Does the Christian Testament Teach Breeding Quiverfull?

It has exasperated me for many years that the "Quiverfull"-minded folks claim that Christians are either expected to actively breed and produce as many children as they can before the woman hits menopause or that they should more passively allow themselves to produce as many children with which the women find themselves pregnant, with absolutely no prevention or contraception at all, ever.

Clip art licensed from the Clip Art Gallery on DiscoverySchool.com

Not only is this irresponsible ideal not in the books of the Christian testament, the truth is very much the opposite.  The writers of the books and letters that came to be known as the Christian testament highly discouraged marrying, if you weren't already married, much less encouraging a large or super large family.  In addition, a Christian who didn't provide for his family was considered more worthless than an unbeliever (as if someone who refuses to believe in something he's told without evidence is worthless).  

Unlike the command in Genesis to be fruitful and multiply and repopulate the earth, Jesus, who is recorded as saying all authority in heaven was given to him, commanded Christians to teach all nations and baptize them in order to conceive the god spirit/seed/sperm into them.

"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”  (Matt. 28:19-20 ESV)

A Christian was supposed to reproduce spiritual children.  It wasn't supposed to matter whether each Christian baptized others, just so long as they did their part so that people who were taught by them were eventually baptized and were conceived as a new creature with the god sperm that came out of the baptizer's fingertips and infused into the skin of the baptizee.  (See I Cor. 3:6-9)

The disciples said to him, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” But he said to them, “Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it (Matt. 19:10-12 ESV).

The Mosaic law has an un-Christian ordinance of prohibiting a eunuch or any male who had a genital injury to enter into God's assembly (though eunuchs were accepted later by Isaiah with the evolution of morality--Isa. 56:3).

“No one whose testicles are crushed or whose male organ is cut off shall enter the assembly of the LORD" (Deut. 23:1 ESV).

Jesus didn't really dig the command in Deuteronomy. Jesus explained the different ways a man could be a eunuch, whether by being born a hermaphrodite or otherwise deformed or effeminate from birth or having one's testicles cut off or by simply making oneself not desire sex.  Those who chose castration (or otherwise masturbation) so that they could focus on building God's kingdom rather than a marital relationship were seen as a doing a worthy thing by Jesus.

Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control (I Cor. 7:1-5 ESV)

Paul referred to our natural biological urges to engage in sex as "temptation to sexual immorality," and so he preferred for a man or woman to marry if they desired sex.  Periodic abstinence was encouraged so that time could be used for working toward God's kingdom (which, if timed well, could also prevent conceiving children who would take more time away from work on building God's kingdom), but it was warned that the couple should not abstain too long, or the biological urges (or Satan's temptations, in Paul's eyes) would be so much that they might find themselves giving into casual sex with others.   In verse 6, Paul stated that he wished all would be like he was in not marrying, but:

...if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion (vs. 9).

It should be clear by now that the preferred state of a Christian that is serious about building God's kingdom, by spending their time they would otherwise be investing in marital and child-rearing duties, is not to marry and to not reproduce more human beings who will also have to be given the kingdom message in hopes that they will accept it and join as adults.  It takes many years, though, and a lot of time, to bring children up to adults, and there's a very good chance those grown children won't jump on the bandwagon.

All these verses speak of marriage for reasons of engaging in sex to sate the natural sexual desire in a Christian-approved manner.  None of the verses have absolutely anything to do with reproduction.  Many early Christians did adopt orphaned children, but there is nothing in the Christian testament to encourage reproducing new persons.  The only reproduction of new persons that was promoted was to recruit persons who were already in existence to believe Paul's message and to receive conception from the sperm of God, transferred via the fingers of an already-begotten son of god into the bodies of the recruited persons.

There are absolutely no instructions to compete in a Breed-a-Thon in the Christian testament!  Sex for pleasure to sate sexual desire is the only reason Christian marriage was promoted.  Period.

Now, if there were already children born to the couples when they converted to Paul's religion, or if the couple decided they wanted children (because the desire to produce children is another natural desire), there were instructions to follow in order to best bring up their children.  Parents were instructed to gently teach their children and not provoke them to anger and were expected to teach their children how to conduct themselves as decent citizens.  Just as there was no prohibition to marry, there was no prohibition to produce children.

