Southern Baptist leader Daniel Akin is concerned about declining baptism totals, a benchmark used by the denomination to gauge the effectiveness of missions and evangelism. To fix the problem he proposes that the denomination focus on ten “commitments” including committing to biblically healthy churches, sound biblical preaching, and . . . having more babies.

The last item on Akins’ Great Commission Resurgence petition is raising some eyebrows: “We call upon all Southern Baptists to build gospel-saturated homes that see children as a gift from God and as our first and primary mission field. (Deut. 6:1-9; Psalm 127, 128; Eph. 6:4)”

In case anyone doesn’t get the point, the seminary president makes it explicit:

“You say, ‘What are you saying?’ I’m saying you need to have a bunch of kids,” Akin said. “It has a missiological motivation.”

Other notable Southern Baptist leaders including Al Mohler and Russell Moore have also called on Baptists—indeed all Christians—to throw out the birth control pills and fulfill the culture mandate to “be fruitful and multiply.” Over the past few years, one of the hot topics in evangelical bioethics is whether the Catholic Church hasn’t been right all along about contraceptive use being a sin. And on the popular level, the pro-natalist quiverful movement has exploded within churches and homeschooling circles.

Soon when you see a family with a dozen children you may find yourself thinking, “Oh, they must be Baptist.”

(Via: Mere Comments)