Ideas Have Consequences

The Population Collapse & the Ideas Driving It

• Disciple Nations Alliance • Season 1 • Episode 58

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Ideas can build up and create or tear down and dehumanize individuals and nations. Truth leads to flourishing, while lies lead to bondage and, ultimately, death. Today we look at the trend of rapidly declining fertility rates in places like China, South Korea, Russia, Europe, and North America. What are the consequences of this decline personally, economically, and culturally? What ideas are behind it and driving it? How do these ideas differ from the biblical worldview, where God's first command to mankind is “be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth.” What are the lies that you and I have unintentionally absorbed that run counter to God's first command and are holding us back from living the kind of life he desires for us?

Scott:

In its essence, love wants to share, it wants to share the joy, it wants to grow and expand. It's always pushing outward, and God wants to share the love that he has within the triune relationship with human beings, and he created us to do the same.

Luke:

As Christians, our mission is to spread the gospel around the world to all the nations. But our mission also includes to transform the nation's to increasingly reflect the truth, goodness, and beauty of God's kingdom. Tragically, the church has largely neglected the second part of her mission. And today, Christians have little influence on their surrounding cultures. Join us on this podcast as you rediscover what it means for each of us to disciple the nations and to create Christ-honoring cultures that reflect the character of the living God.

Scott:

Well, welcome again to another episode of Ideas Have Consequences. This is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. I'm Scott Allen. I'm the president of the DNA. And I'm joined today by my friends and coworkers, Dwight Vogt, Luke Allen and Tim Williams. Great to be with you again today guys.

Dwight:

Yeah.

Scott:

Yeah. Hey, listen, Dwight brought our attention last week

Luke:

Good to be here. to an article that really struck him and we've read and we want to discuss that article. It's an article that came out a couple of years ago in National Interest by really pre-eminent Chinese scholar named Gordon Chang at the Hoover Institute at Stanford University. By the way, I have really benefited from his writing and speaking, he's a China expert. And, yeah, I recommend anything that he says or writes about China. He's just incredibly insightful. But the article that he wrote here that Dwight brought to our attention was called "The Coming Demographic Collapse of China." And it had to do with kind of the the fallout of China's notorious One Child Policy. That was a policy that the Chinese Communist Party, the government of China instituted in 1979. And Chang in the article, he talked about it this way, it really struck me: He called it"History's most ambitious social engineering project." And I thought, that's a good way of describing it. It's social engineering. It's this group of elites that are trying to engineer society by instituting a law that limits the number of children that women can bear, that the couples can have to one, under threat of imprisonment, severe punishment. So that was a policy that was in place from 1979, all the way up to 2016. And in 2016, the policy was changed to two, they moved it from one to two, and and now I was just talking to you guys here about whether it's still two, I think it's been changed to three, or maybe it's been scrapped altogether, we're still trying to find out what the current status is of that policy. But the point is, the Chinese government has been backing off of that since 2016, because of what Chang is calling this demographic collapse in China.

Dwight:

I actually heard about the article in a podcast with William Bennett, Bill Bennett, he had him on here about a couple of weeks ago and was interviewing him.

Scott:

Oh okay.

Dwight:

So it's fresh information. And what's interesting, and you alluded to this, is that the demographers in the government of China were were not amiss to this reality, that they had severely constrained birth, and how that was going to impact their population. And so they kept leaking to the powers that be, we have a problem coming. And finally in 2016, it was enough for them to say, Okay, we at least need to move to two and then in four short years, what did you guys say, 2021? They moved from two to three. Well, that's another big leap and now it's like, okay, just open up the gates, we're in trouble. So there's this urgency, there was a sense of urgency and panic.

Scott:

Panic even, and let's just talk about what's driving that because there's some real science behind kind of population demography that was driving this. And just, I'll quote again from the article. So the real issue here is what they call total fertility rate, which is the number of children per female reaching childbearing age, that's the concern. It's this thing called total fertility rate. China's total fertility rate last year, this would have been 2020 was 0.9. That you know, they said it was between 0.9 or 1.1, the replacement total fertility rate for any society has to be at least 2.1. So what that means is that every female of childbearing age has to have at least 2.1. This is again, averages here, in order for the society to maintain stability. In other words, the population not to shrink. So anything below 2.1, and you've essentially got a shrinking population. And that shrinkage can happen really fast. And the article goes on and says, At that rate that China's on right now, that 0.9 rate, that China's population would be cut in half, in one generation, in just 77 years. And probably, I mean, again, these aren't precise numbers, it could even be faster than that. So another demographer that I heard recently say that once a populations fertility rate, again, it needs to be 2.1, to have a stable population, but once it slips below 1.5, in any country in any culture, it never recovers. Like there's never been an example historically of any nation whose fertility rate drops below 1.5 ever recovering. In other words, it goes into what you might consider to be a kind of a downward spiral, or what some demographers now call cultural suicide, they literally will die out as a culture. And that's 1.5. Again, China's right now is 0.9. So the article goes on and quotes one scholar in China, once the once it slips below 1.5, a country falls into the trap of low fertility and is unlikely to recover. And then he goes on, and he says, population decline could end China's civilization as we know it. So that's the upshot of what we're talking about. It's not inconsequential, when you're talking about ending a civilization like China's.

