Quiverfull

Quiverfull is a movement among conservative evangelical Protestant Christian couples chiefly in the United States, but with some adherents in Canada, and with claims of adherent also in Australia, New Zealand, England, and elsewhere. Its distinguishing viewpoint is to eagerly receive children as blessings from God,   eschewing all forms of contraception, including natural family planning and sterilization. Someone of this persuasion might call themselves a "quiver full", "full quiver", "quiverfull-minded", or simply "QF" Christian. Roman Catholics and some others might refer to the Quiverfull position as Providentialism, while the popular press has recently referred to the movement as a manifestation of natalism. The movement and its corpus of literature have grown steadily since its inception. Its adherents most likely number in the "thousands to low tens of thousands". It began to receive significant attention in the U.S. national press in 2004.

Historical backdrop

 * Also see: History of Birth Control

Some of the beliefs held among Quiverfull adherents have been held among various Christians during prior eras of history. Initially, all Christian movements opposed the use of birth control. As birth control methods advanced during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, most Christian movements issued official statements against their use.

Anglican allowance of birth control and feminism
Then in 1930 the Anglican Church issued a statement permitting birth control "when there is a clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood and where there is a morally sound reason for avoiding complete abstinence." Coinciding, a feminist movement which began about a decade earlier under American Birth Control League (which eventually became Planned Parenthood) founder Margaret Sanger emerged to advocate for modern birth control. In the decades that followed, birth control became gradually accepted among Protestants, even among the most conservative evangelicals.

Early Quiverfull authors

 * Main article: Mary Pride
 * Also see: Feminism, Anti-feminism, and Birth control

Within that context, Quiverfull as a modern Christian movement began to emerge. The movement was sparked most fully after the 1985 publication of Mary Pride’s book The Way Home: Beyond Feminism, Back to Reality.

In her book, Pride chronicled her journey away from what she stated were feminist and anti-natal ideas of happiness, within which she had lived as an activist before her conversion to conservative evangelical Christianity in 1977, toward her discovery of happiness surrounding what she said was the Biblically mandated role of wives and mothers as bearers of children and workers in the home under the authority of a husband. Pride wrote that such a lifestyle was generally Biblically required of all married Christian women but that most Christian women had been unknowingly duped by feminism, importantly in their acceptance of birth control.

As the basis for her arguments, Pride selected numerous Bible verses to lay out what she felt was the Biblical role of women. These included verses she saw as containing her ideas of childbearing and non-usage of birth control, which she argued were opposed to what she called "the feminist agenda" by which she had formerly lived. Pride's explanations became a spearheading basis of Quiverfull.

The name of the Quiverfull movement comes from the Old Testament Bible verses in Psalm 127:3-5 that Pride cited in The Way Home.

 Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.(emphasis added).KJV 

Pride stated in her book, "The church’s sin which has caused us to become unsavory salt incapable of uplifting the society around us is selfishness, lack of love, refusing to consider children an unmitigated blessing. In a word, family planning."

Consolidation and growth of movement
After the publication of Pride’s The Way Home, various church women and others took up her book and ideas and spread them through informal social networks. Around this time, numerous church pastors issued sermons in accord with Pride's ideas and various small publications and a few Quiverfull-oriented books emerged.

As the Internet exploded onto the scene several years later, the informal networks gradually took on more organized forms as Quiverfull adherents developed numerous Quiverfull-oriented organizations, books, listserves, websites, and digests, most notably The Quiverfull Digest. The largely decentralized "Quiverfull" movement resulted.

From their onset, Quiverfull ideas have sometimes had a rather polarizing effect between Christians who hold to the position and those who are skeptical of or disagree with them.

Obedience to God
The core motivation expressed by Quiverfull authors and adherents is a desire to be obedient to God's commands in the Bible. Among these commands, "be fruitful and multiply" (Genesis 1:22; 9:7), "behold, children are a gift of the Lord" (Psalm 127:3), and passages showing God acting to open and close the womb (Genesis 20:18, 29:31, 30:22; 1 Samuel 1:5-6; Isaiah 66:9) are interpreted as giving basis for their view. Quiverfull adherents typically maintain that their philosophy is first about an open and accepting attitude toward the possibility of birthing children. Contraception is rejected as inconsistent with this attitude and is thus avoided.

