Raising an Army
Wednesday 
in the early morning 
Mystie
[Barbara Curtis](http://www.mommylife.net): [Guerilla Parenting](http://www.mommylife.net/archives/2005/03/guerilla_parent.html)
emphasis original
So, how did our oh-so-sophisticated culture come to hold children in such low regard?
It took a quarter of a century. Since Roe v. Wade, through the popularization of promiscuous sex, birth control and abortion, Americans have absorbed as a fundamental truth what once began as a radical feminist philosophy. That is the child as invader - of a woman’s body, life, and freedom. While most Second Wave feminists justified abortion by positing the non-viability of the “fetus,” their bolder sisters railed that even if an unborn baby was viable, a mother objecting to this invasion of her body had a right to kill the intruder - just as she might kill an assailant who had broken into her home. Abortion as self-defense was a more useful model for feminists because it removed viability as an issue, thus opening the floodgates for late-term abortions.
In the same way so many once-countercultural ideas slithered their way into mainstream culture, this once-radical departure has become the most-traveled road. Consider one now-common addition to our language: unprotected sex means engaging in the act of reproduction without a barrier to reproduction. The implied warning: If you practice unprotected sex, you might end up with a disease - or worse, a child.
The child as invader. Defending oneself against children. Not so radical ideas anymore. “I just can’t imagine another one.” “I’ve finally got all the kids in school, I couldn’t handle another baby!” “I wanted to have more, but my husband put his foot down.” I’ve heard remarks like these for years - on the steps of my local church!
And so I wonder, what would the church look like today if we were influenced less by the culture which sees children as invaders - who will rob us of our freedom, status, beauty, wealth, and sanity - and influenced more by Scripture, which steadfastly affirms children as God’s reward?
Consider Psalm 127:
Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
Are sons born in one’s youth.
Blessed is the man
Whose quiver is full of them.
They will not be put to shame
When they contend with their enemies in the gate
Hold that thought. Then consider that while our current national birth rate is 1.8, for in many Muslim countries the average mother has eight children.
No army ever won a battle with empty quivers.
Perhaps the Body of Christ should recognize that having many children - if parents work to keep their arrows sharp and their aim true - may be the most revolutionary course Christians in a post-modern nation may take.
(MCL)
with 
(personal library)
Wait
So birth control is on the level of abortion now? o_O
Some would say so, and some forms are, but many who wouldn’t go that far would still claim that the popularization of it (which is what the above author wrote), the widespread use and common acceptance of it, the easy availability of so many different and safe forms of it, the fact that more couples use it than not, is more than a result of, but also a cause of, our low view of children. There have always been different forms of birth control, but it has not always been so commonly accepted as the presumed default state of even married couples.
I believe that birth control can be used in a wise and godly way, but I also think that the foremost reason birth control is generally used is selfishness in a variety of forms. It’s a touchy subject and I wouldn’t presume to judge other families based on their size — to their own Master they will stand or fall — but we all need to humbly examine our own reasons so that when we must stand, we will not fall.
The original author casually sandwiching it between murder and fornication is what sends off alarm bells in my mind.
True. I have read enough of the author to know that although she encourages families who choose not to use it and she encourages large families, she doesn’t believe birth control is necessarily a sin. The sentence does make it sound as though she does, I grant. :)