Okay…I’ve heard this talk before. “Children are a blessing to the Lord. The Psalmist says that a man is blessed with a ‘quiverful’ of sons in his youth. Therefore Christians need to have as many children as possible.”
Now I’m not against large families. What I am against is selective reading of scripture which leads to an emphasis other than the gospel and the alienation of people that isn’t based on the gospel of Jesus Christ. And, in my opinion, that is what the “Quiverful” movement does.
This movement is demonstrated in tv shows (such as the TLC shows featuring the Duggar family) and is apparently gaining converts. And that is exactly what my struggle is with this movement. At best it seeks to use the Bible to gain converts to it rather than first and foremost Jesus Christ. At worst it enforces an idea that many children is the means by which we will see the number of Christians grow and our impact increase.
Consider the following quotes from an NPR article on this movement:
“The womb is such a powerful weapon; it’s a weapon against the enemy,…I think, help! Imagine if we had had more of these children! My greatest impact is through my children. The more children I have, the more ability I have to impact the world for God.”
-Nancy Campbell, a leader of the Quiverfull movement and author of Be Fruitful and Multiply.
“We look across the Islamic world and we see that they are outnumbering us in their family size, and they are in many places and many countries taking over those nations, without a jihad, just by multiplication,”
-Campbell
“They speak about, ‘If everyone starts having eight children or 12 children, imagine in three generations what we’ll be able to do, ‘We’ll be able to take over both halls of Congress, we’ll be able to reclaim sinful cities like San Francisco for the faithful, and we’ll be able to wage very effective massive boycotts against companies that are going against God’s will.’ “
-Kathryn Joyce, who has written about the movement in her book Quiverfull: Inside The Christian Patriarchy Movement.
Or consider this brief excerpt from the article:
When they [a couple named Seth and Mindy] were 23, already with four children, he had a vasectomy. But they searched the Bible and concluded that sterilization was an affront to God.
“He presents children as a blessing,” Seth says. “And so we started to evaluate whether our decision was ethically right. And we came to regret our decision.”
They turned to a ministry that raises money and finds doctors to reverse vasectomies at a bargain price. And their family grew. Misty says she’ll have as many children as possible. She loves having babies and believes it’s the proper role for women.
It would be easy to critique many who are a part of this movement by focusing on other things that they also tend to be connected to (but are not necessarily universally so) such as a strong Christian nationalism, a separatist mentality, a militantism, an extreme patriarchy, involvement in dictatorial church structures and very exclusive views of scripture. But there are enough problems with just focusing on this movement alone.
- The misuse of scripture–The logic may seem to make sense, but it is seriously flawed. Just because something is a blessing doesn’t mean we should go out to pursue more of it. In the Old Testament land and wealth and wisdom can also be seen as signs of blessing. But it never means they should become our goal. In many ways this quiverful thing seems rooted in the same consumerism mentality as the rest of society. This time, however, the product they are pursuing is the “blessing of God”. Can I pursue the accumulation of vast expanses of land by the same logic? Like any other good thing, Children and our desire for them can overwhelm our pursuit of God. This doesn’t make the children themselves wrong, but it is clearly something wrong in ones life. [I would love to spend some time dealing with their interpretation of scripture as it pertains to the role of women, but that would get me too off point and would take too long!]
- The misuse of children–Here’s my own bit of logic for you. “Children are a blessing from the Lord. The Psalmist says that a man is blessed with a ‘quiverful’ of sons in his youth. Therefore I need to have lots of kids so that I can prove that I am blessed or so that I can be blessed!” Using these texts as the logic for having lots of kids makes the children primarily either a) a sign of God’s blessing or b) a tool for God’s blessing. They can be both, but from my perspective, to have lots of kids with these ideas in mind is selfish and self fulfilling. It is not about the children at all. It’s about you and about you being blessed. A lot of people feel that children will fill a hole in their lives and use them as such. This isn’t limited to “quiverful” folk. But to explicitly state it from scripture as your reason for having kids should be a sign that something is wrong.
