One of the many evil byproducts of the Prussian system of education that has been embraced by our public schools is a system of grades.¹ This artificial designation takes children from the family, groups all children of a certain age into one class and teaches them from a stagnant curriculum, designed by experts for that age group, not taking into consideration the personal development or skills of the individual child.²

Because this system has been a part of America’s educational system for so long, parents often ignore their own observations and gut instincts regarding their child and accept all sorts of diagnoses presented by the public school experts who say the child is a slow learner, has ADD or ADHD, or is dyslexic, and so on. The diagnosing of these children is based on a godless system of psychology that sees the child not as an image-bearer of God but as an animal that can be trained and manipulated. This  philosophy retards the child from developing into all that he can be under godly nurture. Many children have suffered much harm as a result of being so labeled by public school authorities.

In accepting these labels, parents defer to the realm of psychology in place of Biblical Christianity, because a Biblical
psychology is not taught in public schools or from our pulpits. Rushdoony notes,

Humanistic psychology gives us a doctrine of man radically at odds with Scripture. It has become routine for clergymen to look to humanistic psychologies for guidance in pastoral counseling, and books applying such psychologies to pastoral problems have a ready market and widespread influence. The result has been the steady infiltration of humanism into Christian circles and the steady erosion of the Biblical doctrines of man and salvation.³

Psychology is properly categorized as a branch of theology. It concerns itself with man’s nature and inner life, the realm of the soul or the mind.⁴ The doctrine of man as laid out in Scripture begins and ends with man as a creature. Sin is what polluted God’s creation and only God’s remedy (salvation through Jesus Christ) repairs the breach. To leave children in the hands of humanistic psychology and its practitioners in public schools and elsewhere results in a warped view of children and numerous ungodly ways to relate to them.

Rushdoony makes it clear,

Man was created a mature being, not a child. This is a fact of central importance. We cannot make child psychology basic to an understanding of man …

If man in his origin is a product of a long evolutionary past, man is then best understood in terms of the animal, the savage, and the child. However, since man was in his origin a mature creation, his psychology is best understood in terms of that fact. Man’s sins and shortcomings represent not a lingering primitivism or a reversion to childhood, but rather a deliberate revolt against maturity and the requirements of maturity. By ascribing to man, as humanistic psychologies do, a basic substratum of primitivism and racial childishness, this revolt against maturity is given an ideological justification; the studied and maturely developed immaturity of man is encouraged and justified.⁵

Biblical nurturing is based on the development of the child, recognizing what he is capable of at each stage of development, and customizing training based on the individual. This nurturing must be grounded in the reality that,

The child is not only a person but a concept; in that each culture has its own particular idea and expectation of a child …The child is born into a culture and is loved and honored as it meets the expectations of that culture.⁶

Christians need to adopt expectations for their children based on Scriptural principles. What follows is intended to encourage parents to think outside the pagan, psychological and educational box.

Stages of Childhood

Newborns

The Biblical view of children is that they are a blessing from the Lord (Psalm 127). That doesn’t mean they are sinless. A proper understanding of the Fall and the need for atonement must be among the first lessons parents impart to their infant children. How parents deal with a newborn should reflect that however innocent the child may appear, sin is part of the equation. Everything the parent (or caregivers, be they grandparents or siblings) does for the child must be in this context. Does that mean a crying baby is manifesting deliberate wickedness?  Certainly not. But the child is demonstrating a self-centeredness that includes the attitude, “I don’t like what is going on and I want what I want when I want it!”

Rushdoony notes that since man was created in the image of God, man must live by revelation. He states, “Every fiber of his being must respond to God’s law for its health.”⁷ Thus, from the outset, a mother must instill in her child the reality of God’s law-word, purposefully framing all her interactions with her infant accordingly. Feedings, diaper changes, and naptimes should be opportunities to speak to her baby the truths of Scripture, knowing that although the child may not comprehend all the words, he will respond to the emotional context in which they are spoken. What a blessing to be able to say there was never a time in his life where the Word of God was absent!

Babies

There is a point when a child goes from being a “new” baby to just being a baby. It is at this stage where there is some
recognition by the child that there are boundaries. It’s easy to tell when this occurs because there is a more urgent necessity to communicate the concept of No! in order to keep the child safe. However, the use of the word No should always have included with it an explanation. The parental retort, “Because I told you so” is not Biblical. If the parent’s authority doesn’t come from God, the parent does not have legitimate authority.⁸ If interactions with the child are grounded in Scripture, then there will be no need for this refrain, because the child will be aware that the parents’ requirements are in terms of God’s Word.

For example: “Stop crying,” is better expressed, “Crying will not bring your food any sooner. You must learn to be patient. The Bible states …” If the mother is faithful to teach this during the many opportunities to deal with a sobbing baby, the child will learn that he does not set the agenda for the household. Care should be taken to treat tantrums and outbursts as futile efforts on the part of the child to gain control. Again, although the child may not understand the full meaning of the words spoken, communicated properly the intent will be understood.

Young Children

When children leave the baby stage they become aware of their new abilities, and thus test boundaries. Mobility and language propel the child into entirely new arenas of life. It is at this point that the mother’s work escalates and she earns her stripes. Catechism memorization (teaching the doctrines of the faith) is a fundamental step in stewarding a child’s life. Parents need to establish the foundation upon which their household runs (Josh. 24:15), and regularly evaluate their family policies and practices to ensure that they haven’t strayed off the “straight and narrow path.” By establishing the foundation for obedience, transgressions can be dealt with in terms of repentance and forgiveness.

Older Children

Responsibility is the key ingredient in determining when your children fit into the category of “older children.” Rather than rely on the artificial method of grades or even age, the criteria should include how well your son or daughter responds to instruction and family guidelines within the context of God’s law-word. This may be different with every child in the family. If the earlier paths have been properly travelled, the family gains a tremendous asset as these members move beyond being total dependents to active participants in the life of the family.⁹

Motivation

In each of these stages of growth, motivation plays an essential part. Tied into the concept of motivation is that of incentivizing behavior. Just as most adults don’t pursue certain activities without a reason or compensation (most wouldn’t show up for a job if a paycheck was not part of the deal), children need to be dealt with in terms of payment or reward. I am not talking about bribery. I’m referring to the intrinsic need to be working toward a goal with purpose. By failing to establish this, children can easily become bored, time wasters, or mischievous. Even Jesus promised rewards in heaven (Matt. 6:20) as an incentive for faithfulness.

Some children seemingly start off in life with a strong desire to please and this makes it much easier to spend time with them. However, if pleasing others becomes paramount rather than obedience to God’s Word, then it is likely that the child will learn how to adapt to anyone in authority and become pragmatic in his actions and decisions. Instilling in
children a desire to “fear God and keep His commandments” will also unearth those particular gifts and abilities that God has placed in each individual child. When these surface, proper incentive and motivation become much easier to
practice.

That said, not all children approach life this way and parents must continue to inculcate in their more difficult children
a sense of duty and responsibility that trumps their particular desires or whims. The message is the same, regardless of the temperament of the child, but requires a bit more consistency with those who seem to fight at every turn.

It might be helpful at this point to illustrate the concept of providing an incentive or motivation in some of the more mundane aspects of family life.

Shoe-Tying

Each of my children struggled with this maneuver. By knowing them as individuals, I was able to appeal to “what made them tick” in order to help them succeed. With my son, who refused to take responsibility for a task he was quite capable of completing, it took an ultimatum on a Friday afternoon. I informed him that he was going to miss participating in the Saturday soccer game if he was unable to tie his own cleats. Rather than fight with him, I told him that we would find other things to do with our Saturday morning-maybe even sleep in. Now, he needed my help, and rather than being resistive, he was motivated to receive instruction. I didn’t make a threat; I promised him a consequence. In this way I was treating him as God treats His children: blessings for obedience and penalties for disobedience.

In my youngest daughter’s case, her inability to perform this task had more to do with her tendency to act as though she understood the instructions of her father, when she really was quite lost. Because her dad didn’t understand this character flaw in his daughter, he would become frustrated and assume she was being deliberately disobedient. He would get angry and she would cry. It was a vicious circle. I was able to mediate the situation finally and promising her that by that day’s end, she would know how to tie her shoes. She remembers the episode vividly: I broke the process down into simple steps, encouraging her as she repeated each one over and over.  By the time we were nearing the end, she’d say, “I can do it all now.” I would tell her not to jump ahead and keep doing the earlier steps. By the time her dad came home, she met him at the door with a big smile and said, “Watch this!” I was just imitating our God who teaches us line upon line, precept upon precept.

A Sick Child

Parents often dread the scenario of dealing with a sick child. Pushing liquids gets to be a chore and a source of confrontation at a time when neither mom nor child needs a fight. Instead of fighting and threatening punishment, I endeavored to get my children to enjoy the process. So, depending on the child, I would take a ball point pen and draw a bunny or a cat or a puppy on their tummies. I would tell them that the bunny was thirsty and it was time to give it a drink. If they hesitated, I would make a whimpering sound and let them know that he was crying. They would take a sip from the straw and sometimes I would catch them taking an extra sip just to be nice!

I would do the same thing with the wearing of seatbelts in the car. Rather than make it a police action, we would have
seatbelt races. Each child wanted to be declared the winner, and I would often “lose.” The result was that I was able to get cooperation rather than a fight by orchestrating what would bring about the result I wanted.

Finding One’s Calling

I used to tell my children that they didn’t have to search too hard for what God was calling them to do. As young ones in a family, they arrived with the duty to be a son or a daughter, a sister or a brother. As they matured, the role of student was added to the “job description.” As they learned and experienced many facets of growth (academics, music, arts, athletics, and service) certain assessments were made by them of things they enjoyed and wanted to pursue. From a parental viewpoint, I found it important to show them how to hear God’s specific call, rather than rely on me to announce it. I used to say, “God won’t leave a message for you on my answering machine.”

It is here when the paradigm of grade levels and judgments based on age can be detrimental. If we approach all four-year-olds the same way, determining that the most significant criteria for success and advancement are in terms of fine and gross motor skills, how well they draw or use scissors, we are missing the most important part of receiving the Kingdom as a child (Mark 10:13-16).  Jesus was referring to the tender hearts of children who have no difficulty understanding their dependence and need for parental care and instruction.¹⁰

Children should be taught from an early age that part of maturing into adulthood is to discover those unique gifts that God has placed within them and that concomitant with these gifts come duties and responsibilities.

