices.
John F. Kippley
Sex and the Marriage Covenant