- Inconsistent logic–Those in the quiverful camp don’t use birth control because they believe that God is sovereign over this and will decide if there is to be life or not when it comes to reproduction. These same people use cesarian sections to ensure life at the end of the pregancy. Why are we free to intervene on one end, but not at the other? Is it up to God or up to us? Or, perhaps God has given us the ability to discern when it is best to intervene and when not to and we are to use that ability? If so…we should use it on both ends!
- The exclusion of others–By teaching this as the right understanding of scripture and by saying that this is such a key sign of God’s blessing this view can be very hurtful and demeaning to those who, for various reasons, choose not to or cannot have a large family. I have great friends who have no children because they have not been able to. Still others spent thousands of dollars and a lot of heartache only to have one or two children. Other women have been through such physical pain during their first pregnancy or two that it is deemed safest for them to avoid having any more children. To claim things like the Bible teaches that you are supposed to have lots of kids; a woman’s role is to be raising lots of children; and, lots of kids is a sign of God’s blessing is to communicate to these women and families that they are not following the Bible’s teaching, not fulfilling God’s plan for their life and they are not blessed. Even for women who do not agree with this understanding of scripture, this communication can be extremely hurtful. This isn’t even accounting for men and women who are not married. Paul celebrates singleness. The quiverful people, intentionally or unintentionally, demean it.
The growth of this movement scares me. Probably because it is a sign to me of the growth of other things that I fear (many of which I’ve mentioned in an aside above). The fact that we have “restoration ministries” raising money as charities to subsidise the reversal of tubal ligations and vasectomies is unbelievable to me. The big picture point of scripture and restoration to God is being missed. [Incidentally. Am I the only guy who would be concerned about going to a doctor who is willing to "reverse vasectomies at a bargain price" (from the NPR article). Maybe it's just me, but I don't think I'd be haggling over price or searching for the biggest discount on anything involving that region of my body.]
So go ahead. Have big families. Just don’t go claiming the blessing of God because of your decisions. Don’t let this one thing blind you to the huge and overwhelming story that unfolds in scripture. And for God’s sake don’t misuse his word to exclude or put down (intentionally or unintentionally) those whom God desperately loves.
But wouldn’t you consider surgical sterilization to be a violation of the sacred gift from God of one’s body? Women who have their tubes tied and men who have vasectomies are saying that they know better than God does. How is that Biblical?
God allows couples to avoid pregnancy in a completely natural way by using the fertility signs a woman’s body has. The body’s functioning remains intact, just the way God designed it.
This is a great question. The premise I have heard most often against surgical sterilization (or birth control of any kind) is that we need to trust in the hand and will of God in this matter and not attempt to play God through these other methods.
This perspective (rooted in scripture) says that God is in complete control and we need to trust in his sovereignty. If he decides to give us 8 kids, then we’ll happily accept his blessings.
The alternative perspective (rooted in scripture) is that God has intended for humanity to work in a cooperative way with him in how things play out on earth. If he has given us the knowledge and skills to make wise choices, even in regards to the number of children we have, we should use it.
While I personally would affirm the second perspective, I have great respect for those who believe the first and live it out consistently. My struggle is that usually it is not lived out consistently. Those who refuse surgery or drugs to control pregnancy based on the sovereign God perspective, usually still accept surgery or drugs to intervene in other contexts. Some of the individuals in the articles I referenced had cesarian sections. If intervention is wrong on one hand, how can it be deemed right on the other?
In regards to avoiding pregnancy in a completely natural way. I would affirm this as an ideal, but sometimes the reading of the body is not as easy for some women as it is for others. We worked hard to use this method. One night a little over six years ago I asked, “Is it okay for tonight?” My wife responded, “Yes. I think so. I’m pretty sure.” Micah is almost six.
I read this with great interest. I have done a lot of reading on this subject and agree with your conclusions. I do have to say, though that there is a lot of “anti-child” sentiment even among Christians. The first two children are a blessing, unless they’re too close together. The third is an acceptable accident, but four is just outrageous. After that, you’ve just totally lost your mind. (or so I’ve been told) If a mom with one child has a bad day, she is met with sympathy and encouragement. If a mom with five kids has a bad day, she “should have thought of that before having so many kids.”