But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever (I Tim. 5:8 ESV).

Though the context was that of taking care of widows, one's children are a Christian's relatives and usually members of his or her household.  With the exception of famous or otherwise somewhat well-known Quiverfull families, most children in Quiverfull/Patriarchal households suffer from poverty.  They often do not eat well, are often undereducated, and often fail to receive needed medical care.  They also are usually not provided with adequate personal attention and affection.

This is where Quiverfull enthusiasts and fanatics will point to verses in the Jewish bible ("old testament") to back up their case.  Let's have a look, starting with the verses they base their whole movement name upon.

Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord,
the fruit of the womb a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior
are the children of one’s youth.
Blessed is the man
who fills his quiver with them!
He shall not be put to shame
when he speaks with his enemies in the gate (Psalm 127:3-5 ESV).

Blessed or happy is the man, according to this psalm, who stocks up on kids like a warrior does arrows (or ammunition in this day and age).  What else do the psalms say about what makes a man happy or blessed?

Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones
and dashes them against the rock (Psalm 137:9 ESV)!

The context is that of the Jews in Babylonian captivity, and the infants or little children who shall make a man blessed (or "happy," if you use the KJV) if he bashes them against rocks until they die are the little Babylonian children.  Does anyone imagine that the Jews wanted to take German babies and bust their heads open on stones after the second world war?  Are we to think that Christians today want to take Muslim babies and hurl them with great force upon rocks, causing their deaths due to blunt trauma?

If we are to be consistent with the biblical psalms and agree that all the words are God-inspired, holy, just, and good, then how come I don't hear any of the Christians today making every effort to kill infants and young children of their enemies (real or imagined) by dashing them upon stones?  Do they feel that maybe the 137th psalm is a lie, that they wouldn't truly feel happy or blessed to carry that out?  What makes them so intent on believing the 127th psalm?  Based on many months of carefully researching and reading stories from numerous Quiverfull escapees (both women and grown children), reading psychological literature, hearing firsthand from an escapee whose mother I knew and clearly suffered from several problems, the Quiverfull families' "blessings" and "happiness" isn't what it's all cracked up to be.

With that being said, I'm sure it's closer to a blessing than beating children upon rocks until they die.  The point is that one should never, ever base a whole belief system upon one verse or set of verses.

Another verse is Genesis 1:28, the command for Adam and Eve (who are fictional characters, in truth) to "be fruitful and multiply and repopulate the earth."  I'd say we're more than re-populated now.  We meet all the conditions of overpopulation of a species.  To apply a command meant for two people on an empty earth to today's overpopulated conditions is folly to the hundredth power.

Then there's the supposed opposition of God against contraception, since he struck down Onan (Gen. 38:8-10) for pulling out and spilling his seed on the ground.  Even though the account in the book of Jasher records God killing Er before his brother Onan for the same deed, it clearly states in Genesis that Onan's motivation for not impregnating Tamar was that he knew the child would not be considered his, but Er's, because they believed in that day that a man should take his dead brother's wife to raise children up for him. It had nothing to do with the choice not to have children at all.  There is no statute in the Torah that states one must agree to produce children.  It was seen as a blessing that a man have at least one son to carry on his name.  Clearly, though, there were infertile couples.  What is the difference in infertile couples who wish they could have children and fertile couples who wish not to have children?  If God is in charge, what kind of game is that?  Why not make infertile the ones who don't want any children?

It is a choice for people to reproduce children, but that choice carries with it responsibility.  There is no command for Christians to breed without limit.  Christians, if they are to be good representatives of what they supposedly represent, ought to practice responsibility, love, compassion, and fairness.  These things are sadly absent from most who identify with "quiverfull."

