There's a whole lotta faith goin on...

Ross, I'll let someone else address your first question, because they can do it better than I. However, to your second... I too am single and wonder about my heritage and whatnot. I then think however about all the singles in my life who have influenced me and the heritage they have left, or are leaving. Heritages such as devotion to being prayer warriors for the Kingdom of God. Or godly single women who are mothers to the kids in the nursery on Sundays and then in the evenings open up their homes for the college women's bible studies where she there encourages women to love God and pursue godliness and to love His Holy Word. What is your legacy then, Ross? Follow Christ wholeheartedly and encourage the men around you, especially younger men who would look up to you, to follow Christ as well. Love God's Word, and help others around you be infected with a love for it as well. And pray without ceasing! I can think of many singles whose prayer life has encouraged me and motivated me to be more devoted to that practice. While you might not have children one day, you do have the ability to be a major influence and mentor on people around you. Your love for God's Kingdom and His Body, prayer, His Word---those things can be your legacy Ross, and they can be very powerful in lives of many, many people.

To Lane and Chantal, thank you for your kind words. I am quite familiar with the quote from Isaiah, which could be given, without too much difficulty, to couples who had not been able to have children. My point in raising the question, even when I know the answer for myself, is that for many singles the question refuses to go away. This is especially in a church culture which makes much of children as the heritage of the Lord (and rightly so).

Eric - Congratulations! Janet and I are thrilled for your family! The prevailing thought in most of our culture (both America's and evangelical's culture) is that children are a blessing - in small numbers. Also that motherhood is a gift - especially if only practiced between the hours of 4:30pm and 6:30am. It is quite clear that feminism is at the root of the church's denial of the promise that children are a blessing. We have, after all, grown up. We've realized that we cannot have our cake and our penny too! We can't live a truly full life and have lot of kids. Children are resource consumers - money, time, romance, luxury, etc. So is God mistaken about the children being a blessing bit? I could give you many examples of raised eyebrows, insulting compliments, lewd remarks, and the such, but instead I will tell you that the more children that sit around my table the more I really think the bologna tastes like prime rib and the lemonade like fine wine!

currently, there are 6.6 billion people in the world, chasing after a set of finite resources. we have water wars, lebensraum wars, and oil wars. in 50 years, at a growth rate of 1.3% per year, the population of the world will be double--13+ billion people, chasing after a set of finite resources. during this time, we'll have gone past peak oil (half of all known oil ever discovered will be consumed), so oil wars will be even hotter. add food wars into the mix. this is the legacy people having 8 kids will leave those very same children, who will be alive in 50 years. be careful what you ask for.

elizabeth-- 'mindless automatons' is your understanding of human beings you don't know, not mine. i said 6.6 billion 'people.' by placing highly skewed connotative words in my mouth, you seek to weaken my position. the future still remains: 13+ billion people will be scambling for resources 50 years from now, and your children will be some of them. i'm sure in the wars that come from this kind of resource scrambling, your children will consider the palestinians, chinese, moslems, and mexicans (members of fast-growing economies, who bear children even faster than you do) who fight on the other side's armies, over resources, as 'little less than the angels.' (you deliberately give the delight of psalm 8 a very cheapened meaning.) please share with me what local and global stweardship education and training you are giving your children now, so that they are part of the kingdom of god 50 years from now when they are 8 people out of 13 billion people. being brought up as greater producers than consumers, as giving more than they take, which i support, by the way, will not allow them to survive in a world of 13 billion people. as for the matthew reading, having 8 children is a far, far stretch from what the jesus writings mean when they talk about talents. peace-- scott

Scott, You forgot Indians. We daily experience, first-hand, the challenges of population growth, as my husband and I and our five children live in a slightly rough urban neighborhood of a densely populated city with all the people groups you listed. So I really want to affirm that I respect your concerns about this; I regret that I was a little defensive in my last post. It IS very easy to become immune to human suffering when you have to deal with, on a lighter note, nowhere to park your car, and on a more serious note, danger of your five-year-old suffocating on a packed subway car. But everyone of these billions of people was lovingly made in his mother's womb by an omniscient and omnipotent Creator. Yes, it's hard to remember this when someone is screaming at you in an unknown language as he cuts you off in traffic, but it's true nonetheless. I confess, I don't have a good grasp of the current research as you do. But in my own little microcosm, when I have to wait so long to use the bathroom, or I'm frustrated with training my kids to be quiet out of respect for others in our apartment building, or there's not quite enough food for me to fix a satisfying meal for my family, and I'm tempted to think, gee, if only I didn't have all these kids. . . . Then I think how smart they are, and how fearfully and wonderfully made, and I see how foolish it is to suggest that somehow God should be limited in His creation of these marvelous creatures. Surely He knows what He's doing! I don't have any fancy plan for teaching them "local and global stewardship" beyond guarding against American slothfulness and gluttony. We waste very little food, try to turn the lights off when we're not using them, use reusable shopping bags, take public transportation most of the time, etc. I'm not sure exactly what we can do on a global level, but as our kids get older, they grow increasingly concerned with these issues. They are resourceful and smart. One of my sons, in fact, has put a lot of thought into renewable fuels. Perhaps one day he'll develop one that is cheap and practical. So I'm saying that when you suggest we should limit our families, I take it very personally, as I see first hand that if we do choose to have fewer children, the world will be missing out on some brilliant minds, and their solutions to many of these problems. Elizabeth

