The Fertility Gospel
commands versus invitations
Have you ever heard of the Fertility Gospel? I thought I’d made up a new term, but then I googled it and discovered it’s a real thing.
The Fertility Gospel “highlights children as a blessing, heritage, and reward from God, rooted in the command to ‘be fruitful and multiply.’” (Google AI)
Sounds good, right? But just as the Prosperity Gospel sees wealth as a sign of God’s favor, the Fertility Gospel sees children as a sign of God’s favor. This results in people attempting to acquire children or using their children as a sign that they have God’s favor.
I can see how people might be confused by the Fertility Gospel, though. After all, if God told Adam and Eve (and Noah) to be fruitful and multiply, isn’t making children how we bear fruit for Christ’s Kingdom? Yes, but there’s more to it than just making babies. And it’s an invitation, not an order. Right?
One Thing Before Another
Maybe this will help clarify how the making of children foreshadows greater things to come.
The physical man, Adam, planted his seed (sperm) in the woman before the spiritual man, Christ, came and planted his seed (Spirit) in His Church.
The physical man, Adam, was the head of all humanity in the flesh, just like Jesus, the man born of flesh and Spirit, became the head of the Church.
All humans are first born in the flesh before they can be born of the spirit.
God gave the physical word before sending the spiritual Word.
God gave the written word before the living Word came to fulfill the written word and set an example for us to follow.
The spiritual doesn’t cancel out or nullify the physical. It completes the picture. It adds another dimension.
Therefore, when God told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, it was the first step in what Christ later said: to go and make disciples of all nations. This doesn’t mean having babies doesn’t matter anymore; rather, it adds meaning to the creation of new life. Jesus’ coming showed us what it actually means to be fruitful and multiply: to die to self and be born again for the sake of Christ’s family. That might be done by caring for small children, serving in government, or remaining single in service.
When We Get Stuck on the Symbols
The problem with the Fertility Gospel is that it misses how Christ accomplishes and fulfills these earthly roles. The Fertility Gospel creates a system of values that focuses on the flesh’s functions and thus doesn’t keep heavenly things as the ultimate goal.
Here are some of the ways the Fertility Gospel might do that:
The Fertility Gospel encourages us to create, preserve, and build up. However, Jesus also taught us that there is a time to cut off, destroy, throw out, separate, and say “no”. This means that sometimes, we will be called to “deconstruct” family, to refrain from having kids, be unable to have children, or be the cause of suffering in another’s life. This, too, is part of growing Christ’s kingdom.
The Fertility Gospel defines our role in Christ’s kingdom primarily by how our physical and mental bodies relate to the growing of children. While I do think gender is defined in part, if not fully, by our unique pro-creation roles, I think Christ-followers are to define themselves primarily through Christ and how He equips us to follow His example (See Romans 12 & 1 Corinthians 12). Christ’s example was to humbly sacrifice in the body for His body according to the Spirit’s leading.
The Fertility Gospel values people according to their ability to produce children, raise children, protect children, provide for children, and prove that what they’ve produced is good. However, if there is a time for everything, Christ may call us to not have kids, to remain single, to allow our kids to look like “bad fruit,” or ask others to nurture or provide for our kids according to our & their needs. These things don’t make us bad Christians or cause us to fall out of God’s favor. They might actually be how the Holy Spirit is leading.
The Fertility Gospel values women according to their purity, fertility, and nurturing abilities, and men according to their ability to provide and protect. This sets up marriage (and probably any men and women relationships) to value each other according to these predefined performance expectations.
The Fertility Gospel puts women’s fertility as a top priority for producing spiritual fruit. This could encourage women to value their physical well-being to the detriment of their spiritual well-being. This fails to recognize how Christ calls some women into a kind of suffering that impedes their ability to bear children. Such suffering might not be a judgment or curse but a calling to grow a woman, her family, community, or nation through suffering like Christ. (See 1 Peter 4:12-19)
Framework for Spiritual Unity and Love
There’s probably plenty of good mixed in with the bad of the Fertility gospel. Its focus on begetting, nurturing, and protecting children could help people learn how to be better parents and spouses. Heaven knows, I could use some help on how to be a better parent. However, learning how to play these roles (parent, spouse, child, grandparent, etc.) might not be how God teaches everyone His eternal truths.
Loving kids might be a way we learn to love the simple-minded, lost, or sassy. But some will merely see their children as someone else’s responsibility, so the Lord may need to give that person other opportunities with simple-minded or sassy people.
Raising children might be where someone comes to the end of themselves and realizes how much they need the Lord. But if raising kids comes quite naturally to someone, the Lord may show them their depravity in another way.
Bringing up children might be how someone discovers how to be a humble, Christ-like servant, but if someone is unable to care for their kids or decides to take on only non-humiliating tasks, God might teach them humility another way.
Working with our spouse according to how they uniquely serve a biological family might be a way to learn how to submit to each other’s spiritual gifts. But if a couple believes the woman should always submit to the man’s spiritual gifts, or if one spouse characteristically dominates the other, God might teach them about mutual submission another way.
Becoming an intimate and united friend with your spouse might be the way God teaches someone about the intimate and united fellowship we can have with Christ. However, for those who have trouble bonding with their spouse, God might use something else to teach intimacy and unity.
God uses all sorts of things to grow us: talking donkeys, sibling rivalries, building projects, traveling companions, shipwrecks, famine, infertility, etc. Those things aren’t the signs of God’s favor or scorn, but merely the background upon which Christ grows His character in us.
Conclusion
Christ came to grow His family through the flesh. The gospel extends to us an invitation to die to self and be born again in faith as we participate in giving to others and receiving from others in actual, physical community—be it family, friends, foreigners, or neighbors—according to God’s gifts and the Spirit’s leading. The biological family is one of the places where we might practice this walk of faith. It’s a place of learning, not a sign of God’s favor.
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Amen and Amen! Love the way you explain what is lacking in the Fertility Gospel in light of the Gospel of Christ.
Amen! The Fertility Gospel is surely not the Gospel