Luke:

Yeah. And just to continue to give numbers. just to bring this close to home for some of the listeners, this is a global trend that we're seeing, especially in Western or Asian countries. When you look back to the 1960s, the global average of children per family reproduction rate, the total fertility rate, that's the terminology was 5 in the 1960s. Today, we're at 2.4. So we've dropped more than half of where we were in the 1960s, globally, globally. And then I have a list here of every single country in the world, ranked by fertility rate, and this was, according to the CIA in 2022. And we see that, again, every Western or really secularized nation in the world is seeing quickly declining fertility rates. We see that in Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, you see very high fertility rates, the very top of the list is Niger at 6.8 children per family. But then, when you go down the list all the way down at 137th place is the USA at 1.8. So we are below sustainable fertility rate, currently which is 2.1. Indonesia sits exactly at 2.1 right now. And then at the very bottom of the list. I've heard in a lot of these articles that China's demographers and the count can be quite skewed sometimes so it's hard to get accurate numbers, but it's low. The one I'm looking at right now says 1.4 for China. And then right there at the bottom, we also see South Korea at 1.1 in Taiwan at 1.08. So and then, if you look at any other country in Europe, or Asia, again, most countries in Northern Asia, they're sitting below 2. So for most of you listening to the podcast, this this hits close to home. This is an issue that we're seeing. It's actually a trend that we're seeing internationally.

Scott:

Yes, really in every kind of industrialized western

country and not just Western:

South Korea, Taiwan, etc. Japan. Yeah, go ahead Dwight.

Dwight:

Before we get into the worldview ideas behind this and what the worldview consequences might be. Well, so what I ask? So what? I mean, we've always talked about how the world's overpopulated now it'll be less populated. So why is this a problem?

Scott:

Yeah, really good Dwight. I think it's good to just put a human look on this, we're talking in terms of numbers. But there's a real, horrible, destructive human side to this. So, for example, in China, when they instituted the One Child Policy, what happened? There was a lot of unintended consequences with that. But one of the unintended consequences was, was what our coworker Darrow Miller calls gendercide. In other words, males were preferred to females, because of cultural traditions going way back. And that's not uncommon in many societies around the world. So males were preferred if we can only have one, and that one is a female, and we find that out through ultrasound, or we might find it out even after the baby is born. The baby was either aborted, or was killed. And millions, I mean, hundreds of millions, it's one of the biggest genocides in human history has happened in China since 1979 of young female girls. I mean, just the tragedy of it is, it's just unspeakable. I remember, Dwight, a few years ago, we had some conversations with a woman who was one of the key student leaders of the Tiananmen Square riots, she had come to the United States, she had to flee for her life to get out of China after that, because they were really hunting her down. And she came to Harvard, came to the United States, got married, went to Harvard, became a Christian, and started an organization that I, gosh, I wish I had the name of it, I will have to put this on the podcast notes, Luke. But yeah, she has a really terrific book and organization that was all about combatting the One Child Policy, and just the destructive nature of it, because she lived it. And she saw that. So you had that. And then, when you get rid of females, it's going to create all sorts of problems for the society, you've got lots more males that can't find wives. And frankly, I think one of the saddest things is, over time, you've got this kind of burgeoning aging population, and just not enough young people to support them. And I've got a gentleman that lives on my street that, too put a real human face on this, he's probably in his 80s, he's completely alone, he has no family to care for him, he's completely alone. And it's one of the saddest things I've ever seen, when you when you see an elderly person, who are weak, and they need help and support, and God provided family to do that, but because of worldview, or these consequences that we're talking about, there aren't family, they're alone. And we're seeing that more and more in societies like China and Japan and all over the world. So there's real consequences. Dwight, what do you see in that?

Dwight:

I was also struck in this particular article, because China's in general doesn't make decisions based on emotions, and what's good for this old man down the street from you, like he's lonely. But they make economic decisions, they'll make world power decisions. And I think, from what I understand, is they've looked at this and said, "Whoa, this is a threat to our economy, it's a threat to our global status. Because if we're half the population, or even a third less, it will greatly change our ability to grow and expand and have a strong economy." And we've never experienced that, because it's always been an expanding growing economy in the United States, at least well, except for recessions. But if you look at an older population that isn't working, and younger ones that have to take care of the old apparently, that is for real, and we haven't experienced it, but that's a reality. I remember a small town in Oklahoma, and everybody moved away, it died. The town just died. There's nobody doing business in this town. There's some parallels.

