Recently my husband and I, no longer able to stifle our curiosity, sat down to watch the Amazon Prime documentary, Shiny Happy People. While I will not weigh in here on the actual merits of the documentary, it highlights, through its depiction of the Dugger family, a movement found in some conservative Christian circles referred to as “Quiverfull.” The term is taken from Psalm 127:3–5, “Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate” (KJV).
The Quiverfull movement is an extreme application of the proper biblical principle that children are a blessing. The Quiverfull couple believes that Christians should have as many children as possible. In the case of the Duggers, as documented in the short series, this principle means weaning from breastfeeding at one year of age with the intention of conceiving the next child. It is wrong, from this point of view, to delay or avoid conception of another child. This is not, of course, problematic for an individual couple that feels the conviction to handle their fertility in this way. The problems begin when this conviction is pressed upon others as the only biblical way to handle the child-bearing years.
Quiverfull families easily fascinate the larger culture—including the wider culture of Christianity—because of how out-of-step their convictions are with modern cultural norms (in first-world countries, at least). Birth control has become so ubiquitous that the attitude it engenders is assumed rather than consciously chosen: children should come only by express invitation, in our own timing . . . and not too many!
While it can be easy to criticize how the Quiverfull movement makes an interpretive error by overstating the application of a text, this error is far less common and less likely to tempt everyday Christians than the opposite error. Most Christians are willing to admit that, yes, children are a blessing, no matter what—but a blessing we would like to have control of and welcome only under certain conditions. What is the balance between the extremes of “children at all costs” and “children at my discretion”? Approaching fertility issues with a mindset of stewardship and generosity can help us strike a faithful balance.
Stewardship
In Matthew 25, Jesus tells the Parable of the Talents. Three servants are given various amounts of treasure while the master is away. Two servants are excellent stewards of the treasure and use it wisely to make a profit. One servant, rather than putting in the work to steward his treasure, buries it in the ground, only to dig it up on the master’s return. Certainly, the main thrust of this passage, based on how Matthew crafted his Gospel under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, concerns the return of Christ. But a legitimate lesson to be learned from this parable is that God expects us to turn a profit on the gifts He gives us. Wise and careful stewardship is a sign of mature Christian faith.
In order to approach fertility with a stewardship mentality, we must view fertility as a treasure and not a problem. Scripture explicitly teaches that children are a gift and blessing. The sheer existence of children is glorifying to God since they multiply His image on the earth. Unfortunately, modern society sees children as a burden rather than a blessing. Logically, a couple’s fertility—though really, this concept is seen usually as a woman’s fertility, which is a misnomer, since a woman alone cannot be fertile—is considered a burden as well. While many would agree that some children are necessary and good, fertility itself is a two-fold burden: the fact of fertility creates the personal burden of an actual child, thereby restraining a person’s unfettered ability to act on sexual impulse.
The influences of feminism, Marxism, and overpopulation theory converge in the activist Shulamith Firestone. Her 1970 book, The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution, reads, according to John Kippley, like a serious advocation of the sexual tendencies spoofed in Huxley’s Brave New World. Firestone sees “a woman’s reproductive ability [as] a tyrant [that] women are to be freed from . . . by any and all possible means.”[1] Obviously Firestone and other feminists have held to abortion as a bastion for their position, but it is contraception that is the first necessary step for their “revolution”; and contraception, in Protestant circles, is mostly unquestioned as a good and a necessity.
Ironically, it is the same ethic of liberal individualism that undergirds both abortion and contraception. The mantra “my body, my choice” accompanies both equally well. The Christian ethic cuts against liberal individualism very clearly. Yet, American protestants take up the foundational principles of this opposing world-view when they decide that in their own Christian marriages they are the ultimate authority as to if, when, and how they will accept children.
As Christians who affirm both the blessing of children and the moral good of sexual restraint, how is it that we are so beholden to the world’s attitude toward fertility? I have almost never heard Christian women reference fertility as a blessing; derogatory phrases and raised eyebrows follow women with large families, even in Christian company.[2] When fertility is lacking, of course, it is sorely missed. Perhaps it is only then, in conversation with a woman struggling with the reality of infertility, that we are truly able to glimpse for a moment the blessing of fertility. I have never heard a farmer or gardener complain of how easily and naturally their soil supports their crops; farmers and gardeners understand that fertile soil is a treasure and blessing that they are eager to cultivate.
The blessing of fertility should be met with joy and gratitude. It is truly a gift, not a given. With the advances in our understanding of reproduction over the last century, it becomes more and more clear that the whole system, while incredibly successful, is also incredibly delicate. Truly every life is given from the hand of God as a good and perfect gift. Let us not bury it in the ground! Christian couples must bring the purpose and practical outcome of their fertility to the Lord in prayer; how would God have you use this gift to bless others and glorify Him?
Generosity
Generally, we understand stewardship as handling treasure with wisdom. However, there is a worldly wisdom that is miserly, focused on multiplying wealth for one’s own comfort and pleasure. Christians are called to steward their money and assets well, but this does not mean they are to be penny-pinchers or wise regarding only their own financial interests. The purpose of Christian stewardship is others-focused: that, in addition to being able to meet our own basic needs, we can be generous to others. Similarly, we can approach the treasure of fertility with either a miserly wisdom that prioritizes our own comfort or with a godly wisdom that seeks to generously bless.
Children are not just a blessing to parents and families; the children we welcome from the Lord can be a blessing for the world—for scores of people perhaps whom we may never meet. The time, effort, and resources legitimately channeled to raising children can be an expression of Christian generosity. And the principle of generosity can guide individual couples as they prayerfully consider how to welcome the children the Lord gives. As Kippley wisely states, “For some couples, a two-child family will be a generous response in the light of health, economics and other factors. Other couples may be called to have larger families of five, six, seven or more children.”[3] The point is not the actual number of children—more does not mean more holy; the point is a willingness truly to submit this area of life to God’s leadership and accept the blessing He sees fit to give.
Conclusion
Extremes in the Christian life are usually a sign that something is not quite right. But sometimes, our modern sensibilities find something extreme that is really just historic faithfulness. While we need not take a legalistic, dogmatic approach to family size and planning, my hope is that we can be more thoughtful and prayerful in considering how God would have us steward the gift of potential children with faithfulness and generosity.
[1] John and Sheila Kippley, The Art of Natural Family Planning, 2nd ed. (Cincinnati: The Couple to Couple League International, 1979), 55.
[2] It is worth reflecting on how much of our attitude about children has been soured by the way our society argues children should be raised. It is a lot of work—and unpleasant, unsatisfying work at that—to raise babies the “modern way”: maintaining a baby’s appearance, acquiring all the “gear” you will certainly need, training the baby to sleep and eat at certain times only—and despairing at baby’s resistance! It is enough to make any sane person stop at two. This is just another way of undermining the structure of the family; mom’s needs and baby’s needs are artificially pitted against one another. As the Kippleys rightly point out, a return to “ecological” breastfeeding can be a first step in recapturing the joy of mother and child together.
[3] Kippley, 32.
August 22, 2023
Good solid thinking well written.