Cream Puff Culture

“One reason why sin flourishes is that it is treated like a cream puff instead of a rattlesnake.”

– Billy Sunday

I recall reading that quote in one of my Christian Daily Planner journals when I was about ten years old. It didn’t strike me as being a very profound quote at the time, but it remained vivid in my mind. Then one day I fully comprehended the point – people treat sin like a cream puff by telling themselves, “Just a little taste of it here and there won’t hurt anybody,” when they should be avoiding it like a deadly, venomous snake. Perhaps out of fear of working too hard to be pure and righteous – as many fantasize our old-fashioned ancestors to have done – our nation at the relatively youthful age of 233 is a land of cream puffs that don’t see the serpent coming.

“We’ll overtake you soon because we have more children than you,” a Muslim doctor once told my great-uncle. I’m sure we’ve all heard some variation of the fact before: the average Muslim family has 8.1 children, while the American birth rate barely reaches the bare minimum for a culture to survive beyond 25 years – 2.11 children – and that is counting the influx of Latino immigration. Discounting the immigrants, the fertility rate of American citizens is a scanty 1.6. This means that there is a good chance the United States of America could become an Islamic-dominated nation (along with European nations) within 50 years unless something changes soon (1).

“A people whom you do not know shall eat up the produce of your ground and all your labors, and you will never be anything but oppressed and crushed continually; but there will be nothing you can do…the LORD will bring you and your king, whom you have set over you, to a nation which neither you nor your fathers have known…the alien who is among you shall rise above you higher and higher, but you will go down lower and lower. He shall lend to you but you will not lend to him; he shall be the head, and you will be the tail.” – Deuteronomy 28:32-44

That is the warning against disobedience (I find it interesting that this Scripture actually makes reference to an elected leader – one that the people set over themselves). I don’t think all hope is lost for America (after all, the nation of Israel went off on more than one rebellious tangent), but we should take warnings seriously and transform the cultural attitudes.

There is a lot that can be said on this subject, but I have to begin by speaking for every American family that has more than 1.6 children and isn’t ashamed of it, yet has been politely tolerating the cultural aspersions targeted at them. Who are the crazy idiots now? Birth control, not large families, is the stupid idea. As we were on the subject of abortion recently, I don’t think there are any particularly pleasant ways to handle this topic. The major reason why abortion is tolerated (and promoted) is that our contemporary Western culture shuns children.

There is strength in numbers, and a reason why the Bible states that children are to be embraced as a heritage. Numerous descendants are a reward for obedience:

“The Lord will make you abound in prosperity, in the offspring of your body and in the offspring of your beast and in the produce of your ground, in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give you.”
- Deuteronomy 28:11

Those who carry out the will of the Lord receive blessing. A British economist once noticed that America and Britain received baby booms after World War II, but the nations that had sided with evil did not (2). The good Allies had sacrificed many lives while conquering an enemy of God’s people, and thus they were rewarded with many more descendants. However, not long afterward Americans monumentally rejected that blessing by passing Roe v. Wade, and Britain also accepted liberal abortion laws. Financial expert Jerry Tuma has pointed out the effects that abortion has had on the economy (2). 70.6% of the economy is driven by consumer spending – and we now have at least 51 million less people in our country – 51 million less consumers – due to abortion alone.  As the baby boom generation ages, the realization that an entire generation has been aborted is starting to set in.

There are cause and effect laws set into all fields of Creation.  When those principles are followed – even unwittingly – success usually results.  One example of this is when Edwards Demming (who was not a Christian) introduced to Japan economic ideas based on Christian principles, and the country thrived (2).  Similarly, those who follow God’s command to be fruitful and multiply – intentionally or unintentionally – will reap strength from it because it is a cause and effect law of Creation.

While the Muslims across the world are just letting children occur naturally,  the American majority is fussing over trying to hinder population growth for the sake of saving the world from global warming and whatnot, but (ironically) is whining about being impotent at the same time. If they have any shred of dignity left they might blush at the realization that many of us families abounding with children laugh at the Cialis, Viagra, Levitra, what-you-may-call-it ads that they throw at our TV and computer screens. Most of us are too polite and too busy to fool around with cheekily questioning the problems they shamelessly herald, but I’ll pose the query now while I’m at it. Do you know what causes that?

