Quiverfull, or why I won’t apologize for “picking on that nice family that never hurt anyone!” (and others like them!)

(hmm. Longest. title. ever. sorry about that!)

I’ll concede that the WAY I said it may be a problem. But this is nothing new for me.

HOWEVER. Let’s take a look at the movement America’s Favorite Creepy Family espouses.

• My first/favorite post is from a woman who came out of this movement. She is highly quotable, and I recommend that you read the entire post, but here are a few gems:

And above all, they don’t 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, women who lived sometimes for decades with abusive men who were then excommunicated, lost everything they had, when they divorced their abusers . . . They don’t mention women like my friends, H, and L, who served their abusive husbands for decades, only to have them vanish from their “quivers”” lives completely when they finally filed for divorce. H’s husband is also saving for a mail-order bride — a lot of these erstwhile “patriarchs” seem to go that direction when their wives divorce them. Neither H’s or L’s husbands have contact with their “arrows”. My ex-husband also had no contact with his “arrows”– for 11 years. That was fine with me. When he did re-establish contact, they suffered nothing but pain and grief.

The shiny, apparently happy faces of the patriarchs and their full quiver wives and children in articles, on television (and even in the supposed “exposes”, there is, too often, a sort of subtextual admiration, a thinly-veiled reverence for this lifestyle) are an offense to all of us, women and children, who have been harmed by the patriarchs responsible for these teachings. I am going to be telling the truth about that, for as long as I have a voice.

• As my “gut” has told me before, there is something just so . . . “white” about this movement:

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. From an article in The Nation.

• Here’s a formula for populating the world with more and more “real” Christians. (scared yet?)

• Another case for “more white babies!”:

If these scientifically projected increases are reliable, then we must ask: Why is Mohler concerned about under-population? Under-population for whom? In other words, who is the “we” that is barely replenishing itself?

The projections concerning U.S. population growth also show that if present trends continue Euro-Americans will cease being the majority race in the United States by about 2050. The combined population growth of communities of color over the next half century will make America a predominately non-white nation.

Hence, the religious call for “full-quiver” theology is white-supremacy code language advocating for the increase of white babies.

Mohler’s call, whether he realizes it or not, is a race-based warning. It is a call for white fecundity, lest America becomes overrun with “colored” children, which would only lead, as Mohler puts it, to “huge social problems in the future.” [ ]

• “Imagine deliberately setting up situations where an infant will be hit with a switch. An infant who’s just learned to crawl!”

• Here’s someone else who remembers Andrea Yates.

• And just in the interest of something resembling balance, here’s a Quiverfull defender who says that Jim Bob’s wife isn’t even doing it right.

• This one’s for all those who say, “why is it any of your business?” or “why does it bother you so much?”

At this point, many a feminist pop vulture might shrug, “So what? A freaky-deaky group of Christian extremists are popping out a ton of kids. No skin off my nose.” Except it is—at least, that’s the Quiverfull hope. These families are not multiplying like bunnies because it’s fun; they are in it to win it. For its adherents, opening their wombs to God isn’t an overt political stance. But make no mistake, it’s part of a battle for power. And though their odds of winning are slim, when someone wages war against you and your allegedly off-the-wall ideas that women are equal, contraception is a valid choice, and church and state are separate entities, you sit up and take notice.

and AGAIN:

Which is not to say that all babies make good, you know, arrows. Quiverfull adherents have some distinct ideas about what kind of women should be moms in the first place and, perhaps not shockingly, those ideas involve skin pigment. Blogger Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff (who writes about her personal experience in the movement within the context of her feminist, women-only blog, Womensspace.org) asserts that you won’t find any more racists among the Quiverfull movement than among any other cross-section of the country. But the chatter about declining Western birthrates and the concurrently rising fertility rates of Middle Eastern, African, and Latin American countries that permeates Quiverfull message boards tells a different story. The fear of white Christian culture being outpaced is right there in the scripture, in the specter of “enemies at the gate.”

• One more relatively rational Quiverfull-er (who says I don’t give equal time to both sides?!)

So one more time. I’m not “attacking” or “picking on” an individual family. I’m expressing my dismay at a movement that I personally find to be creepy. And though some would probably like to “excommunicate” me, I am also a Jesus follower . . . but one who believes in redemption and reconciliation of this world we live in, not escape from it into a parallel, lily-white universe where only “our” people are meant to exist.

even so, come, Lord Jesus.