(Baptist) Minister: Stop Having So Many Children!

creative Minority ^ | 11 Dec 2012 | Melani Manel Perera

[Cronos]

'Might our religion be killing us?' That's what a Baptist minister was asking recently in an editorial in USA Today.

Rev. Oliver "Buzz" Thomas writes:

Be fruitful and multiply," says the book of Genesis, and Lord knows we have. To the tune of more than 300 million at home and more than 6 billion abroad. But as we go about the heavenly task of multiplying, a poignant question arises: Might our religion be killing us?

Insert the deep dark foreboding music.

We all remember the Aztecs. Some say their religion, with its penchant for violence and human sacrifice, played a critical role in the destruction of their civilization. We moderns are far more sophisticated, of course, but if we persist with some of our religious practices, we could be heading down the same disastrous dog trot. Sort of a reverse Noah story. Noah is credited with saving humanity during the big flood. We could be the ones who get blamed for destroying it.

Now " Reverend Buzz" doesn't understand that he just hit on the most truth he's going to find in this piece. By comparing America to the Aztecs who destroyed themselves with violence and human sacrifice he actually hit on the truth of America today. But he's after a different kind of truth, you know the kind that doesn't make any sense to anyone not named "Reverend Buzz."

He's frightened that Christians are having too many children.

Of course, much of our environmental problem is due to overpopulation. There are simply too many people for the planet to sustain — at least the way we expect to be sustained. Each new person requires more food, water and oxygen. At the same time, each is producing more carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and methane (the big culprits of global warming). For each additional human, planet Earth (and the rest of us) pays a price.

Your baby is just a methane producing machine! Stop them now!

Here's the part where goes anti-Catholic. You knew it was coming, didn't you?

Now, consider the Roman Catholic Church's continued opposition to modern birth control or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' (i.e. Mormons) encouragement of large families. This might not alarm you unless you realize that nearly one in every five humans on the planet is Roman Catholic and that the Latter-day Saints belong to one of the fastest-growing religions in the Western Hemisphere. Many Orthodox Jews and some Muslims also eschew birth control.

In the interest of preserving our planet and our species, shouldn't religious organizations be encouraging smaller families? Do our spiritual leaders need additional divine revelation to realize that our current doctrines — which threaten to take the entire world down with us — have become ethically and theologically questionable?

Additional divine revelation...from someone named Buzz, maybe? So much for sola scriptura.

Population growth hits hardest in the poorest nations, and as poverty increases, public health declines. I am quite certain that God is not the author of human misery, but by preaching against birth control at the same time we are preaching against abortion, it seems that we're making God out as cruel, a buffoon, or both.

I recognize that religious organizations tend to be conservative institutions. Their continued resistance to equal rights for women and gays is a good example. A woman may be president of Harvard or speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, but in the largest religious organization on the planet, women still can't get ordained as parish priests. It's even worse for gays and lesbians.

Oh come on. You knew it was coming. First it was global warming, then it was poverty. You knew women being ordained was next right? What? It follows.

How should people of faith respond to this gathering environmental storm?

First, we must stop having so many children. Clergy should consider voicing the difficult truth that having more than two children during such a time is selfish. Dare we say sinful? The average American might not listen to his elected representatives, but he darn sure listens to his pastor. Every week. This will be a hard message for pastors to preach and parishioners to hear, but without it we court disaster.

In addition, Americans should be having important policy debates as we anticipate a hotter, more hostile natural environment. Instead of providing tax breaks for having more children, shouldn't Congress be providing incentives for having fewer?

Is he out of his mind. Doesn't he read? The reproduction rates of mainly Christian nations in Europe are currently sub-replacement levels. The United States hovers just at replacement rate with 2.07 births per woman. Ireland is 1.87, New Zealand 1.79, Australia 1.76. But Canada's fertility rate is down to 1.5, well below replacement rate; Germany and Austria are at 1.3, the brink of the death spiral; Russia and Italy are at 1.2; Spain 1.1, about half replacement rate. That's to say, Spain's population is halving every generation.

Now with that information, does Rev. Buzz still want us to have less babies. Muslim countries by the way are having about six babies per couple. Christianity needs a baby boom.

Now you're gonna' love his conclusion.

When Aztec society was threatened by disease and military defeat, their religious leaders appear to have let them down. Most likely, these leaders encouraged even more human sacrifice to appease the gods, thereby further weakening the society and ultimately facilitating its collapse.

Let's hope we can learn from their mistakes.

Well, if he's making a list I can point to at least one religious leader who's letting people down.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Correction: that’s “Andrew” Bobola.

[CTrent1564]

Persevero:

For the record, the Spanish Inquisition had no jurisdiction over Protestants. It dealt with heretical Catholics. Jews and Muslim-Moors, who had conquered southern Spain 600 years earlier were not brought before the Inquisition courts. After the Spaniards won the war of re-conquest, all Muslims were expelled from Spain. Jews were given several months to leave, with their belongings. Some converted to Catholicism and stayed in Spain, the so-called Conversos.

Now, there were wars fought between Catholics and Protestants, yes, but those for the most part occurred on the battlefield between armies. In places where Protestants were a minority, which would be for example Bavaria, there could be issues, and vice versa, in Northern Germany where Lutheranism took hold, or Geneva where Calvin took hold, etc, or in King Henry’s England, etc, if you were on the wrong side of the state religion, then there were persecutions directed at individuals, yes and those went on till the Treaty of Westphalia (spelling) around 1642 which allowed for basic religous liberty for Protestants in majority Catholic lands and Catholics in majority Protestant lands.

But again, the Spainish Inquisitions really had little to do with Protestantism. It had everything to do with the Muslims in Spain and those Jews who allied themselves with the Muslims against Catherine of Aragaon and her Husband, who I forgot, when they forged an alliance to finally drive out the Muslism from Spain and reunite it as a Catholic Country, which of coure today it it a shadow of its old self with secular liberalism dominateing its politics and culture just like much of the rest of Europe [England, Holland, France, etc]

[Coldwater Creek]

Thank you for the thank you!

[Cronos]

not really. it was there on the web

[Cronos]

I’m sorry, but when a b groupie is just taught distorted, incorrect statements, then it is hate-mongering...

[Cronos]

well, actually the penchant for violence did play a critical role == the Spanish got allies from neighboring tribes who hated the Aztecs chasing them for blood sacrifices over and over

[Cronos]

not completely. Let’s leave aside the philosophical piece for a while — many German Princelings saw this as a chance to fight against the German Emperor and set themselves up as independent with complete control over the temporal and spiritual areas of their people

[Cronos]

I can attest to Perservero in particular when he says I hold no hatred for Roman Catholic -- he has not done anything but debate at any point and does not go into knee-jerk "dem Caflix" mode as long as I have known him on FR

[Cronos]

Also, CC, note that while you yourself may not have the knee-jerk reaction (and that is commendable — thank you), the experience of many over the years is the opposite. Let’s hope there are more like you and we can have dialogue and debate, but not war.

[Fiji Hill]

The Spanish got allies from neighboring tribes who hated the Aztecs chasing them for blood sacrifices over and over

Good point. A historian that I read many years ago--I believe it was T. R. Fehrenbach in his book Fire and Blood: A History of Mexico (New York: Macmillan, 1972)-- wrote that had the Spaniards not come, the Aztecs would probably have been overthrown by the Tlascaltecas, Tarascos and other peoples they were repressing and raiding.