Being fruitful: some evangelicals now view large families as a divine command

0 Comments | Insight on the News, August 12, 2002 | by Robert Stacy McCain

Sam and Bethany Torode oppose contraception. They say it interferes with the "one-flesh" nature of marriage declared in the Bible. And no one can accuse the couple of failing to practice what they preach: Their son, Gideon, was born almost exactly nine months after their November 2000 wedding.

"We don't waste any time," says Torode, 26, of South Wayne, Wis. He and his 21-year-old wife are expecting their second child in February.

The Catholic Church condemns contraception as intrinsically evil, but the Torodes are not Catholic. They are part of a new generation of young Protestants who disdain birth control and favor larger families. "A lot of people grew up without realizing there was an alternative to the dominant contraceptive lifestyle," says Torode, art and design editor of Touchstone, a Christian magazine.

In their new book, Open Embrace: A Protestant Couple Rethinks Contraception, the Torodes declare they want a "passel" of children, and they are not alone. Christian Internet sites such as www.quiverfull.com advocate large families based on Psalm 127:5: "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."

Many evangelical Protestants in the pro-life movement have large families. Tennessee pro-life activist Charles Wysong and his wife, Brenda, have 15 children; Arkansas state Rep. Jim Bob Duggar and his wife, Michelle, have 13; Virginia homeschooling leader Michael Farris and his wife, Vickie, have 10.

Protestant churches didn't endorse birth control until the 20th century. Martin Luther and other early Protestant reformers "believed in abundant fertility," says Allan Carlson, president of the Howard Center for the Family, Religion and Society in Rockford, Ill. "He condemned contraception and abortion in the strongest possible terms." Specifically, says Carlson, Luther thought God's blessing for Adam and Eve in Genesis 1:28--to "be fruitful and multiply"--was a divine command.

Prior to the 1900s, most Protestants opposed birth control for the same reasons expressed by Pope Paul VI in his July 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, says Torode. "They believed contraception would increase promiscuity and encourage adultery by separating sex from procreation."

But after the Church of England approved birth control at its 1930 Lambeth Conference, "all Protestant denominations went on to endorse contraception, except for a few groups like the Amish" says Torode. "Protestants were following the spirit of the age. They were influenced by people like [Planned Parenthood founder] Margaret Sanger."

By the 1980s, acceptance of birth control was so widespread that tubal ligation--surgical sterilization of women, now America's No. 1 contraceptive method--became routine for women after having two or three children. "After my mom had my sister, who is her third child, the nurse actually prepped her for a tubal ligation without her consent, but the doctor intervened--he was a Christian, too," says Bethany Torode. "My mom was pretty groggy and she didn't even know what was going on."

The national trend toward smaller families has had profound consequences, according to Carlson. Out-of-wedlock births--33 percent of all U.S. babies last year were born to unmarried women--have become a troubling statistic, partly because the marital fertility rate has declined by more than 40 percent in the last 45 years.

Marital fertility is "the most important indicator of social health" Carlson says. "It's important because it embodies two critical measures of social health: the desire of young adults to marry and to procreate new life."

RELATED ARTICLE: Traditional Jews, Christians unite.

Former Republican presidential hopeful Gary Bauer and Orthodox Jewish Rabbi Daniel Lapin have started an advocacy group, with headquarters in the nation's capital, for conservative Christians and traditional Jews.

"I'd been getting feedback for a long time that many American Jews are rethinking their political alliance to the Democratic Party," Bauer says. "Our goal is to support Israel and defend Christian-Jewish alliances."

The American Alliance of Jews and Christians (AAJC) will rely heavily on the collective public-relations machine of a high-powered board of advisers, including author James Dobson, the Revs. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, Charles Colson of Prison Fellowship Ministries, film critic Michael Medved and Rabbi David Novak. The advisers "have all insisted on extensive involvement," says Lapin, president of Toward Tradition. "They aren't just names on paper; they are all very passionate about this."

But some observers expect the group to be little more than a conservative echo chamber, if not a paper tiger. "There are a million groups like this," says Eric Alterman, media columnist for the left-wing Nation magazine and MSNBC.com. "The only question is where the money is coming from. If they're getting [Richard Mellon] Scaife money, they'll do just fine. If they aren't, they're going to struggle no matter who is in charge."