There are very few women in the bible who had numerous children.  Mary, the mother of Jesus, either had seven or so or just one (if the other children were the elderly Joseph's from a previous marriage).  Job's wife had either ten or twenty, supposing Job gained his second set of ten children with the same wife.  There were maybe a couple more mentioned that had more than seven.  Leah had seven.  The bible doesn't state how many Eve birthed.  Most of the women mentioned in the bible did not have more than five to seven children, many having fewer or none.  Men typically had more children than women did, because they took more than one wife, if they could afford it.  We now live in a society where birthing numerous children doesn't make good sense. One to five seems to be plenty.

I was looked down upon by certain fellow Christians because I didn't subscribe to the Quiverfull mindset.  But who is the one following principles more in-line with the Christian testament, allowing parents to spend quality time with each child, financially support each child well, and be able to work toward the Christian goal of God's Kingdom? (Note: The last point is something I no longer do.)

The whole basis of their movement is with the mindset of out-breeding their enemies.  Maybe it won't be long before they take the next step in killing the children of their enemies by breaking their bodies on boulders.  Will that make them doubly happy and blessed?

Is Josh Duggar the Biggest to Blame in Sexual Molestation of Young Girls?

Most people have now heard about Josh Duggar from TLC's reality tv show, 19 Kids and Counting.  It came out that he was guilty as a teen of molesting at least five young girls, some of whom were his sisters.  Though he was indeed guilty and should not have been engaging in that behavior, I think people are focusing too much on Josh and not enough on his parents and their lifestyle, which they share with many other extreme "fundamentalist" and evangelical Christians.  It's called the Quiverfull movement or sometimes, Christian Patriarchy.

Sibling sexual abuse is so much more common in the large Quiverfull/Patriarchal families, as is physical and emotional abuse.  I've read many stories by individuals that have escaped that life.  I also have a personal friend who escaped such a home.  I was friends with her mother in previous years and had noticed several red flags over those same years.  It was clear to me that having so many children, because she thought that was what she was supposed to do, was ruining her health and finances, but every time I tried gently warning her against continuing on, she brushed me off.  Now that her oldest daughter is free—she's also a fellow atheist—many more revelations have come to light, including sexual abuse.  Though I had not suspected the sexual abuse, I did suspect a lot of other things but did not have ample evidence.

Children who grow up in such over-sized families usually must raise their younger siblings, if they are all homeschooled, and there is no way the mother can properly educate that many children of that many different ages, keep a house clean, and adequately keep an eye on all of her children.  When you add in the fact that those in such families are not given any sort of sex education, and perfectly normal things like masturbation are condemned, it's no wonder sibling sexual abuse has occurred often in those environments.  Sometimes the father sexually abuses a child.  Other times young women are simply sexually harassed or fondled by male authority figures in the various "ministries" the Quiverfull families follow (like Bill Gothard).

My friend wasn't even allowed to access the Internet when she was underage!  My oldest son got his first iPod (and has since gotten an iPad mini and then a laptop computer) when he was nine and has used the Internet a lot for research and gaming.  There is a porn blocker and a tracker so that I can check anything that was flagged, but other than that he's got freedom, and he's a very avid reader and researcher and enjoys educational Youtube videos as well.  As for sex education, I started my oldest at the age of two with a children's book called Where Willy Went, which is a cute story of a sperm winning a swimming race and a baby girl being born.  It even shows an illustrated picture of the parents underneath bed covers.  I've always been open with my kids about sex and have answered their questions in age-appropriate ways (which isn't the same viewpoint of "age appropriate" among fundamentalist and evangelical Christians). 

TLC has cancelled the 19 Kids and Counting television show, but there was talk beforehand of just firing Josh.  That really bothered me, because even though he should have known not to commit sexual acts against his sisters at the age of 14, I really believe the Duggar patriarch and his wife should be closely examined.  There's way more to this than their teen son molesting his sisters and another young girl.