Recognizing them as Individuals

My son, from the time he was little, demonstrated entrepreneurial tendencies. When we would have discussions about him making this bed, he informed me that he was going to invent a machine that would handle this chore he disliked so much. When we discussed the practicality of such a device, he then told me that if he couldn’t make one, he would have to make sufficient money to pay people to do this for him. By listening to him and relating to him as someone who was entitled to his likes and dislikes, throughout his growing-up years, I was able to understand how he was oriented and could always incentivize his behavior by a system of rewards that fit his personality. His competitive spirit could always be counted on to play a prominent role in any endeavor he undertook. So, when I wanted him to memorize Scripture or the Westminster Shorter Catechism, I arranged for a meaningful prize to accompany the
accomplishment.

My youngest child, fourteen years her brother’s junior, entered our family well into our homeschooling journey. The tendency for me was to assume she’d react and relate to incentives as had her older brother and sister. She was not entrepreneurial as her brother, nor as strong-willed as her sister. She did manifest some obvious musical gifts and an empathetic spirit very early on. The mistake I made at the outset was to assume I could deal with her just as I had done with the other two. By eventually viewing her as the individual she is, with definite strengths and weakness, I was better able to provide the guidance that my job as her mother required. Neither her age nor her size was any reason to try to bulldoze her into adhering to false standards of accomplishment. Patience and God’s road map (His unchanging law applied to parenting) helped me prioritize what things I should emphasize regularly and what I could make of secondary emphasis. I stopped majoring in the minors and placed her relationship to God as a top priority.

Rushdoony states,

[O]ur lives and our schooling cannot be for our pleasure or profit, but for the glory of God …

[T]he focus of education is not on the child, nor on the parents, nor on society. It is on God. Education is thus primarily theological, God-centered, not vocation-centered nor knowledge-centered. Because of the Biblical doctrine of calling or vocation, the Christian School will strive to excel all others in preparing its pupils, but the focus will be on our necessary service to God. Because God’s revelations give knowledge, and because knowledge is an aspect of God’s image in us, we will seek to surpass all other schools in this respect also. Our focus, however, will be on the competent and faithful service of God.¹¹

Eternity in the Hearts

Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end.”

It is precisely by recognizing that children are eternal beings and that they have no less a standing in God’s eyes just because of their size or age, that we can guide them into paths of righteousness. Thus a mother’s privileged role is to steward the life of her child, acknowledging from the outset of their relationship that her child is made in God’s image and that His creative efforts will manifest and are to be developed.

When adults speak to children, it should be with these realities in mind. The personhood of all children (from the moment of conception onward) is such an important doctrine for our day. Devaluing the life of the child in the womb has served to devalue children in general, often classifying them as burdens or trophies or slaves of a tyrannical state, but certainly not as the eternal beings they are. If we wish to reverse this revolt against maturity, here is a place to begin.

1. The Prussian system of education was a godless system that trained children to become beneficial servants of the state instead of nurturing their God-given talents for His service.

2. Homeschooling has debunked this contrivance inasmuch as it allows a child to learn at his own pace and consults
understanding as a prerequisite to “moving on” with his studies, rather than cheapen learning with the concept of merely “passing.”

3. R. J. Rushdoony, Revolt Against Maturity (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 1987), 5.

4. Ibid., 1.

5. Ibid.

6. R. J. Rushdoony, Intellectual Schizophrenia (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, [1961] 2002), 73.

7. R. J. Rushdoony, Revolt Against Maturity (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 1987), 9.

8. See my article in the Nov/Dec 2011 issue of Faith for All of Life.

9. Some decry the practice of older brothers and sisters taking on significant responsibilities with their younger siblings in the areas of care and schooling. This is a direct result of failing to view the family as God’s primary institution. What is so sad when it comes to Christian families making use of public schools to educate their children is that children become conditioned to believe that school teachers and classmates/peers are their best allies and where their responsibilities lie.

10. I’ve seen more than a few homeschooling moms torture themselves because they use these artificial standards to assess themselves as teachers and their children as students. When they buy into the idea that success for their children are in the categories of what they can do rather than who they are there is often undue heartache and
distress.

11. R. J. Rushdoony, The Philosophy of the Christian Curriculum (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, [1981] 2001),
142.

[This article first appeared in the March/April 2012 issue of Faith for All of Life, the bi-monthly magazine of the Chalcedon Foundation.]

My children were taught that if a parent failed to discipline a child, that child had a parent who hated him because the Bible teaches: “He who spares his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him promptly” (Prov. 13:24 NKJV).

Why do modern parents tolerate the tantrums, rudeness, defiance, and rebellion of their children? Why do they pursue a policy of appeasement, often handling a defiant outburst with a piece of candy or a new toy?  Blame can be laid at the doorstep of the anti-spanking experts who have polluted the culture by making corporal punishment synonymous with child abuse, thereby creating justifiable fear in parents that public disciplining may get them in trouble with the law or Child Protective Services. While there are a number of societal causes that contribute to the status quo, much needs to be laid at the doorsteps of the church that fails to teach God’s law-word in its fullest application.

The Word of God warns us that foolishness is bound up in the hearts of children (Prov. 22:15), and those who fail to honor their God-given authority will reap the consequences of an undisciplined life (Deut. 5:16). Parents who ignore the Bible’s instructions to identify, reprove, and correct rebellion and defiance in their children bear responsibility for the actions and outcomes of those children even into adulthood. Those who are not self-consciously submitted to the authority of God, who operate without a Biblical understanding of the family, and who approach parenthood as a
make-up-the-rules-as-you-go activity, scandalize their children by being unfaithful representatives.¹ With all the excellent resources available to instruct how to discipline Biblically, parents are doubly without excuse.

The Root of the Problem

A warped understanding of the purpose of marriage contributes to our modern parenting failures. Sadly, many decide to marry without a Biblical understanding that the family is God’s basic institution of society and that God’s plan for discipling the nations begins with the fruit of the womb. Couples and their parents often give more attention to the color scheme at the wedding and the favors the guests will receive, than what the Bible says about the creation of a new Christian family. They approach their marriage with the assumption that it will evolve and progress naturally without much direct instruction from the Word.

In Genesis 1:28, God instructs Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply-in other words, to have children. Many enter marriage with something other than this dominion mandate in mind and have elevated other priorities ahead of bringing children into the world: finishing school, establishing themselves in a career, buying a house, or traveling the world. The uncertainties of our day encourage the decision to wait on children as does the huge debt from student loans, coupled with little or no prospect of employment.²

Modern culture supports these decisions to wait because, although not stated outright, there is the prevailing opinion that once children arrive on the scene, freedom and autonomy cease. This is the foundation for abortion being a woman’s right. A culture of death encourages divorcing sexual intimacy from marriage and marriage from the bearing of children. If a Christian man and woman do not consider themselves ready to become parents, they should re-evaluate the purpose of getting married.

Psalm 127 reads:

1. Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.

2. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep.

3. Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.

4. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.

5. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

Why would Christian couples not want to receive God’s reward and blessing of children? People only refuse gifts they don’t consider valuable. God does not describe children as a financial drain. In God’s economy children are deemed a blessing. The Psalmist specifies the reward as God-given. Happiness and contentment come to the man who has many children. The Psalmist describes offspring as having an important role in the defense against enemies at the gate. We should view these enemies as God’s enemies and the children as covenant soldiers advancing the work of the Kingdom in the face of opposition (v. 5).³

Ready or Not?

Christian couples and their families need to re-examine what constitutes readiness for marriage. The Bible points to some necessary prerequisites: the man must be able to demonstrate his capacity to support his wife and future children, (the dowry demonstrated this),⁴ the wife should be physically ready to bear children and be able to look well to the ways of her household (Ps. 128:3, Prov. 31).

In our culture, the first years of marriage have replaced the betrothal period of the past. This entire period was to complete the necessary prerequisites for marriage. Only after meeting the requirements would the couple be deemed ready to marry. Because we ignore the Biblical marital guidelines, Christian marriage is often reduced to a “legal” sexual relationship.

The Christian marriage contract has a third partner, God Almighty, who places a high premium on covenant children (Ruth 4:11).⁵ A man should be established in his calling and ready to support his wife and future children, so that there are no earthly impediments to “filling his quiver.” The priority is such that a man was to refrain from starting a business or serving in the military within the first year of marriage to focus on his wife and the creation of his family. Deuteronomy 24:5 states,

When a man hath taken a new wife, he shall not go out to war, neither shall he be charged with any business: but he shall be free at home one year, and shall cheer up his wife which he hath taken.

Rushdoony points out,

The bridegroom cannot be involved in military or civil duties. This is a requirement of very great importance because it clearly indicates the priority of the family to the nation. Religious institutions are not mentioned, because crises in such spheres are a rarity, whereas crises in national life are commonplace. No national crises can take precedence over the new marriage. Because the family is most important in God’s sight, it must always be protected. The Vulgate gives an interesting reading: the groom shall “rejoice (or, take pleasure) with the wife of his youth.” He is free, literally, “for his own household.” He has a duty under God to establish a family as a physical and spiritual entity.⁶

In God’s economy, the first year of marriage is to establish the family, recognizing that this supersedes business or national defense. This is a far cry from the perspective that eschews and postpones the arrival of children. If children are not eagerly anticipated, within the context of a Biblical framework, it is not a surprise that child rearing problems arise when the children arrive. With God’s authority being dismissed, is it any wonder that parental authority is diminished?

Who Says So?

Authority on the human scene is closely tied to status or position, but it cannot be equated with status. To illustrate, parenthood is a natural fact; giving birth to a child gives the status of a parent to the father and mother. Authority, however, is not derived from this natural fact but from God’s command. “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee” (Ex. 20:12). This is a law from God which promises long life as a gift from God for obedience. Moreover, the commandment here is to adults to honor, not to children, who are commanded more specifically to obey (Eph. 6:1). This law has no true analogue in the world of nature.

