The Dilemma
“So, do you two want to have kids?”
“I don’t know. Probably not, honestly. That’s not something we really want.”
“Oh okay, whatever you feel is best.”
Have you heard this before? It’s a conversation we’ve been hearing a lot lately. It’s also a conversation most of world history has never heard. How, in the last few decades, have we made the unprecedented shift from “child-less” (a term generally implying sorrow and longing for children) to “child-free” (a term which implies escaping captivity to children)?
As a married mom of four (Moriah Reeves Lovett), and as a single man (Jeremiah T. Reeves), we both want to argue the same thing: “childfree” isn’t Scriptural.
It’s secular.
The decline in desire for children is directly correlated with our society’s explosive increase in secular media consumption, and decrease in religious worldview. Increasingly, our ideas are not so much from the Bible as they are from the internet, and this inevitably leads to a lower value on children.
Here’s what secularism teaches us: you should only have kids if it will make you happy.
Here’s what Scripture teaches us: you were made to have kids.
There are a thousand reasons why secularism—a “nonreligious” view of the world—produces a “childfree” philosophy which contradicts the Scriptural perspective, but as this article is short, we’ll limit our reasoning to three: view of society, view of the body, and view of time.
1) View of Society
First, we should note that secularism has a low view of society.
Did you know that many advanced countries are paying women exorbitant amounts of money to bear children to try and slow the declining birth rates? It’s crazy.
What’s even crazier is that they can’t find women who are willing to have kids. Apart from higher birth rates or mass immigration, these countries will outpace their “replacement rates.” Even in the U.S., the typical woman currently bears an average of 1.6 children, well below what is needed for societal stability. Ultimately, a screen-obsessed, hyper-individualistic world “without religion” births dying civilizations.
Ironically, one of the great objections to having kids is the belief that society is “unlivable.” What a blow! With this view, society feels the need to apologize for its very existence. Or perhaps you’ve heard the inverse objection, “it would be morally wrong for me to be a dad” (or a mom), because “I couldn’t be trusted to parent a child.” Meaning we’ve surrendered all hope in our own growth, redemption, or renewal.
But statistically, by far the primary reason why young people are not having kids is because “they just don’t want to.” It’s not money. It’s not morals. It’s just comfort. Only a secular, tech-discipled society would so boldly value new shiny things over new life.
It’s no wonder that the best indicator that people will want kids is if they are “religious.”
Only those who believe—who have hope for their society and for the next generation—will be bold enough to bring life into the world.
Scripture has a high view of society.
The very first blessing of the Bible is directed to a married couple: “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen. 1:28). The entire Bible is witness to the fact that new life is God’s paramount blessing.
In this way, every Christian is called to be a parent. And for most, this means having biological children.
On the one hand, parents have a sacred, honorable task, a calling to disciple their children and bring them up knowing the ways of God (cf. Deut. 6:4-5; Eph. 6:4). I (Moriah) can attest to the sacrifice and limitations that children can impose—having four kids in less than four years with my husband. In an age of technological ease, it’s so easy to see children as burdens: financially, emotionally, and physically they limit our path to “success” and clout in a culture that increasingly devalues kids. But Christians must have a distinct outlook: parenting is sacred because human life is sacred. And it is difficult because all the most important things are difficult.
We know that even if one person were to be given the gift of eternal life in the presence of God himself, the greatness of this gift alone would justify the creation of all humanity. Scripture sees each child not only as valuable to earthly society, but as invaluable to heavenly society—after all, it is through Mary’s womb that the entire world has been saved! Childbearing and parenting is God’s built-in system for us to draw more of God’s imagers into the deep, intimate, parental love of God. Could there be a higher view of human society?
On the other hand, for those who are not blessed with biological children, the call is still to bring life. I (J.T.) am currently single, but not for the sake of autonomy. Both Jesus Christ and Paul both lived as single men; in fact, both Christ and Paul suggest “it is better to be single” (1 Cor 7:8; Matt 19:10-12). But they say this only in the context of singleness being “for the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 19:12). Whether by choice or by chance, unprecedented numbers of us will be single in the coming years, and the Scriptures train us that singleness is only a gift when it enables us to use our extra energy, time, and passion to increase the kingdom and family of God. If we do not have the joy of biological children, then, like Jesus and Paul, we are meant to be “in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed” in our spiritual children (Gal. 4:19).
It is not to be free from children that Paul remains single, but to be free for more children.
Many of this millennium’s proudest societies are crumbling for the most basic reason: we have become too self-centered to have children. As if God’s foremost blessing were a menu item we didn’t care for.
This is the perfect time to reveal the beauty of God’s wisdom! When we receive Scripture's first blessing to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen. 1:28), and Christ’s final commission “go and make disciples” (Matt. 28:19), we are ultimately choosing to bless all of society.
If this sounds too simple, it really is.
If you want to change the world, you need to reproduce.
2) View of the Body
Second, secularism has a low view of the body.
What if your teachers told you that you were nothing more than animals—or even just molecules? What if you grew up feeling like your body meant even less than that: a six inch commodified image on a screen? What if you only had .2 seconds to catch another “animal’s” attention before you got swiped off the dating app? What if Instagram, Netflix, Spotify, and dark internet websites taught you what your body was for? What if you have been trained since birth that your body is almost solely about sexual appearance for the sake of instant gratification?
