At a young age, when each of us still lived at home with our parents, we both made a commitment to preserve our virginity until marriage.  We did this because of our Christian faith and because of the godly teaching of our parents.  Anyone who makes such a decision in today’s culture will no doubt face opposition and temptation.  Nevertheless, we were both faithful to our commitment and remained virgins until we were married, Amy at age 23 and Mark at age 32.

We are both thankful to have grown up in godly Christian homes, with parents who taught us to love God, to pursue the truth, and to do what is right no matter what the cost.

Amy’s parents and Mark’s parents are believing and practicing Christians.  Amy grew up going to Pentecostal churches with her parents; Mark grew up going to Baptist churches with his (along with occasional visits to Christian churches of various other denominations).

At the age of 25, Mark was received into the Holy Orthodox Church after a period of spiritual searching which included a study of the history of Christianity and the teachings of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, both of which have existed since the time of the apostles.

After Mark and Amy met, the Orthodox faith was one of their major topics of discussion.  Amy also decided to become Orthodox and was chrismated on November 13, 1999, the night before our wedding.  We now attend a Russian Orthodox church in Sydney, Australia.

We believe that contraception is incompatible with a Christian understanding of marriage, sexuality and human life.

We believe that God willed for there to be an inseparable link between the showing of love and the giving of life in marriage.  ‘‘What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.’’  (Mark 10:9)

We believe that marriage is intended by God to be an image of the divine love of Christ for his church, and that sexual union is to be an act of total self-giving to the other, in which nothing is suppressed or held back.  Because every form of contraception has as its aim the ‘‘holding back’’ of part of oneself, it is incompatible with the total self-giving love of Christian marriage.  The objectively disordered nature of contraception is not a property of any specific method or mechanism employed but rather is inherent to the act of the will by which man sets himself against the order established by God at creation.  ‘‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.’’  (Genesis 2:24)  The union of a man and woman in marriage is most fully expressed in the ‘‘one flesh’’ of their children.

We believe God gave parents the responsibility of raising children and educating them in spiritual truth and wisdom.  ‘‘Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.’’  (Proverbs 22:6)  ‘‘Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.’’  (Ephesians 6:4)

We believe that as parents we ought not abdicate this responsibility by turning our children over to unbelieving teachers in the tax-funded school system.  Furthermore, we believe that it would be wrong to use legal force through the coercive mechanism of taxation (see #5 below) to compel other people, against their will, to fund the education of our children.

The eternal and unchanging Law of God, which was revealed through Moses to the people of Israel at Mount Sinai over three thousand years ago, teaches that we are not to kill the innocent, to steal the property of another person, to commit adultery, to bear false witness or to envy what belongs to someone else.

Christ said that he had come ‘‘not to abolish the Law but to fulfill it’’ (Matthew 5:17) and that the entire Law of God can be summed up in two commands: ‘‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind’’ and ‘‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’’ (Matthew 22:37-40)

Bishop Kallistos Ware, one of the most widely-read Orthodox theologians alive today, in his book The Orthodox Way, writes that ‘‘coercion excludes love.’’  In other words, using coercion against another person is not compatible with the Law of God, because it is not an expression of love.  It is a violation of free will and a failure to acknowledge the image of God in the other person.  This is true whether or not the coercion is legally permitted, for the law of man cannot contravene the Law of God.

Unfortunately, coercion is the most basic characteristic of every political system devised by man in his flight from the Law of God.  Although the use of force may be justified in self-defense against a criminal or a military attacker, the initiation of force against a peaceful person can never be morally justified.  Nevertheless, rulers throughout history have used the coercive power of the government to impose their will on others and to take their property through taxation.  By means of democratic political elections, those who vote attempt to control the lives of other people: to dictate how they will finance their retirement and health care, how many hours they may work and at what wages, the subjects their children will be taught and how many days they must spend in school, where they may be permitted to live, and how a substantial portion of their earnings will be spent.

Coercion is no less contrary to love and to the Law of God simply because it is undertaken by many people rather than by a few people or by one person.  Suppose, for example, that a vote is held in a particular jurisdiction to decide whether or not to increase taxes to support the government schools in that area.  If the measure passes by winning a majority of the votes, then even those who voted against the proposal are compelled to pay the additional taxes that they opposed.

It is true that voluntary institutions sometimes hold elections that are decided by majority vote.  For example, corporations regularly hold elections in which all the shareholders choose a board of directors.  In a superficial way this resembles a political election in which the citizens elect government officials -- but this similarity is deceptive.  If I am a shareholder of a corporation and it makes a decision with which I disagree, then I am free to sell my stock in that corporation and discontinue my participation with the other shareholders in the decision to which I object.  Only through political government is someone coerced to participate in something he disagrees with.  Therefore, laws which coerce peaceful and innocent people are a form of collective violence, undertaken by all who participate in and approve of human political government.

‘‘But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.’’  (Joshua 24:15)

We renounce violence as a means of achieving our goals.  We do not attempt to control or rule over other people, and we will take care to arrange our affairs, to the maximum extent possible in this fallen world, so that we do not become the beneficiaries of coercive acts allegedly undertaken by the government on our behalf.  We will not run for any political office, work for any government agency, or receive money that has been collected through taxation, because this would entail the use of force against other peaceful people, which would not be loving toward them.  Instead, we will take responsibility for the education of our children; we will pay for our own health insurance instead of relying on government ‘‘benefits’’ paid for with tax money; we will make provision for our retirement by saving and investing a portion of our earnings now, while we are young and able to work; we will voluntarily adhere to the Scriptural principle of ‘‘tithing’’ -- giving ten percent of our income to the Lord -- for the support of the priests of God and for the aid of the poor; and we will do all other things necessary to be responsible and loving citizens of the kingdom of heaven rather than using earthly political power against our neighbors.