Scott:

There's some parallels. Exactly. It's really heartbreaking, the consequences, and there are many consequences

Dwight:

Let's go for it. Worldview has consequences for these kinds of choices. I want to talk about the worldview that, what were the ideas that were in the minds of the Chinese Communist Party officials that caused them to say, "Hey, we need to limit population We need to do this vast social

Scott:

Right? I mean, it wasn't just economics. There was a engineering to keep population rates really low." What were those ideas? How were they different from biblical ideas about, really we're talking about human beings, a biblical view of human life? So, are we okay if I jump to that? worldview that was driving those economic decisions. I mean, for sure, I would say that the ideas inside the leaders of China in the 1970s was, oh man, we've got this massive population, and we can't care for it. We can't care for all these people, or somehow, we've got a problem of too many people. I think that, and I really invite your guys's contributions and thoughts on this, you have to understand China today, modern China, Post-World War II, China is officially communist, it's Marxist. And they're not shy about saying, that we are officially an atheist country. It's atheism, it's Marxism, it's secularism, it's this view that there is no God. And what kind of view of human life is produced from that? What do we have in secular societies, in terms of a view of human life, it tends to be shaped by Darwinism, because Darwin was kind of the prophet of secular kind of views of human life. And so we are purposeless products of chance, chance combinations of matter, there isn't any intrinsic value life, certainly is not sacred in this worldview. But beyond that, the Darwinian view sees human beings as animals, I always come back to that, because we are evolved from animals. And so when you want to know deeply, what does it mean to be a human being, you look to the animal kingdom. That's very different from the biblical view, which looks to God, because we're made in God's image, this is really different. So in the Darwinian view, you're looking to animals, and when you look to the animal kingdom, you see red and tooth and claw, survival of the fittest, you see consuming scarce resources and things like that. And so, that idea I think, becomes very prevalent. When you look at human beings, they tend to be seen as kind of consumers of resources and drains, drains on the economy, drains on the environment, they're seen in this very negative light. And those ideas were going around, I'm sure, inside the minds of the officials of the Chinese Communist Party in the 1970s. And they felt like, we've got this enormous, really rapidly growing population, that's going to create a problem for us, we've got to curtail it. Something like that. It's not unlike a couple episodes ago, we were talking about today's radical environmentalist movement, it's very similar. Human beings are a drain on the environment, they destroy so that population is seen as a negative, we've got to curtail population, etc.

Luke:

And just to bring this close to home again, most of our audience here on the podcast is inside the US. And again, we have a low fertility rate in the US. And we also see that in the church. So these ideas are around us. And they're having consequences, not just on China, but they're having consequences inside our friend groups and the people around us. So let's examine these ideas. Let's look at our own lives. Have we heard these ideas? This idea that humans are a net drain on the planet? Do we believe that? That's definitely not a biblical worldview. But it's around us, and you'll see it everywhere you look once you start looking for it.

Tim Williams:

Scott, in response to something you'd said earlier, I heard you say, the Chinese government said, "Whose job is it to care for all these people, who's going to care for them?" And we kind of talked about that idea around the office sometimes. At the most basic level, we as human beings, are created to work the garden and care for the garden. To self govern, to have our own space, take care of our own selves. Of course, we have, in addition as believers, we have a church community that expands beyond that, but we don't look to some big old over-arching strong government to provide for our needs and to care for us, we were called as human beings created in the image of a Creator God, to be creators and to self govern, to take care of ourselves and our neighbors.

Scott:

Such good points, Tim. And I really want to contrast this secular Darwinian view of human beings that we're talking about with the Biblical view. Because Luke is correct. I mean, these ideas now dominate, not just in China, but in any secularized country, that includes our own, that's the common denominator. So these are dominant ideas. They're in the air that we breathe, and the water we drink, so to speak, and we've absorbed them at some level, whether we're Christians or not. And so you have to be really intentionally Christian in your thinking to go against that pull. And so you've got to have this kind of very clear understanding biblically in your mind about what does it mean to be a human being? So yeah, Tim, you brought up some excellent points, I just want to unpack those a little bit, because I think these are things that we take very often for granted as Christians. I think Christians are kind of quick and correct to say that human life is sacred. Correct. There is a sacredness. And because we're made in God's image, and I think people actually will say that and understand something about that, too. We're created by God.

Tim Williams:

Yeah, that word sacred, I would love for you guys to give a working definition for it. It's such a regularly used word, I've heard you guys unpack it before.

Scott:

Yeah, to me, the word sacred, and jump in Dwight and Luke, but it's set apart by God for a special purpose. In other words, God values something and gives it a certain value. So it goes beyond what a human being might value. It's something that God values. Go ahead Dwight.

Dwight:

I think it's also closely tied to the transcendent nature of a human, we see ourselves ultimately as souls not as physical objects, and a soul that was created at birth, but that then lives beyond our bodies, even most religions of the world, Christian or not, have a sense of the soul existing. So I think there's a sacredness in that.

Scott:

Yeah, well said, Dwight. I mean, I think it's just this incredibly high view that God Himself has of human life, he has an incredibly high view of human life.

Dwight:

And that's the root of even for a pagan religion. It's still rooted in that understanding I mean, they may not know it, but that's where it comes from. I think of Darrow's original book he wrote on discipling nations, he has that one graphic that's so clear, what is the human. And he has the one that shows it just as a stomach and a mouth.

