I became a Christian when I was 18, well before I was to get married and had to think about having children. When I did, like many conservative protestants, I uncritically accepted birth control and the family planning mentality; I saw having children as something of a choice for Christians, not unlike my secular neighbors. A few times over the years this mindset was challenged, but certainly not from within the evangelical community. Our seriously orthodox Catholic brothers and sisters would point out that life is a gift from God, and that God’s gifts must not be lightly rejected. Yet evangelicals continue to have their 2.2 kids like most Americans, and never question whether their embrace of the modern cultural norm is at all biblical.
I was reminded of all this when I read a recent piece titled, “What We Lose With Only Two Children Per Family.” The author points that the just one less child per family causes a collapse in the extended families, aunts, uncles, a cousins, and why that is a bad thing.
A family tree with many branches functions as a broad social safety net: when average family size falls from three to two, there are only half as many aunts and uncles to lean on, visit, identify with, and support you when things go wrong and rejoice with you when things go right. When the average family size is one, there is little family left to protect you and to belong to. The modern fantasy—society as disconnected individuals under a tutelary state—becomes grimly plausible.
We can lay much of the blame of the anti-natal mentality of Western culture to the so called sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, which has been a catastrophe for Western culture. The self-centered obsession with our own fulfillment that is the essence of that revolution has had profoundly horrible consequences. Not only have tens of millions of babies been killed before they ever had a chance to be born, but divorce, sexually transmitted disease, the breakdown of the family, loneliness, etc. have all proliferated in the wake of our supposed “liberation.” And all of this has affected inner city minority communities worse than everywhere else.
During those decades popular culture was awash with warnings of overpopulation, and the disasters that would follow if we didn’t stop having so many children. In fact now the opposite is the problem. Demographic decline in Europe and many Asian countries has governments worried because not enough children are being born to replace the population. Japan has an especially intractable problem in this regard. Some governments are even attempting to bribe couples into having more children, but children are not properly thought of as an economic calculation. Yet most Christians probably think of them that way.
One of the most profoundly counter cultural, God honoring things a married Christian couple can do is have lots of children. God tells us through the Psalmist, “Children are a heritage from the LORD, offspring a reward from him.” (127:3). Yes, there is no command in scripture that we must have children, or how many, but a simple reading between the lines tells us that co-creating life with God is a profound privilege that we ought not to lightly turn our backs on.
If we are to be truly pro-life wouldn’t having more children than the cultural norm be a good indication of that? I’ll confess that when I see Christian families with one or two kids I judge them, and it’s just not my place to do so. Of course I have no idea why they have the number of children they do, but the vast majority of Christians have accepted our anti-God, secular cultural norms for the size of our families. That alone gives me pause.
A final thought comes from my obsession with Christian cultural influence. In Western societies, secular liberal families have fewer children than religious families, be they Christian, Muslim, Jewish (religious not cultural Jews), probably Hindu as well, and we all know Mormons typically have large families. Some day if we want to turn the tide of Western and American culture away from its secular hostility to Christianity, we just have to out breed them! Of course it will take more of those Christians to be vitally engaged and employed in professions that have wide cultural influence, but having more of us around will certainly help.
A good resource to consider as you think through this, as you are hopefully inclined to do, is Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae published in 1968, right in the face of the cultural tsunami unleashed by the sexual revolution.
I enjoyed your article. I would note, however, that God has given us a command to have children. It was his very first directive to humankind, standing husband and wife naked in the Garden– “Be fruitful and multiply.” In having children, and many of them: 1) we begin to see in our children how God perceives all of humanity (in all it’s sometimes frustrating sometimes wonderful nature; 2) we are called to lead a sacrificial life ( by putting our children’s needs ahead of our own; 3) we grow in intimacy with our spouse and better realize the intimacy God wants with us (a love without barriers); and 4) we come to see we cannot do it on our own (and thus call on God for help).
You are absolutely right, Vradeen. I was thinking of that as I wrote, but for some reason didn’t go there. I’ll make sure to add it to my next piece about having more children when the inspiration strikes. Thanks.
Many good people I know see family size as an economic issue, even if well off. “We wouldn’t be able to provide the life we want”. This is rational, but each life is an opportunity to love and rarely do families regret the addition of a new member. Money comes and goes. Store up treasures that do not decay, but grow…love
My wife and I have a larger family than most. If asked about it, we’ll answer honestly, but few have ever asked. A 25% increase in real median income will boost family sizes with much more certainty that 10,000 articles.
Well, Eric, it looks like I have my work cut out for me! One down . . . .
I think your assertion has some basis in fact historically, but it is only part of the story. I think as my piece implies, culture is a much more powerful factor. What would change birthrates fundamentally is a paradigm shift, a change in the orientation of values from self to others, and for Christians specifically, from current cultural values to biblical ones.
The planet really isn’t short on people. And it truly doesn’t need more people. Short term economic problems to the contrary. The concept that we can just keep massively increasing the human population on this planet without regard to limited resources and likely problems with agriculture over the next few decades due to climate change is the height of short sighted thinking.