This means that parents who seek to command their children naturalistically deny they have religious authority. Such mothers will tell their children of the “trauma” of conception and birth, and all their “sacrifices” for their children, and the fathers will recount how much time and money their children have cost them. The children are unimpressed: they didn’t ask to be born, and none of these facts give the parents any true authority. Authority is a religious fact, and unless it is religiously grounded, it quickly disappears.⁷

Back to our tyrant-in-the-making child who has no healthy fear of his parents. Every child is born with this wickedness in his heart which manifests itself as he gains new abilities. If parents do not stand on the firm foundation of God’s law, they either take the path of least resistance by submitting to the child’s dictates, or they can become heavy-handed and abusive.

When I informed my children that the parents who failed to correct their children hated them, I had Scriptural backing: Hebrews 12:6, “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.” If this method of correction is good enough for God the Father, parents should not hesitate to apply such discipline when necessary.
Furthermore, consistent application early on in a child’s life has the added benefit of becoming less and less necessary as the child matures.

Today’s explanations on the “bad” behaviors of children are manifold and have been dosed out to us by child psychologists with expressions/excuses such as the terrible twos, the teenage years, or boys will be boys. Charles Spurgeon does not agree.

The proverb is, “Boys will be boys,” but I do not think so. They will be men, if we let them have time; unless they learn self-restraint and habits of obedience while they are boys, they are not likely to make good men. He who cannot obey is not fit to rule; he who has never learned to submit, will make a tyrant when he obtains the power. It is good that every child should be broken in, delivered from his foolish self-will, and made to feel that he has superiors, masters, and governors, and then, when it shall come to his turn to be a leader and a master he will have the more kindly fellow-feeling to those who are under him.⁸

Children pick up very early on if their parents’ profession of faith matches their actions. Parents who refuse God’s authority cannot lead their children to obey them or God. Irresponsible, self-indulgent adults come from somewhere; they don’t just develop from out of the blue. The fabric of society, whether functional or dysfunctional, comes out of the context of family life.

Training for Governing

Training for government in church, state, and other areas is in Scripture essentially within the family. This is apparent in two key texts. First, in every Passover service, beginning with the very first in Egypt, the instruction and participation of the sons was a requirement. Every religious festival had an element of instruction in it, and it was essential in all things that the children be reared in the essentials and fundamentals of the faith. God so requires it (Ex. 12:26-27; Ex. 13:8-14).⁹

The Hebrew child participated in the Passover Service. The Christian child took part in communion, for the first eight centuries everywhere, and the practice had some prevalence still into the fourteenth century. It was clearly seen as essential that the covenant child understand the meaning of salvation
and that as early as possible share the responsibility of the redeemed. He was taught to ask the question, because it was his responsibility to give an answer for his faith. This kind of training appears also in Joshua 4:6 where the question, “What mean ye by these stones?” requires the answer of teaching God’s saving power.¹⁰

The question from the youngest child and resultant answer from the father is all part of the training that teaches the child that he/she has been born into a context, an already organized and ordered life. The significance of having the youngest child ask the question is so that all within the household of faith would learn, and be expected to know, the meaning behind the symbolism. To exclude children from a knowledgeable participation in the faith cripples them. How are they to understand that failing to obey will shorten their lives, if they have not been taught and then held accountable?

This theme repeats throughout the Scripture but is emphatically driven home in Psalm 78, especially verses 1-8:

1. Give ear, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth.

2. I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old:

3. Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us.

4. We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done.

5. For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children:

6. That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children:

7. That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments:

8. And might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation; a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not stedfast with God.

Rushdoony comments,

This whole psalm cites the lessons of history which parents must teach their children; the history lessons are illustrations of God’s judgments and are to be a part of the teaching of God’s law. Life must be built upon the law of God, the psalmist says, and the law must be taught to children: this is God’s requirement. Without the law, and the examples of God’s judgment on law-breakers in Scripture, history will be the continuing and weary round of judgment on unconfronted covenant-breakers. Even more, it is not merely knowledge of the law, but a life of faithfulness which is required. The goal is “that they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments” (v. 7).¹¹

Biblical Expectations

Question #104 in the Heidelberg Catechism reads, What does God require in the fifth Commandment? The answer: That I show all honor, love and faithfulness to my father and mother, and to all in authority over me; submit myself with due obedience to all their good instruction and correction, and also bear patiently with their infirmities, since it is God’s will to govern us by their hand.

Authority begins for us in the home. God places parents over children. All children are to show “honor, love and faithfulness” to their parents. Ephesians 6:1-3 gives the New Testament interpretation of this commandment. God’s promise of blessing to obedient children still stands! Disobedient children are wicked children who are preparing themselves for ungodly lives and eventually hell, if they do not repent.¹²

Honor thy father and thy mother is the first commandment with a promise, and must be established early on in a child’s life. Without doing so, children are trapped in a sinful cycle that promises to shorten their days and their parents become accomplices in their dire end. Conversely, when couples eagerly anticipate God’s blessing of children and steward these lives into obedient service, they will receive the mercy unto thousands of them that keep the commandments of God. This is how the Kingdom is forwarded.

1. Thanks to Rev. Mike O’Donovan of Rock of Liberty Church in Fort Worth, TX (www.rockofliberty.com) in a recent exposition of Lord’s Day 39 from the Heidelberg Catechism.

2. Interestingly enough, many married couples would be astonished and possibly offended to discover that their reasons for holding off on having children mirror almost exactly the reasons offered by abortion-minded women who claim that abortion is their only option due to these same considerations.

3. Rev. Mike O’Donovan has an interesting view on v. 3. His take is that the reward belongs to God as much as it is given by God. So, in essence, the decision to hold off on having children is depriving God of what is lawfully His.

4. Ex. 22:16 speaks of the bride-price as normative. This is not the purchase of a woman as chattel property, but an indication of the man’s commitment and ability to assume the role of husband.

5. The absence of children in a marriage is lamented by many prominent women of the Bible (e.g. Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Hannah), or in some cases presented as a sign of judgment (Michal).

6. R .J. Rushdoony, Deuteronomy (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 2008), 372.

7. R. J. Rushdoony, Systematic Theology, Vol. 2 (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 1994) 1140-1141.

8. The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit: Sermons, Parts 249-260, by Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

9. R. J. Rushdoony, Systematic Theology, Vol. 2 (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 1994), 683-684.

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid

12. Rev. Norman L. Jones, Study Helps on The Heidelberg Catechism (Reformed Church in the U.S., Publications Committee, 1981).

Here’s an example:

Me:                          Hello, Billy, how are you doing today?

Billy:                         (Ignores me – possibly because he is shy or doesn’t want to talk.)

Billy’s Mom:            Billy, say hello to Mrs. Schwartz and tell her how you are.

Billy:                         Okay.

Billy’s Mom:           Look at Mrs. Schwartz when you tell her how you are.

Billy:                         I’m fine.

Me:                          I really like the color of your shirt; it looks really good on you.

Billy:                         (Smiles)

Billy’s Mom:           What do you say, Billy?

Billy:                         I like the color, too!

Billy’s Mom:            What do you say to Mrs. Schwartz, Billy?

Billy:                         Thank you.

Billy’s Mom:            Thank you, Mrs. Schwartz.

Billy:                         Thank you, Mrs. Schwartz.

This is awkward for everybody.  I end up feeling like a heel because Billy gets corrected in front of me.  It wasn’t my intent to make him feel self-conscious or to make his mom feel inadequate and feel that she has to prove to me that she really does train her children.  Next time, I might refrain from saying anything so that Billy and his mom don’t have this struggle publically.

I have raised children and am well aware that in spite of the hours of training you put in, children don’t always reflect that training.  Rather than go through the What do you say? routine, it would be better to make a mental note that more work needs to be done in this area and handle it privately. Pointing out to Billy upon arriving home that his behavior lacked grace and respect is far better than to take what was a friendly gesture and turn it into a character lesson.

You should explain to your children that a corollary to God’s commandment to honor your parents is honoring other adults. If there are going to be consequences for failure to obey this, take care of it privately rather than publically.  Manners are an important part of life, but encouraging lip-service in a reluctant child in order for the mother to save face is not worth the effort.  Do we really want to have our children practice superficial communication?

I love speaking with children and am willing for them to warm-up to me and establish a relationship.  It doesn’t have to happen immediately.  In a world where children are taught not to talk to strangers, it is important for parents to realize that many adults are, in fact, strangers to kids even if they attend your church.  You might even want to make a point to introduce your children to people, having practiced with them at home. One of my greatest joys is to see the boys and girls I met when they were little grow into responsible, Christian adults. When these relationships are allowed to develop in a natural way, solid fellowship can result.

Baby Thea*

In my previous articles on the subject of childbirth from a biblical perspective, a number of readers commented that to refuse medical intervention puts both the child and mother at risk, and that I was asking people to return to the “dark ages” of obstetrical care.  These people wrongly assumed that I found no place for obstetricians and hospital births.  One reader who appreciated and found much to agree with in my perspective included me as a recipient of an email describing her recent birth experience in Africa. With her permission, I am sharing her letter, but have changed names to protect privacy. You will see that there can be a happy marriage between medical assistance and needless intrusion.

Hello Ladies,

I thought I’d share with y’all about my Kenyan birth experience, since you two would be able to appreciate it most! Some friends back in the States seemed to assume I’d be giving birth in a grass hut somewhere–LOL! I’d gladly have taken a home birth with a midwife, but that’s just not available here unless you live in the bush with no other alternative. However, the hospital model of care is still midwifery-based, so the experience was a wonderful, non-stressful one.

First off, I had an Italian-Kenyan OB, Dr. Angela Amato.* She trained as a midwife in Italy and as an OB somewhere else in Europe (where the midwifery model is still considered tops). She and her family have lived in Kenya for over  25 years (Dr. Amato is in her early 50s). Dr. Amato works through the birthing center at university hospital here in Nairobi, which is a modern hospital. Half of it is for university students; the other half is just a regular privately-run hospital. But WHAT a hospital! Giving birth there was like being at the Ritz-Carlton: inlaid marble floors, cut glass vases filled with floral arrangements in the hallways, uniformed waiters handing out catered meals, comfortable birthing suites built to include family members, etc. They are even in the middle of building a water birthing suite for ladies who’d prefer that option (would’ve loved to try that if it had been ready!).

