The Briefing with Albert Mohler - Thursday, May 16, 2024

Starting point is 00:00:04 It's Thursday, May 16, 2024. I'm Albert Mowler, 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.

Starting point is 00:01:00 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 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 to have a successful

Starting point is 00:01:43 generational transfer in order to run the farm, in order to have the business. It was considered also very central to the Christian worldview. But this wasn't something that was only found in Christian-influenced societies. Every society, every winning society, every lasting society, has found its way to a very healthy birth rate, or by definition, it has ceased to exist. So again, I want to come back to the fact that for most of human history, there was no philosophical debate about the birth rate. The birth rate was simply what happened, and it happened as families and couples had the motivation to maximize the number of children. I am very honored to show people something from my library, which is a Bible several hundred years old, and it was published by

Starting point is 00:02:28 the German nobility. It is a version of Luther's Bible. And it has the woodcuts of the German nobility who paid for this edition of the Bible in the front. And there are some really touching woodcuts. This is from the German aristocracy, the German nobility, who paid for the Bible, and it was a very expensive production. And for example, you have these German noblemen, and they are standing with their wives and with their children. Doing some research, I just discovered that one of these noblemen had more children in the picture than was historically accurate. And that is because, for the sake of this Bible, and deeply infused by a love for all of his children, he put the living and the dead together in the picture.

Starting point is 00:03:15 That is to say, all of his children are there lined up, even though even at that point, several of them were dead. That was a big problem, of course, in the pre-modern age. The death rate for children, the period of life expectancy was so short. There were no antibiotics. There were no emergency rooms. And frankly, famine and pestilence and plague were quite common. But it was also simply considered organic to the Christian worldview that couples would have children to the glory of God. They would raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. And they understood this to be not just a family responsibility, but a civic responsibility. And as I say, every successful society, regardless of its location, regardless of its specific worldview, It has found its way to that understanding, or it has simply disappeared. Now, this front page report, big report that appeared on the front page of the Wall Street Journal just this week makes that point. Quite frankly, the point is all of current global civilizations are endangered by a falling birth rate. How many of them? Just about all of them.

Starting point is 00:04:21 Greg Gip and Janet Adami are the reporters in the article, and they begin with this simple statement. The world is at a startling demographic milestone, sometimes soon. soon the global fertility rate will drop below the point needed to keep population constant. It may already have happened, end quote. Well, as a matter of fact, we're pretty sure that it did happen. And a part of the newsworthiness of this report is that an update on the demographic situation has simply underlined the fact that the fall in the birth rate has been more precipitous than even have been forecasts.

Starting point is 00:04:53 And so we are looking at some nations that, quite frankly, are in a current demographic crisis. Now, I know there are many people listening to this who say, well, you know, big deal, people have the right to decide how many children they're going to have. And quite frankly, the idea that children are a lifestyle choice is baked into so much of the worldview of our contemporary society. And as we're going to see, that is a part of the problem. But this is creating massive crises. And these crises loom before now virtually every major country. So let me just tell you how the crises work. Number one right now, take the example of Japan.

Starting point is 00:05:26 In Japan, the birth rate has fallen so precipitously that they are looking at robots in nursing homes. They simply don't have any choice. They are looking at robot companions for so many age of people because there simply are not enough human companions to do the job. And you're looking at families that are now facing an absolute crisis. And you have the phenomenon in Asia known as broken branches. Part of this is because of China's one-child-only policy under the communist regime. but even where there is no communist regime and there was no national policy, you have so many people who are growing up as single children, and quite frankly, they are also in many cases maladapted to marry and to understand how to have children and to do so in any reasonable frame of time.

Starting point is 00:06:12 And so this demographic crisis comes down to the fact that Japan is not going to be able, even in the short-term future, to have enough workers to make the society work. But frankly, it's a double problem, and frankly, this is one that Christians need to understand. we're talking about lengthening the lifespan. That means lengthening the period after work and after the most important period of paying taxes. And thus, you're going to have an enormous number of old people and an insufficient number of young people entering the workforce. And you say, well, maybe I'll just be, say, lucky enough to ride this out. Well, good luck with that.

Starting point is 00:06:47 Because the demographic crisis is coming so quickly, if you're hearing me talk, it's probably going to catch up with you. For instance, in the United States, we are looking at an absolute crisis for Social Security, just to take one program by the middle of the next decade and by a crisis, I mean an absolute crisis. And the crisis is going to be there are far too many people who are drawing down and there are far too few who are going to be going into the workplace. By the way, you add artificial intelligence to this and who knows how many jobs are going to be lost.

Starting point is 00:07:16 But the fact is that right now, the bigger problem is finding the people for the jobs. and this is going to be a more accelerated process with every passing year. If you're in higher education, you know that a demographic cliff, that's what it's called, is coming before the end of this decade. So if you're the president of a university, and let's just say, doesn't matter what kind of university, you can be liberal, conservative, public, private, let's just say you're a university. Guess what? Universities need a lot of 18-year-olds in the incoming class.