Scott:

Right? A consumer of scarce resources. That's the Darwinian view, just like an animal. And the other view is not a stomach and a mouth exclusively, we certainly have mouths and stomachs, but a brain, a spirit, hands, to love, a brain to create. This is the part I think Darrow really helped all of us with this. God is creative. So he created the heavens and the Earth, he's incredibly creative. He creates out of nothing, it creates incredible abundance and diversity. But then when he creates us in His image, he gives us that same capacity. This is the thing I think for me was such an "Aha! That this creative ability allows people to create things in a sense out of nothing as well. Now we don't create out of nothing like God does, literally creates out of nothing, but we take the things that God has made, and we create wholly new things from them that never existed before. That's this really powerfully uniquely human ability. So you can take these grapes and make new wine. As Darrow says, we can take words and create poetry and literature, we can create this ooze that comes up out of the ground that's black and gooey, and nobody knows what to do with it. And we can turn it into oil that powers the modern economy or you could take the sand that exists on rivers and beaches all over the world that costs essentially nothing. And you can apply your human creativity and ingenuity to that and turn it into silicon. And then you can create something like a computer chip, and then you can create a computer that drives the modern economy. So, my point in that is that human beings actually have the potential, the capacity, God given capacity, creative capacity, to leave the world wealthier than they came into it. That's really a powerful thing when you think about it, leave the world more beautiful, more wealthy than when they came into it, that's very different than what was going on in the minds of the Chinese officials when they instituted the One Child Policy. Go ahead Dwight.

Dwight:

Well, yeah, I was just thinking of another podcast I heard recently with James Tour. And he was talking not about the origin of life, which he usually talks about, but this very thing that they're discovering at the level of nanobiology, all these amazing secrets that will allow us to use fewer and fewer resources to really achieve more and more, or with less and less, we can do more and more. And it's that idea that you take something and you make it much more than it is. Take, you know, the crisis in Ukraine right now. And one of the crisis that's going on is the diminishment of wheat that's coming out of Ukraine. Apparently, they were 400 million tonnes or something like that of grain every year. And I go back to my own history, and really is, my great, great, great grandfather was the one that went to Ukraine and said, we can make this land produce wheat. And they brought the Turkey Red from Prussia, and they planted it. And now you have breadbasket of the world. Where it was just rocks.

Luke:

Yeah, and I just want listeners to get this, this is so different. Back to that graphic again, this is so different from the modern secular understanding of what is a human. They say humans are a mouth in the stomach. And we're saying no, humans are mouth in the stomach. Correct. But we're also a mind and a soul. And that's so different. When you start looking at the consequences of that, if we say really simply, humans have ideas, humans make decisions. That's what it means to be human. Animals can't do that.

Scott:

We have agency, choice.

Luke:

We have agency. And that's what sets us apart from the animals, one of the main things that sets us apart from the animals. So when it comes to a discussion like today with the population collapse, if humans are the ones that have ideas and make decisions, the more humans you have in the world, the more ideas and decisions that are at the table. Do we want more ideas and decisions at the table? Yeah. So when it comes really simply down to it, humans have this capacity to innovate, that improves the world and makes it better. Can we do that in every society around the world all the time, just more humans equals more prosperity? No, because there's this other crucial, biblical truth that we need as a part of our lives, and that's freedom. Humans times freedom equals innovation and flourishing. And you see that, economists have seen this forever. And I just I love it when you see a secular economists point this out, that oh, these guys have a free society. There's humans making decision and all of a sudden their economy booms-

Scott:

Without a lot of control.

Luke:

Without without a lot of control. Yeah, that's so different. Again, just pointing back that's so different from this idea that humans are just a net destroyer of the planet. And this idea that you hear this all the time that having a child, bringing a child in the world, is a terrible thing. And that's such an evil lie, like, "Oh, I don't want to bring a child in this terrible world." As if that's a virtuous thing, but that's something that you hear passed around, I hear that in my peers and people my age, that it's somehow virtuous not to have a have a kid.

Scott:

Yeah. It's interesting, when you go back to Genesis pre-Fall, the view of children is that the overwhelming view of children is that they're a blessing and the command is to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. I mean, this gets to God's desire for what he wants people to do, which is, it's just the opposite of the One Child Policy I want you to be fruitful. These people are amazing, fill the earth, that children are overwhelmingly a blessing. Now, we don't live in a pre-fallen world. So we have to bring that in as well. We live in a fallen world. So there's the other side of the coin, so to speak, in terms of what we've been talking about. Yes, human beings have this amazing potential to create and to create good things. They also have the capacity as fallen human beings to create really bad things to do evil things. And so the thrust of the Bible is that people need to be redeemed and that as people are redeemed, and brought into the fullness of what it means to be a human being they can once again be this net blessing to the creation that God intended. You see this, for example, you guys know this passage very well, Romans 8, starting in verse 19, for the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed, the children of God here, these are redeemed people, for the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it. And that subject to frustration really has to do with the Fall, right? That people that God put in control or dominion, gave dominion over creation, we're not doing it. We're doing it in a fallen way. And it's subjected creation to frustration. So it goes on and says, so that creation itself is waiting in eager expectation for its liberation from bondage and decay, and to be brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. So there's this kind of fallen nature, and because of that, we're not doing this job of creating and exercising dominion in a way that we ought to, it's a destructive way. But as we're redeemed, then we can begin to do it in a way that is positive and has positive outcomes. So that has to be brought into the equation as well. Yeah, go ahead. Tim.