Missionary effort
Quiverfull's principal authors and its adherents also describe their motivation as a missionary effort to raise up many Christian children to affect the world for the cause of the Christian religion. Its distinguishing viewpoint is to eagerly receive children as blessings from God, eschewing all forms of contraception, including natural family planning and sterilization.

Population and demography
According to journalist Kathryn Joyce,

Population is a preoccupation for many Quiverfull believers, who trade statistics on the falling white birthrate in European countries like Germany and France. Every ethnic conflict becomes evidence for their worldview: Muslim riots in France, Latino immigration in California, Sharia law in Canada. The motivations aren't always racist, but the subtext of "race suicide" is often there.

Conservative politics
Quiverfull authors Hess and Hess, along with Joyce, also connect the proliferation of conservative politics as a motivation behind Quiverfull. Hess and Hess state,  When at the height of the Reagan Revolution the conservative faction in Washington was enforced with squads of new conservative congressmen, legislators often found themselves handcuffed by lack of like-minded staff. There simply weren't enough conservatives trained to serve in Washington in the lower and middle capacities. 

Hess and Hess continue by envisioning that the offspring of Quiverfull families might enter national and local politics to bring conservative majorities, publicly-funded education to bring the teaching of creationism, and business to adjure companies to adhere to what adherents see as Christian sensibilities.

Beliefs


The principal Quiverfull belief is that Christians should maintain a strongly welcoming attitude toward the possibility of birthing children. With minor exception, adherents reject birth control use as completely incompatible with this belief.

Majority doctrine
Most Quiverfull adherents consider children to be unqualified blessings, gifts which should be received happily from God. Quiverfull authors Rick and Jan Hess argued for this belief in their 1990 book.

"Behold, children are a gift of the Lord." (Psa. 127:3) Do we really believe that? If children are a gift from God, let’s for the sake of argument ask ourselves what other gift or blessing from God we would reject. Money? Would we reject great wealth if God gave it? Not likely! How about good health? Many would say that a man’s health is his most treasured possession. But children? Even children given by God? "That’s different!" some will plead! All right, is it different? God states right here in no-nonsense language that children are gifts. Do we believe His Word to be true? Quiverfull authors such as Pride, Provan, and Hess extend this idea to mean that if one child is a blessing, then each additional child is likewise a blessing and not something to be viewed as economically burdensome or unaffordable. When a couple seeks to control family size via birth control they are thus "rejecting God's blessings" he might otherwise give, and possibly breaking his commandment to "be fruitful and multiply". Accordingly, Quiverfull theology opposes the general acceptance among Protestant Christians of deliberately limiting family size or spacing children through birth control. For example, Mary Pride argued, "God commanded that sex be at least potentially fruitful (that is, not deliberately unfruitful).... All forms of sex that shy away from maritial fruitfulness are perverted." Adherents believe that God himself controls via Providence how many and how often children are conceived and born, pointing to Bible verses that describe God acting to "open and close the womb" (see Genesis 20:18, 29:31, 30:22; 1 Samuel 1:5-6; Isaiah 66:9). Hess and Hess state that couples "just need to trust God to provide them with the perfect number of children for their situation."

Rejection of birth control by some Quiverfull adherents is based upon the belief that the Genesis creation and post-Noahic flood Bible passages to "be fruitful and multiply" (see Genesis 1:22; 9:7) are un-rescinded Biblical commandments. For example, Charles D. Provan argues,

"Be fruitful and multiply" ... is a command of God, indeed the first command to a married couple. Birth control obviously involves disobedience to this command, for birth control attempts to prevent being fruitful and multiplying. Therefore birth control is wrong, because it involves disobedience to the Word of God. Nowhere is this command done away with in the entire Bible; therefore it still remains valid for us today.

Quiverfull advocates such as Hess and Hess, Nancy Leigh DeMoss, and Rachel Giove Scott, believe that the Devil deceives Christian couples into using birth control so that children God otherwise willed to create are prevented from being born. A Quiverfull adherent quoted in 1991 in the Calgary Herald made the statement: "Children are made in God's image, and the enemy hates that image, so the more of them he can prevent from being born, the more he likes it."

Minority doctrine

 * Also see: Pragmatism

Not all Quiverfull families and authors would agree with each statement made by the movement's principal authors.

Samuel Owens considers that there may be aspects of a fallen universe that sometimes justify an option to use a non-potentially abortive birth control method. Example situations include serious illnesses, inevitable Caesarian sections, and other problematic situations such as disabling mental instability and serious marital disharmony. Owen additionally argues that birth control may be permissible for married couples called to a "higher moral purpose" than having children, such as caring long-term for many orphans or serving as career missionaries in a dangerous location.