The birthing unit is staffed with nurse-midwives, all of whom are taught to offer support for natural childbirth rather than to expect or offer interventions. Kenyan OBs are horrified at the rate of “routine” interventions like pitocin induction and episiotomies in the West, so their focus is on teaching expectant mothers to be proactive about their health through good nutrition, healthy exercise, and preparation for a natural, unmedicated birth. Because they do serve a large ex-pat community, the hospital will give epidurals if requested, but they do not schedule c-sections on  request. Those are reserved for emergency situations only. Because of this, the hospital’s birthing wing is fully equipped for ladies to labor comfortably, including labor balls, birthing stools, support bars for standing and squatting during labor, and lots of comforts including hot compresses, back massage on request, etc. Here are some of the things that impressed me the most:

1. The staff all treat birth as a wonderful, miraculous event that is to be celebrated. We had three Christian midwives rotate through while we were there, all of whom thought it was fabulous that we were having our tenth child and thrilled to give all the support they could. The Kenyan midwife who was there when Thea* was born practically danced around happily when the baby was ready to push out. She kept saying, “I’ll be an aunty today!” Her cheerful, upbeat attitude was just amazing.

2. Catered meals during labor. “What? I am allowed to EAT?!” This is one policy in stateside hospitals that I have never understood. A woman goes into labor and is told she cannot have anything except sugary popsicles or ice chips, even if her labor goes long. By the time the baby is ready to push out, she is exhausted and has no caloric reserves to get her through that last stage. The blood sugar level has bottomed out after a brief sugar high. This makes NO sense. Whenever I’ve birthed in a hospital, I’ve always “cheated” by having family members sneak in food. I understand that the intestines need to be clear during pushing, but light eating is not going to cause problems, and an enema can always come in if it’s really necessary. So Kenyan OBs encourage laboring mothers to eat nutritious meals throughout labor. They only rule out heavier meats like beef or lamb (which take longer to go through the gut) if labor has progressed far enough along to warrant that. So I had a lady come in with a menu to take my orders during labor. The food was AMAZING! I had rice with steamed veggies and Indian Jeera chicken, mushroom soup, BBQ chicken breast with mashed potatoes and salad, strawberries with whipped cream…all kinds of really yummy food.  As a result, I felt “up” for the entire labor and did not tire out when I came to the end. This was a huge, huge blessing.

3. The parents’ wishes are honored throughout the entire labor and delivery. I took my birth plan in, and the OB went over it with all the midwives so they would understand my wishes (darkened room with minimal noise and interruption; freedom to walk around and move to get labor going; etc.). They completely agreed and followed my plan to the letter. They didn’t even flip on all the lights when it was time to push. The OB just pulled over an OTT light and shined it where needed for delivery.

4. Vaccines are totally up to parents and are not pushed by the pediatrician. Our baby doctor came right after delivery to check Thea over and give the Apgar scores, etc.  He asked us what our policy was on vaccines and said he totally honored it and that it was our decision. He did urge the polio vaccine by four months, since polio still exists here, but he said the a-cellular version is available (dead virus rather than live virus). He told us to make the decision about when to vaccinate and call when we were ready. This just would not happen in the States unless you had a “vaccine-neutral” doctor, and those are increasingly rare as the federal government mandates more and more “routine” vaccinations at younger and younger ages.

5. Cost. There are no insurance-mandated pricing schemes here in Kenya. For a privately run hospital, you pay for what you get–you don’t pay for what some insurance company or national health care initiative thinks should be added to the bill. As a result, the total hospital fees were under $1200 (that included two days in the labor wing and a night in the recovery room; all meals; all supplies; midwives; medicine (Tylenol for after birth); etc.). The total doctor fees (for both OB and pediatrician) were about $1300. When we had Libby* in the States, the bill came to over $9000, which we were able to negotiate down to $4000 since we didn’t use half the things on the list (like the anesthesiologist). It’s just way cheaper to have a baby here, and you get a lot more for the money!

Okay, so back to the birth story! I woke up at Saturday morning around 2:30 because I was having some fairly hard contractions. I pulled out a timer and started timing them around 3am. I saw that they were five minutes apart and lasting two minutes. I should know better by now than to jump the gun, but Owen’s* super-fast birth always lingers in my head, so I woke Keith* up.  By 3:30, he was ready to go to the hospital, convinced this was “it.” So we loaded up and headed out, arriving at university hospital around 4am. Our OB arrived at the same time and got me settled into a labor/delivery room. These are beautiful rooms with a couch for family members, a huge bathtub for laboring comfort if the mother wishes it, CD player for music, but no other distractions. The midwife on duty hooked me up to the monitor for 20 minutes to check the baby’s heartbeat, then did an internal check, finding that I was fully effaced but only dilated to 1cm (typical for me!). I asked for a labor ball and did some walking around until it came. The contractions had spaced out quite a bit but seemed to kick back in about an hour later. I labored on the labor ball for a couple of hours (so comfortable!), but the contractions stayed at about the same level. Walking around didn’t make them come on any stronger, and I began to have suspicions that this was going to be like Libby’s birth with a long false alarm at the beginning.

Keith and I ate a delicious lunch, and I started getting really sleepy around 1pm (having been up since 2am!), so I decided to labor on my side in the bed and rest while I could. My OB came in to see how things were going and agreed it was best to sleep if that was possible. Long story short, the contractions quit while I slept for about an hour and a  half. When I woke up, I realized everything had petered out, so I rang for the midwife. She was surprised that everything had stopped after such good labor early on, but I told her this had happened to me before. She called the OB, who gave me a couple of options:

1. Check out and go back home and wait until things really got moving before coming back.
2. Stay overnight at the hospital and see if labor started back up by morning.

If it didn’t, she would give me a small dose of prostaglandin (placed up by the cervix) to encourage contractions. Pitocin is simply not used to induce labor here — it is used after birth if it looks like there’s a potential for hemorrhage. My OB said that “everyone” knows that pitocin-induced contractions aren’t really like natural labor at all and can often stress the baby. I told her that practically no one in the States knows that except midwives!

Prostaglandin is a hormone the body naturally produces, and, when applied to the cervix, can get natural labor  moving right along. She says she has a 95% success rate with it. (Evening Primrose Oil is one homeopathic source of prostaglandin used by midwives in the States.)

After talking to Keith, we agreed that having to go through the entire checkout process only to check back in again once labor started was just not a great idea. I was game about staying overnight (Keith would go home and check on the  kids, who were there with our friend Kent Anderson*). So that’s what we did. The midwife gave me the half-dose of prostaglandin at 5:30am, and good, solid contractions kicked in by 9am. I ate another delicious lunch around 12:30, and then got on the birthing stool to labor. Contractions jumped to about four minutes apart and were nice and strong. I asked for the birthing ball around 2pm, since it was more comfortable. The contractions continued, but I had only  dilated to about 4cm (still typical for me!), so I asked Keith to send out a prayer request to our church home group. I then got up and started walking to get things moving.

By 2:45, I was in serious, hard labor and had moved to the birthing bed, where I knelt, holding on to the upright back (kind of like a squatting position, only more comfortable). I called the midwife in around 3:15 to tell her I thought I was really close. She checked me, and I was now at 8cm, so she ran off to page the OB. Dr. Amato arrived ten minutes later and asked if I wanted to give birth in that position (which would have been fine). I decided I wanted to turn around and birth at a 45-degree angle like I did with Libby. She checked me when I was settled and found I was all the way dilated with a big bag of waters bulging out! She asked if I wanted her to break the water, and I agreed. As soon as my water broke, I felt the urge to push. Three pushes later, and Thea was out! She came out with a huge “splash” — I apparently had a lot of fluid!

I was given Thea so I could hold her and start nursing, and the doctor waited for her cord to stop pulsing so she could cut it. When that was done, the pediatrician checked the baby’s hands and feet for her Apgar score and said to take my time nursing; all the other checking could be done later. The two midwives on duty just grinned and grinned over the successful delivery (no tearing; no problems) and kept congratulating us on being such “rich” parents to have ten children. It was amazing! After Thea nursed one side, I gave her to the pediatrician to check for her second Apgar score and to give the Vitamin K shot. They don’t do any eye drops or ointment here, which I thought was interesting, given the high STD rate. But it doesn’t appear to be routine. Thea was handed straight back to me so I could nurse some more, and I delivered the placenta and got the green light to simply lie back and rest while the OB monitored me for any excessive blood loss. They did put in a hep lock IV as a precaution, since I’d need a quick transfusion if I did start to hemorrhage. Thankfully, it was never needed.

An hour later, we were taken to our recovery room and asked for our dinner order. The midwife came in to weigh and measure Thea, and we spent a restful night (peaceful baby!). Here’s one last Kenyan bonus: A midwife came in at 9 pm  to remove my hep lock and tell me to expect my “chocolate” at 6am before breakfast. Yes, fresh hot cocoa is considered a must for every new mother. Kenyans believe it helps “bring in the milk,” so I was provided with a hot pot of chocolate at breakfast and lunch the next day! Does it get any better than that? LOL!

All in all, it was a wonderful experience, and I was home less than 24 hours after Thea’s birth (an 8-hour stay is all that is required, but since we finished up so late, I was given an overnight stay). I’m just tickled pink with the level of care and the emphasis on all the right things: nutrition, preparation for natural childbirth; etc. I’d gladly do it again! I only wish the US could “catch up” to Kenya in this area….

Love and blessings,

Joy* (Mother of 10)

*name changed

There was an awful smell in my kitchen. I repeatedly brought my husband and daughter into the room to see if they smelled it.  Both initially said “no,” but eventually said that maybe they smelled something.  I even brought another person in to see if he smelled it.  His conclusion, “You have a very good sense of smell, but I don’t smell anything.”

I tried to identify the source of the odor.  I thoroughly cleaned the kitchen, sanitized the garbage disposal, and removed potential culprits.  Nothing seemed to work and after a while the smell disappeared. Then a couple of days ago, the house was filled with a swarm of small flies that made me feel like a ninja because they were so easy to swat.  (Normally, I fail in achieving a successful swat!)

A Google search led me to the conclusion that what I had smelled may have been an animal that had died and was decomposing in the wall or under the house.  The appearance of the flies, suggested my Google counselors, was evidence of that. It was encouraging to know that we could swat the flies and they would be gone before long. And, they were.

I share this story because it points to another sense of “smell” that a hands-on mom has regarding her children. A mother has a sense of when something isn’t quite right with one of her children.  Others may not see it and even dismiss her
concerns.  But, a diligent mom will continue to investigate and work to unearth the problem. While she may never get to the root, there may be evidence that her suspicions are  accurate – “flies” may show up to confirm her sense that more was going on than what others could see.