Tim Williams:

One thing that stood out to me when we were in our intro earlier, we were talking about the US birthrate. And this may apply to the way some of us think, those of us who are in the West, or maybe you know people in the West, and you're like "Why is it like that?" And I just think about the younger generation, which I'm included in really, when, as we were growing up, birth control was just totally available. And it was an assumption in every home, in every relationship. And so that then created this question that perhaps has never really existed in the same way, before birth control. We talked about how all of these birth rates that were touched by kind of secularism, now, they're also more developed, more modernized, birth controls there. And so now, where it used to be natural, a man and a woman come together, and when they come together, a baby comes with that, it's the natural outcome. And now it's man and woman comes together, and they take a pill, she takes a pill, it messes with her hormones. That's a whole other subject, and it continues, and then, do we just continue this forever? When do we decide to stop? I think that's one thing. If I were to just kind of set that topic aside for one second, I would also just, tag in, like, if we think again about the creation narrative. Why did God create? Why didn't he just, "I'm good," like, it's Father, Son, Holy Spirit, perfect love, perfect unity. He wanted to share that love, there was a creation, a birthing process, that created in the image of Father, Son and Spirit, He created mankind. And that is the picture of husband and wife coming together and family that out of their love, created in their image, is children. And then by generation by generation, our love is expanded, and our love increases, and includes more people, and we care for people. And it's not the job of the government to care for Mom and Dad, it's my job, and my children helped me to do more. And we work together out of this beautiful image of creation from the beginning.

Scott:

I love what you're saying, Tim, I want to underscore a couple of things that I think is really profound, this picture of God in perfect loving relationship before creation Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Why did they create? Why did they create human beings? And I think it's because right in its essence, love wants to share, it wants to share, the joy, it wants to grow and expand, it's always pushing outward. And God wants to share the love that he has within the triune relationship with human beings and He created us to do the same. And that's when we find our fulfillment, our fullest life is when we're doing that. And it contrasts with this secular idea, Dwight earlier, before the podcast, you and I were talking about how in China, this One Child Policy was imposed by the government, under penalty of imprisonment. But in a lot of countries that are secular, that share the secular worldview of China, it's not imposed, it's chosen, it's limiting children is chosen. And it's because I think it's because children are inconvenient, they cost money. They're a burden on my time, or the ambitions that I have, the dreams that I have for my own life.

Dwight:

They don't obey.

Scott:

They don't obey.

Dwight:

Like your dog or something.

Scott:

A lot of it is very selfish though, and love doesn't factor into it. And I think it's also incredibly short sighted, because very often, this choice not to have children, put yourself out there in 50 years, and you have no children, and you're old, and you have nobody to care for you. I mean, it's just a very sad picture again.

Luke:

Sorry, going back to the roots, though. I'm curious, because this, I was talking about economics earlier, that's an economic trend you see throughout history, that the richer and the more educated a society becomes, the less kids they have. Why is that? Is it hyper individualism? Is it selfishness? Like, what what are we looking at there?

Scott:

I think there's a real practical answer to that, frankly, Luke, I think one of the reasons that birth rates were much higher in the, let's say, pre-industrial world was because, we needed children to run the farm and to take care of us when we were older, I mean, economy was built around the family in a way that it isn't today. So today, economy doesn't really require you to have, in fact, economics kind of goes against you having a large family today, in a way that it didn't in earlier generations, there was just that practical aspect to it. So be in a industrialized, modern society, like the United States, I don't think, "Oh, I need to have children to take care of me in my old age," because the government will do that, I got welfare and social security, or I don't need children to work the farm, because I don't have a farm, I go to a job. And my job is going to provide some income for me, and if I have a child I have to share that income with that child or those children. So it's just changed the equation a bit.

Dwight:

That's a tough question. I think every every family has to answer that themselves. But I mean, I can imagine that part of

it is:

Well, there is a question, what's good for the world? If I have 20 kids, is that good for the world? No, no, we don't want to overpopulate. That's still, that's a factor and we swim in that. So okay, well, what's a good number? And then the other is, well, what's a good family size? What's going to make for a nice group? Is it again, 10 kids? Or is it 3? Or is it 2, and those are sort of strange decisions we make, but we do make them.

Scott:

Well, and I think that you're touching on Tim's point about birth control. I mean, birth control is, in the big scheme of things, is a really new innovation. I mean, I think just came about since the 1950s. Nobody dealt with that, before that it wasn't even a question. You just got married, and you had children. Now,

Tim Williams:

Maybe some natural family planning.

