Quiverfulls of...ummm...Crap

I wanted to use the other word. Trust me, I did.


This post isn't intended to speak against large or "mega" families. I've said it before - if a couple wants a large family and can provide for a large family, more power to them. I'm fully behind them. This post isn't intended to speak against homeschooling. This post is intended to speak toward the naive, gullible nature of and the spiritual laziness, immaturity, and irresponsibility exhibited and practiced by many conservative Christians.



I want to write a bit about the idea that "God controls the womb." It sounds like a nice, "godly" thing to believe - but it's gullible, extremely spiritually immature and irresponsible, and once again, it makes conservative Christians almost identical to the people they so vehemently oppose. People are too willing to give up their minds and grasp empty, worthless spiritual platitudes - which "God controls the womb" is. When I talk about people consuming servings of Kool-aid every day, and doing so without question, "God controls the womb" is certainly one of those servings. There's a reason I posted this a few days ago. I want people to understand the ramifications and dynamics involved when you give your soul to a movement and its ideas.


[For the rest of this piece, "God controls the womb" will be condensed to "GCTW"]


Nothing in any book of the bible suggests or instructs that God is responsible for your womb. You need to get the notion that GCTW is "biblical" completely OUT of your head. GCTW is the product of ONE thing: Dominionism. Period. End of story. So, while you may not be a dominionist, you're certainly drinking the Kool-aid they offer if you subscribe to GCTW.


To take dominion, you need numbers... 


"Hmmm. So how do we get the numbers we need? I've got it! Breeding! But if we tell our people to just start outbreeding everyone, that'll never really sell. Sounds kinda kooky and cultic. Hmmm. So how do we do this? Hmmm. I've got it! We'll make it biblical! We'll tie it into their faith and godliness and stuff! We'll give 'em the Kool-aid under the guise of homeschooling and "family values" and stuff! They'll never even notice! Someone get Mary Pride in here ASAP!"


Ahh, Mary Pride. A "made" (but submissive) woman in the Christian Homeschooling mafia, champion of all delusional things QF, and the root of most modern GCTW nonsense. A legalistic religious addict's legalist.


My question is, how far are you willing to go with the whole "God controls...____" concept? In the past, I asked if GCTWers believe God also controls other aspects of life, such as "transportation". Has a nice, Christianesy ring to it - "God controls transportation". In all seriousness, there's as much biblical evidence that God controls transportation (Elijah the prophet and Philip the evangelist come to mind almost immediately) as there is for the idea that GCTW. Will you forsake your car the same way you've decided to forsake birth control? What? No? It's obvious, then, that you have no faith, right? I mean, if you can't trust God for transportation, you must not have much faith. I mean, you may not even be a Christian at all!


I think it's telling that of two ideas presented in the paragraph above, both with equal amounts of "biblical evidence" to support them, one (for those keeping score at home, the "transportation" one) would be immediately dismissed as crazy or totally ridiculous and irresponsible if you tried to promote it. The other has had an entire paradigm built around it - because it provides a solution to resource issues and fits nicely into the long-range goals of dominionism, respected voices within the Christian homeschooling mafia/cult promoted it and served it out in dixie cups, and naive, non-discerning (though usually well-meaning) conservative Christians, reacting in fear and paranoia to that mean old world closing in around them, drank it without even thinking to examine what it was. They were told it was good for them, and they never even thought to exercise discernment. Discernment isn't terribly important in their world. "Godliness" is (as defined in the Patriarchal/Authoritarian Dictionary).


Discernment is SOOOO terribly lacking in Christianity, mainly because fundamentalist Christianity is intent on keeping the Holy Spirit behind a veil. Christ reconciled the separation between man and the Spirit of God, but few Christians pay any attention to what the veil of the Temple being torn means in context. It's the single event that everything else in the bible built up to - reconciliation with God. The Holy Spirit is what's needed to genuinely grow in the faith. Otherwise, those who profess Christian faith just spin their wheels in perpetual spiritual infancy, blown by any wind, latching on to every legalistic formula, driven by cultural fears, unable to move past elemental things. In response to the piece I wrote a couple of weeks ago about Reb Bradley's article, and its distinct lack of the Holy Spirit, someone elsewhere in the cyberworld made the comment (paraphrased) "We have to trust that the Holy Spirit will reveal Jesus to them." I appreciate the heart behind the comment, but I think the opposite is actually true. Since they already profess Jesus, they need to understand that Jesus has revealed the Holy Spirit to them (with the tearing of the veil) and made God available on a personal level. They already claim Jesus. Now they need to rely on the Spirit to grow past the works-based ideas and role-playing that makes up the critical mass of their "faith".


Unfortunately, most fundamentalist and legalistic Christian leaders want few things less than for their flock, market, what have you, to be personally lead by the Holy Spirit. They go to great lengths to prevent it, and seemingly with considerable success, what with ideas like GCTW saturating conservative Christianity - and sadly seeping into some mainstream circles.


GCTWers are pretty aggressively pro-life in their views on abortion. They feel that birth control, in and of itself, is a form of abortion. What exactly is being aborted through birth control? Something that might have, could have, possibly have happened? Well, it never happened, so that's an argument over something that isn't. An egg? Sperm? Neither of those are a baby. Those two things have to actually come together for there to be anything that can be argued is a baby. The vast majority of birth control prevents those two things from coming together - therefore, there's no baby - and therefore, there's no abortion. It's a nice "I love babies and life more than you do" idea, but it isn't grounded in reality, but rather in spiritual immaturity and futile attempts to be "godly". 


And the worst part of all of it? The GCTW "choice" recklessly disregards and takes a pass on personal responsibility for sexual actions, which is EXACT argument that this same group of people makes against what other group of people?


They look identical to everything they stand against, but can't even begin to see it. Fundamentalism is like an intellectual death spiral.


I probably should've went with that other word.