A Prime Purpose
God created gender for intimacy, to bring people together. He also created it for fruitfulness, to make more God-imaging life. As teacher Christopher West reminds us, the root of the word itself is about generation. Quoting from his book:
“The root “gen” from which we get words like generous, generate, genesis, genetics, genealogy, progeny, gender, and genitals—means to produce or give birth to. A person’s gen-der, therefore, is based on the manner in which that person is designed to gen-erate new life.”
So gender means the manner in which one is designed to generate.
This week the New York Times ran an article about how the current presidential administration, recognizing the coming population collapse, is considering ways to get women to have more children. They have a lot to overcome, given our culture’s devaluing of children. Even the Christian church has participated in the denigration of childbearing as a high calling for women. Just flash the terms, patriarchy, or Handmaid’s Tale, and you can stop any discussion.
Increase in Number
Contrast this with the Christian Scriptures’ directives to shape our lives to bring children in and up. As I outlined last month, this direction starts with the first command God gives the first two people He created: to “increase in number” (Genesis 1:28). The text literally says, “be many.” I did not there visit all the Bible passages reflecting the God of the Bible’s pronatalism. For example, in Mark 10:13-16, Jesus adamantly contradicts the attitude that children are not what it is about:
13 And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. 14 But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. 15 Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” 16 And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them.
I read our current moment in this story. To me, the disciples are taking the place of our culture, representing the Kingdom as unconcerned with childrearing. Jesus returns that the kingdom is very much about children, making having them important to our lives as couples. To such belongs His kingdom. There are purposes that prevent having children, but those are exceptions (Matthew 19:12). Jesus is, in fact, indignant about not seeing the value of bringing children into our lives.
Remembering or Forgetting
Is the church’s view of childbearing shaped more by the culture or Christ? The former will persuade couples that God’s command to “increase in number” does not mean “increase in number,” but means something else.
In that case, psychic strain increases, problems multiply, and the purpose of the gift of gender goes forgotten.
This is not an issue that can be helpfully addressed by American tycoons with multiple wives and concubines. We can look for inspiration to our fathers and mothers in the Church, such as Joseph and Mary, Macrina, and George Mueller.
Mary K., thank you–I think that your comment highlights how the plummeted birthrate is a deep problem. Tax incentives or longer maternity leaves, while perhaps helpful, are not going to make a big difference in couples’ decision-making if it is a failure of the vision of the goodness in the sacrifice needed to bring a child into the world. The vision we need, as you point out, comes to us in healthy and attractive lives. They show the Biblical logic of losing ourselves for our children.