Great interview questions from Keri Lenartowick; highly long-winded answers from yours truly. One reasonably sensible part: Kerri asks about teaching millennials about NFP. My answer:
I think that people of that age are in the habit of questioning reality. When something is presented as true, they just automatically question whether it’s ‘really really true,’ or just ‘fake-true,’ so I think it’s very important to be very clear with people that this is not a trick – this is not some kind of illusion that we are talking about.
… It’s one thing to be a sucker if you’re sitting in a movie theater and you got tricked into thinking that that guy’s guts are getting pulled out or King Kong really is on the Empire State building or whatever, and then you realize, ‘oh that’s not really true, ha ha I got fooled,’ but if you’re a few years into your marriage and you realize, wow I got fooled – that is a whole other thing, and that is a really serious disturbance, especially when it’s being done in the name of religion. When people are presenting something as God’s teaching and it turns out not to be true, that’s incredibly damaging.
I would rather err on the side of scaring people a little bit, as long as you also present the beauty of it. I think that’s extremely important to present it as something that is hard but beautiful – and I think people are going to be up to that challenge, but people are not – and rightly so – going to be up to the challenge of being lied to and getting over it, because that’s too painful and humiliating and damaging.
I also make a comparison between “prosperity Gospel” Christians and NFP cheerleaders who promise sunshine and lollipops as your just and guaranteed reward for foregoing contraception — but I fail to come up with a snappy name. Anybody?