Why do conservative Christians have so many children?
Born-again Christians, which covers most evangelical, pentecostal, charismatic, baptist, and other more conservative Bible denominations, try to follow biblical principles and outlooks on all of life, including child bearing and parenting.
With this in mind, they follow the guidelines outlined below, which are often in contradiction to modern, liberal, and secular views:
1. POSITIVE VIEW OF CHILDREN
Children are a blessing, not a burden. More children = more blessing. They see the current trends of 'more children cramp my freedom' as selfish reasoning. However, they do sometimes argue that if you have more children than you can emotionally and fiscally care for, you are not doing the right thing either.
2. POSITIVE VIEW OF SEX
Believe it or not, Christianity has a positive view of sex, but only within marriage. However, it emphasizes right relationships over mere sex, so presumably, if your relationship is good, more sex, and more good sex. It also forbids either partner from withholding sex. Relevant passages include:
The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
Proverbs 5:18-20
May your fountain be blessed,
and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.
A loving doe, a graceful deer—
may her breasts satisfy you always,
may you ever be captivated by her love.
Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress?
Why embrace the bosom of another man's wife?
3. OVERPOPULATION MYTH
Most conservative Christians don't believe in the 'overpopulation myth' - the idea that we are so short on resources that we need to limit our progeny. They attribute most modern poverty and starvation NOT to lack of resources, but problems with sustainable development and resource distribution. That is, countries that suffer poverty and starvation do so because of evil men in power, wars, abuse of their natural resources, and ignorance and lack of development of their most precious resource, their own people. This is why, for instance, Hong Kong is prosperous despite the lack of natural resources - they leverage their people power.
They also believe that Malthusian predictions of mass starvation and lack of energy resources ignore what advances in technology have done for mankind. They site the fact that Malthus' predictions failed to come true, as have all such predictions of doom based on human overpopulation. The only places where population is a consideration is in countries that have other resource problems for other reasons, like those given above.
4. COMMAND TO POPULATE AND SUBDUE THE EARTH
The command to 'fill and subdue the earth' was given to both Adam/Eve and Noah's family after the global flood. The latter command is part of what is called the "Noahic Covenant," which many argue is still in effect. In order to fulfill this command, many argue that we either should NOT limit the number of kids we have, or we at least need 3 in order to do more than just replace ourselves (i.e. 2, one for each parent).
5. RIGHTS OF THE UNBORN
Most conservative Christians believe that the fetus is a person with rights, and that abortion is murdering it. So when Christians DO get pregnant, they don't usually abort. Along the same lines, since they value life over their own convenience, they also do not usually abort treatable conditions like Down syndrome, though 90% of today's Down kids are aborted in the west.
6. ANTIPATHY TO CONTRACEPTION
There is a growing movement among conservative Christians to consider birth control as a bad thing. And not just because they think it promotes promiscuity, but because, as the Catholics have long maintained, seeking to sow and not reap is disobeying divine and spiritual law, which always has negative consequences - just like using artificial sweeteners leads to disease, when we should just use natural sweeteners in moderation, some Christians now argue that we should realize that having sex leads to children, and if we don't want them, we need to use natural birth control methods, not chemicals. However, use of physical blocking methods (condoms), rhythm, or other methods are not that much of a sure thing.
For a more full-orbed view of Christian views on contraception, see the following:
LAST THOUGHTS
The initial premise is that 'born-agains' have more children than others. While this may be so when comparing to averages, you might also say "why do non-christians, and esp. liberal secularists, have so few? Why is it that the liberal European nations now have negative population growth?" You may find that their views are often the antipathy of those mentioned above.
Another thought - 'born-agains' don't have the MOST children - in fact, according to a Pew Forum poll, they are exceeded by Mormons, Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Muslims, and possibly Sikhs. This is in part because they don't officially BAN contraception.