Despite some variances, all Quiverfull families and authors agree that God's normative ideal for happy, healthy and prosperous married couples is to take no voluntary actions to prevent having children.

Non-use of contraception

 * Also see: Fertility and Infertility, and Protestant views on contraception

Quiverfull adherents maintain that God "opens and closes the womb" of a woman on a case-by-case basis, and that attempts to regulate fertility are a subjugation of divine power. Thus, the key practice of a Quiverfull married couple is to not use any form of birth control and to maintain continual "openness to children", to the possibility of conception, during routine sexual intercourse irrespective of timing of the month during the ovulation cycle. This is considered by Quiverfull adherents to be a principal, if not the primary, aspect of their Christian calling in submission to the lordship of Christ. A healthy young Quiverfull couple might thereby have a baby every two years, meaning that as many as 10 children or more might be born during a couple's fertile years. In reality, however, most Quiverfull families do not become that large because general health problems or infertility may intervene, or the couple may have married later in life, or the decision to stop using birth control may have come later in the marriage. Quiverfull adherents advocate for child spacing through breastfeeding, so return of fertility after childbirth could be delayed by lactational amenorrhea, although the method is not certain.

Family organization, homeschooling, homesteading

 * Also see: Family and Patriarchy

Quiverfull authors and adherents advocate for and seek to model a return to Biblical Patriarchy. Families are typically arranged with the mother as a homemaker under the authority of her husband with the children under the authority of both. Parents seek to largely shelter their children from aspects of culture they as parents deem adversarial to their type of conservative Christianity.

Additionally, Quiverfull families are strongly inclined toward homeschooling and homesteading in a rural area. However, exceptions exist in substantial enough portion to where these latter two items are general and often idealized correlates to Quiverfull practices and not integral parts of them.

Sterilization reversals
Quiverfull adherents Brad and Dawn Irons run Blessed Arrows Sterilization Reversal Ministry. The couple advocates for Quiverfull ideas while providing funding, physician referrals, and support to Protestants wishing to undergo sterilization reversal surgery. Protestants such as Bill Gothard also advocate for reversals, saying that sterilized couples have "cut off children" but should instead devoted themselves to "raising up godly seed".

From Protestants
James B. Jordan maintains that, while children are indeed blessings, they are only one among a wide range of blessings God offers, and prayerfully choosing foci among them is part of prudent Christian stewardship.

John Piper's Desiring God Ministries criticizes Quiverfull by saying that

just because something is a gift from the Lord does not mean that it is wrong to be a steward of when or whether you will come into possession of it. It is wrong to reason that since A is good and a gift from the Lord, then we must pursue as much of A as possible. God has made this a world in which tradeoffs have to be made and we cannot do everything to the fullest extent. For kingdom purposes, it might be wise not to get married. And for kingdom purposes, it might be wise to regulate the size of one's family and to regulate when the new additions to the family will likely arrive. As Wayne Grudem has said, "it is okay to place less emphasis on some good activities in order to focus on other good activities.

Christian philosopher Jeremy R. Pierce states that the Quiverfull view is held by those who are weak of conscience and can't get around an extremely simplistic reading of some biblical statements. For them, it is wrong to use birth control pills and condoms, because it would be doing something that they believe to be wrong. It isn't wrong in principle, however, and those who have thought through the various moral principles that apply will realize that sometimes it's wrong to use such methods and sometimes not, depending on the circumstances.

Pierce further notes that Quiverfull can become "legalism much like that of the Pharisees".

From feminists
Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff, a former ardent Quiverfull adherent, birth-mother of eleven children, and former editor of Gentle Spirit Magazine, argues that the Quiverfull movement is one "in which women and children are routinely and systematically subordinated and subjugated by the men in their lives - fathers, husbands, older sons, sons, pastors, elders, leaders - as a matter of biblical principle." Seelhoff charges that Quiverful adherents "never talk about the victims of the movement, other than to distance themselves, to explain how it is that the victims are aberrations," and do not talk about "the way the lives of so many, many women in that movement have been all but destroyed - women with 5, 7, 9, 11 or more children".