Starting point is 00:07:44 The number of 18-year-olds has dropped rather remarkably, and it is going to drop. further. So that's to say that if you have something like 20% drop in 18-year-olds, you're going to have a 20% drop in enrollment. And for many institutions, that's absolutely catastrophic. But demography is not a short-term problem. And so this is where we need to recognize that missing people are missing for their entire lifespan. So they're missing when you're looking at preschool. They're going to be missing. And by the way, you also have major media this week talking about the fact that major urban public school systems are going to end up with a lot of empty schools. What are the world they going to do with those? Because the number of children is simply dropping so fast.

Starting point is 00:08:26 And you look at the fact that in the economy, again, a person who is missing from the economy is missing all the way through. And so that person's missing in a classroom as a kindergartner. That person's missing as a college freshman on a college campus. That person's missing in terms of the job force. That person's missing in terms of paying into taxes and paying into Social Security. that person is missing as a companion to someone else. That person is missing as a brother or sister. That person is missing. Well, just imagine the implications of this for the future of the Christian church or Christian missions and the Christian ministry and Christian families. Of course, Christians are a subset of all this and

Starting point is 00:09:05 frankly, a subset that the more conservative you get is more likely to be on the higher end of the birth rate. And that we should know for very good worldview reasons as well. But the fact is, we are part of a larger society and this demographic crisis is going to be a very real crisis. You're looking at demographers now pretty much figuring that the total world population is going to start shrinking within four decades. Now think about something else here for a moment. This is where we have to understand worldview implications come with real life consequences. So let's just think about, for example, your retirement plan. Let's just talk about your investments for a moment. Every one of those investments is tilted towards anticipated growth. Growth in the economy. Well, you know,

Starting point is 00:09:49 growth in the economy means you've got to have more customers. You've got to sell more whatever you're selling. That's the only way growth happens. It's going to happen by more transactions, not less. It's going to happen by more people being in the economy, not fewer people. And all the energy in the economy is going towards growth. And if there is no growth, well, you can pretty much figure what's going to happen to your retirement plan. You're going to retire in a fraction of what you have anticipated. Again, our entire system is based upon economic growth. If we enter a period of economic retraction, let's just say we'll call that a Great Depression. But it's going to come with even more catastrophic consequences than we had imagined. And this is not something that happened to us.

Starting point is 00:10:30 This is something we will have done to ourselves. An economist specializing in demographics, the University of Pennsylvania, Hesis Fernandez, Villaverey, said, quote, the demographic winter is coming. Hear that winter? The demographic winter? is coming, we are really talking about a very threatening reality. Now, where's the birth rate right now in the United States? It is anticipated that it is somewhere around 1.6. Now, all you have to hear is 1.6 and you understand that's short of something like the 2.2 or 2.4, which is just the replacement rate. And by the way, all kinds of things go into that, some of which are worth our thinking about sometime. For example, as you look at the birth rate, that say 1.6% includes a slightly greater number

Starting point is 00:11:13 of boys than girls. But by the time you reach a certain point in the demographic time frame, that is reversed, there are more surviving females than there are surviving males. Part of that is due, quite frankly, to male behavior. But it's also due to other physical considerations. But the fact is that you have to have an adequate number of babies to have an adequate number of boys and an adequate number of girls to make sure you have an adequate number of husbands and an adequate number of wives, having an adequate number of babies, say, two decades thereafter. And if you don't, you're in big trouble. Now, another part of the birth rate problem in the United States has to do with the decline of

Starting point is 00:11:51 marriage. The decline of marriage in terms of people just getting married and also the shorter period of fertile adulthood that is now represented by marriage on the average. That is to say that if you have a couple who starts having babies in their 20s, they're likely to be able to have several babies. If they start having babies in their 30s, much less even later, which is not all that unusual these days, because people are marrying so far later and they're setting economic expectations, which, quite frankly, if applied in the past at comparative levels, would have been none of us exist because no one would have been able to afford

Starting point is 00:12:27 babies. Almost every one of us was born to people who could have made the argument that couldn't afford us. Back in about 2017, the United Nations had issued a report indicating its alarm about the falling birth rate. That's when globally it was 2.5. They estimated that it was likely to fall over the next 20 years, but quite frankly, they just undershot that fall by a very significant amount. And by the way, they're also unable to catch up with it. That's because this demographic problem is emerging so fast, and frankly, in so many places, because there are many people who thought this is going to be something that's isolated to certain countries. And for example, countries like South Korea, countries like Japan, countries like China, of course, with that one-child-only policy for so many

