Vyckie garrison michelle duggar news

Ruth Gledhill

A former leading light in the Christian "Quiverfull" movement made famous by the Duggar family, and recently named Atheist of the Year, has opened up about her experiences in the fundamental Christian community.

Vyckie Garrison, who founded No Longer Quivering to tell the story of her exit from the Quiverfull movement and to help women seeking to recover from what she describes as "spiritual abuse", said hers had been one of many fundamentalist families who take very seriously the idea that children are a blessing from the Lord, using a passage from the Psalms.

But they rarely referred to themselves by that name so often people who had never heard of the movement might be unaware that close relatives or friends were deeply involved.

"It's very idealistic, very much this head trip of a godly happy family serving the word and doing things biblically," she told an atheist podcast at t