Interwar Debates on Birth Control

This chapter draws out the implications of contentious, early twentieth-century debates within the church about birth control and the purposes of sex within marriage. Church leaders persistently condemned artificial methods of contraception—particularly the 1920 Lambeth Conference, which denounced birth control despite strong opposition from a significant minority of bishops. At the 1930 Lambeth Conference, for the first time, the bishops cautiously agreed that married couples could use artificial methods of birth control in limited circumstances, but this did not signal a dramatic shift in Anglican teaching. While the 1930 Lambeth debate indicated broad episcopal support for positive, constructive, and forward-looking Christian guidance on sexual issues, as advocated by the church’s moral welfare organisations, it also revealed deep, unresolved tensions and ambiguities within Anglican approaches towards sexual morality and citizenship, which created ongoing difficulties for the church.