Starting point is 00:13:12 decades, horrifyingly enough, the demographic consequences are pretty easy to see. But what's really unexpected is that this is now also showing up in places like Spain and Italy. And let's just say you're talking about Mediterranean, European culture is a part of historic christenedom in Western civilization, heavily influenced by Catholicism, but the same patterns, although not yet at the same rate, but the same pattern of decline is showing up there too. And here in the United States, again, showing up faster than even had been forecast. By the way, there were people who thought that the birth rate, which kicked up to about 1.62 during the pandemic, might be at least correcting somewhat in the United States. But it turns out that was

Starting point is 00:13:56 what's been described as, quote, a short-lived pandemic baby boomlet, end quote, which has now not only ended, but been reversed. Okay, something else for us to recognize is that, as I said, this comes with the modern age, and it comes, first of all, with industrialization. That was called the first demographic transition. The first demographic transition was people moving from the farm into cities, and by definition, you needed fewer children to work the farm if you don't live on a farm anymore. But the second demographic transition was possible to a way the first wasn't,

Starting point is 00:14:29 simply because they had a birth control. and now, of course, all kinds of ways of not having children. And this would include artificial birth control. This would include permanent sterilization. It would, of course, horrifyingly enough, also include abortion, which is increasingly acknowledged as basically something is used as a form of birth control. And again, this is a horror added to the already dark picture here. But we are talking about an incredible number of millions of abortions,

Starting point is 00:15:01 since abortion was legalized in the United States in 1973. And as we're going to see in just a moment, there's been an increase in abortions in the United States even after the Dobbs decision reversing row. Again, surprisingly enough, horrifyingly enough. But as we're thinking about the birth rate, it really is important that we kind of step back and recognize that lifestyle issues are a huge part of this. And the complexity of modern society is a part of this. And the secularization of the society is a big part of this.

Starting point is 00:15:30 And another part of it is that far too many Christians have bought into a frankly secular understanding of the question of children rather than really thinking through these things biblically. Remember, remember this, that the charge that was given to Adam and to Eve was to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Now, you know, far too many Christians have bought into the idea that we did that, but we didn't do that. And as a matter of fact, when you have a reversal in the birth rate, it brings absolute human devastation. And we're looking at that. we are looking at the fact that if you have children right now, they are going to face an economic reality. There's been marked by scarcity. And that includes, first of all, a scarcity of peers,

Starting point is 00:16:10 a scarcity of workers, a scarcity of those who are being paying into the system. And this also leads to all kinds of perverse incentives where you have, frankly, so many older people who are going to be very certain that their benefits aren't cut. And as you look at something like Social Security, the only way to avoid massive cuts and benefits is to basically borrow from the future. Bills are going to have to be paid at some point. And this also leads to the perverse incentives of modern politics. And let's just state the fact that we have right now two expected candidates for the office of president of the United States.

Starting point is 00:16:44 And both of them are the oldest ever to do what they're doing now. And just to state the obvious they have no particular personal interest. in making certain that Social Security is solvent 20 years from now. And you can extend that through Congress and through politics at large, where the political motivations are not to address the issue rather than to address the issue. All the political rewards are to ignore the problem rather than to deal with the problem. But we can also say with sympathy to Congress, Congress doesn't have much to do with producing babies. That comes down to citizens, and frankly, it comes down to couples. And of course, if you're in a

Starting point is 00:17:27 society that is also confused about what marriage is, and absolutely corrupt about what sex is about, and if you see children as a lifestyle choice and as a consumer good, then guess what? You are going to be a society that is going to look at a demographic cliff, and honestly, as a society, you're going to deserve it. So we'll be looking further at this, but the most important thing we can say is that the Christian worldview is the opposite of the worldview that has produced this problem. And one of the tragedies is that there are far too many Christians who, frankly, are thinking in secular terms here rather than thinking in biblical terms. And it's one thing for the world to be confused about this. It's quite a different thing for Christians to be confused about this.

Starting point is 00:18:09 But next, I do want to talk about this latest report on abortion in the United States. Because the headline itself, this one from NPR National Public Radio, quote, despite state bans, abortions nationwide are up, driven by telehealth. Okay, I can do this pretty fast. We are looking at the fact that even after the Dobbs decision in 2022, many people said, well, the abortion rate's going to go down because you're going to have more states in which abortion is going to be restricted. Well, it's true. Thankfully, there are more states where abortion is restricted.

Starting point is 00:18:39 But telehealth is the big game changer here. Medication abortion, which comes delivered by telehealth, mostly by pills. So this just tells you what the death impulse is really like in our society. The abortion impulse is so strong that even as you have abortion clinics increasingly shutting down, you have people who are using telehealth and actually leading unexpectedly to an increase in the net number of abortions. And so according to the Society of Family Planings, We Count Project, the report tells us that in 2023, there were on average 86,000 abortions per month, says NPR, compared to 2,000. 22, where it was about 82,000 abortions per month.

