The Case for Kids

Life and Books and Everything

Clearly Reformed

Books, Religion & Spirituality, Arts, Christianity

4.6 • 635 Ratings

🗓️ 20 October 2022

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Too often Christian leaders lay impossible burdens on their people, insisting that they solve a host of social ills and become experts in a thousand different areas, forgetting to assure them that to get married, raise children in the church, and stay married is a life well lived.

In this episode of Life and Books and Everything, Kevin reads from the article he wrote for First Things where he makes the case that the most significant thing happening in the world may very well be a thing that is not happening: Men and women are not having children, and how Christians ought to respond.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Greetings and salutations. This is Kevin DeYoung, Life and Books and Everything. Today I'm reading an article in First Things. You can check out First Things online or subscribe to the print edition.
0:22.6	Well worth looking into the leading journal of public thought.
0:28.6	This article I wrote is entitled The Case for Kids.
0:32.6	The most significant thing happening in the world may very well be a thing that is not happening.
0:39.4	Men and women are not having children.
0:41.8	The biblical logic has been reversed and the barren womb has said enough.
0:46.6	The paradigmatic affliction of the Old Testament is now the great desire of nations.
0:51.8	If Rachel wanted children more than life itself,
0:55.7	our generation seems to have concluded that nothing gets in the way of life more than children. True, human beings
1:01.6	are reproducing, but in most countries not fast enough to replace themselves. Measuring total
1:07.3	fertility rate, TFR, is not an exact science, so the numbers vary from source to source.
1:12.6	But the trends are undeniable. Outside of Africa, which is home to 41 of the 50 most fertile nations,
1:18.6	the planet faces a bleak demographic future.
1:21.6	Many major European nations, such as Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, and Spain have a TFR of 1.5 births per
1:31.0	woman, or lower, disastrously below the replacement rate of 2.1. Italy's future is especially grim,
1:38.6	as that country has one of the lowest TFRs in the world, just 1.22. Virtually every country in Europe, including the Netherlands,
1:46.7	the United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, Finland, and Denmark has a TFR below 1.8. Only France,
1:53.0	with the TFR of 2.03, comes close to the replacement rate. Decline is on its way. The Russian population is already contracting.
2:02.6	Germany's population is on pace to shrink from 83 million to around 70 million over the next 30
2:07.5	years. If trends do not reverse, Europe's population will plummet from 750 million today to less
2:14.8	than 500 million by the end of the century.
2:20.0	The numbers for East Asia are even worse.
	...

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