I believe all mothers have the capacity to relate to their children this way, but they lose it or fail to develop it if they are not the main person raising the child. So many things can go undetected if there isn’t a sense of what is “normal” for a particular child. Assuming that child psychologists and their disciples know more than she, and deferring to their
expertise, only lessens this God-given instinct and causes a mom not to trust what she senses when others don’t agree.

Proverbs 1:7-9 states,

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction. My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother: For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck.

The mother’s role is to know the Law of God and to establish it as the law of her household. When she notices a “bad smell,” she needs to get to the root of where and how God’s law is being violated or misapplied. The Scripture gives her this responsibility and when exercised in a godly way results in her family’s acknowledgements of her inestimable worth.

Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her. Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all  (Proverbs 31:28-29).

Recently I had the privilege of speaking to a homeschool support group in San Jose, CA, with the purpose of encouraging them in their pursuit to provide a godly education for their children.  I shared 10 points that I believe are helpful in achieving that end.

1. Teach your children the Word of God, rather than try to convert them. By presenting the biblical standard that their entire duty is to fear God and keep His commandments (Ecc.  12:13), you will be tutoring them to Christ.  The law of
God will never save them, but it must govern their lives.

2. Character development is much more important the academic achievement. There is a tendency to become stressed over academics to the point that homeschooling moms often overlook defiance and rebellion in order to “get the work done.”

3.  Relate all subjects in your curriculum to Scripture. If you cannot find a link, maybe it is not worth studying. Examine the presuppositions of the materials you are using and see if they conform to a biblical world and life view.

4.  The homeschool mom must make time for her own study, exercise, health, and recreation. Don’t your students deserve a well-balanced, motivated teacher?

5.   Look at your children as individuals. What worked for one, won’t necessarily work for the others. Identify what you think each student’s strengths and weaknesses are, and approach their education to encourage the former and improve the latter.

6.  Put your children to work. Academics are only a small fraction of life and education. There is no reason why children as young as eight cannot be handling their own laundry and significant chores around the home. Mom should be the overseer, not the slave! In preparation for adulthood, being able to care for yourself and others is vital.

7.  Volunteer as a family in areas that the Bible calls us to minister using your family’s unique gifts. Visit retirement communities (a great place perform all the recital pieces they’ve prepared), help other families with needs during
illness or crisis, or take on projects needing to be done at church and do them as a family.

8.  Choose adults who are willing to serve as informal mentors for your children to support you in your child-rearing and educational efforts. Select people you trust and share your goals and purposes. Often these mentors can assist in helping resolve family problems when they arise because they have already been involved.

9.  Watch out for activities that encourage “group think” or draw your children’s loyalties and priorities away from the family. God ordained the family as the basic institution of society and all activities should be done in a context which acknowledges, respects, and supports that fact.

10. Acquaint your children with the spiritual warfare that exists. Let them know that God’s enemies are also their enemies who will oppose their loyalty to Jesus Christ. Instill in them the vision that they are preparing to be useful
members of the Kingdom of God and should not take their privileged learning situation for granted.

Otto was in a special category all his own. His grasp of history, his knowledge of world events, and his self-educated style made him a bit intimidating at first. I had to work while reading his articles and books and listening to him converse. Otto wasn’t about spoon-feeding his readers. He assumed that if you were reading something he wrote, you were
interested. He didn’t try to make you interested.

Otto used an expression that has become his signature quote, and it is a distillation of a profound Scriptural truth: God is no buttercup. Jack Phelps, pastor of Covenant Bible Church, shared in a tribute to Otto after his death in 2006:

“[Otto] spent the dark years of World War II serving with the Merchant Marine, making several perilous crossings of the Atlantic during that conflict. He was on convoy in a North Sea storm, under threat of German attack, when, he said, the fierce forces of nature first caused him to realize that “God is no buttercup!”¹

To be honest, this statement used to irritate me when I heard it, mostly because I didn’t really understand why others thought it so special. But as time, maturity, and sanctification have progressed in my life, those words ring truer and truer, and I appreciate their implication.

Randy Booth comments on Otto’s buttercup quote,

Another way to make this point is to recognize that the Bible is not a collection of “precious moments.” God’s Word speaks to the real world and it makes no apology for doing so. It is filled with stories about a fallen world and its redemption. There are no subjects that are off limits. Some people are embarrassed over certain things in the Bible, but God is not embarrassed. He covers the range of human sin and redemption. He freely speaks of life and death, sex and violence, treachery and warfare, and He does so in graphic terms (e.g., Ezek. 23:17–21; Mal. 2:3). He is not being gratuitous, and neither should we be.

The church should speak more, not less about these “forbidden” subjects. The silence of the church has given us the culture that is around us. If we don’t set forth what God says about these things, both in their sinfulness and in their righteousness, then the world will speak to them for us. They will define justice and sexuality and marriage and every other issue.²

Yet, in most of today’s churches, pastors and congregants busily try to soften the words of a politically incorrect God. The last thing most Christians want from Christian teaching or preaching is an “unkind” view of God, or to be presented with a God who requires obedience to His law-word. God is often portrayed as Someone whose sole purpose is to serve man and make him happy. Of course, these standards are man-centered.

Romans 10:14–17 states:

How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring
glad tidings of good things!  But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

The prevailing theology of the day has transformed the gospel of peace and glad tidings into a message that leads those who hear it to believe they need to make very few changes in their lives. This seeker-friendly church paradigm, which has been our modern evangelistic model, self-consciously chose to do away with more difficult passages of the Bible. It is as though the church finds God’s total revelation of Himself an embarrassment and an impediment to the church.

Bojidar Marinov, an international missionary, recently reminded us that changed people change cultures.3 Those who have been changed by the Holy Spirit, though imperfect, cannot help but be salt and light to those around them. But if
church goers have only been fed “baby-food” (Heb. 5:12–14) from the time of their new birth, should we be surprised that their “stomachs” reject meat?

Please, No Bad News

What is the effect of one generation failing to pass on the “meat of the Word” to the next? Those fed a milk-toast faith do not have the strength to face the trials of life. They have not been taught to seek wisdom and solace from the entire Word of God. They cannot be cultural leaders who apply Biblical solutions to their lives or to a decadent culture. When we see that the alleged divorce rate for professing Christians is identical to that in the general population, and that many church-going women are obtaining abortions, it is obvious that the culture is having more impact on the church than the church is having on the culture.

The church today prefers the “buttercup” God over the God of the Bible. I have heard more times than I care to recall that we must not preach a “harsh” God—a God who is angry at sin. There are actually believers who think that sharing the truth that God hates sin will “turn people off” and cause them to flee from Jesus, not flee to Him. Not only does this give man more power than he presumptuously assumes, but it means God needs a public relations firm to deal with the unpleasant parts of His resumé!

The cross is extremely offensive, and intentionally so. God’s righteous wrath on the sons of disobedience caused a sinless man to die a horrendous death. And, to add insult to injury, if a person fails to believe and receive the substitutionary atonement provided by the God/Man and thereby submit to His law-word, there is eternal death in store for him. Can we get any more offensive?

But a majority of parents, pastors, and “pleasers” want to take the offense out of the cross and replace it with a better life now message. Contrast this with Ephesians 5:6–7:

Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not become partners with them.

Too many mothers and fathers have become partners with the sons of disobedience by telling their children Bible stories rewritten to accommodate a buttercup-God. So, the story of Noah’s ark morphs into a story about an old man and his happy wife and friendly animals hanging out of a merrily bobbling-along houseboat. You would never guess it was originally the historical account of a worldwide, catastrophic flood brought upon all creation because of man’s un-repented sin resulting in death for all mankind, except the eight souls in the ark. The problem with presenting the Biblical accounts with watered-down versions like this is that we end up believing these fantasies ourselves.4

Genesis 6:6–7 says,

And the LORD was sorry that He had made man in the land, and He was grieved in His heart. And the LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them.”

That’s what you call an internal commentary from the book of Genesis that identifies God’s “motive” for judgment. One might imagine a “kinder/gentler” approach with something like:

And the LORD was slightly disturbed that he hadn’t made man as well as he should and was trying to forgive himself for his bad design.

And the LORD said, “I will give man a time out, as I reevaluate my commandments and see if I’ve been too harsh with them.”

Passage after passage in Scripture identifies God’s utter hatred for violations of His law. Psalm 5:4–6 and Proverbs 6:16–19 are but two.

Culture Changing Prerequisites

The family is the primary God-ordained institution, and any cultural transformation must begin there. As I’ve pointed out in previous essays, it is advantageous for a woman to experience the travail of labor⁵ so that she transitions from carrying her child to mothering her child, thereby becoming invested through her own blood, sweat, and tears. The focus necessary to deal with the intensity of labor is excellent preparation for the perseverance needed for a mother to guide her child through the ordeals of infancy and childhood.

Without question, raising children involves dealing with lots of problems since sinfulness is bound up in the heart of a child. The mother is uniquely positioned to teach her children that life has its share of problems and how to deal with them in a godly, righteous fashion. If she fears God and keeps His commandments, her witness will be stronger than her words.

R. J. Rushdoony states,

Childhood, youth, middle age, and old age all have their problems, as does every era of history. Problems are a part of life in a fallen world, and they are a necessary part of it, necessary to our testing and to our growth. Be sure of this: when you solve one problem, you create a new situation which has problems of its own. Problems are in part a product of sin and in part a condition of growth …

We need to accept problems and testing as a condition of life. Even in Eden, apart from the problems of farming, Adam and Eve were every day put to the test. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil could be bypassed or not. God presented them always with the problem of faith and obedience.

Solve one problem, and you will have another. This is life, and to be sick of problems is to be sick of life. Because this is God’s world, every problem has its answer, and with every answer we graduate to another problem, until we finally pass on into God’s eternal Kingdom and our reward.

Problems are thus not only aspects of a fallen world, as well as aspects of a growing world, but they are also opportunities sent from God, to test us, to enable us to grow, and to further us in the fulfillment of our
calling.⁶

Rather than respond to the Biblical calling of motherhood, many women are too willing to have their children taught and nurtured by paid substitutes. The “experts” have successfully convinced these women that their children are better off interacting with other kids under a “trained professional,” learning arts and crafts in school-type settings from the time they are barely walking. These children don’t learn how to be part of a family, but rather how to be part of a collective in group settings where the caretakers often have little more investment than the paycheck they receive for keeping the children physically safe.

