Evangelical Group's Motto: Breed to Succeed

[Triana]

We always suspected this. Now, it is a confirmed formality - women as breeding chattel. And there's a concern that the country / world will be overpopulated with and run by these fundies, while the rest of us refuse to breed like rabbits just increase our numbers. Mark Morford wrote a satirical piece about that recently - but it's a real issue. And before anyone flames me, NO I'm not suggesting that us 'blue' folks ought to breed more to keep up. I'm suggesting that population control is an issue that's even bigger than this and that 'breeding' for all of us ought to be somehow controlled and that restricting family size ought to be encouraged. Like climate change (and this is part of that issue, as well), it's immoral NOT to control our population because too many people inevitably (are) strain(ing) and destroy(ing) the planet and increasingly depleting its resources. Al Gore makes brief mention of that in his film, AIT. I don't expect fundy "Jaysus is a Comin, Who Cares!" apocolyptists to "get" this though, or to even care. Their particular brand of "morality" doesn't seem to cover REAL moral issues like this one.
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Evangelical Group's Motto: Breed to Succeed
By Kathryn Joyce, The Nation
Posted on November 14, 2006, Printed on November 14, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/44254/

When the Gospel Community Church in Coxsackie, New York, breaks midservice to excuse children for Sunday school, nearly half of the 225-strong congregation patters toward the back of the worship hall: the five youngest children of Pastor Stan Slager's eight, assistant pastor Bartly Heneghan's eleven and the Dufkin family's thirteen, among many others. "The Missionettes," a team of young girls who perform ribbon dances during the praise music, put down their "glory hoops" to join their classmates; the pews empty out. It's the un-ignorable difference between the families at Gospel Community and those in the rest of the town that's led some to wonder if the church isn't a cult that forces its disciples to keep pushing out children.

But after the kids leave, Pastor Stan doesn't exhort his congregation to bear children. His approach is more subtle, reminding them to present their bodies as living sacrifices to the Lord, and preaching to them about Acts 5:20: Go tell "all the words of this life." Or, in Pastor Stan's guiding translation, to lead lives that make outsiders think, "Christianity is real," lives that "demand an explanation."

Lives such as these: Janet Wolfson is a 44-year-old mother of eight in Canton, Georgia. Tracie Moore, a 39-year-old midwife who lives in southern Kentucky, is mother to fourteen. Wendy Dufkin in Coxsackie has her thirteen. And while Jamie Stoltzfus, a 27-year-old Illinois mom, has only four children so far, she plans on bearing enough to populate "two teams." All four mothers are devoted to a way of life New York Times columnist David Brooks has praised as a new spiritual movement taking hold among exurban and Sunbelt families. Brooks called these parents "natalists" and described their progeny as a new wave of "Red-Diaper Babies" -- as in "red state."

...

[LiberalEsto]

1. There are other groups doing the same thing

The ultra-Orthodox Haredi Jews don't permit birth control and have enormous families. My husband's sister, a convert, has 8 kids, which is not unusual.

Mormons tend to have very large families, and some Muslims, especially those with multiple wives, have a great many children as well.

[Triana]

2. Of course you're right....

...I don't know what could be done, just that something ought to be - should be. Not just because of the 'we're breeding a religious army' aspect of it, or the use of women as breeding chattel aspect of it, but also because of the population control / planet / climate change aspect.

For me it comes down to "Jesus, protect the rest of us from your followers, please!" :grr:

[LiberalEsto]

3. Education

You can't force people to stop having kids, they way they did in China.

People need to be educated about the impact of the exponentially-expanding population on the planet. Even if religious extremists put their fingers in their ears and say "la, la, la, I can't hear you," some of this message will eventually seep in, particularly to their children.

Kids in some of these religiously extreme families do come in contact with outsiders, and learn that there are other ways to live. Two of my husband's nephews have left the ultra-orthodox sect. I'm sure there are plenty of children of evangelical Christians who are abandoning their parents' belief systems.

It might also be worth examining whether, in the interests of reducing population growth, tax deductions for families with children should be limited to the first 3 or 4 kids.

[Triana]

8. Good point about kids going their own ways and bucking the system(s)

Several others I've talked to think the same thing. That is to say, having a bunch of kids is one thing, but you can't control how they live beyond a certain point/age, and many of them choose other ways to live. Thank "God!"

;)

I like the idea about tax deductions! I think it should be limited to two kids. After that, no breaks or deductions for more kids.

[undergroundpanther]

4. Hmm

I hope the Earth makes us all sterile.We have polluted it so much it's only a matter of time.These fundies will lose thier fertility. And the human race will poison itself and the world to death.
http://www.environment.no/templates/themepage.aspx?id=3167

[Triana]

9. Could be a good thing....

...a little (a LOT) of chlorine in the gene pool?

Of course the population would cease, then, eventually, but the way we're destroying the place, we'll soon have no place to live and it'll happen anyway so...

[bloom]

6. It looked like from the show "God is Green"

by Bill Moyers - that while a few Evangelicals came to appreciate the ecological argument from their own study or whatever - in general they were more likely to accept global warming as a serious issue from other evangelicals.

I hope the green Evangelicals can influence these people.

It would be a lot better for people to be sensible on their own - instead of having to pass laws about it. But I think that it should come to that - if people are going to insist on being clueless. I think it's getting to where huge families should be considered criminal. That may be extreme - but so is the state of the ocean.

It was a different world 50-100 years ago. Most big families were on family farms. I don't think there is any excuse for it, now. And if people are doing it so their ideology can win - that is just nonsense. That is a losing ideology for all of us.

[Triana]

10. I love what you said:

"That may be extreme - but so is the state of the ocean"

and...

"if people are doing it so their ideology can win - that is just nonsense. That is a losing ideology for all of us."

It is going to get to the point that it is criminal. As it stands now, it's becoming immoral - the very same thing these folks claim NOT to be. Of course, getting them to see that is quite a job.

[deepthought42]

5. I read Mark Morford's article...

very funny, but sobering at the same time. These people believe it is their sacred duty to "be fruitful and multiply", and it seems like nothing short of a catastrophic event would convince them otherwise. :scared:

[TlalocW]

7. It's a No-Hold's Barred (only one sexual position allowed though) Breed-Off!

Against the Catholics, Mormons, and Evangelicals!!!

I like to tell my Catholic friends that I was fruitful and multiplying when I was in the third grade. That's when we learned our times tables up to 12, and I helped my dad plant some mullberry trees in the backyard.

TlalocW

[Triana]

11. LOLOL!

Thanks for the laugh. I needed that. Good way to handle it - plant trees! ;)