Deliberate Childlessness

I never thought the day would come when people were FORCED to have children.

Connie Schultz of the Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote an article on Monday about Bryce Christensen (who regularly writes for the Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society), who argued that "deliberate childlessness" must be stopped. Let's reflect on some of his thoughts: woman have abandoned their biblically mandated roles as housemankers for the work force, working mothers kids are "semi-orphans," working mothers steal jobs from men, depriving men of a "family wage."

Ironically, Christensen's own wife works -- full time -- outside the home. Oh, how I love hypocricy. Wanna hear her view?

First: "I resented that society put me in the position where I had to go back to work," she said. "I remember a time when cars were $3,000, houses were $27,000. But banks started taking second incomes as collateral, and that priced so many out of a home."

Then: "Did I want to go back to work? Yes. Yes I did." D'oh!

But he isn't even the worst offender. Even more appalling, R. Albert Mohler Jr. (president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) wrote that:

Christians must recognize that this rebellion against parenthood represents
nothing less than an absolute revolt against God's design. The Scripture points
to barrenness as a great curse and children as a divine gift.

This is the precise worldview the Scripture rejects. Marriage, sex, and children are part of one package. To deny any part of this wholeness is to reject God's
intention in creation--and His mandate revealed in the Bible.

But the fact remains that though childlessness may be made possible by the
contraceptive revolution, it remains a form of rebellion against God's design
and order. Couples are not given the option of chosen childlessness in the
biblical revelation. To the contrary, we are commanded to receive children with
joy as God's gifts, and to raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

The church should insist that the biblical formula calls for adulthood to mean marriage and marriage to mean children. This reminds us of our responsibility to raise boys to be husbands and fathers and girls to be wives and mothers. God's glory is seen in this, for the family is a critical arena where the glory of God is either displayed or denied. It is just as simple as that.

The church must help this society regain its sanity on the gift of children. Willful barrenness and chosen childlessness must be named as moral rebellion. To demand that marriage means sex--but not children--is to defraud the creator of His joy and pleasure in seeing the saints raising His children. That is just the way it is. No kidding.

Wow. Again. Where is this supposed freedom of religion, a bedrock of our country? Now we have to get married, we have to have kids, we can't work. They really *do* want to move his country back to the 40s. Hell, why even give women the right to vote? Did we run that one by God before we just started handing out rights like that? Women voting makes the lines longer, depriving men of being able to vote and get to work on time.

What is wrong with the world?!