Starting point is 00:19:21 I just figure that out. That's looking at something like a million abortions a year. And the increase to 86,000 from 82,000 is 4,000 a month. But add that up. That's about 50,000 a year. We're talking about the death toll of abortion, just going up and up and up. And we are talking about a society that is now increasingly using pills as a human pesticide. That's the reality.

Starting point is 00:19:46 But before we leave this issue today, I also want to go to a big story. The Washington Post covered it. The New York Times covered it. Most major media covered it. NPR covered it. And it has to do with the fact that medical residences are now decreasing in states that have taken actions that are pro-life to restrict abortion. So you have, for example, this Washington Post headline, abortion bans are repelling the nation's future doctors. This has to do mostly with residences. And this is where medical schools. graduates are applying to do residencies in certain specializations. And according to this report, especially as you get closer to, say, OBGYN, you're looking at a fall off. We are told, in the number of young doctors who want to do residencies where there is a limitation upon abortion. Now, it's unclear exactly what's going on here, but it is clear that this is being driven by an agenda, and that agenda is pro-abortion. But I want to point out something else, and this really shows up in very few of these news articles, and I at least want to give credit to the Hill, published in Washington, D.C. for an acknowledgment I was looking for in other articles,

Starting point is 00:20:55 not finding it, but I did find it at the Hill. Listen to this, quote, in the most recent application cycle applications to OBGYN residency programs in states with the most restrictive abortion bans decreased by 6.7 percent. Then listen to the sentence, quote, while most OBGYNs in the United States do not provide a abortions, most abortions, are performed by an OBGYN. Y, N. Now, there's something really big embedded in that statement. And again, I was looking for it. And other news coverage, it wasn't there. And I want to make clear it wasn't there on purpose. Because you are talking about residences in OBGYN, most particularly. And the big story here, we're being told is that you have doctors who are saying, I'm not going to

Starting point is 00:21:37 be adequately trained if I do that residency in a state that restricts abortion. And yet, here's the big moral point. Most OBGYNs want nothing to do with abortion. That tells you something about the reality of abortion. It tells you something big about the morality of abortion. You have very few young doctors who go into an OBGYN residency intending to be abortion doctors. They don't want it because let's just say that's not the most credible form of medicine to go into. And over the course of the development of the medical profession, it was actually seen as something that was on the dark side, because, after all, it is on the dark side. And so it wasn't something that you had parents who were bragging about the fact that their son or daughter got a medical degree and is now an abortionist, is now an abortion doctor.

Starting point is 00:22:23 That's one of the reasons why it's camouflaged in so many different ways. And so I don't know exactly what to make of this report other than to say it tells us something and something not good about so many of these young doctors not wanting to do OBGYN residencies, but other residencies and other specializations as well in states that are seen here. as being more restrictive on abortion. And there are some who are arguing this is about the legal complexities, not so much about the moral questions, but in any event, it's a big moral development, and I think we all need to recognize it, and one that should concern us all. But it also is not dealing straightforwardly with the fact that there are very few young doctors who say, you know what, I really want to stake my medical reputation on being an expert abortionist. But in a fallen world, there are plenty who do see the opportunity. And you know, it's also very interesting to see how

Starting point is 00:23:15 it's being packaged, because we often talk about how moral change is driven by the redefinition of the professions. And in medicine, we can see that happening right before our eyes right here in this news development, where there are people who are saying, you know, it is not economically right to prepare a doctor for specialization unless they're trained in everything, including abortion. That has been routine, we're now told, in many, say, urban medical centers and many residences, and yet it's not routine in some places, and evidently that's not showing up in the demographics of where young doctors are signing up for residencies. It's going to be interesting to track this over time, and of course there will be other developments as well. But sadly

Starting point is 00:23:57 enough, I think we are likely to see the medical profession and the sub-professional bodies of those specializations moving towards making this more and more routine, even in one sense, required in order to maintain professional status. That is one of the ways that moral revolutions take place and cultures are transformed. And a secret to that is the fact that within these professions, by the logic of professionalism, only those who are credentialed already inside the professions have the right to say what those professional qualifications and expectations should be. It's a very dark picture, and we are looking at some very dark issues here, beginning with the birth rate and then moving to abortion and recognizing as Christians,

Starting point is 00:24:44 that's not an accidental linkage. Once again, we have to end by saying, our challenge is even bigger than we knew. But it's the challenge to which we're called. Thanks for listening to the briefing. For more information, go to my website at Albertmuller.com. You can follow me on Twitter or X by going to Twitter.com forward slash Albert Moeller. For information on the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbtsbts.edu. For information on Boyce College, just go to voicecollege.com. I'll meet you again tomorrow for the briefing.

The Briefing with Albert Mohler - Thursday, May 16, 2024

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