aaron-- the information published about population statistics indicates that the current global increase is 1.3%. ‘western’ populations are, as you say, decreasing. but the overall global increase is 1.3%. that means the rate in poorer countries is 1.6+%. here in the u.s., as well as in europe, immigration plays a large factor in population increase. as poorer nations produce proportionally more and more people, the scramble for resources will involve not just share equitably with others of one’s nation, but with distributing resources to poorer, far more crowded, nations. or of having those resources taken away from you in a resource war. china, in spite of their one child policy, is still reproducing at the annual rate of 1.3%. i am glad that you eat adequately on a regular basis, and that god’s promise of ‘give us this day our daily bread’ has consistently worked for you. i, too, am well-fed; i’ve never gone hungry. you and i live in a nation, at a time in history, when we can celebrate incredible abundance. but last year, 4 million people died of starvation. so for them, at least, god’s promise of ‘give us this day our daily bread’ was not fulfilled. as the population increases, this number of starvation deaths each year will rise. nor have i been homeless, or been seriously cold or wet for lack of clothing, or wanted for adequate health care; i’ve never been a refugee from a ground war; i’ve never been falsely imprisoned or tortured. but this year, millions of people, not mindless resource-sucking automatons, will experience all of those conditions. elizabeth-- you’re right, i did forget the indians: the second largest population, after china, and a very fast-growing economy. they'll be wanting their fair share of resources, too. you said that each person is lovingly created. i wish that were so. but at least 50 million abortions since roe vs. wade indicate 50 million people who were not lovingly created. i don’t know the statistics, but i would venture to guess there are another 50 million people who were not lovingly created, but who were born into this world. there are at least that many unwanted children alone spread all over the globe. so even though each person is, in actual fact, not lovingly created, we can behave as if it were so, which indicates a shared responsibility to take care of the unwanted, especially unwanted children. but I think you actually said each and every person is lovingly created by god. That would indicate a responsibility by god to take care of each and every person; to insure ‘give us this day our daily bread’ was a real, viable promise. and yet 4 million people who starved to death last year might argue the point. if a father lovingly creates a child, he feels responsible to make sure that child is fed, and would not allow that child to starve if it were within his means to make sure the child was fed. yet this same father/god who lovingly created each person is allowing 4 million of them to starve each year. i’m assuming it is within god’s power to feed them all if god choses to. issues of theodicy aside, something is inconsistently askew here in your world view. it sounds to me like you are teaching your children many good things about global stewardship. you sound like you’re keeping a small ‘ecological footprint,’ which i think is a responsible way to live in a world full of people, and with finite resources. i, too, try to live in a small ecological footprint. you’re even better at it than i; i drive a car, and you take public transportation. i must admit, that books are my downfall; i should use the shared resources in the library, but i do love to have my own books… You should take limiting, or not limiting, your families personally. your judgments are different than mine on this issue, and probably neither of us will change. i personally feel that having large families in a world of limited resources is irresponsible. i hope that your children don’t suffer from want or violence over the next 50 years because of dwindling resources. but then, i wish 4 million people didn’t die each year of starvation, too. joel-- the definition of ‘hypocrite’ is ‘one who pretends to have virtues that one doesn’t really have.' based on what you know about me from what i’ve written, what virtues do you feel i’m pretending to have that i really don’t? or are you just sounding off, as paul would say, as a noisy gong, a clanging cymbal? i love your created use of the verb ‘to rabbit.’ i’m assuming you mean it as meaningless mumbling about a topic, alluding to the rabbit in alice in wonderland, always looking at his watch and proclaiming, “the time! the time!” but it also alludes to prolific procreation, put two rabbits in a room and they ‘rabbit’ until the room is full of rabbits. In light of the topic at hand, that’s funny. And clever. peace-- scott

joel, elizabeth, and aaron-- i guess we're finished conversing? hope all is well with each of you. it has been a pleasure to think out loud with you. peace-- scott

Scott, are you a Christian?