Most likely it is derived from submitting to a society that advocates getting yourselves fixed like dogs, is pandered by cultural trends that want the sex but not the babies (or the marriage for that matter), is studied by those who want to believe that sodomy and planet Earth have inherent divine attributes but don’t want to believe in God, and is ruled by politicians that want the taxes but not the future tax payers (and boy, have they got their hands full now! How will they afford it?). Go figure! No wonder everything is going sterile. Apparently the common sense gauge has been lowered to the level of two people reclining in bathtubs on a back porch right out in the open like those goofy commercials.

It is foolish arrogance to assume that we can successfully control the population of human offspring. People are dying daily just as people are being born daily. The cultural status quos gloat at their skillfully planned parenthood as they produce a limited number of children, and the next thing you know some disaster takes out hundreds of thousands of people. While attempting to wield evolutionary power to weed out the misfits in society, the youthful population is shrinking while the elderly population is growing. Put simply, such a trend results in more grandparents than grandchildren, an occurrence contrary to natural law that will leave a shortage of youth to care for and support the aging population (3). My, what poor planning…

BREAKING: Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on abortion:

“…Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of….”(4)

Do not assume that I think it is a sin to have “only” one or two children. According to the Bible, Job and his wife had a total of twenty children, while Abraham and Sarah “only” had one. What did these two righteous families have in common? Neither of them “planned” their parenthood. The Lord knows the past, present and future and obviously makes the most informed decision.

Nevertheless, too many people are riding a guilt trip of wasting resources and overpopulating the Earth that they have been inundated with. After being indoctrinated in the abortion and gay marriage movements coupled with dumbed down education, the poor dupes needed something to live for in life. Thus, they payed closer attention to measuring the earth’s temperature in asphalt lots surrounded by radiators and began wondering where all the heat was coming from…and decided to claim global warming as their sin – the only sin they felt they couldn’t excuse. They didn’t settle upon the practical Theodore Roosevelt style conservationism and Earth stewardship, but rather mushy hippie adoration, all for a hypothesis that is showing itself to be less and less plausible (5).

The fear of wasting of resources is based on the humanistic view rooted in scarcity, but the Biblical view is rooted in abundance.  The world has endured some tough times, but really, the Lord would not allow Earth’s resources to dwindle away!  Of course, those who do not acknowledge a Lord of creation and abundance have their doubts and faiths in all the wrong places – and they expect us to suck it.  We can’t present our Faith to them, but they sure want us to swallow theirs (notice that those who do not believe in global warming are labeled “deniers”).  But honestly, families with lots of children – especially homeschoolers – are the last people you should be nagging at for wasting resources. We’re the people that grow up learning to work to support each other daily and conserve by sharing hand-me-down clothes and shoes, and take the most interest in raising our own food and educating ourselves at home. My family of eight (going on nine) children hasn’t even taken a vacation away from home since my father retired from the military four years ago. Using what is necessary to provide for lots of children is not a waste.  In fact, that is what stimulates the economy! Children are the natural “stimulus package.”  Interestingly enough, foreign governments that have experienced the socialism-communism cycle have actually realized that and are now begging their women to have more children (6).  It’s a little embarrassing that our own liberal citizens haven’t utilized enough brain power to recognize the inherent problems of child shunning yet!

Now, if they want to argue about wasting resources, I can play along.  Childless couples (now more increasingly homosexual couples) living together in those gorgeous, expensive homes with the large kitchens they never cook in might be wasting resources. Maintaining a luxury jet for Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi might be a waste of resources (7). Speaking of Madam Speaker…what is up with Nancy Pelosi? She has five children and six grandchildren (8), but now tries to tell us that birth control will help stimulate the economy (9)!

Can you imagine how our ancestors, both slave and free, who came to this country crammed in overcrowded ships and survived on next to nothing would react if they could see the majority of their thriving descendants whining about the Earth being overcrowded and running out of resources (and complaining about being impotent) some how all at the same time? Oh, they would be so ashamed!

The cream puff liberal culture apparently views children as valuable only if they are in a small enough in number to each have a wardrobe of designer’s clothes and spend twelve years in Nanny Government’s socialist day care system. Why, how could you do such an unnatural thing as taking children out of the family environment they were born into and forcing them into a batch of peers? What about well-rounded socialization? If you haven’t already noticed, we homeschooling families abounding with children get slammed with these same statements and questions I’ve italicized throughout this article, only in the reverse. Believe me, the reversed versions targeted at us make a lot less sense.