One great example of this is their following of the sick book, To Train Up a Child by Michael and Debi Pearl.  It's basically a child abuse instruction guide and is popular among the Quiverfull/Patriarchy families.  I was either pregnant with my firstborn, or he was an infant, when I stumbled upon the book in a free online format, or maybe it was a preview of a limited number of pages.  Either way, I only read a few pages and stopped, because I was so appalled people could teach others to treat children that way.  What is more appalling, of course, is that thousands of parents who read that sadistic book actually do not recoil in horror but think it's a good idea, and so they follow its instructions!  There are actually those out there who believe that it's ok to deliberately entice an infant to touch an item you don't want touched, and then hit them when they do, and to deliberately touch your child's hand to a hot stove to teach the child it's not a good idea to touch a hot stove, and to push your child into a pond to teach the child you shouldn't play near a pond, and that you should beat a child for acting unhappy and also for crying after a beating.  The implement they recommend parents use for hitting their children is a flexible plumbing line. My friend and her younger siblings were all beat with such an implement, because she followed the Pearls' teaching.

Debi Pearl even says you should yank your infant's hair when he or she bites during breastfeeding at around four months.  Is she ignorant?  Does she honestly think the child has evil intentions?  When teeth are growing through a person's gums, it hurts to suck.  Biting down temporarily relieves the pain.  Perhaps a little compassion should be shown.  How about reacting normally, like we would in any other circumstance when something hurts us, by crying out and removing the offender (in this case, unlatching the baby from the breast for a few moments)?  How about kissing the baby's head and relatching him or her?  If the baby is biting too much, he or she may need to chew on a frozen washcloth or other frozen or cold item or even have some numbing agent applied to his or her gums.  This is what a loving and compassionate mother does for a four-month-old baby who is biting during a nursing session.  Maybe Debi Pearl and all the other ignorant women out there who subscribe to her ignorant and evil teachings would do well to take a child development class and/or thoroughly read a good pediatrics book. 

Obviously this kind of behavior toward one's children has nothing to do with a Christian upbringing, if one is aiming to bring up a child in "new covenant" theology, the underlying point of which is to plant seeds in a child's mind that will grow into an inner desire to do what is good and beneficial for him- herself and other beings, because of that very fact alone, namely that they want to do what is good and beneficial, because they see that it brings forth good fruit and helps everyone be healthy and happy.  The sadistic Pearl method does the exact opposite by training children to do things authority figures teach them to do out of fear of punishment.  If a child is not strong-willed, then he or she will eventually always be compliant, but it won't be because the child has been taught and shown that good actions help everyone.  It will be because the child lives under tyranny and is fearful.  That is not the kind of human being I want to bring up to adulthood.  That does not produce adults who will take the time to meditate on important decisions and develop moral and ethical judgments.  It produces adults who will not question authority and will obey, regardless of whether it is moral or immoral to do so.

Such children do not learn anything about gray areas in life, either.  Everything is taught to them as strictly black and white.  They are taught extreme right-wing biases, the results often of which break the spirit of the law of love and goodness in order to keep some flawed letter of the law.   Such people ought to read the first thirteen verses of the 23rd chapter of The Gospel According to Matthew, as well as Romans 7:6 and all the verses even in the law of Moses that warned against not going to either the right or to the left to do what is wrong.  Extreme right-wingers are guilty of exactly that; they go in the extreme to the right to do evil, trying to get everyone to strictly follow their religious beliefs according to the letter they believe.

There are many witnesses that claim the Duggars used to promote the Pearls' sadistic child abuse manual on their website but took it down after their show gained popularity, even though they are said to still promote the other Pearl books.  I did see screenshot evidence of the Pearls promoting a book by the Duggars on their Facebook page, referring to the Duggars as their "good friends."  I also have read women claiming to remember that Michelle Duggar was on a mothering board with them on which she recommended a specific kind of flexible ruler to use for hitting infants that tried crawling off their blankets.  One woman said she got the screenshot before it was quickly removed after the show's airing, but she didn't want to post it, because it would expose others who had posted who might have since changed their actions (though I'm not sure why she doesn't just use a program to black out the names). 

The "blanket training," as it's called, is another teaching followed among these circles.  You are to use a spoon or other instrument to hit your infant's hand if he or she tries crawling off his or her blanket.  This is to train the child to be still for a certain length of time in order for the mother to get things done.  We live in a time of playpens, so there is no excuse for this evil.  I've had elderly friends say that back in their time, before playpens, it was common for a mother to dress the baby in an adult shirt and place a big rock on the shirttail to keep the baby from wandering, if someone was not holding the child or carrying him or her in a sling.  Hitting an infant is inexcusable in all circumstances.  It's cruel and also kills normal development in a child who is naturally curious. 