Are these babysitters/teachers prepared to love the child enough to deal with his selfish spirit?  Are they prepared to fully deal with deceit when it makes its appearance? Or, do they just “make peace” and convince the child that she can have or do whatever she wants, whenever she wants, just so long as there is an appearance of cooperation (John 10:12–13)?

If we train our children in this fashion, they will grow up to look to the “village” to make up for their shortcomings, bail them out of bad investments, and excuse their bad behavior, often shifting the blame onto their parents. (I would agree that the parents are the guilty party as charged, but not because they were “mean” to their children. Rather, it is because they indulged their children instead of discipling them.) Rather than develop into culture-changers, Christian children raised in this fashion become part of the culture that needs to be changed.

A portion of dialogue near the conclusion of the 1962 film The Miracle Worker⁷ involves Helen Keller’s father thanking her tutor, Annie Sullivan, after she succeeded in improving Helen’s behavior and obedience. I share it here to make an important point:

Captain Keller: Miss Annie, your first month’s salary. With many more to come, I trust. It doesn’t pay our debt for what you’ve done.

Annie Sullivan: I’ve taught her one thing: No… Don’t do this, don’t do that.

Captain Keller: It’s more than we could do…

Annie Sullivan: I wanted to teach her what language is. I know that without it, to do nothing but obey is no gift. Obedience without understanding is blindness, too … I don’t know what else to do. I simply go on
and keep doing what I’ve done and have faith that inside she’s waiting, like water underground. You can help, Captain Keller.

Captain Keller: How?

Annie Sullivan: The world is not an easy place for anyone. I don’t want her just to obey. But to let her have her way in everything is a lie … to her. You’ve got to stand between that lie and her.

And that is what God has called mothers to do—to stand between the lies of the flesh, the world, and devil—and relentlessly teach their children while their hearts are still tender. Mothers who teach their children what sin is help them identify it in their lives. By refusing to shield them from the consequences of disobedience, they are planting the seeds for culture-changing growth. The results of the opposite worldview in practice are all around us.

Conclusion

Otto Scott’s insight bears repeating: God is no buttercup. Doug Wilson comments:

Otto Scott put it well when he said that the God of the Bible is no buttercup. And when Jesus came He revealed all the attributes of the Father, and not just those things which we can easily interpret as comforting to ourselves. But the Lord’s words were simultaneously blunt and pointed, and as Chesterton
put it, “He did not hesitate to throw furniture down the front steps of the Temple.” However, we like to hear all about love, and mercy, and comfort, and kindness. This is not bad in itself; these are all biblical revelations of God’s nature and character. But we present them out of context; we neglect the wrath,
and holiness, and justice of God. We do not neglect these attributes because they are contradictions to the first set; we neglect them because we do not know how the Bible reconciles them. Notice how the apostle seats them at the table together, as though they were good friends. “Therefore consider the goodness and
severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His good-ness” (Rom. 11:22). We must constantly remember that a half-truth presented as the whole truth is an untruth. God is kind, and God is severe. Jesus reveals the nature of the Father to us; Jesus is kind, and Jesus is severe.⁸

Proverbs 6:20–23 states that parents are the responsible parties when it comes to inculcating a worldview that identifies God’s commandments as the lamp and light which will lead, protect, inform, and reprove children as they move
through life.

The God of the Bible is holy and calls us to be holy as He is holy (Lev. 20:26 and 1 Peter 1:16).  The problem with too many who claim Christ as their  Lord and Savior is aptly exposited in the lyrics of the song “Be Like Him”:

You know a lot of people have their own ideas of what God is like and how we should live.
But our authority is God’s word alone, if we want to know what to believe.
You see, you thought God was just like you, willing to wink at sin, but He tells us plainly in His word that we must be like Him.⁹

Endnotes:

1. http://www.covenantbiblechurch.com/Home/tabid/36/Default.aspx
2. http://feastofbooths.blogspot.com/2011/01/god-is-no-buttercup.html by Randy Booth
3. In a recent Law & Liberty podcast of the Chalcedon Foundation:  http://chalcedon.edu/blog/2011/7/22/law-and-liberty-podcast-bojidar-marinov-translating-rushdoony-and-missions/
4. In my read-aloud story book Teach Me While My Heart is Tender, each story conveys the ugly reality of sin, the beauty of godly repentance, and the necessity of forgiveness. Sugar-coating or minimizing sin only serves to vaccinate children from ever seeing their need for Christ’s atonement.
5. See http://chalcedon.edu/faith-for-all-of-life/gods-law-the-only-hope-for-animals-2/rethinking-childbearing-part-1/ and http://chalcedon.edu/faith-for-all-of-life/the-warfare-state-3/rethinking-childbearing-part-2/
6. R. J. Rushdoony, A Word in Season, Vol. 1 (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 2010), 138.
7. I recommend any mother who is struggling with affecting a change of attitude and behavior with her children to watch this film. The scene in the kitchen as teacher and student battle for which one will be in
control inspires me each and every time I watch it.
8. http://www.dougwils.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4055:What-Would-Jesus-Damn&catid=98:old-table-talk-articles
9. http://judylyrics.klsoaps.com/WW.html from the CD Walkin’ Wise by Judy Rogers.

One would expect that this change would have established “natural childbirth” as the norm, rather than the exception; allowing a woman to have someone of her choosing present was supposed to be a sure way to relax and comfort her. However, there has been an increase in the number of women requesting non-emergency medical interventions during the process of laboring, resulting in an increase in the use of electronic fetal monitoring (to note the vital signs of the baby in utero), epidurals (spinal medication used to numb the woman from the waist down), Pitocin (a synthetic form of the hormone oxytocin to speed up the first stage of labor), rupturing of membranes (in cases where the amniotic sac has not done so spontaneously), episiotomies (a surgical cut to expand the opening from which the baby passes), and cesarean sections (major surgery to deliver a baby in place of vaginal delivery).

The first issue that needs to be addressed is why these interventions are best avoided. If in the end it doesn’t matter how a baby is born, just that it is born, why make this a concern at all?

Simply put, these interventions have consequences for the long-term relationship between mother and child. Because today there is an unrealistic expectation on the part of parents and medical personnel as to how long labor should take, especially a first labor, the many “helps” that are available from the hospital “pain reduction” menu often are the very factors that lead to eventual C-sections.

Michel Odent, a French obstetrician, gets to the heart of the matter when he says,

Oxytocin is the hormone of love, and to give birth without releasing this complex cocktail of love chemicals disturbs the first contact between the mother and the baby. The hormone is produced during sex and breastfeeding, as well as birth, but in the moments after birth, a woman’s oxytocin level is the highest it will ever be in her life, and this peak is vital. It is this hormone flood that enables a woman to fall in love with her newborn and forget the pain of birth.

What we can say for sure is that when a woman gives birth with a pre-labour Caesarean section she does not release this flow of love hormones, so she is a different woman than if she had given birth naturally and the first contact between mother and baby is different.¹

As it turned out, the push for natural childbirth didn’t materialize into a significant change. The woman still was placed in a bed on her back with feet in stirrups, a very unnatural position for giving birth. That in itself intensifies the pain and lengthens the labor. Given these “accepted practices,” over time women resorted to the pain meds that were readily offered as the only way to endure.²

Add to that the artificial time schedule assigned to “normal” labor that made it so birth had to occur at the convenience of the hospital staff, who would have a tendency to rush things along if a shift change were approaching, or to accommodate a doctor’s schedule, or should there be a need for the hospital bed.

So, what happened to the natural part of childbirth? What does the term even mean?

Natural Childbirth

Obstetrician Grantly Dick-Read is credited with coining the term “natural childbirth,” which he used in his books Natural Childbirth (1933) and Childbirth Without Fear (1944). His philosophy centers on the idea that women are innately able to give birth to children, without external intervention. He took a stand against the pathological model modern medicine had adopted, and he feared practitioners were rapidly forgetting what a normal birth even looked like.

One of the most important factors in the production of complicated labour and therefore of maternal and infantile morbidity, is the inability of obstetricians and midwives to stand by and allow the natural and uninterrupted course of labour. It may be an excess of zeal, or anxiety born of ignorance, but it is an unquestionable fact that interference is still one of the greatest dangers with which both mother and child have to contend.³

Dick-Read was addressing what Dr. Jo Loomis outlined in a recent FFAOL article⁴ – the shift that had occurred in the practice of childbearing in the West in the early part of the twentieth century. The routine practice of homebirth attended by a midwife had given way to obstetricians (surgeons) and nurses overseeing the birthing process in hospital settings.

Had adopting the hospital model caused women to lose their innate instincts of how to give birth? Had the shift
in thinking produced a generation of women who wanted “natural childbirth” but found it difficult to proceed because their own perspective (as well as the hospital’s perspective) of “natural childbirth” lacked a full understanding of the process? Was it inevitable that the trend toward natural childbirth would give way to the practice of unnecessary medical interventions?

Dick-Read sized up the situation back in the 30s and 40s:

Woman … is adapted primarily for the perfection of womanhood which is, according to the law of Nature, reproduction. All that is most beautiful in her life is associated with the emotions leading up to this ultimate function. But unfortunately in the final perfection of these joys a large majority remember only the pain and anguish and even terror that they were called upon to endure at the birth of their first child. That is indeed a paradox. For generations, childbirth has been accepted as a dangerous and painful experience.⁵

He noted that medicine had placed too much focus in the direction of pharmaceutical relief, and not enough
emphasis on adequately preparing women for the birthing process.

Obstetric teaching has made great advances in the use of drugs, analgesics and anaesthetics, but little has been done to investigate the problem of pain from the point of view of its preclusion … Anything that disturbs the confidence and peacefulness of the mother disrupts the neuromuscular harmony of her labour … In childbirth, fear and the anticipation of pain give rise to natural protective tensions in the body.

