This dissertation examines the status of childbirth as a topic in modern Protestant theological anthropology, drawing largely on the systematic work of Paul Tillich. Modern Protestant doctrines of the nature of human being center upon the significance of death rather than of birth because the capacity to anticipate one’s death, it is argued, is more distinctively human than the capacity to anticipate giving birth. Thus the topic of birth has been addressed by theology in terms of spiritual rebirth, while the religious and cultural significance of giving birth to children has been almost completely neglected. Recent work by scholars in other fields, however, which has challenged the Western tendency to view childbirth as a merely biological event, invites theological reflection upon the cultural and religious significance of giving birth. The recent natural childbirth movements and midwifery revival in the U.S. have inspired various writings by mothers presenting pregnancy, labor, and birthing as complex, highly ambiguous, yet unequivocally powerful experiences. The questions of the religious meaning of birthing raised throughout these accounts can be used to argue that religious doctrines of the human person which function without consideration of the meaning of the human capacity to give birth contribute to an incomplete, and therefore distorted picture of the nature of human being.