Meet the current generation.
Our screens have coached us to think about sex in secular ways: it’s fast, inexpensive, exotic, and, above all, something that will make me feel good now.
Screened-in secularism—the obsession with life now—catechizes women to fear that pregnancy will set us back, cut into our careers, and mess up our pursuit of the perfect, untouched, very young body. Can’t we see that we are being dealt the bad end of the bargain? If a career and a gorgeous body is worth more than another human being, then life must be cheap indeed. Secularism hypersexualizes women and buries the most beautiful capacity of the female body: namely, the God-given ability to bear and nurture life!
Screened-in secularism—the disregard of eternal meaning—catechizes men to fear the responsibility of having kids and imprisons our strength in the virtual realm. Disembodied gaming, pornography, TV, and doom-scrolling guzzle the time that would go to biological or spiritual fathering. In other words, secularism hypersexualizes men and buries the most powerful capacity of the male body: namely, the God-given ability to create and protect life!
On the other hand, scripture has a high view of the body.
What if you were a son or daughter made in the image of the Living God? What if God called human beings his own children whom he gave birth to? What if sex was originally meant for the procreation of everlasting beings whom the Almighty LORD of Hosts wants to be with?
What if God Himself became human? What if God was born from the womb of a woman?
Do we need to say anything else on this point? Since the beginning God created man and woman in his image—blood, skin, guts, and all. Now, our bodies are the temple for God himself to dwell in (1 Cor 6:19), which makes us more valuable just as we are—male or female—than we can begin to understand. Even the angels themselves do not have the capacity to bring forth everlasting beings as humans do.
Therefore, Christians submit to the God-given functions and properties of our bodies. This includes sex. Scripture defines the body as something much more than a thrill-seeking sinning thing; our bodies were created to make life itself. This does not mean that Christians need sex to bring life (Jesus didn’t), but that bringing life is the leading purpose of sex.
Will we choose the better portion?
3) View of Time
Third, secularism has a low view of time.
Let’s say that this life is all there is. Then, poof! Your lifescreen powers off and everything goes dark forever. It might then seem obvious to spend one’s days trying to enjoy life with as few restrictions as possible. The focus is exclusively on the present because there is no future. This life is it.
If God isn’t real, then Time is an enemy. It’s an iPhone stopwatch. It’s an hourglass, and you should want the sand to stop trickling. Yes, make Time stop. Purchase those anti-aging masks, pursue strict diets, perform physical procedures to turn that hourglass back. Time is bad. Enjoy it while you can, or better yet, pretend it isn’t happening. But whatever you do, make sure to never give it away. You’ve only got a few grains of sand to work with.
With this worldview, why have kids? Why care about the next generation? The “only have kids if it’ll make you happy” last-resort strategy is thoroughly secular. And ironically, it’s also thoroughly flawed. If you really wanted to be happy, having kids wouldn’t be the last resort, it would be the norm. Statistically, it’s far truer to say, “only don’t have kids if you want to be sad.”
Maybe operating within an hourglass worldview is actually damaging to your mental health.
Go figure.
Scripture, by contrast, has a high view of time.
Christians believe this life is not all there is. Quite the opposite. This life is a breath, a window into an infinite, eternal world where the followers of Jesus will see everything they’ve ever sacrificed redeemed. We welcome gray hair, aging minds, and bodies with lots of miles on them because it means we are that much closer to welcoming God Almighty and the full redemption of our bodies. For, “though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16). In Christ, we conquer Time itself.
So the loss of Time doesn’t scare us.
In fact, for the Christian, the only fear is that we will have nothing to show Jesus when the time comes for us to meet Him. After all, if we were created to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:28; cf. John 15:16), and to “go and make disciples” (Matt. 28:19), then doesn’t it follow that we will be judged by these things? We were made to bring forth life. We will be judged by how we used our bodies and lives for this purpose (2 Cor. 5:10).
Therefore, in our age as much as any time before us, we must be unabashedly for marriage and unashamedly for singleness—but only insofar as marriage and singleness are unequivocally for children.
A Sacrificial Worldview
We know everyone has different experiences with parenting. Miscarriage, sexual trauma, infertility, and unchosen singleness are all grievous realities for both biological and spiritual parents. We have no desire to shame anyone into anything, especially things that the Lord has not yet given an opportunity for you to participate in.
But that these things are tragedies is precisely what we are fighting to say.
When we fall into the lie of wishing to be childfree, we declare society, our bodies, and time itself to be cheap. For imagers of God, this can’t be.
You and I were made to be parents. Spiritual and biological.
To be childless is to have lost something we were made to have. So we pray. We fall on our faces. We ask our Lord to provide.
For love—and the Gospel—teaches us that even the most remote possibility of giving birth to a child who will live forever in the presence of our Heavenly Father was, is, and always will be worth our crucifixion.
Authors:
J.T. Reeves (Wheaton BA ’23, Beeson MDiv ’26) is a writer and preacher with RADIUS Church. He helps young Christians see Jesus clearly in an age of distraction. Follow him on Instagram and Substack for reflections on Gen Z, apologetics, and revival.
Moriah Reeves Lovett (Wheaton College) and her husband, Tim, are involved with premarital mentoring and the Marriage Ministry at their church, the Austin Stone. They live in Austin, Texas, with their four young children.
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