Christian Fundamentalist Group Preaches Patriarchy and Women's Fertility as Weapons for Spiritual Warfare

By Mark Karlin, BuzzFlash. Posted March 30, 2009.

Karlin: The patriarchal fundamentalist movement leaders are the be-all to the women who are locked into this belief system. If you really want to break away from this belief, then the whole structure falls apart. 

Joyce: Right.

Karlin: Is this a growing movement? 

Joyce: Yes, it is. It's really been going on for the past 20-25 years, so the first generation is starting to have their own children now. Obviously, not every child is going to continue in their parents' footsteps, but I think a lot of them do. These children often are raised in very cloistered home school environments, where their interaction with the outside world is very closely monitored. Their parents will discourage them from backsliding, particularly their daughters. They understand how important it is to keep the children of the movement within the movement in order to make this generational demographic victory possible.

There are quite a few women leaders in the submission and patriarchy and Quiverfull movements. They are under the headship of male leaders themselves, so you can question how much authority they actually have.  But one of the most popular authors in bringing women about to this conviction has been a woman writing in a personal way. I think that's in keeping with tradition, as with Phyllis Schafly's example during the Eighties.

Karlin: How much of this do you think is a backlash to the feminist movement?

Joyce: I think generally it is, and that they have taken motivation and even structure from looking at the feminist movement. They organize in small groups and small mentoring models that seem to me very reminiscent of the rap groups, or the consciousness-raising groups of the early feminist movement, that appealed to women where they are, that talked to them about personal issues, and then exposed them to a political thought.

In this case, they are leading women or getting them organized into small groups and teaching them about submission and patriarchy rather than telling them about feminism and opportunities for women's liberation. But I think there's a lot of inspiration there. I think what they're attacking most vocally is feminism, and the idea that women are independent. They take feminism as a threat more seriously than probably anybody has since the 1970s. They talk about it obsessively. It's their main concern. 

Karlin: Getting back to the race issue, it's been sort of unstated, but how did we get to the point where Jesus and Christianity are seen as white? 

Joyce: That is a good question, but I'm not sure I am necessarily qualified to answer that, but I think I should clarify. I think there is subtext of race in a lot of the demographic concerns, but it's often not overt and I don't think everybody in this movement shares those beliefs. I think there's a very strong racial undercurrent, when they talk about demography as a crisis, or underpopulation, or declining fertility rates as a crisis, because they're talking about declining white fertility rates, not declining worldwide fertility rates. I think there are a lot of ties and connections between the extremist members of this movement and traditionally conservative and racist groups in the South. I don't think that's necessarily part of the theological basis for it, though.

See more stories tagged with: quiverfull, patriarchy, kathryn jocye, quiverfull: inside the ch

Mark Karlin is the editor of buzzflash.com

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