I’ve even been told that having lots of children is selfish and ignorant. Au contraire! I would go so far as to say that it is wimpy and ignorant for men to avoid providing for and protecting children, and wimpy and ignorant for women to avoid bearing and nurturing children. Isn’t it far more intelligent to focus on raising many creative and resourceful children that can actually help build society and aid the needy and suffering with their own hands instead of abdicating all responsibility to our wuss of a government?

SMIDGEN SCRIPTUM…
A brief history of selective child-shunning attempts that backfired.

- A Pharaoh once attempted to weaken the nation of Israel within Egyptian borders through infanticide specifically targeted at male Hebrew babies (Exodus 1:8-22). The Hebrew midwives Shiphrah and Puah feared GOD and refused to obey Pharaoh, so GOD blessed them with households of their own. When the Israelites continued to multiply, Pharaoh ordered his people to cast all Hebrew sons into the Nile. That is when Jochebed made sure her baby was spared by sending him down the Nile River in a water-proof basket (Exodus 2). He was rescued and adopted by Pharaoh’s daughter, who named him Moses. The LORD raised up Moses to deliver HIS people from Egyptian oppression through the Exodus.

- Herod the Great pulled a similar stint when JESUS was born. On a rampage to rid the world of the Newborn King, Herod ordered all male children age two and under in the vicinity of Bethlehem to be slain (Matthew 2:16). An angel of the LORD warned Joseph and ordered him to flee with Mary and the Child to Egypt, and thus our SAVIOR was spared until HIS appointed time.

- Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping established the “one child policy” in 1979 to control communist China’s population growth. This legally limits each family to one child, which greatly changes the social dynamic because it results in entire generations of “only children”. This has resulted in selective shunning of female babies, as each family wants a male heir. The girls often times are aborted or given up for adoption. This results in a lopsided male/female ratio, which increases the difficulty for young men to find wives.  Realizing the possibility of serious population decrease, a provision has been made to allow parents to have a second child in some cases (10).

- Plato’s Republic presented a humanistic view of children that included population control.  While the Greek philosophers pondered ways to develop a utopian State, they suggested that men and women be allowed to have children during a government recognized “prime of life”, but if any conceived children outside of those age limits, “Having received these instructions, they should be very careful not to let a single fetus see the light of day, but if one is conceived and forces its way to the light, they must deal with it in the knowledge that no nurture is available for it” (11). The Greco-Roman worldview is prevalent in Western culture today.

Written by: Amanda Read. For more articles and thoughts from Amanda check out her blog AmandaRead.com

WORKS CITED

(1). “Muslim Demographics” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-3X5hIFXYU

(2). Jerry Tuma speaking to the Judah School: Jumping Into the River of Increase, Breaking the Spirit of Poverty. http://www.gloryofzion.org/

(3). “Demographic Winter: The Greatest Crisis Humanity Will Face This Century Speech by Don Feder to the 36th Annual March for Life Rose Dinner January 22, 2009” http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009_docs/DonFederRoseDinnerspeech.pdf

(4). “The Place of Women on the Court” by Emily Bazelon. New York Times. July 7, 200. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/magazine/12ginsburg-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2

(5). “The Climate Change on Climate Change” http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB124597505076157449-lMyQjAxMDI5NDI1ODkyNzg1Wj.html

(6). “Russian Region to Hold a Day of Conception to Boost Population” – Fox News. September 11, 2007. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,296454,00.html

(7). “Pelosi Jet Request Sparks Debate” February 6, 2007  http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=2446183n
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/07/eveningnews/main2445668.shtml

“Congress Under Fire For Traveling During Recess” by Rachel Balik, February 20, 2009
http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/politics/2009/feb/Congress-Under-Fire-For-Travels-During-Recess.html

(8). “Pelosi Says Birth Control Will Help Economy” – Drudge Report Flash, January 25, 2009 http://www.drudgereport.com/flashpbc.htm

(9). “Nancy Pelosi: Birth Control Will Stimulate the Economy” 1:11 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_PTqvyzwRg

(10). “China’s One Child Policy” by Matt Rosenberg, About.com. April 12, 2009.
http://geography.about.com/od/populationgeography/a/onechild.htm

(11). Plato. “Plato Republic”, pg. 135. Translated by G.M.A. Grube. Revised by C.D.C. Reeve.  Indianapolis: Hackett, 1992.

ALSO OF INTEREST:

Fertility Rates (Children per Family) World Statistics: http://www.pregnantpause.org/numbers/fertility.htm