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Question:
What
do you believe is the appeal of QF to women in 2015 America?
At the
beginning of QF/P, I believe that the religious aspirations were
largely healthy, or at least the original ideologues behind it
envisioned healthier models. Initially, both private Christian
schooling and homeschooling offered alternatives to secular education
in government schools which would not only allow parents to convey
their particular set of values to their children, but the data in the
early days of the movement showed that homeschooling offered many
children a significant academic advantage.
Unfortunately, due to fear mongering and fancies of conspiracy, for many Christians, the movement quickly became a method of cloistering children from the evils of culture who baited their children to sell their souls to secularism. This attitude of fear created a ready market for QF/P as the ideal method for responsible Christian parents to “save” their children from a culture that they believed sought to eradicate their religious beliefs altogether while also saving their souls from eternal hell.
Unfortunately, due to fear mongering and fancies of conspiracy, for many Christians, the movement quickly became a method of cloistering children from the evils of culture who baited their children to sell their souls to secularism. This attitude of fear created a ready market for QF/P as the ideal method for responsible Christian parents to “save” their children from a culture that they believed sought to eradicate their religious beliefs altogether while also saving their souls from eternal hell.
As with
all new movements, many young entrepreneurs saw QF/P as an
opportunity to make a living while also devoting their lives to
something idealistic, allowing them to live meaningful lives. In the
early 1980s, these various family oriented, wholesome interests
coalesced into an interesting clustering of beliefs and practices of
which homeschooling and the pro-life movement became an essential
part in the US.
Having created a ready market through propagating fear, many of these entrepreneurs provided ready-made, Bible-approved solutions for all of the problems of these families in need. From there, the focus branched from education and the virtue of family into a dynamic lifestyle which offered the lowliest of seemingly insignificant persons the powerful opportunity to save the world. The housewife and blue collar worker became mighty warriors on the front lines of the culture war, empowered by ‘godly’ formulas and strategies that promised them success and victory. In the end, their children would take dominion over the earth and would make the world a Christian utopia.
Having created a ready market through propagating fear, many of these entrepreneurs provided ready-made, Bible-approved solutions for all of the problems of these families in need. From there, the focus branched from education and the virtue of family into a dynamic lifestyle which offered the lowliest of seemingly insignificant persons the powerful opportunity to save the world. The housewife and blue collar worker became mighty warriors on the front lines of the culture war, empowered by ‘godly’ formulas and strategies that promised them success and victory. In the end, their children would take dominion over the earth and would make the world a Christian utopia.
~
Cynthia Kunsman
The
view of Quiverfull from my vantage
August
2015