I have more comments, but I can’t put them all down because I have to go look after my kids (go figure).
Is this “anti-child” sentiment or have we just moved to a place in western culture where the “I” is of first importance that anything that would leave us having to put off things for ourselves is questioned? We’ve created expected norms and anything outside of that is criticized. e.g. Have one or two…maybe three kids so long as you can still have an acceptable life outside of the home. Women are supposed to have enough kids to validate their existence as married women, but not so many that it overwhelms their ability to have freedom on their own. I’ve seen it in churches a lot. Ladies in their 50s plan meetings in the middle of bedtimes or on Saturday mornings and wonder why none of the young moms show up!
I’ve known several women who have struggled to have children or who have never been able to do so who have felt the same kind of judgement…especially in Christian circles. Mother’s Day services can be the worst day of the year for a lot of them because they have to deal with their own amplified internal voice and dozens more in the lobby asking them “when?”
The thing I don’t like to see is when a couple has more kids than our mores say and the mom is left holding the bag all day every day and dad just tries to escape because “the kids are her job”. Sometimes the mom is losing her mind from that many kids, but I think it is often because the husband isn’t using his!
By the way…I don’t think you’ve totally lost your mind. (Totally is a pretty big word and to lose something implies you once had it!
Sorry. I couldn’t resist.
Jon, I couldn’t agree with you more. I’ve heard this argument before, using the verses in Psalm 127:
3 Sons are a heritage from the LORD,
children a reward from him.
4 Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
are sons born in one’s youth.
5 Blessed is the man
whose quiver is full of them.
They will not be put to shame
when they contend with their enemies in the gate.
I’m not sure how this can be read as a command to have as many children as possible. Children are clearly defined as a blessing, but never a command. If there are other verses that indicate otherwise, please let me know.
I’m by no means anti-child. I think kids are awesome, beautiful, lovely, inspiring and an amazing blessing. But, I gotta tell you, as Jon referred to, there can be a severe ostracizing affect of the “Quiverfull” mentality. Women don’t all love being a mom and giving birth to babies the same way some do. Shall we all stand up and condemn them? Shall we cast them out and turn our noses up at them? Perhaps we should start quoting verses at them and tell them how wrong they are. I don’t think so. I should hope no one would, but that still doesn’t prevent Christian women from being hurt and feeling invalidated in the face of this message.
On a related note, I would suppose that the Quiverfull folks would say that marriage is a must for all believers, otherwise, how can we produce all these kids who will one day take over the world for Jesus? See I Corinthians 7:1 for an opposing viewpoint: “It is good for a man not to marry. But since there is so much immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband.”
@Crimson Wife: I’m not certain it’s a reasonable argument to say that having a surgical sterilization means someone thinks they know more than God. By that logic, doesn’t the very act of making any decision say the same thing? I am striving to live in communion with God and to understand his will and desires, but some decisions that I’m faced with, such as whether to move or not, are up to me and the wisdom and insight God has given me. However, many decisions I make have significant and long-lasting, potentially life and death, implications. You’re assigning pride and arrogance to someone you know nothing about. I would suggest that judging whether the person thinks they know more than God or not should be left up to God.
The distinction with surgical intervention of any kind vs. sterilization is that with sterilization you are treating fertility as a disease or disability. You are “correcting” something which is actually a gift and a sign of health. Same with altering a woman’s chemistry to render her infertile. Yes, medicines are used to improve our health, to correct an imbalance, to heal an illness – using our knowledge in a good way. I struggled with this because it just never felt right somehow to use the various artificial means of birth control: a barrier where should be none; a chemical change for the woman; a device placed in her body – could this be in God’s will? NFP was truly the answer I was looking for – how did God make our bodies work? And the fact that it’s not foolproof is actually a comfort to me – I ALWAYS want to allow for “not my will, but Thine be done”- hence the “Micahs” of the world! For those for whom pregnancy would be a serious health threat there are ways to use NFP that are very unlikely to result in a pregnancy. How can we oppose Planned Parenthood and yet subscribe to a large part of their philosophy in thinking the world will be a better place if we have absolute control over our fertility?