Scott:

Yeah, maybe some natural family planning. That's a good point. Tim, I don't want to miss, it's not like every time you come together, you have a child. But nevertheless, now we've got this whole technology, not just birth control, but we've got abortion, you name it. There's whole industries that are built on this. So you have this question and choice that you didn't have before. Go ahead, Dwight.

Dwight:

Yeah. I think we could speculate on that question Luke, what you asked, but it's pretty hard to answer. But I do think we can emphasize why have children, which is am I having a child to create a creator? Am I having a child to extend love? Am I having a child to bless the world?

Scott:

Yes. Because I really believe that that child is going to be a net blessing to the world.

Dwight:

Whether you have two or three or four, I think that's that needs to be our underlying questions. Why am I doing this?

Luke:

Go for it, Tim.

Tim Williams:

How does this fit in? But there are non-Christian worldviews where the children are multiplying. And so, at one point, literally, there's going to be worldviews that do have children and worldviews that don't have children or have more children or have less children.

Scott:

Yeah, that's correct. I mean, one of the worldviews that promotes having large families right now is Islam. Why is that? In fact, somebody has pointed out to me, I thought this was fascinating. The number one name for new baby boys in England today is Muhammad. It's Muhammad. Who's having children in England? It's Muslim immigrants. Well, the question then is why? What is that view in Islamic, maybe traditional Islamic religion or worldview, that promotes having children, it comes from a similar route as biblical worldview, obviously goes back. But I also think that there's a pragmatic aspect to this as well, that Islam wants to essentially spread its worldview and belief system all over the world. And this is, frankly, one of the best ways that you can do that is having large families. It's interesting Christians used to think that way to going back 100 years ago, like the way that we can fulfill the Great Commission is through large families. We don't think that way anymore, I think that's kind of fascinating. And, Tim, this gets to your point, too. And I remember being a young Christian being newly married, I got almost zero input on birth control from my pastors and church friends and church leaders, it was kind of assumed that you'll just figure it out on your own, or we just don't want to talk about it, it just wasn't talked about. Which, to me, it's like, wow, I think we need to talk about that. Because that's not a small thing. So I think that to me, it gets back to this point that we swim in an ocean where these ideas are so prevalent, that we have absorbed them at different levels. Or that as Christians, we have a sacred-secular divide. And so somehow that topic fits below the line, so to speak, that's a secular topic, and it's not really relevant for us to talk about, you'll figure that out, or something like that.

Luke:

Interesting. As I'm thinking about that question of the richer you get and the more educated a society gets, the less kids it has, I think it also comes down to another worldview question, the main worldview question we've been revolving the discussion around so far is, who is man, and what does it mean to be human, but also, who is God, and you see a lot of times, this is nothing against striving to become more wealthy or increase your education, by no means, but a lot of times those can become idols. And those can kind of take the place of God, especially in industrial societies, this is more of my guess, of why there's that norm in economics. But the more educated you become, you see this in, I think, this is kind of the birth of the Enlightenment is, "Oh, we can know all things" kind of idea. Same thing with money, it can easily kind of take the place of God and be a comforting thing for us, that we can fall back on, and those and all of those things make at the end of the day, yourself God, and therefore, love is not a part of the picture, and the desire to have kids is probably taken out of the picture. So that's my guess.

Scott:

But I mean, I do think at its ultimate route, you've got the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light, the kingdom of God, and in Satan's kingdom, he wants to kill, steal, and destroy, human beings. So whatever the ideology that kind of births out of that, it's going to be anti-human at some level, it's going to lead to things like the One Child Policies and just, we've got to curtail the human population, or we don't want to have children, or whatever it is. Whereas in God's kingdom Yeah, it's different, human beings, we see them in a very different light. And Tim, I love the thing you said earlier, if I could just circle back to that, because we talk about, the blessing of children, the blessing of human beings. And I've thought a lot about the creative aspect. They can create new resources, but you said something too that I think is just equally important. It's the ability even apart from creation, just to love. We have this capacity to love and to care for people, to love our neighbors as ourselves. And it's not that that isn't creative, but it's a little bit of a different aspect that's equally important, for the blessing of the world, this capacity to love and to care. So even if you don't feel like "Oh, I'm not a particularly creative, innovative person." That doesn't mean that you aren't a particular blessing to your family or to the world at large in many ways.

Luke:

Ueah. I always find it offensive when biologists say,"Genetically you are this much similar to a banana", like, you're 90% of a banana genetically speaking. When they're looking at it. That's probably totally wrong.

Scott:

I think, Tim is mostly like a banana.

Tim Williams:

Yes!