Links to the above-mentioned screenshots and other evidence will be posted at the end, along with a link to the police report that was taken when police were finally notified of Josh's molesting young girls.  It recorded one of the sister victim's saying that they were all "spanked" with a "rod" when they were in trouble. 

When I was a Christian, the last decade of it—nearly my entire adult life until I went apostate—was spent as a Sabbath-and-biblical-holidays-keeping Christian, and I despised all the mainstream beliefs and practices and strongly hated "fundamentalist" teachings.  For only the shortest time in my early adulthood did I listen to things such as AFR (radio station of the American Family Association).  I quickly tired of not only the many annoying musicians and songs (though some were good) but also all the focus going into support of war (which I believe is very unchristrian), anti-abortion (which they called being "pro-life" all the while being so pro-war), and homosexuals and the banning or preventing of homosexual marriage.  They always took a short semi-break during the month of December to push the ignorant "put Christ back into Christmas" nonsense and wanting tax dollars to pay for nativity scenes.  There was one thing I was suckered into temporarily. For a short time, I must admit that by listening to Ken Ham's Answers in Genesis creationist program that aired and by buying and reading some of the books pushed by that organization, I bought into the young earth teaching that includes the dinosaurs living with Adam and Eve, etc.  That lasted about three years.
 
I really came to hate American Family Association and its radio stations and thought the president and his son were hateful and ignorant individuals.  Fox News was something we watched for a little over a year when we subscribed to satellite television, and I grew tired of Bill O'Reilly's yelling and interrupting his guests and Sean Hannity's obnoxious attitude.  I lost what little respect I had left for Sean Hannity when I heard him say that he supported torture during interrogations of suspected terrorists. 

Those are the types of programs thousands, if not millions, of "Christians" listen to and support.  It's sickening.  However, the people in the Quiverfull movement go much further.  Most Christians out there don't hit infants, deliberately set their kids up for failure in order to punish them, hit them for outwardly expressing a lack of joy, birth so many children that they cannot properly afford to care for them, and get their oldest child(ren) to rear the younger ones and do most of the housework.  This is the kind of life the Duggars and other Quiverfull families live out.  They desire to take over their "enemies" by outbreeding them.  It scares me to imagine these fruitcakes taking over the government and establishing their religion, which is something which the Constitution specifically stated the government should not be allowed to do but that the "Christian" religious extremists in this nation want very much to do.

Even when I was a Christian I was mightily opposed to the extreme earth-hating, war-loving, hateful right-wing "Christians" taking over and forcing their brand of Christianity upon everyone.  That's exactly what happened to bring in the Dark Ages in Europe.  They shut down the schools of higher education, mandated adherence to Roman Catholicism, and conducted religious services in a "sacred language" that the laymen could not understand, as well as printed bibles in the "sacred" Latin language so that the common people could not read it themselves (and usually could not afford a bible, anyway). 

Is this really the kind of lifestyle we want to support?  Are these things truly "family-friendly values?"  What you see on television isn't the full story.  Remember, it's a television show.  It's all for show.  For an example of what really happens behind-the-scenes, read this article about Duggar fakery that went down just recently, about a thirty-five or forty-minute drive from my home.

I am hoping to soon write up a post that totally sinks the foolish idea that the bible teaches Christians they should breed like rabbits.  The people who subscribe to that belief are dead wrong. 

In the meantime, be sure to check all the links.

Quiverfull of Shit: a Guide to the Duggars' Scary Brand of Christianity

Are the Duggars Guilty of Child Abuse?  

Duggars Believe in Pearls' Teachings and Promote Bill Gothard

Duggars Support Pearls (Find the nogreaterjoy.org ad)

The Police Report on Josh Duggar (inserted within article)


Blogs of Quiverfull Daughter Survivors 


Permission to Live

Love, Joy, Feminism