It's Thursday, May 16, 2024. I'm Albert Moller and this is the briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

There are a lot of issues going on in the world right now.

There are many issues of concern.

There are events that will have long-term consequence,

but there are even deeper issues that

sometimes just absolutely demand our attention. One of those is the fall in the

human birth rate, and that is such a significant issue that, quite frankly, other issues pale

insignificance. The Wall Street Journal recently ran a front-page news

article with the headline, quote, suddenly there aren't enough babies, the whole

world is alarmed.

But that alarm should have sounded long ago, and Americans and others should have been paying a lot of attention to this,

because we are talking about something that threatens the very existence of human civilization.

Now I don't want to exaggerate that is not a short-term crisis but it is a long-term problem.

And we are looking at a reduction in the number of babies being born to

healthy people. We're talking about a fall in the birth rate that can only be

described as catastrophic. Now as you look at this you recognize

recognize that one of the symptoms of the modern age

has been the attempted mastery over all parts of life

including, perhaps even especially, our sex and reproductive lives, which is one of the reasons why,

before the modern age, there was really not much of a question about birth rate.

The birth rate was a pretty steady constant in society because there was no artificial birth control.

And furthermore, in the pre-modern age, families needed as many babies as possible in order

...