The Quiverfull Families Next Door: Part 2
“My mother always told me that people who chose not to have children were selfish,” says Abbi Nye, a Quiverfull daughter who grew up at CFC. “And of course being selfish is sinful.”
Quiverfull communities romanticize large families and pressure women to have many children. In many Quiverfull communities, this instruction is explicit: women are to place their reproductive functions in God’s hands, thus allowing God to “open and close the womb” as he sees fit. Quiverfull parents sometimes say that “it takes three [man, woman, and God]” to conceive a child, positioning conception as a divinely sanctioned meńage à trois. This reproductive philosophy is also referred to as pronatalism.
The pronatalist goal is not simply to birth many children but to ultimately produce model Christian children who will go out into the world and shape it to be more like them.
Nancy Campbell, founder of Above Rubies and champion of the Quiverfull movement, objectifies women’s bodies in this interview by referring to the womb as a “weapon,” and then suggests that the Quiverfull movement is a means of competing with other world religions.
"The womb is such a powerful weapon; it's a weapon against the enemy," Campbell says. "I think, help! Imagine if we had had more of these children!" Campbell says, adding, "My greatest impact is through my children. The more children I have, the more ability I have to impact the world for God. We look across the Islamic world and we see that they are outnumbering us in their family size, and they are in many places and many countries taking over those nations, without a jihad, just by multiplication.”
Quiverfull ideology insists that women fulfill their divine purpose by reproducing as much as humanly possible in order to win an invisible war against non-Christians. Rather than follow Christ’s commands to love neighbors and enemies alike, many Quiverfull families see people outside their communities as foes to be defeated.
Kathryn Joyce, author of Quiverfull: Inside The Christian Patriarchy Movement, shared some insights into the goals of the Quiverfull movement with NPR:
"They speak about, 'If everyone starts having eight children or 12 children, imagine in three generations what we'll be able to do,' " Joyce says. " 'We'll be able to take over both halls of Congress, we'll be able to reclaim sinful cities like San Francisco for the faithful, and we'll be able to wage very effective massive boycotts against companies that are going against God's will.' "
For all the Quiverfull movement’s claims about children being blessings, it is fundamentally not about the children. Instead, Quiverfull ideology uses children as a tool or weapon. Children born into these families are most often homeschooled K-12 in order to control every aspect of their education, and, by extension, their whole worldview. Quiverfull families see children as extensions of the family, weapons in the culture war, and a means to an end, rather than as autonomous people.
The Above Rubies leaders teach that not having children, or even not having enough children, is an act of selfishness. Notice how the requirement to bear unlimited children requires a family structure where women remain at home, wholly devoted to reproduction and domestic labor.
“By refusing children we accept the destruction of our nation. Parenting children is NATION BUILDING. Our western nations have become increasingly sterile, selfish, spoiled, and boring. Our mothers have vacated the home for their careers. We have sacrificed our children and family life on the altars of selfishness, careerism, and materialism. With smaller and smaller families we have become lonely, deprived, unfulfilled, and without character.”
CFC has strong ties to Above Rubies; Darlene Sinclair has even spoken at women’s conferences at the request of Nancy Campbell:
“Nancy Campbell, founder of Above Rubies Ministry, called me today asking if I would step in for her as the key speaker at an Above Rubies Retreat next weekend (family needs have arisen for her). I feel very honored that she would trust me with it on such short notice. So, I spoke with my hubby who felt I should go for it, that it would "stretch me a bit" (that's for sure!) So, next Friday I will fly to Toronto. Pray for the weekend if you think of it. I will be sharing 5 sessions - and those ladies want to hear the Word!”
It is unsurprising, then, that CFC boasts many families who practice pronatalism. In a sermon given on Mother’s Day 2022, one Sinclair daughter shared her thoughts on CFC’s view of the divine purpose of all women:
“You need to know that if you are a woman, God has called you to be a mother. Whether you have biological children or not. God has called you to be a nurturer. And someone who brings forth life, who cultivates it, who plans it, who trains it, who invests her blood, sweat and tears into it. It has nothing to do with natural talent, or inclination, or personality. It has everything to do with a willingness to see what God sees and bear his burden and recognize that God is the designer and he designed me to be a mother.”
The relentless expectations for mothers at CFC can lead to emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion. The physical reality is that sleep deprivation, pre/post-partum depression, and chronic ailments from constant pregnancy, nursing, and childcare can be incredibly damaging to a woman’s mental and emotional state, especially in a country with insufficient healthcare. The Quiverfull movement leaves no room for birth control or abortions.
Despite the toll on women’s bodies, continuous pregnancy is cast as an issue of obedience. Women are taught to “die to self,” ignoring normal human emotions and limitations in order to be an obedient wife and mother. If it feels impossible, they are given Bible verses to remind them that they can do “all things through Christ who strengthens them.” Quiverfull ideology centers around mothers; there is little place for single women or women past reproductive age, except as a support to mothers.
And what about wives who struggle with infertility? Quiverfull ideology maintains that God is in control of your fertility, and that children are a gift from the Lord (Psalm 127:3). This leads to a terribly damaging mindset for women struggling with infertility: if you can't conceive, then you must be doing something wrong or sinful and you don't deserve the reward of children. One CFC member recently posted on Facebook that he felt a divine compulsion to pray over his wife who was struggling to conceive.
“I felt impressed by the Spirit to change from an attitude of request, to an attitude of authority, and to speak correction over her womb…it was like I was commanding her womb to confirm [sic] to the will of God, to stop being disobedient and accept its role to bear children.”
This expectation that a woman’s womb would obey a man’s divinely given authority again demonstrates a central principle of dominionist theology: men are to rule over their families and the world around them. One way Quiverfull families seek to do this is by preparing their many children to grow up to be leaders in their communities. CFC teaching materials cite enslavers Jonathan and Sarah Edwards as an example of a godly and fruitful family:
“By 1900 this godly union had produced:
13 College presidents
65 professors
100 lawyers and a Dean of a law school
30 judges
60 doctors and a Dean of a medical school
80 holders of public office including 3 US Senators
3 Mayors of large cities
3 State Governors
1 Vice president of the US
1 Controller of the US Treasury
They entered the ministry in platoons, sent 100 missionaries overseas as well as staffing many mission boards. Members of the family wrote 135 books and edited 18 journals and periodicals. This happened because one husband and wife had a vision for raising a godly seed and building a godly dynasty.”
Large families can produce upstanding citizens, but the practical reality is that many children in CFC families experience emotional neglect and parentification. Even well-meaning parents struggle to give necessary care to all of their children; there may be food on the table and clothes on the children’s backs, but the emotional attention needed for healthy development is absent. Quiverfull families simply can not function without parentifing and deputizing older siblings, which means that they are expected to take on developmentally inappropriate roles at young ages. Older siblings are often expected to feed, clothe, teach, or even spank their younger siblings.
The idolization of large families does not merely concern those within Quiverfull communities. Militant fecundity is a hallmark of the Quiverfull movement, but it has become far more common in more mainstream Evangelical Christianity. Kevin DeYoung writes at The Gospel Coalition, “Here’s a culture war strategy conservative Christians should get behind: have more children and disciple them like crazy. Strongly consider having more children than you think you can handle.”
When combined with homeschooling and a strict gender hierarchy, the large, smiling families associated with pronatalism take on a more martial appearance. As David Bentley Hart phrases it: “Probably the most subversive and effective strategy we might undertake would be one of militant fecundity: abundant, relentless, exuberant, and defiant childbearing.”