Scott:

That's probably me, I eat a lot of bananas. But when they're looking just at your genes, and I'm like, "You gotta open your mind." One of the key things that sets us apart from animals, again, is our ability to make decisions. But it's also to love. You never see that anywhere besides humans. Is this decision to put myself at risk or to lose something for myself to help someone else out? And that's such a beautiful thing in humans. I also think it's cool now that we've done the studies and economists especially have done these studies to see, are humans actually a net good on the planet? And I would encourage anyone listening to this to go and look at these studies, to look at these resources. We'll be linking these in the podcast, but there's a great book called Hyperabundance that came out about a year ago. And it's these two economists. I don't believe they're Christians. I think they're Mormons, actually.

Luke:

Are they really?

Scott:

Yeah, but nevertheless, it's a great thesis that they've got here. So go ahead, Luke.

Luke:

Yeah. Let me just find that really quick.

Scott:

I've got it up here. It's"Superabundance, the story of population growth, innovation and human flourishing on an infinitely bountiful planet." It's a book that was published, I think about two years ago. But we need to read that book. I've heard interviews on it. And it sounds like a book that I really want to look into, and Luke, it's based on an earlier book that I know has had a big impact on us here in the DNA called the Ultimate Resource by economist Julian Simon. And what he was looking at was the human mind, the human creativity as the ultimate resource. And these are books that cut against the grain because the overwhelming narrative today is again, human beings are a net drain, we tend to be destroyers of the the environment, etc. These are books that cut against the grain, but they're based in science. They're based on economics and science.

Luke:

Yeah, all of these guys, even though they're not I think the miracle too, is that I listen to you talk, and I Christians, they like we were talking about on the science versus Christianity podcast a few weeks ago, these guys are truth seekers, and they're going to follow the evidence wherever it leads. And in this book, Superabundance, there's charts and graphs and everything. They did real research to answer this

question. And their takeaway is:

If you have two kids, that's great. If you have 10, that's even better. And the world will be a better place because of those kids. I mean, we talk about this in the DNA with the whole you know, how many songs are in a piano? This is what God put in the world is, the world is full of potential for us to go, be fruitful and multiply, take what he's put out there, a seed, like we were talking about with wheat earlier, and plant the seed and who knows how much food can come out of that single seed. And these guys, they're just looking at the world through, a clear mind and seeing this, and they're pointing back to God, which is really cool to see. think about that angle. Yeah, well, there's these brilliant people who create this amazing stuff. And I'm just a normal person that does very little, and we look at our friends and go "Well, yeah, they're okay." But the reality is we do produce as human beings, and I think that we need-

Scott:

It's really important to do what you're doing here Dwight, bring it down to our own level.

Dwight:

And really encourage our children and one another, to be productive and live productive. And what's most interesting is that we innately get such joy out of being productive. It's like if you want to help somebody be happy, help them feel fruitful, help them feel productive, because it's true of almost everybody.

Scott:

Yeah, in my own life, and I know you've lived this out in spades, but I think of just owning a house. And we bought this house 15 years ago, and it was a nice enough house, but the backyard was just trashed, it was just weeds and dirt. And I had a vision, little vision, little creative vision, and this isn't the world, this is a little piece of land, but it was my piece of land. So I thought-

Dwight:

Some of us get to enjoy it.

Scott:

Yeah, I'm gonna make this better. And by God's grace, and help, and whatnot, anyways, we put in a beautiful backyard, I That's why we see sadness, or we feel sadness when we see decay. get a lot of enjoyment out of that. And it touches on what you're talking about Dwight, the way God created us. And I'll be able to sell this house and leave it to somebody else better than I found it and more valuable then I found. So you're right, we need to bring this down to the basic level that we all live at, we all have this capacity. You talked about going downtown Portland and seeing the the decay of downtown Portland. And that's the opposite of what you expect to see and you want to see. Yeah, just to catch up our listeners to our earlier discussion. I just had come back from visiting Portland, Oregon, which had come through, these terrible riots of 2020. And it was very sad, because there was so many businesses that abandoned the downtown. Blocks, literal blocks of this beautiful downtown with beautiful historic buildings were abandoned, boarded up windows, no businesses. I'm from Oregon, I grew up there. And when I was in college in the late 1980s, downtown Portland was really thriving, there was bakeries and restaurants and breweries and businesses and just people everywhere, and just a real vibrant feel to it. So it was really, it was very disconcerting, and deeply disturbing, frankly for me, and it just leads to this question about how can we turn that around?

Luke:

Yeah, ideas have consequences.

Scott:

Ideas have consequences. And again, this is something that we all have the capacity to do, to make the world a better place, to leave it better than we found it, not just materially, but relationally and in every way. This is an amazing thing that the Biblical worldview puts forth and puts forward, this view of human

Tim Williams:

I don't know if it's time for concluding life. thoughts or not, but if I, if I were to have one, you know, if I were to imagine myself, if God gave me 85 years, if I was 85 years old, and I can't imagine having the thought, I wish I had more money. I wish I had more stuff. But the 85 year olds that I've known, have loved the relationships that they have within their family, maybe within their church, but relationships, it comes into focus, that there's a clarity about it in time, here's what mattered.