Unfortunately, the natural muscular tension produced by fear also influences the muscles that close the womb and thus delay the progress of the labour and create pain … The safest and most effective way to minimise the discomforts of childbirth is to enable a woman, by preparation for, and understanding attention at labour to have her baby naturally … Education and antenatal instruction are important factors in the relief of pain in childbirth.⁶

A Systematic Theology of Childbirth

In Part 1 of this essay, I explored what the Bible has to say about labor, pointing out that the travail of childbirth is an important component for women becoming committed to the task of motherhood. Jesus’s analogy to His apostles concerning their future sadness at His death being turned to joy at His resurrection drew comparisons to the process of labor and delivery, with the apparent implication that this travail was not something to be avoided (John 16:21) but rather one that would actually result in an exuberant outcome.⁷

Dick-Read made the observation based on his experience:

It is my custom to lift up the crying child even before the cord is cut so that the mother may see … the reality of her dreams … the first to grasp the small fingers and touch gingerly the soft skin of the infant’s cheek … Its first cry remains an indelible memory on the mind of a mother … No mother and no child should be denied that great mystical association … it lays a foundation of unity of both body and spirit upon which the whole edifice of mother love stands. Many times I have called attention to the wonderful picture of pure ecstasy that we see at a natural birth … Is it just an accident that the brilliant sunlight of motherhood breaks through and dispels for all time the clouds of her labour? No change in human emotions is more dramatic … Such an aura of beauty has filled the whole atmosphere of the room and such superhuman loveliness has swept over the features of the girl whose baby is crying in her hands … I have experienced a sense of happiness myself much more akin to reverence and awe than to the simple satisfaction of just another natural birth.⁸

On its face, then, John 16:21 seems quite compatible with this firsthand observation by an experienced practitioner. In that light, it would seem to follow that to achieve the God-intended bond between mother and child, the first prerequisite to a “good labor” is for the mother to be spiritually prepared and bolstered for what lies ahead.

There are numerous Bible passages that speak to the reality that bringing a child into the world is not without
intense emotion and physical discomfort (Rev. 12:2; Isa. 13:8, 21:3, 37:3). Given the concomitant realities — intense physical, often painful, exertion followed by equally intense emotional exuberance — women are well advised to
look to additional passages of Scripture that, while not expressly written to a woman in labor, have a fitting general application to her estate as she moves through the normal stages of labor that culminate in the delivery of her child.

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light. (Matt. 11:28-30 NKJV)

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me (Ps. 23:4 NKJV)

Cast your burden on the LORD, and He shall sustain you; He shall never permit the righteous to be moved. (Ps. 55:22 NKJV)

As with every area of life and thought, approaching childbirth with the most Biblical mindset we can muster will surely maximize the blessings God intends for His people.

The Husband’s Dilemma

Dick-Read, in positing a better way to approach the process of childbearing and birth, noted,

I never left any woman alone during labour, a prey to the destructive forces of uncontrolled imagination. If I could not be there myself from the start, I made sure that someone was with her-her husband, mother, or sister, to whom I had already given a little instruction on what to expect.⁹

So, the resurgence of natural childbirth practices proved correct in attempting to create a safe, secure environment for the birthing woman, but some unexpected results came about with the introduction of the husband into the process.

Partly due to the breakdown of the trustee family, many couples in the 70s and 80s were living within the atomistic framework of family life. Women who wanted their mothers or other mother-like figures present were few and far between, and the hospital nurse, often a new acquaintance, was the major support a woman received. That left the
husband to fulfill a role that over the centuries usually fell to doulas and midwives, women with the position and experience to bolster a woman through successful labor and delivery. Most men would readily admit that they are at a
deficit when it comes to achieving an authentic understanding of all the changes that begin for a woman at the outset of pregnancy all the way to delivery. The calm that is needed is one that is not a natural response to seeing the woman they love in such apparent pain.

Michel Odent, an obstetrician with thousands of births to his credit, points out that the last thing a woman in labor needs is adrenaline — her own or that of her support person. Adrenaline is a combatant to oxytocin, the hormone that is at play to encourage contractions and bring about a narcotic type relief between them. According to Odent, often the husband, inadvertently, produces such an adrenaline response that he lengthens her labor considerably.¹⁰

Peter Dunn, in his paper for the National Institutes of Health, summarizes Dick-Read’s observations after
Dick-Read had spent a considerable amount of time traveling throughout Africa in 1948. Through his travels, he discovered that childbirth was not a forgotten skill among the women he encountered.

[Dick-Read] found that well over 90 per cent of women in the tribes he visited had normal, natural births and needed no more convalescence than a few hours’ rest. He noted how they automatically adopted an upright position which made passage through the birth canal both safer and easier for the child. He observed that in most tribes the mother was well instructed in the course of labour by old women in whom she had complete confidence and that she was never left alone when in labour. It was particularly interesting to him to see at first hand the profound respect that every tribe had for the afterbirth and the manner of its delivery. Again, any interference with the work of nature was banned. A child was never separated from the placenta until that structure had been delivered. Only then might the cord be cut and the offspring delivered into its mother’s embrace.¹¹

The Ultimate Athletic Event

Consider the woman who is pregnant with her first child. It is an understatement to say everything is new for her. Contrast her with a woman who is pregnant for a second or third time. This woman’s body has already undergone delivery; she has a greater sense of the marathon before her, and has previously experienced the joy of holding,
nursing, and loving the child she labored over.

Since every woman’s birthing experience will be unique to her, physical, mental, and spiritual preparation is of vital importance, especially if she has to combat the images she’s seen in film and television depictions of screaming, out-of-control women.¹²

Having a mentor, an experienced doula, or midwife helping her maneuver her way through this strenuous, athletic process enables her to remain focused on the task at hand, not getting too far ahead of herself and taking each contraction as it comes, without a pre-determined agenda for how long her labor should take.

Dick-Read, in the preface to the fourth edition (1959) of Childbirth Without Fear, speaks to the importance of approaching the birth of a baby with reverence and respect.

[C]hildbirth is fundamentally a spiritual as well as physical achievement and throughout this book it must be read and understood that the birth of a child is the ultimate perfection of human love. In the Christian ethic we teach that God is love in which the blessing of sexual necessity and pleasure is but an essential part. Obstetrics must be approached as a science demanding the most profound respect. It must maintain the poise and dignity of those whose estimate of values finds a place for all types and variations of women. It demands cheerfulness without frivolity and sacrifice without reward, for of itself no guerdon could be greater than the gratitude of those whom we are privileged to serve.

I am persuaded from long years of experience amongst women of many nationalities that good midwifery is essential for the true happiness of motherhood — that good midwifery is the birth of a baby in a manner nearest to the natural law and design — and good midwifery, next to wise and healthy pregnancy, sets the pattern of the newborn infant and its relationship to its mother.

For this sequence a sound and stable philosophy is a basic necessity. Materialism and atheism are not included in the make-up of motherhood. Neither can a robot lead a blind man across the road.¹³

Conclusion

Michel Odent, a strong proponent of gentle birth, points out the irony that if non-emergency medical interventions were to stop altogether, many women and children today would be put at risk — not because C-sections and other standard medical practices are good for mother or baby in the long term, but rather because women have lost
their innate capacity to travail through the normal birthing process and need to learn how to regain that skill.¹⁴

Why have Western women seemingly lost the ability to proceed through labor and delivery without medical
interventions when women from less medically advanced cultures seem to glide through the process? Could it be that with the humanistic thrust that has dominated the West, with science determining there is no longer any need for
God and His Word, that women have become convinced that their bodies are incapable of doing precisely that task God has designed them to do? From a Biblical point of view, childbirth cannot as a rule be seen as a pathology that
demands massive intervention, but rather as a God-ordained process through which the command to be fruitful and multiply is to be fulfilled.

When people put their trust in materialistic philosophies in opposition to the triune God and fail to acknowledge the supremacy of Scripture over every activity and segment of life, the results are sure to be detrimental. R. J. Rushdoony hits the nail on the head when he notes,

The growth of non-Christian materialism had led to false and rather mechanical views of medicine. If our car needs oil or gas, we add these things to the car; if we need a new fuel pump, we replace the old one. In like manner, some people expect cure-all dosages and changes and are resentful when the doctor cannot work miracles. Their expectation, however mechanical, is still religious, but it is in essence paganism, not Biblical faith.

This, of course, is the heart of the matter. There must be a return to a Biblical view of medicine as a calling, and as a priestly-pastoral calling, but there must also be a return to Christian faith on the part of the people, or false and unreasonable demands will be made of medicine.¹⁵

1. Quoted in Emily Cook, “Women who have Caesarean’s ‘less likely to bond,’” Mail Online, July 13, 2006,

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-395218/Women-Caesareans-likely-bond.html#ixzz1Oi15Fyh6.

Dr. Odent was speaking at a conference sponsored by an educational charity promoting a holistic approach to pregnancy, birth, and babyhood.

2. To be sure, there are other factors that contributed to this and will be discussed in future installments.

3. Peter Dunn, “Perinatal Lessons from the Past,” Archives of Disease in Childhood 1994; 71: F145-F146, accessed via

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1061103/pdf/archdischfn00037-0073.pdf.

4. Dr. Jo Loomis, “Important Considerations for Expectant Parents,” Faith for All of Life, May/June 2011.

5. Dunn, “Perinatal Lessons.”

6. Ibid.

7. This is in no way to posit that childbirth must be excruciatingly painful in order for it to be handled in a scriptural fashion, given the limited weight we can attach to any arguments drawn from an analogy. See Andrea Schwartz, “Rethinking Childbearing – Part 1,” Faith for All of Life, May/June 2011.

8. Dunn, “Perinatal Lessons.”

9. Ibid.

10. The subject of the husband’s role will be given further attention in a future essay on this topic.

11. Dunn, “Perinatal Lessons.”

12. A recent Lifetime Channel series called “One Born Every Minute” gave such a lopsided view of labor, to the point that in their opening trailer, woman after woman is shown screaming and groaning. Repeatedly, nurses offered epidurals the way waitresses offer water to restaurant customers. It was expected that women would want and need one.

13. Grantly Dick-Read, Childbirth Without Fear, Appendix: Preface to the Fourth Edition (1959), 568-577.

14. “Michel Odent – on gentle birth [parts 1-3],” YouTube videos, from an interview by OWL productions, uploaded by elmerpostleowl, November 3, 2007, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBjZ5rMoHkU,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8x8ip4VVGAI, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXf1pcfKS1o.

