REACTION TO BABY BUST

The only large family I knew in church had five children and they definitely stood out. As a teen I heard the “baby machine” jokes about the mother and saw the eye rolls of church people on hearing that she was “expecting again.” (Like, doesn't she know what causes that?)

I was in my mid-twenties when I started asking some questions about having children? My husband and I came up with a list of reasons for not having any more, but I wasn't convinced that these reasons were biblical. They all seemed to be selfish or fearfully motivated.

I prayed for months that God would show us what to do. After seeing all over the Bible that children were a gift, blessing, and inheritance, we stepped out in faith and asked God to give us the faith and provision we needed to have as many as He would provide.

It seemed fruitfulness was everywhere in creation, but we had fallen prey to the ideals of the sexual revolution, sex without fruitfulness or responsibility, i.e. the pill. Feminism taught me, even in church, that as a woman you should find your worth through education, sexual attractiveness, economic contribution, and living the feminist’s utopia.

After surrendering the hardest part of my life to God—at that time, my life and my womb, I saw with each baby how the church viewed fruitfulness. I wish I could say it was pretty. I cannot tell you how many times I was scolded, derided, and even mocked for being pregnant again. Many in the body of Christ are anti-abortion but not pro-life.

I learned that Margaret Sanger and the radical sixties feminists had convinced the church that homemaking and women who have many children should be pitied, deemed backwards, and seen as repressed. I wish I could say that through the joy, pain, and sacrifices of bearing nine children, which I've laid down my life to disciple, the church has supported me, but I can't.

I think in so many ways the church has followed the culture instead of leading it, particularly regarding family, roles, children, etc. This I suspect has less to do with a biblical inerrancy/infallibility issue but rather an authoritative one. This goes back all the way to the beginning in the garden, with the serpent’s seductive voice: “Hath God said?'

A great study on how the church shifted ,after hundreds of years on this issue,, and why is the documentary called “The Birth Control Movie.”

MOTHER HUBBARD
Valerie Hubbard *This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

P.S. The Birth Control Movies, No. 1 and No. 2 are available at the Above Rubies online bookstore.