Thank you for your comments, Stephen. I really appreciate your liberal/progressive/leftist perspective because it very clearly contrasts with the conservative/right-wing/regressive (just kidding) views that I hold and that inform this piece. It’s a great opportunity to explain why such a contrast exists, at least in my humble opinion.
We come from two fundamentally different and diametrically opposite views of reality. As a Christian I hold a foundational doctrine of our faith, that God created a world that could sustain and support as many people as “be fruitful and multiply” implies. As a Christian I view people as a resource; each individual God chooses to give life to can be a contributing factor to human flourishing. Your terms, “too many” and “need” assume just the opposite. To the modern liberal, human beings are resource takers; some of the more radical among them have called human beings a “cancer” on the environment.
The idea that resources are “limited” is an article of faith on the left. And I use the term faith as modern people tend to define it, as belief without evidence. This goes back to someone you may have heard of, Thomas Malthus, who lived from 1766 to 1834 and was a reverend in the Church of England. His basic idea was that the earth was not built to sustain a growing population; he should have read his Bible more carefully. From Wikipedia: He argued in “his 1798 essay on population growth. . . . that population multiplies geometrically and food arithmetically; therefore, the population will eventually outstrip the food supply.”
This was of course before the marvels of capitalism, i.e. human ingenuity (because human beings are made in God’s image), proved Malthus completely wrong. There were not even a billion people in the world in 1800. Today there are in excess of seven billion people in the world, and mass starvation hasn’t happened, in spite of that being predicted by modern Mathusians like Paul Ehrlich, who wrote “The Population Bomb” in 1968. EVERY catastrophe Ehrlich predicated did NOT happen. (If you want to have some fun, put julian simon and paul ehrlich in a search and you’ll see just how wrong the Mathusian mindset can be.) Yet environmentalist scaremongers still tell us that we must radically alter our lifestyle or we are doomed!
Resources are in fact not limited in any practical sense because the ultimate resource is the human mind and will. George Gilder’s “Wealth and Poverty” was an eye opener for me when I read it over 30 years ago. What an incredibly liberating, optimistic, fulfilling perspective on the world as God created it (and it’s not a religious book). “Climate change” is just the latest disaster scenario from the left that will prove to be not true in due course.
So back to having more kids. My sinister plan (please don’t tell anyone) is to encourage conservative Christians to have bunches of children. Over time as secular families continue to have fewer and fewer children, we will take over the world!
Thanks for stopping by.
Resources are limited. This is simple scientific fact. Pretending otherwise is simple magical thinking. Been proud o f been ignorant of such things is an interesting approach, but not one I’m interested in sharing. Knowing what those limits are is different from pretending they don’t exist.
I’m well aware of the “victory by breeding” dogma. It’s used in fearmongering against Islam among other things. It tends to fail because children are uncoperative sods and can’t be relied on to be willing to breed as fast or to even continue in their parents religious or political philosophy.
I’d note that having more than replacement population growth is not in itself a bad thing if you consider the problems involved and plan for them. Blindly saying “God will provide” is simply a mixture of stupid and/or self-centred. I’n reminded of a group of jokes on the the subject. A particuly relevant one is where a Women had run a factory for several decades treating her workers well, but thanks to some misfortune is in financial trouble and likely to have to close unless she can get a cash injection. She Prays to God to help her by having her win the lottery. Nothing happens for several weeks running and she prays harder. At the point where her business is going to be closed the next day she asks why her God has forsaken her. A voice replies “Meet me half way. Buy a Lottery ticket”. You are like the women that expects God to do all the work. You just have to provide the children and it will all be fine.
You mention Malthus. He made predictions based on the existing Agricultural practices increasing at a certain linear level and population increasing at a geometric level and suggested that if humans didn’t voluntarily engage in reducing growth we would face disaster. You look around you and say “but he was completely wrong”. Your error. The truth is that humans did reduce their population growth and at the same time we managed to make several jumps in our food production. But our food production is still roughly linear, and we are not that far ahead of the sufficient food for population line. And the fact that we haven’t hit that problem isn’t due to people like you, but rather those people you would rather mock. I’m reminded of the parable of the Grasshopper and the Ants, only you my friend are the Grasshopper who is relying on the hardworking Ants to keep your children fed while you mock them.
Stephen, did you purposefully misread and misinterpret everything I wrote? Because you are really good at it. I’ll only address one of your misrepresentations. Of course resources are technically limited. There is only so much oil or coal or tin in the ground. For gosh sakes, the sun will one day run out of fuel! I said resources are not “practically limited.” The known reserves of oil have multiplied over the decades because technology, because of human ingenuity and will, continues to get better and better. At some point when oil is no longer a viable resource because of cost, we’ll find others. I’m not pretending anything. You are only interesting in spewing your opinions rather than engaging in dialogue.
Who are you to say “the planet doesn’t need more people”? Like most people who hate religion, you secretly wish to play God yourself. You have the Nazi mentality.
My wife and I have 10ages 14-30. It’s been a blast so far. Starting with grandkids.
Congrats, TBill! Thanks for stopping by.
I agree.