Andrea Yates
Seelhoff and others claim that Andrea Yates was a victim of Quiverfull thought. Yates and her husband Rusty described themselves as nondenominational Christians who did not use birth control, agreeing to accept as many children as God sent their way. On June 20, 2001, Andrea committed the filicide of her five young children, ages six-months, two, three, five, and seven, by drowning them in the family bathtub. She was found "not guilty by reason of insanity" and is currently institutionalized. Quiverfull adherents argue that Yates never specifically self-identified as Quiverfull and thereby reject that she was actually part of the movement.

Quiverfull and Roman Catholicism

 * Also see: Roman Catholic views on contraception

Although there are a few similarities between the two, Roman Catholics sometimes adopt the Quiverfull label without understanding the quite substantial distinctions.

Similarities
However, Roman Catholic teaching but not all Quiverfull adherents interpret the Genesis creation and post-Noahic flood passages to "be fruitful and multiply" (see Genesis 1:22; 9:7) as commandments rather than only actions that result in blessings.

Differences
Moreover, Roman Catholic theology emphasizes the relationship between sexual intercourse and fertility, rather than children per se, as part of the natural law of God, and considers artificial interference with fertility such as barriers or hormones to be a grave sin. While frivolous or materialistic reasons for avoiding children are seen as immoral, the Roman Catholic Church permits natural family planning (NFP) for grave reasons, although the translation of the Latin word "grave" is sometimes debated. Use of NFP to avoid pregnancy may be actively promoted in extreme circumstances such as serious health problems, dire poverty, and active persecution.

Dissimilarly, Quiverfull emphasizes the continual role of Providence in controlling whether or not and when a woman conceives due to God having exclusive prerogative in "opening and closing the womb". Quiverfull regards all contraceptive methods alike in so far as they further such avoidance, while Catholicism permits natural family planning.

Quiverfull in U.S. national press
While Quiverfull had previously garnered some attention in the Christian press, the Canadian press in March 2001, and in various scholarly pieces, it began to receive focused attention in the U.S. national press in 2004.

New York Times
In an article on December 7, 2004, New York Times journalist David Brooks described an arising movement he called simply "natalism" and sought to show how in the future it could shift the U.S. political landscape from a philosophy of liberalism to conservatism. Brooks concluded, "Natalists are associated with red America, but they're not launching a jihad".

The Nation
Journalist Kathryn Joyce connected Brooks' "natalism" with Quiverfull and disagreed with him in her November 9, 2006, 5-page exposé on Quiverfull in The Nation. Joyce emphasized that the movement uses what she described as "military-industrial terminology" to articulate the belief that "only a determination among Christian women to take up their submissive, motherly roles with a 'military air'" and within a milieu of becoming "maternal missionaries" will lead to what Joyce described as Quiverfull's "Christian army" achieving cultural "victory."

Newsweek
Four days later, on November 13, 2006, Newsweek provided a 2-page piece on Quiverfull, characterizing the movement as conservatives who are "reacting to revolutionary changes in women's social roles and seeking to re-impose a more traditional order". The piece ended by quoting a Quiverfull family as stating they were "exponentially happier" after relinquishing control of their womb to God.

ABC News Nightline
On January 3, 2006, ABC News Nightline aired a special segment, "The More the Holier?", on the Quiverfull movement. The coverage was re-aired on ABC's World News Now about four hours later. On September 15th, 2007, Nightline revisited the issue as part of their "Faith Matters" series, again featuring the Carpenter family.

Quiverfull responses
In the proximate aftermath of the U.S. national print articles, responses from Quiverfull adherents in The Quiverfull Digest ranged from "feeling betrayed" to assertions that the articles were "fair". Additionally, a few disagreeing Quiverfull adherents undertook apologetic responses on the Internet discussion forums provided by the latter national publishers in immediate on-site connection with their articles.

Quiverfull families who have received press attention

 * The Arndt Family - The family was featured on the January 28 edition of The Learning Channel's series Kids by the Dozen. Rick Arndt is president of Safe At Home Ministries. He and his wife Cathy have fourteen children.


 * The Bortel Family - The family was featured in a November 13, 2006, article about Quiverfull in Newsweek magazine. David and Suzanne Bortel run Quiverfull.com and moderate The Quiverfull Digest. They have ten children.


 * The Carpenter Family - The family was featured on the January 3, 2006, ABC News Nightline segment, "The More the Holier?", about the Quiverfull movement. Husband Ken is a Christian filmmaker and music video producer for some of Nashville's biggest names. He and his wife Devon have eight children.


