The name or title “Q” is known to geeks and many others as the godlike creature in Star Trek the Next Generation. He was part of something called the “Q Continuum,” a race of fellow godlike beings who apparently liked being aloof and distant from mankind. This Q claimed he had benevolent feelings for humanity (include in this all the races of intelligent beings STNG insisted existed, please), and was just trying to figure man out. Usually, however, he did this by putting people in outrageous and impossible situations. He found out how to create these situations by asking questions about cultural ethics, values, and resolves, or at least those that the scriptwriters claimed man held. He would then reduce people to helplessness and cause them to fail. He was trying to help man, he insisted. He was trying to show the crew of the Enterprise how unprepared mankind was.
A conference of young evangelicals calling itself “Q,” hosted by Gabe Lyons, met in the middle of April of this year. Among other things the conference advocated providing contraceptives to singles in evangelical churches, as a ministry of the church. The name Q seems appropriate, given the repeated insistence by the group that they were caring and concerned, that they only wanted to help people, to get them prepared for the realities of life. I don’t know much about this Gabe Lyons or his organization, and I don’t know why he chose this name for it. It just seems ironically appropriate.
An excellent article in Christianity Today addresses these misguided people and their “Solution.” Matthew Lee Anderson points out that the conference advocated contraceptives because of the epidemic of abortions in evangelical churches. To those who protested that women who get pregnant should have their babies with the help of the church, they respond that no church member is going to be there with that mother when the baby starts to cry at 3 AM.
Please back up a step, Q, Gabe Lyons, and the rest of evangelical and many other kinds of Christianity. Maybe more than a step. You have given all mankind permission to fail. You have said that sin is inevitable. Single people are going to have sex. They are either going to use contraceptives or abort their babies. You have insisted the only way to stop this is with contraceptives. If we leave them alone with a crying baby at 3 AM what else will they be unable to stop themselves from doing?
Please explain to me why Jesus Christ bothered to die on the cross? I thought it was for sin. In fact, I’m sure it was. Even for the sin of being tempted to have sex while unmarried. He not only died for it, He provided the power to overcome it. If abstinence, true chastity and continence are jokes, then so is the Cross of Christ. The Cross, the sacrifice, the atonement, are all so much more than just Jesus “loving us.” Salvation is so much more than us “loving Jesus back.” The atonement is power, crackling supernatural energy to submit to God and do all kinds of amazing things that make sin anything but inevitable. Putting a condom in your pocket or a birth control pill in your mouth, as Anderson says, is admitting you’re going to fail. Wrapping the sheltering wings of Almighty God around you and strapping into place the armor of God is insisting that you’re going to succeed, not by your own power, but by tapping into the ultimate power source.
http://bit.ly/JmrZQG Christianity Today “Why Churches Shouldn’t Push Contraceptives to Their Singles.” Matthew Lee Anderson, posted 4/25/2012 10:46 AM
Gabe Lyons’ website http://bit.ly/JbfF8e
FINDLEY FAMILY VIDEO 
To assume a single Christian will fall to sexual temptation is both ludicrous and insulting to those of us who abstain. I’ve been single and celibate for over 20 years. How? I’m praying and waiting for God’s match for me instead of chasing after something that looks good but leads to heartbreak or worse.
Why? Because in the year before I committed my life to Jesus, I went there, did that – and I mean all of it. Chased after a relationship with a man, had unprotected sex, got pregnant and made the utterly wrong choice to abort when I was eight weeks along. Now, my heart breaks all over again each year at Mother’s Day. I know God has forgiven me; I know my daughter in heaven has forgiven me (the Lord blessed me with the knowledge of her gender through a vision, and He allowed me the grace of naming her); and I’ve forgiven myself. Still, the regret is always there, and the day we celebrate mothers continues to be difficult for me 25 years later.
Contraceptives as ministry? What a load of hogwash. Truth, spoken in love and walked out, is the only real ministry.
Thank you, Traci. May God comfort you as you encourage us.
I volunteered at a crisis pregnancy center. You know how many women went through the training and then would drop out and never volunteer because it was simply too heart breaking? At least nineteen out of twenty.
Imagine if just volunteering to help these people is hard, imagine being in their shoes after society gave them permission to have sex and just chose to ignore the reality that it has consequences. Imagine their surprise when “things didn’t work out as promised”.
Why is this a problem? Because in theory, birth control and condoms sound good. But sitting across from a tearful twelve-year-old that is pregnant or has a venereal disease is heartbreaking.
Condoms do not prevent pregnancy, aids, or any of a dozen diseases. Birth control can cause death through thrown blood clots and again, it does fail. Just look at the Yaz lawsuit going on now. Young healthy girls dropping dead from thrown clots.
Abstinence before marriage is good for society, former fetuses, and women’s health. It’s much better than the alternatives.
Your additions to the subject are excellent, Lisa. This knowledge is so very needed. Thank you!