Post on 01-Jan-2016
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Be fruitful,be many / become great,Fill the land …
Christian natalism and the Bible.
John McKeown, February 2007
University of Chester
I = P x A x T•
I is environmental impact
P is population
A is affluence
T is technology (specifically, how green technology is, reducing emissions)
Newsweek, November 13, 2006.
“Quiverfull”, a small but growing Protestant group that ... believes family planning is exclusively God’s domain.
Purists don’t permit even natural family-planning methods, such as tracking fertility cycles (the only form of birth control condoned by the Roman Catholic Church).
“The increasing cooperation of Catholic and Evangelical leaders on abortion and same-sex marriage has allowed cross-pollination ... In September, 250 anti-abortion activists met in Chicago to attack contraceptives such as IUDs and the pill ... because they might prevent implantation of a fertilized egg.
Some Perspectives
• Modern pro-natalists
• Early Judaism
• Ancient Near East and Israel
• Biblical theology
• The early Christian Fathers
• Ecological exegesis
Natalist use of Bible
Command to multiply (Gen 1:28)
The more sons the better (Psalm 127)
Generative defect ritually unclean (Deut 23:1)
Reproductive failure as a curse (Deut 7:14)
Non-generative sex as unlawful (Gen 38:9-
10)
Campbell
QuickTime™ and aTIFF (LZW) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Mary Campbell, Be Fruitful & Multiply, 2003
Torodes
Sam and Bethany Torode, Open Embrace: A Protestant Couple Rethinks Contraception, Eerdmans, 2002
Commended on cover by Prof J. I. Packer, author of Knowing God
Mohler / Land“Mohler has certainly expanded his following.
He is seen as the popularizer of a position
that is still very marginal, but 15 years ago it
wouldn't have even been discussed, says
Land, adding that he knows of two former
students who had reverse vasectomies after
hearing Mohler's arguments.”
Dr Richard Land, chair of Southern Baptist
Ethics Commission, Newsweek, Nov. 2006.
CBN Christian Broadcasting Network
“The Growing Movement of Natalism”
"Because we're Christians, we believe our commandment is to be fruitful and multiply … big families are what God would have us to do.”
“they will be the soldiers of the next generation who will fight the coming hostilities, that are already apparent, toward Christianity.”
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/news/050331a.aspx
Martin Luther
Gen 1:28 “is a physical
blessing and is restricted to
filling the earth. No matter
how saintly a father or
mother are, this is of no
advantage to the children
who are born to them.”Yegerlehner, p.164
Augustine (in 421)“This propagation of children which among the ancient saints was a duty ... now has no longer the same necessity. For from among all nations the way is open for an abundant offspring to receive spiritual regeneration, from whatever quarter they derive their natural birth.”
Augustine of Hippo, written in 421 CE.
NPNF vol.5 On Marriage and Concupiscence ch.14
Continency in marriage
Eusebius claims that Enoch, Noah, Isaac
and Joseph “had children in early life, but
later on ... ceased from having them”, and
“Moses and Aaron are recorded as having
had children before the appearance of God,
but after the giving of the divine oracles as
having begotten no more”.
Eusebius of Caesarea, Demonstratio Evangelica. Tr. W.J. Ferrar (1920) New York: Macmillan. p.53
Filling the land
“He wants the earth to be filled! Remember
we found that the word ‘replenish’ means to
“fill up the world to overflowing”. And
contrary to the scare tactics of the would-be
population controllers, there is still plenty of
room ... the entire world population could fit
in the state of Texas” [0.05 acres each]
Mary Campbell, Be Fruitful and Multiply, p.27
Filling the land
Cyprian of Carthage (Tunisia) d.258
“While yet the world was
uncultivated and empty, we
begot large numbers ... Now
when the earth is filled ... they
who can, receive continency.”Cyprian, ANF, vol.5 p.436