Posted on 04/28/2009 12:58:36 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Among some conservative Christians, a movement is giving new meaning to the biblical mandate to "be fruitful and multiply."
The movement, called Quiverfull, is based on Psalm 127, which says, "Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one's youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them."
Those in the Quiverfull movement shun birth control, believing that God will give them the right number of children. It turns out, that's a lot of kids.
'We Actually Didn't Want Children'
While cooking a typical predawn breakfast in the Swanson household in Shelby, Mich., 10-year-old Lydia Swanson cracks a dozen eggs laid by the family chickens. Her mother, Kelly, fries 3 pounds of sausage from the family's own pig and toasts a 12-inch loaf of homemade bread.
If they didn't raise their own food, Kelly Swanson says, they'd spend $1,000 a month on groceries for her gaggle of growing children, including 15-year-old Josiah and 13-year-old Elisha. But in listing their ages, Kelly gets Elisha's age wrong.
"At least I remembered your name," she says.
Kelly can perhaps be forgiven the lapse. The 40-year-old mom has seven children; the youngest is 6 months. And she'd like to have more.
The Swansons subscribe to the Quiverfull movement.
"When we first got married, we actually didn't want children," Kelly's husband, Jeff Swanson, says.
But then the Swansons began to notice that the Bible was very high on big families. And Kelly says that she and Jeff decided that God knew how many children they could handle.
"We just started thinking, 'God is sovereign over life and death. God opens and closes the womb,' " Kelly says. "That's what his word says, so why we're trying to fiddle around and controlling ourselves, we need to stop doing that."
Eighteen years and seven children later, the Swansons live on Jeff's dairy farm salary of less than $50,000 a year. And they've gotten used to the comments from outsiders, such as, "Do you know what causes this?"
"That's always my favorite one when I'm pregnant," Kelly says. "And my husband has a lovely response. Of course we know what causes it — we practice all the time."
Their friends do, too. The average family at their evangelical church has 8.5 kids. They are children who the Swansons hope will spread the message of Christ.
'Womb Is A Powerful Weapon'
That's also the hope of Nancy Campbell, a leader of the Quiverfull movement and author of Be Fruitful and Multiply.
"The womb is such a powerful weapon; it's a weapon against the enemy," Campbell says.
Campbell has 35 grandchildren. She and her husband stopped at six kids, and it is her great regret.
"I think, help! Imagine if we had had more of these children!" Campbell says, adding, "My greatest impact is through my children. The more children I have, the more ability I have to impact the world for God."
A Christian God, that is. Campbell says if believers don't starting reproducing in large numbers, biblical Christianity will lose its voice.
"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 says.
Still, Quiverfull is a small group, probably 10,000 fast-growing families, mainly in the Midwest and South. But they have large ambitions, says Kathryn Joyce, who has written about the movement in her book Quiverfull: Inside The Christian Patriarchy Movement.
"They speak about, 'If everyone starts having eight children or 12 children, imagine in three generations what we'll be able to do,' " Joyce says. " '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.' "
No Regrets
In a suburb of Grand Rapids, Mich., Misty and Seth Huckstead, both 31, are straightening up the living room for a birthday party. No small task with six kids and one on the way. With such a large family, they get by with one car. They shop at thrift stores and occasionally rely on the local seminary's food bank.
Seth says it's difficult having so many kids, but he and Misty have no regrets.
They didn't always have this attitude, Seth says. When they 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's not individual, it's not 'I'm a woman, hear me roar, I'm going to go take on the world,' " Misty says. "Family has always been the foundation of church and society. It's God's design; it's beautiful."
Moments later, another Quiverfull family drops by, and for a few moments, they entertain themselves as would a large family 100 years ago.
They sing Psalm 127 — a song that seems written just for them.
Nobody is claiming otherwise, but this is no reason to call Tax-chick a "twit".
Oh, you should have heard what Bill called me when I changed his computer password while he was asleep ;-).
Well, don’t be mean like that and he won’t respond in kind! :-)
Reason # 683,527 why I love FR. Only here would that be considered the ultimate insult.
Crisis measure. He can have his free-access back when he finishes the 9th grade.
(Since his comments demonstrated that he’s been paying attention to his vocabulary lessons and reading the classic novels assigned, I praised his verbiage and didn’t assign extra chores.)
And even my 3-year-old knows it. “James hit me!” “Vlad called me a liberal!”
Sounds a little harsh, almost everyone finishes 9th grade the second time around! :-)
LOL!
Never heard of “quiverfull” until I watched the Duggar tv show.
I think it’s great to have as many children as one wants and can support. I have 4, wanted 10 or as many as I could have, but after 4 high risk births and 4 c-sections, that was enough for my body. If I ever happen to get pregnant again, fine, but certainly not trying to.
Yep. That’s the way I see it, too.
It’s common to assume that “quiverfull” means very large families, but some people simply don’t have many, or any, children, without any intervention by the parents. Accepting that - which doesn’t mean rejecting adoption - is part of having faith in God’s plans for us.
If one can have their own biological children, why adopt? There’s lots of hassles that go along with foster care and adoption.
If Welfare were taken out of the equation, I’d agree with you. Before Welfare, families/friends took care of their own. Or Charitable/religious organizations helped.
If a couple want to have 18 kids, that’s their business, as long as society isn’t responsible for paying for them.
God Bless you on your 5 kids. We have 4. I’m done, too old and after 4 high risk births, and limited finances, not actively trying to have any more. If by some chance, or the Grace of God, I was pregnant again, we’d welcome it all. I’m also legally a guardian for a niece and nephew should anything happen to their parents.
LOL! 4 were enough for me, and if the 3rd wasn’t as easy as she was, there may not have been a 4th ;)
It will happen sooner than you think.
There are a lot of hassles with being a homeless unwanted and unloved child too.
After my 4th, and it was the 5th pregnancy as the 3rd ended in a miscarriage, the recovery from that c-section was especially long. My husband and I decided that whenever either one of us started the “another one” then the other would say “let’s wait a while longer.” lol. However, we also both knew if we had a “surprise” then we’d embrace and think positively.
As the youngest got older, we never actively wanted another at the same time. If we were blessed with another now, wonderful. But we’re not trying.
As the World has constantly come against the Catholic church and her official absolutist doctrines (all based in Scripture) such as those against any and all birth control, divorce, “gay” anything, and abortion.
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