Quiverfull
[4] As birth-control methods advanced during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many conservative Christian movements issued official statements against their use, citing their incompatibility with biblical beliefs and ideals.
In addition, there are those who contend that Quiverfull's "internal growth" model is a manifestation of a broader trend which is reflected in the lifestyles of such groups as Orthodox Jews (particularly Haredi and Hasidic Jews) and certain Christians including Orthodox Calvinists of the Netherlands, traditional Anabaptists (such as Old Order Amish, Old Colony Mennonites, and certain Conservative Mennonites), some traditional Methodists of the conservative holiness movement, and Laestadian Lutherans of Finland.
[9][10][11] The former may also be a case of a manifestation of a movement of opinion within some ethnic, linguistic, religious, regional, or other identifiable groups whose members have expressed concern about their continued existence for historical or other reasons.
The manifestations of such movements and opinions include everything from comparatively high rates of in-group marriage being applauded and gently suggested, to more explicit calls for endogamy such as is the case with the Druze,[citation needed] to concerns which were expressed by Protestants in Northern Ireland about a higher birth rate amongst Catholics, to Decree 770 which was issued by Nicolae Ceaușescu's government in Romania with regard to contraception, and other population topics as part of its local variant of the North Korean ideology of Juche.
[17][need quotation to verify] Nancy Campbell began publishing her magazine Above Rubies, which promotes and glorifies stay-at-home mothers who have as many children as possible, in 1977.
[18] While Campbell is in measure responsible for formulating Quiverfull ideas,[citation needed] the movement sparked most fully after the 1985 publication of Mary Pride's book The Way Home: Beyond Feminism, Back to Reality.
These included verses which she interpreted as perpetuating her advocacy of compulsory childbearing and her opposition to the use of birth control which (in her view) was promoted by "the feminist agenda" by which she had formerly lived.
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.
Among these commandments, "be fruitful and multiply",[22] "behold, children are a gift of the Lord",[23] and passages showing God acting to open and close the womb[24] are interpreted as giving a basis for their views.
[1] Its distinguishing viewpoint is to eagerly receive children as blessings from God,[1][3] eschewing all forms of contraception, including natural family planning, and sterilization.
[4][19] According to journalist Kathryn Joyce, writing in the magazine The Nation: "[T]he Quiverfull mission is rooted in faith, the unseen," even if "its mandate to be fruitful and multiply has tangible results as well.
"[1][19][27][28] Accordingly, Quiverfull theology opposes the general acceptance among mainline Protestant Christians of deliberately limiting family size or spacing children through birth control.
[27]Quiverfull advocates such as Rick and Jan Hess 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.
These aspects of a fallen universe include serious illnesses, inevitable Caesarean sections, and other problematic situations, such as disabling mental instability and serious marital disharmony.
Owens additionally argues that birth control may be permissible for married couples who are 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.
[31] 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 that will prevent them from having children.
[1][3] Quiverfull adherents maintain that God "opens and closes the womb" of a woman on a case-by-case basis, and that any attempts to regulate fertility are usurpation of divine power.
Thus, the defining practice of a Quiverfull married couple is not to use any form of birth control and to maintain continual "openness to children," that is to say, engaging in routine sexual intercourse with no attempt to limit the possibility of conception.
In a column published in her magazine Practical Homeschooling in 2009, as well as in the afterword to the 25th-anniversary edition of The Way Home, Pride clarified her position that it is primarily mothers, not fathers, who should teach girls about women's roles and duties.
The couple advocates for Quiverfull ideas while providing funding, physician referrals, and support to Christians wishing to undergo sterilization reversal surgery.
[41] Institute in Basic Life Principles founder Bill Gothard advocates for reversals, saying that sterilized couples have "cut off children" and should devote themselves instead to "raising up godly seed".
[43] John Piper's Desiring God Ministries has published some comments that relate to Quiverfull: 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.
In 2018, Eve [Hännah] Ettinger and Kieryn Darkwater started a podcast called Kitchen Table Cult in which they discuss their experiences of being raised Quiverfull and connect the ideology to current events such as the election of Donald Trump.
"[50] CFCtoo, an advocacy group for survivors of the Quiverfull community Christian Fellowship Center, is advocating for New York to amend their mandated reporting laws to include clergy.