Scott:

Here's what mattered. Yeah, thanks, Tim, for taking us to concluding thoughts. I do think it's probably time to wrap this really wonderful discussion up. We'll continue this. I just think this is a point of Biblical worldview emphasis that we can't overemphasize, because we do need to live counter-culturally in terms of this view of human life. But yeah, Luke and Dwight, what other things would you like to say, as we wrap up today, any concluding thoughts? How, maybe how can we help people to to apply what we're talking about? What are some takeaways?

Dwight:

I think one thing is, and we've alluded to this already, just to stop and pause and look at the people in your life, and go, how can I help them live out their God given purpose as a human being to be creative, to love to be all that they can be, and to just encourage them in that direction. And ourselves.

Scott:

You're living very close to the very purpose God created us to live when you when you're asking those kinds of questions.

Dwight:

A net blessing, how can I be a net blessing.

Scott:

Fill the earth, be a blessing. Yeah. How about you, Luke? Any concluding thoughts?

Luke:

I think those are great. I think on a personal scale, look for things that you can make more beautiful in your life. I think one of the main things that motivates us to do anything is to make life better for us and the people that we love. So, create beauty in your life, whether that's landscaping your backyard or making a delicious recipe. And the next time you do it, do it even better. That's how humans innovate and ensure we move forward.

Scott:

Share it with others, you might even make some money off of that and leave the world more prosperous!

Luke:

But on a on a different level, this discussion today, it's pretty scary when you start stopping and thinking about it. And you can look out there, there's some extremists out there, and you can look at the charts, and there's this huge drop off coming in 10 years or whatnot. I don't know if I believe all of those.

Scott:

That's real.

Luke:

Yes, I do think there is a trend that's coming.

Scott:

That's real. And I think we need to look hard at that, even though we don't want to, it's frightening, but it's important to look at that.

Luke:

It's undeniable that something's gonna happen soon with the declining birth rates. And I think we need to understand and know, maybe the arguments, or at least know what what we believe and why we believe it, and who humans are, as God sees them. And know how to point out in history and around us and the world examples of how we see that. And yeah, be ready, because this discussion is just starting, I think some people might even call us conspiracy theorists today. But a couple years from now, definitely not going to be true. So it's time to start thinking about this, because these ideas will have consequences, and it looks quite negative.

Scott:

Yeah, if I could just tag on to that, Luke, I want to recommend a resource that we'll put into the notes with this particular podcast, there was a video film that's now freely available on YouTube, and I want to recommend it to our listeners. It's called the Demographic Winter, the decline of the human family. And it is taking a look at just what does it mean to continue with these trends of low total fertility rate? What does it mean on a human scale for nations that now like China, like the United States, like Japan, like South Korea, and many others that have rates that have fallen below rates from which nations have never recovered from, so be ready to be shocked and be really disturbed, but I think it's super important that we look at this there, these are the consequences of ideas, if we want to see it turn around, we need to be promoting different ideas, biblical ideas, true ideas. So it's called the Demographic Winter; The Decline of the Human Family, again, freely available on YouTube. I just want to touch on some of our own resources at the DNA too. We've written a lot on this subject. And I would recommend Darrow Miller and Friends, Darrow Miller and Friends, you can find that online and you can search. By putting in the search word population, you'll find that Darrow has written a number of articles, really helpful articles on this subject we're talking about today. He's also written about this in his flagship book, Discipling Nations; the Biblical View of Human Life in this creative capacity that we have. And we've also written on it in a book called the Forest and the Seed; a Biblical View of Resources and Where They Come From. And we've talked about Biblical view of children and family in a book that I wrote with Elizabeth Humans several years ago called As the Family Goes, So Goes the Nation. And then, of course, Dwight's book Made to Flourish; God's Design for Individuals, Communities, and Nations. So we've got a lot of resources at the DNA that touch on this subject of just what does it mean to think biblically about human beings in a way that leads to flourishing and thriving families and communities? Guys, great to have this discussion with you. We will be talking more on this no doubt because there's hardly anything more important to talk about. But thanks for a great discussion. And thank you all for listening to another episode of Ideas Have Consequences podcast.

Luke:

Hi, friends. Yes, thank you for joining us and listening today. I think we all agree that a dramatic decrease in population is evil. But I hope that we can go beyond just saying no to that proposition, and saying yes to why human beings are a net good for our world and each other, and can back that up with God's truth and point to tangible examples from around us and from history. We are passionate about this subject and we'll be happy to help you continue to learn about why humans are sacred and vital to our world. As you just heard, this week's landing page is going to be full of videos, books, blogs, articles, and a documentary that will help you continue your study. Also on that page, feel free to comment and let us know if you have any additional resources that you would like to see or have any further questions about today's topic. Again, thank you so much for joining us today. Ideas Have Consequences is brought to you by the Disciple Nations Alliance. To learn more about our ministry you can find us on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, or on our website, which is disciplenations.org. Again, be sure to check out this week's landing page which I have linked just right below this episode in the description. So go ahead and click on that to continue your learning. Thanks again for joining us, and we'll see you next week.