Is Your Quiver Full?
By Wade Burleson, Pastor Emmanuel Baptist Church, Enid, OK
Quiverfull-theology advocates [QuiverFull.com] are almost universally conservative, evangelical Christians. They seek to convince people that “God alone” should determine the size of one’s family since having a “quiverfull” of children is a “blessing” from God (Psalm 127:3-5). For this reason, they will tell you that any kind of contraception or any desire to prevent the conception of a child during the coital act is a sin against God.
In 1985, Mary Pride wrote a foundational text for quiverfull theology entitled The Way Home: Beyond Feminism, Back to Reality. Pride argued that family planning leads to a slide toward the acceptability of abortion and feminism, two things incompatible with Christianity. Pride wrote that Christians should reject women’s liberation in exchange for the principles of submissive wifehood and prolific stay-at-home motherhood—thus the modern birth of quiverfull living.
To help others know that there are evangelical, conservative Christians who reject quiverfull theology, I offer the following eight holes in the theological position of quiverfulls from a conservative, evangelical (Calvinistic) Christian point of view:
1. Quiverfull theology is based on an Old Covenant that also had other precepts, commandments, and laws from God that we Christians no longer abide by. The Old Covenant laws were “shadows” or “types” to teach us of Christ, and when Jesus came, He fulfilled and abolished the Old Covenant types. The Old Covenant command was to “go, be fruitful and multiply.” The New Covenant command, under which we live, is “go and make disciples.”
2. The notion that anyone “prevents” God from naming the number of kids a family has is anti-biblical, anti-logical, and anti-God at its core. Contraception no more “prevents” God from creating a baby who “could have cured AIDS” or “been the president of the United States,” than a man shouting at the sun can keep it from shining. God ordains the creation of each human soul, and nobody prevents Him from accomplishing His plans. The sheath of a condom, or the dissolution of a pill, is no more an obstacle to God in the creation of a human being than the lack of matter was an obstacle to God in creating the universe.
3. Holiness or righteousness is obtained by faith in Christ alone. We are declared perfectly righteous (justified) by a holy God. The woman with faith in Christ who tries her entire life to have one child, and cannot for physical reasons, compared to the woman with faith in Christ who could have multiple children, but does not for contraception reasons, compared to the woman with faith in Christ who does have 20 children because of here quiverfull theology and refusal to use contraception—are all equally holy, equally blessed, equally loved by God and equally honored. To say anything less is a denial of the gospel itself.
4. There are cities full of children who are abused, abandoned, and in need. The 2009 motion picture The Blind Side demonstrates what happens when an evangelical Christian family adopts a needy inner city child. It is as Christ-honoring to be naturally childless and help the needy children in the city as it is to have a dozen of your own naturally-born children.
5. The idea that Christians should have more children because we are losing the “culture wars” and by having more and more kids one day we will “out-populate” the Muslims, the cults, and pagans is to lose absolute sight of the New Testament truth that entrance into the kingdom of God is not based on flesh and blood (or culture, color or creed), but faith in the good news that is proclaimed about the unique Son of God. We do not need an army of Christian children separate from the world; we need an army of Christian witnesses as salt and light in the middle of a decaying and dark world.
6. It is true that a woman who marries, stays at home, bears children, and nurtures them in the ways of the Lord is to be honored. But it is also true that the woman who marries, but works outside the home and doesn’t have children, is to be honored just as much. Christian honor should be given for who a person is, not what a person does or doesn’t do. We are always cautioned in the Scriptures against honoring people based upon the amount of their “blessings” or the “size” of their wealth. We are to honor people because they are people. Period.
7. We Christians are “pro-life”—that is, we believe in the sacredness and sanctity of every human life. Our “pro-life” arguments, however, ring hollow when we remove our churches from inner city neighborhoods where our presence could help those with poor qualities of life; when we leave our states backlogged with tens of thousands of foster children on the rolls, forcing states to often give multiple foster children to unfit foster parents; and when we do little or nothing for those lives that are trapped in hospitals, prisons and community centers. The blessings of a culture and a community might soar more when God’s people put more money, more focus, and more energy in caring for the lives already born than talking about those lives yet to be born.
8. Quiverfull theology, if followed logically and consistently, leads a husband and a wife to confusion about one’s true and eternal identity in Christ. Confusion about who we are on earth is not good preparation for eternity. There will be no marriage in heaven. There will be no procreation in heaven. It is the individual’s relationship with God that is preeminent, and the notion that a male is to be “the covering” for the female, and the female’s role is to simply procreate the progeny of the male as a helpful subordinate to the male, is to abdicate the NT teaching that every believer in Jesus Christ (male or female) is a “priest” unto God. Only when full equality of males and females is comprehended and experienced on earth will we ever have a taste of what human relationships will be like in heaven.
This article is adapted from a longer version that appears on the author’s blog.
