'Arrows for the War' (Page 4)

Rachel Scott, who calls herself a "one-woman Quiverfull activist," describes her conversion moment. One night after the birth of her fourth child--their third "oops" baby due to birth-control failures--when the prospect of tuition for four consumed husband Christopher and their pastor was urging vasectomy, Christopher saw a warrior angel in his dream. A "large, worrying warrior angel" with a flaming sword that he pointed at Christopher's genitals, telling him, "Do not change God's plan."

While Scott pays tribute to the foundation of the Quiverfull movement in Pride's books and the home-schooling movement, she distinguishes herself from the "hard line" of Quiverfull believers, whom she sees as holding each other to purity tests: How many kids do you have? Do you home-school? Concerned that such stringency could alienate potential believers, Scott instead promotes a gentler Quiverfull, so that average Christian families feel up to the task of "Birthing God's Mighty Warriors." "Like all good buildings, the foundation needs to be strong. But the Bible says, 'All men come.' The foundation's been laid and now God's starting to change people's minds, both inside and outside of the church. Before the end times, the Bible says the family will be restored, whether they're in church or out of church," says Scott.

The hard Quiverfull line is something that bothers Dawn Irons, founder of Blessed Arrows. After Lyme disease left Irons "postfertile," she felt stung by the assertions of "movement Quiverfullers," who view the number of children one has as a gauge of holiness or spirituality. "If you follow the discussions on the Quiverfull Digest right now, you can see what happens when a 'movement' mentality sets in. Someone just asked the question today if a person can really be considered Quiverfull if they're past the age of childbearing...as if being able to birth a baby is all that makes one Quiverfull. It's a heart change."

Becca Campos agrees. She says that Quiverfull shouldn't be thought of as a movement but as a return to an old ideal. Current speculation on the Quiverfull Digest as to whether larger families are becoming "a fad" grows from some people "making an idol of it." Of course, the nature of mass movements is a blunting of subtleties, and a winnowing down of theology to the most easily understood denominator. In this case: babies, lots of them, for God.

When I visited Janet and Ted Wolfson at their paintball farm in Canton, Georgia, for a planned Quiverfull picnic (one cut short by bad weather and Rachel Scott's cardinal rule that "with eight children, plans are always subject to change"), the Wolfsons and their guests were discussing the reasons for sticking with Quiverfull through the hard times. An anonymous mother had written in to the Quiverfull Digest full of despair, saying she felt she was "going to die." Her husband was older and unhelpful around the house, and she feared he would die and leave her to raise their six children alone and destitute. She wanted someone on the forum to give her a reason--besides the Bible--why one should be Quiverfull. The answers were quick and pointed: Apart from Scripture, there's no reason why one should be Quiverfull.

"If you don't invoke God's word, then there's really no reason," the Wolfsons explained. "Kids are great and all that, but in reality, it's all about the Bible."

But if the Quiverfull mission is rooted in faith, the unseen, its mandate to be fruitful and multiply has tangible results as well. Namely, in Rick and Jan Hess's words, to provide "arrows for the war."

After arguing Scripture, the Hesses point to a number of more worldly effects that a Christian embrace of Quiverfull could bring. "When at the height of the Reagan Revolution," they write, "the conservative faction in Washington was enforced [sic] with squads of new conservative congressmen, legislators often found themselves handcuffed by lack of like-minded staff. There simply weren't enough conservatives trained to serve in Washington in the lower and middle capacities." But if just 8 million American Christian couples began supplying more "arrows for the war" by having six children or more, they propose, the Christian-right ranks could rise to 550 million within a century ("assuming Christ does not return before then"). They like to ponder the spiritual victory that such numbers could bring: both houses of Congress and the majority of state governor's mansions filled by Christians; universities that embrace creationism; sinful cities reclaimed for the faithful; and the swift blows dealt to companies that offend Christian sensibilities.

"With the nation's low birth rate, the high divorce rate, an un-marrying and anti-child viewpoint, and a debauched nation perhaps unable to slow down the spread of AIDS, we can begin to see what happens politically. A half-billion person boycott of a company which violated God's standards could be very effective.... Through God's blessing we would be part of a replay of Exodus 1:7, 'But the sons of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly, and multiplied, and became exceedingly mighty, so that the land was filled with them.'" "Brethren," they write, "it's time for a comeback!"

The fact that, in 2006, their predictions read less like Left Behind fantasies than a slight exaggeration of the past year's religious news is a testament to what's changed since the Hesses published their book more than fifteen years ago.

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