Catez at AllThings2All presents The Darfur Collection, a collection of posts from many different blogs about the suffering and mayhem in the Darfur region of Sudan. I thought about contributing to this collection, but I couldn’t think of anything new to say. Maybe sometimes we just need to keep repeating the truth—until someone listens and does something. These posts not only give the history of this crisis and information about the current situation in Darfur, but also suggest governmental and private solutions and actions that can be helpful.

Mental Multivitamin isn’t paying one cent for her kids to go to college. Sounds like a plan to me.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe movie trailer

Jeremy at Parableman discusses the “quiver-full Pharisees” (my phrase, not his) who say that faith requires that Christians never use any form of birth control. He doesn’t agree and gives some examples of bad arguments that use the same logic as the argument given for not using birth control. My response:

Jeremy,

I think you are right that some people carry the”quiver-full” idea way too far, but I think it is a reaction to the attitude that is developing rapidly in our society that says that children are basically expendable commodities that I can choose to have or not to have at my own convenience. Your arguments are ALL bad arguments. One of my arguments for limiting the use of birth control and sterilization (both of which I see used routinely, that is, without reflexion or prayer, in evangelical circles) would go something like this:

Because the Bible teaches that children are blessings and because I am not wise enough and do not have the foreknowledge to see all the consequences of my decision to have or not to have a child at any given time in my married life, I would choose to give birth to the children that God gives unless God shows me some good reason not to do so. I agree that there are good reasons not to have children, or not to have a child at a given time. “I don’t want to change my lifestyle” or “I don’t have enough patience” are, I humbly submit, not very good reasons for a Christian couple to turn down God’s blessings.

I would further say that God uses the gift of children, sometimes children spaced closely or children who are born at an inconvenient time, to help us to grow in the grace of our Lord. Again attitude is key. I choose to accept the children God gives with gratitude because I trust Him to make me a blessing to them and them a blessing to my life.

And Barbara at Mommy Life shares a link to this article by Simeon Doonan from The New Observer: Two Kids? So Bourgeois! The New Rule of Three
I rest my case. Children as status symbols, among Christians or pagans, is just wrong. Children as blessings is just right.