Actually, the shorter blue skirt looks like it would be currently in style. I was just in the states and saw several just like them for sale in the stores (and not the thrift stores).

My daughters asked me to find them some “fun/flirty” skirts (not serious/ straight, khaki ones). I actually bought a couple of ones similar (but not as long as the one on the left…)

Reminds me of a joke. A pious man sits on his porch swing in a pouring rain before a hurricane. A bus rolls up and the driver yells, “Grab what you can and get on the bus! There’s a flood coming!” The pious man replies, “I’m not worried. G-d will take care of me.”

A few hours later, the water is up over the porch and a Humvee rolls up through the rising water. A soldier yells, “Hey! Come with me! The water’s rising!” The pious man replies, “I’m not worried. G-d will take care of me.”

A few hours later the water is up over the first story of the man’s house. He’s on the second floor. A boat motors up to his window and a man yells, “Get in the boat if you want to live!” The pious man replies, “I’m not worried. G-d will take care of me.”

A few hours later the water is up over the house and the man is up on his chimney. A helicopter hovers overhead and drops a ladder. The man yells back, “Go away! G-d will take care of me!”

The man drowns. When he stands before G-d, he asks why G-d didn’t take care of him to which G-d replies, “What? I send you a bus, a humvee, a boat and a helicopter and you think I wasn’t looking out for you?”

Last anonymous:
Absolutely! A lot of it is about pride, and competition, and let’s see who can have more children, live on a tighter budget, do more stuff from scratch, try out more homeschooling curriculums, wear longer skirts, be more “submissive”….
It’s as pointless as a rat’s race on a wheel.

Dating is such a very American thing, and some of us (i.e. Europeans who moved to the U.S. and were blindsided by the whole “dating” thing) always thought of it as “having relationship try-outs” :-p

I remember as a child in the 1970s that several of the Anglican families we were friends with had exceptionally large numbers of children – something like ten or eleven. Later I was told that these families did not believe in birth control and had made a decision to let God control the number of their children, just as you have described. However, they dressed like all the rest of us and mixed with the rest of us “other Anglicans”. Some of their children have gone on seemingly to practice the same principle of having limitless offspring.

I also have never heard the term “Quiverfull”. When did this term start to be used? Has the concept of keeping an open womb been around in Protestant circles a lot longer than the “Quiverfull” terminology?

To be totally honest: deep down inside, though I was not really in touch with this at the time, I was afraid of God. I thought he was pretty mean and abusive- like my earthly father was- so I better toe the line and do what He said, OR ELSE…

I have come out of agreement with the lies. God ever so gently and patiently demonstrated to me that HE LOVES ME! He is NOT abusive; His Love does not depend upon my “performance”.

I’m curious about where this turns out. I suspect there will be other posts, but…

So, you say that you’re not a Christian anymore, but you’re still involved in an evangelical church? (Salvation Army?) Did you stop situating your politics on the far right, and do you still stand by your previous racism (as articulated in the post below that you wrote in the ’80′s and the idea that cross-dressing is “perversion”? Also, how long ago did you leave the movement? In many ways, it all sounds very fresh.

Finally, just wanting to note… As a result to my mere *exposure* to this ideology in some of my formative years (and wresting through it in early adulthood) only to later come to terms with my identity as a queer woman–and, heh, a leftwing theorist (not even a “liberal,” man, but a “lefitst.” ). The experiences sound very fresh to you, and, seriously? My experiences (though much more short lived) seem very fresh to me. There’s something about the thought policing that goes on among these people that just…permeates your soul, in a way. It made me feel extremely paranoid and afraid all the time. And the injustice that grated most on my fourteen year old self was that *men got to wear normal clothes* and women had to don…stuff like what is pictured above. Not only that, but you couldn’t swim freely in the swimming pool. You had to be worried about being covered enough, and some people didn’t even agree with the idea of “mixed swimming” in the same pool, and jesus god, there was *so much* to keep track of. And, honestly…? Doing a scriptural study to find out, say, God’s take on “women and headcoverings” is kind of…a waste of time. Argh.

Anyway, so final question (Sorry this is all a bit random)… I’m wondering about your take on racism within the movement? My understanding is that it is a pre-dominantly white phenomenon–and that it’s often under-girded by ideologies of white supremacy (i.e., not just endlessly giving birth to children to further God’s kingdom, but endlessly giving birth to *white* children to maintain racial dominance.). While I am would be surprised if this were ever said out loud, I’ve seen it alluded to in various…Quiverfull contexts. What’s your take on it?