 * The Duggar Family - The family has been featured numerous times on The Learning Channel. Husband Jim Bob Duggar is a former Arkansas state legislator and former Republican candidate for the District 35 Arkansas state Senate seat. He and his wife Michelle have seventeen children.


 * The Heppner Family - The family was featured on the January 22 and 23 editions of The Learning Channel's series Kids by the Dozen. The family owns a homeschooling resource company. DuWayne and his wife Miriam have seventeen children.


 * The Jeub Family - The family was featured on the January 29 and 30 editions of The Learning Channel's series Kids by the Dozen. Chris Jeub is president of Training Minds Ministry. He and his wife Wendy have thirteen children.


 * The Long Family - The family was featured on RTV6 of Indianapolis, IN on May 3 rd, 02007. Jim Long works with Eli Lilly and Co.'s global manufacturing group, while Debby Long home-schools the children. They have 11 children.


 * The Sams Family - Michael and Debbie, who have nine children, own the Full Quiver Farms line of organic cheeses, produced from their organic farm in Kemp, Texas.

Notable Quiverfull adherents

 * Michael Farris - Farris is a conservative United States constitutional lawyer and founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) and Patrick Henry College. His wife Vickie is the author of A Mom Just Like You (2002). The couple have ten children and six grandchildren.


 * Doug Phillips - Phillips is the son of U.S. Constitution Party leader Howard Phillips and president of Vision Forum Ministries that advocates for Biblical patriarchy, creationism, homeschooling, and Quiverfull. Doug and his wife Beall have seven children.


 * Charles D. Provan - Provan's book The Bible and Birth Control is credited as providing important theological justification for Quiverfull, and was quoted in a November 27, 2006, article about Quiverfull in The Nation Magazine. He is an author of books and articles on other Christian topics and that criticize outright Holocaust denial while revising certain elements thereof. He and his wife have ten children.


 * R.C. Sproul, Jr. is a Calvinist Christian minister and theologian and is the son of Robert Charles Sproul, a noted Reformed theologian and founder of Ligonier Ministries. Sproul Jr. and his wife Denise have seven children.


 * Matthew Trewhella - Trewhella is a Pentecostal minister and founder of Missionaries to the Pre-Born. He was the subject of a 1994 FBI investigation for incitation of abortion clinic violence. He and his wife, Clara, have eleven children.

Notable former Quiverfull adherents

 * Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff - divorced birth-mother of eleven children and former editor of Gentle Spirit Magazine, a magazine on Christian topics and homeschooling that reached a circulation of 35,000.  She now considers herself a feminist.

Books dedicated to advocating a Quiverfull position

 * Adams, Shelly and Morgan. Arrows in His Hand (children's book). Monument Pub., Monument, CO: 2007.
 * Andrews, Robert. The Family: God's Weapon For Victory. Winepress Publishing 1996. ISBN 1883893240 ; Sentinel Press 2002. ISBN 0971569401
 * Campbell, Nancy. Be Fruitful and Multiply. Vision Forum, San Antonio, TX: 2003. ISBN 0-9724173-5-4
 * Hess, Rick and Jan. A Full Quiver: Family Planning and the Lordship of Christ. Wolgemuth & Hyatt Publishers, Brentwood, TN: 1990. ISBN 0-943497-83-3
 * Houghton, Craig. Family UNplanning. Xulon Press, Longwood, FL: 2007. ISBN 1-60034-851-8
 * Owen, Jr., Samuel A. Letting God Plan Your Family. Crossway Books, Wheaton, IL: 1990. ISBN 0-89107-585-2
 * Pride, Mary. The Way Home: Beyond Feminism, Back to Reality. Good News Pub, Wheaton, IL: 1985. ISBN 0-89107-345-0
 * Provan, Charles D. The Bible and Birth Control. Zimmer Printing, Monongahela, PA: 1989. ISBN 99917-998-3-4
 * Chapter of Provan's book available here. Free audio files of Provan's complete book  available here.


 * Scott, Rachel. Birthing God's Mighty Warriors. Xulon Press, Longwood, FL: 2004. ISBN 1-59467-465-5

Books advocating Quiverfull as a secondary focus

 * DeMoss, Nancy Leigh. Lies Women Believe: And the Truth that Sets Them Free. Moody Publishers, Chicago, IL: 2002. ISBN 0-8024-7296-6
 * Farris, Vickie. A Mom Just Like You. B&H Publishing Group, Nashville, TN: 2002. ISBN 0-8054-2586-1