15. R. J. Rushdoony, “Chalcedon Medical Report No. 1: The Medical Profession as a Priestly Calling,” Roots of
Reconstruction (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 1991), 459-460.

Thanks to the foundational thesis supplied by R. J. Rushdoony,¹ large numbers of Christian families removed or never
placed their children in state schools and thus recaptured an important area of family life. The pioneers of the modern movement acted on faith, believing that if they applied the Bible’s directives to teach children to love God and keep
His commandments, they would be blessed. Today, homeschooling has become an accepted practice, although efforts to stifle and regulate it still persist. Thanks to many faithful homeschooling advocacy groups that combat legislative
efforts to steal from the family that which God commanded it to do, homeschooling continues to be a growing movement.

Education, however, is NOT the only area where Biblical considerations have been usurped by so-called “experts.” Like education, modern medical childbirth procedures, along with how, when, and where a child will be birthed, merit reevaluation from a scriptural perspective.

Far from being a neutral area of life, the issues of labor and delivery, and the customary practices routinely followed, will either reflect the wisdom of God’s created order or they will reflect a humanistic makeover of that order. Too few prospective parents have examined these issues from the Word of God and have uncritically assumed the validity of letting modern medical science practitioners make decisions for them, usually within a framework that sees childbirth as pathology rather than a reflection of God’s creative wisdom. To fully bring all areas of life and thought under the dominion of Jesus Christ, we need to recover a better-informed Biblical mindset concerning childbirth so that family prerogatives aren’t surrendered to approaches that may be inconsistent with God’s Word.

Travail

The Bible uses the word travail to describe the process of a child leaving the womb. Webster’s 1828 dictionary defines this word as follows:

travail, v.i. [L. trans, over, beyond, and mael, work; Eng. moil.]
1. To labor with pain; to toil.
2. To suffer the pangs of childbirth; to be in labor. (Gen. 35.)

travail, n. Labor with pain; severe toil.
1. Labor in childbirth; as a severe travail; an easy travail.

In Genesis 3:16a, God promises Eve that He will “greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children.” This is a direct response to Eve’s disobedience. The Bible consistently associates pain with childbearing. In fact, the pain itself is due to Eve’s rebellion against God. It should be noted that the Scripture does not contain any directive for women to avoid this pain through the use of anesthetics.² These facts, while not decisive in themselves, do steer us to inquire further. First Timothy 2:14-15 reads:

And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.

One of the three most plausible interpretations of Paul’s meaning is that these verses promise that a woman will make it through childbirth if she remains in faith, charity, holiness, and sobriety. By implication, if she embraces the calling God has given her as a woman, wife, and mother, she will obtain favor from the Lord. Under this interpretation, we note that Paul gave no indication that she should seek to avoid this reality of travailing, nor sedate herself during the experience. While an argument from silence has limited validity, and the interpretation is not conclusively settled, the issue surely warrants thoughtful exploration given its importance.

Eve, by her own admission (Gen. 3:13b), was deceived, specifically about the question of authority, God’s authority, and invoked human wisdom in her bid to settle the question. This question of authority is a continuing factor in women’s lives, and we’ve seen the ugly results when the state expects parents to bend to its alleged authority over education. In a like manner, women continue to bend to medical authorities relating to pregnancy and birth because the alternatives (like homeschooling to statist education) are routinely ridiculed. Faulty appeal to authority is a logical fallacy, and perhaps it’s not going too far beyond the evidence to suggest that in our day women have continued to be deceived about their prerogatives concerning parenting from the very beginning of that process, including childbirth and the travail associated with it.

No Pain, No Gain?

One young mother³ described it this way, “I think the pain is meant to remind a woman of what happens when she lives life on her own terms, and that should make her even more determined to raise that baby she has just delivered to live life on God’s terms.” Thus, rather than being “bad” pain, this is useful pain. Pain that will help her “count the cost” of the endeavor before her to raise her child “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” While this is anecdotal evidence, not an explicit appeal to Scripture, it is representative of a different way of thinking about childbirth that bears further scrutiny.

Another reference to childbirth is made by Jesus in John 16:20-21:

Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the
anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. [Emphasis mine.]

Jesus, by way of analogy, is telling His disciples that their sorrow at His death will be turned to joy in His resurrection. How does He convey this? He does so by using the analogy of a woman in childbirth. This flies in the face of modern obstetrical practice that encourages pain medication to lessen the experience. Certainly we cannot imagine that Jesus was recommending that His disciples drug themselves to avoid the terrible sorrow His death would usher in for them. No, He was advocating that they parallel the normal experience of labor and resulting birth, in order to fully experience and appreciate the process by which salvation was to be ushered in for them.

Time for a More Biblical Paradigm?

It appears that many women continue to be deceived by humanistic medical criteria in the very midst of fulfilling their respective callings to be mothers. Many mothers-to-be today buy into modern medicine’s disdain for God’s natural, physiological processes, and in essence agree that God’s design is inherently defective. Systematic deceptions under color of medical authority include its glowing characterization of the travesty of abortion. So many women are grossly deceived when it comes to believing the lie that abortion is safe, easy, and will allow them to get on with the rest of their lives without any negative consequences. The medical profession has made a practice of telling women what they wish to hear.⁴

Assuming that most practitioners in the field of obstetrics don’t harbor bad intentions toward women,⁵ it remains that
if their basis for pharmacological and surgical intervention is based upon humanistic principles (i.e., all pain is bad and should be reduced or avoided at all costs), women may well be deprived of the promise of their anguish being
turned to joy. While it is true that the use of medications and interventions can remove a woman’s memory of birth⁶ or possibly reduce her pain, our Lord’s comments in John 16:21 suggest that the child’s arrival in the world is itself the medicine that erases the memory of the prior anguish.

While there are many voices advocating for less medical intervention and calling for natural childbirth, most are expressing their concerns on the basis of human rights abuses against women and the joy of an unmedicated birth. While there is some merit to these perspectives, they make their case on secular rather than Biblical grounds. Future installments will examine the “accepted” practices of natural childbirth with the purpose of attempting to develop the contours of a systematic theology as it applies to childbearing while allowing for a variety of individual applications.⁷

Conclusion

The so-called “experts” in the field of obstetrical practice desire that families do minimal thinking on their own and submit to the superior wisdom of modern medical science. However, as the homeschooling movement has thoroughly demonstrated, matters that are properly in the jurisdiction of families and responsibly carried out by the family bring
tremendous personal and culture-changing effects.

Rushdoony points out that childbirth occurs within an ongoing context when he notes,

It is obvious, of course, that procreation … birth, is a function of the family, and, in a healthy, biblically oriented and governed family system, this function is preceded by an important fact that conditions birth. The parents marry because there is a bond of faith and love between them, a resolution to maintain for life a covenant under God. As a result, heredity of faith and a unity in terms of it are established as a prior condition of birth, so that a child born into such a family has an inheritance which cannot be duplicated. The Biblical family cannot be rivaled by man’s science or imagination as the
institution for procreation and rearing of children.⁸

1. Rushdoony was among those who demonstrated that homeschooling was far from a new practice and that through most of the history of the U.S. republic and during the colonial period, parents teaching their children was common-place and the literacy rate in America was much higher than today.
2. It should also be noted that Proverbs 31:6-7 advises the use of an anesthetic for those in pain and dying. However, this passage is in no way connected to the process of giving birth.
3. Thanks to Mrs. Mike (Nicki) O’Donovan for our conversations together on this topic.
4. For personal testimonies as to the long-term effects of abortion on women, see the DVD, “Life after Abortion,” http://vimeo.com/11510410
5. This is not to say that there are not legitimate circumstances where medical interventions are lifesavers for
mothers and their babies.
6. See Jo Loomis’s article in this same issue of Faith for All of Life.
7. R. J. Rushdoony in his twelve Medical Reports (published in The Roots of Reconstruction) is a useful starting
point for further examination of modern medicine by those committed to the authority of Scripture.
8. R. J. Rushdoony, Law & Liberty (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books), 100.

This essay was written 10 years ago, marking the passing of my dear friend and spiritual father, RJ Rushdoony.

Many have expressed their heartfelt appreciation for R. J. Rushdoony and his expounding the relevance and necessity of the law for the Christian in his sanctification. I will remember Rush as the person God used to “turn the lights on” to help me see that God’s Word all of it was not just to be consulted, but to be digested and utilized in every area of life and thought.

Once this concept was understood and grasped, I was like a toddler, who having just discovered the ability to walk, wanted to run everywhere and do everything trying out my new skill to make an impact for Christ. However, my circumstances as a wife and the mother of two children made it so “learning to walk better” was the most I could do. Institutes of Biblical Law, Law and Liberty, The Atheism of the Early Church, Revolt Against Maturity, Thy Kingdom Come, The Philosophy of the Christian Curriculum, Chalcedon Reports & Position Papers, and tapes, all authored by R. J. Rushdoony, along with other authors he pointed me towards, took the “toddler in the faith” and helped her mature into a Christian woman.

Then, I was ready to see my calling in the kingdom within the context of being a wife and mother. God opened up doors for me to utilize my specific gifts to fulfill the Great Commission mandate and teach my children and those of other home schooling families. It was then that Rush and Dorothy asked me to help with the work of getting his books in print. What an honor! What a privilege! What an amazing thing! They wanted my help! My help was good enough for them? First typing, then typesetting, then acting in the capacity of publishing coordinator working with others around the country to bring his unpublished work into print, so that others like me could have the Scripture opened up to them in a powerful way.

Since then, my husband, Ford, and I have worked to replicate the process that we went through and to help “turn the lights on” for others we meet. We help them learn to “walk better” by giving them good material to read and apply. And then, we ask them to help. Amazing what happens when you let people help! Their God-given talents emerge things that are monumental or unobtainable by others are just what “they’ve always been good at” and a community develops and the kingdom progresses.

When you look at it from one perspective, none of us are really ever good enough to help further the kingdom. None of us really has anything of merit to offer until regenerated by the Spirit, we respond with, “Lord, what would you have me do?” Then and only then are we qualified to obey the Living God and be fruitful and multiply.

Thanks to a godly man and his wife, my husband and I became more equipped to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. We were able to utilize the gifts and talents God designed into us, and responded to His calling on our lives. May all who have benefited from the ministry and friendship of R. J. Rushdoony continue to serve the Lord until we meet our dear friend again in heaven.