Where Have All the (European) Babies Gone?

This past weekend, the New York Times magazine featured a startling piece called, simply, "No Babies?" by writer Russell Shorto. The very long and engrossing article spans ten pages (in a web sense) and includes the following notable quotations and ideas.

The plummeting global birthrate--

"[A]round the world, even in developing countries, birthrates have plummeted — from 6.0 globally in 1972 to 2.9 today — as populations have shifted from rural areas to cities and people have adopted urban lifestyles, and the drop has perhaps lessened the urgency of the overpopulation cry."

Some said in the 1980s that the world was vastly and dangerously overpopulated. What the above comment notes, in typical understated highbrow fasion, is that this thesis was wrong on a massive scale. In fact, it would be fascinating to study this thesis to see if it had a discernable effect on the desiccated global birthrate. I would guess that it might have. I would further guess that it was used to enfranchise the selfish lifestyles of (perhaps) millions of people around the world in encouraging them, for the first time in trans-cultural history, to see children as a curse, not a blessing. If this is so, what bitter fruit this ideology has reaped.

The scale of this disastrous trend--

"To many, “lowest low” is hard evidence of imminent disaster of unprecedented proportions. “The ability to plan the decision to have a child is of course a big success for society, and for women in particular,” Letizia Mencarini, a professor of demography at the University of Turin, told me. “But if you would read the documents of demographers 20 years ago, you would see that nobody foresaw that the fertility rate would go so low. In the 1960s, the overall fertility rate in Italy was around two children per couple. Now it is about 1.3, and for some towns in Italy it is less than 1. This is considered pathological.”"

Again, in layman's terms, this translates to "cultural cataclysm." In other words, Europe is dying before our eyes. We are literally watching the slow, agonizing death of much of the Western world.

The dangers this trend poses--

The spiritual concerns aside, though, the main threats to Europe are economic. Alongside birthrate, the other operative factor in the economic equation is lifespan. People everywhere are living longer than ever, and lifespan is continuing to increase beyond what was once considered a natural limit.

Here the writer, Shorto, shows his worldview undergarments, so to speak. The chief cause and effect here involves economic rather than spiritual concerns. This is a classic move of leftist thought--to briefly acknowledge the spiritual dimension of life and then move hurriedly on to the really important stuff, the financial matters that truly drive life. Well, this is in reality a pretty bad idea, in the end. Why do people make economic decisions? Shorto makes much of the changing workplace in his article, and he attempts to argue that two-income families actually help birthrates to rise in many countries, over against the traditional logic that one-income families produce relatively more children. Why, though, do people choose to make the decisions they do? Do not spiritual concerns factor in heavily on this question? What good does it do Shorto and the rest of us to ignore the philosophical tides of nihilism and epicureanism that swept over Europe in the second half of the twentieth century? He ends up looking a bit silly for his refusal to take spirituality seriously, given the massive cultural shifts in twentieth-century European philosophical and religious thought.

On this quirky matter that two-income homes are actually better for birthrates, Shorto asserts that "even conservatives like Willetts acknowledge that societies that support working couples have higher birthrates than those in which mothers are housewives." He goes on to conclude rather triumphantly that "The old conservative argument — that a traditional, working-husband-and-stay-at-home-wife family structure produces a healthy, growing population — doesn’t apply, either in the U.S. or anywhere else in the world today." Hold your horses. It may well be that in certain countries that feature more two-income families, more children are birthed. But this does not answer all questions. For example, women in more egalitarian countries may have more babies than women in other societies merely because they are paid to do so. It may also be true that they have more babies because their husbands invest more in childcare, as Shorto suggests. But this discussion masks a larger point--women in Europe are not having babies, regardless of the structure of the home. There clearly is no major birthrate increase in more egalitarian countries. Furthermore, when the traditional model is itself suffused with selfishness in many quarters, as we can see, women do not want to have children, though they may be at home in the traditional manner.

Beyond this, much of the U. S., which Shorto cites as a "sparkling exception" to this trend, adheres to a decidedly traditional worldview. It's conservatives, in many cases, not liberals, who are having babies. This would seem to directly contradict one of the central assertions of this article.

The final word on the matter--

"When European women age 18 to 34 were asked in another study to state their ideal number of children, 16.6 percent of those in Germany and 12.6 percent in Austria answered “none.”"

This is a frightening situation, indicative of a wider, world-spanning movement that sees children as a curse. Though Shorto strongly concludes that America has fallen under no such spell, one wonders whether his research is accurate. All around us, people want to live for themselves, and not for their families, or on a much broader level, their societies. They want to do what they wish to do, not what is right and good to do as defined by tradition and, I would argue, biblically informed tradition. So many young people want nothing more than to chase their dreams and live narcissistic lives of self-indulgence. Of course, there are some out there who desperately want to have children but cannot for a variety of reasons (illness, singleness, etc.), but these people are more generally the exception, it seems.

Having a child is almost the fundamental good of the family (which is itself nearly the fundamental good of existence!). It is not, in the Bible, a mere option, one of a number of fun things to do if one wants. It is what married people do (when they can). Children are a blessing from the Lord (Psalm 127). Our culture and many others across the world believe the opposite, giving Christians the opportunity to demonstrate that we do not live for ourselves, first and foremost. We do not live to gratify our passing fancies. We live to do something much larger than this, to build something far greater than ourselves, to involve ourselves in the awesome task of physically and spiritually shaping the destiny of a living being we create, and of doing this not only for ourselves, but for our societies, and far, far beyond this, for our God. Having children, in the end, is not a box to check on a laundry list of entertainments; it is an act of worship that enters us into a work almost too great to comprehend and too awesome to carry out.

The Housing Preferences of "Gen Y", and What They Tell Us

One of the best things about having a blog that your family and friends know about is having good links sent to you. My eagle-eyed mother-in-law directed me to a great story in the Charleston Post and Courier by Stacy Downs called "Gen Y in a Rush for Change in New Home Style". It can be pretty difficult to track an entire generation of people, but there are definite trends and themes one can pick up if one looks hard (or has one's mother-in-law looking hard for one!).

Here's the key quotation from the article, which includes an interview with three members of "Gen Y" (the second answer is the most interesting):

Q: Many Gen Y'ers grew up in McMansions. Is your parents' big house your dream house?

Colin: No. I want a smaller space so it's easier to take off and go. A house that's low-maintenance is good. Generation Y traveled a lot in college and will continue to do so through life, so a big yard isn't a plus, either.

Townsend: No. I think that seeing so many of our generation's parents divorce makes us understand that family togetherness is important. So as we start having kids you will see us avoid homes with a living room, family room and finished basement rec room in favor of open-plan homes where the family can share space.

The matter of note in this second response by "Townsend" is the shift in desired architectural style. This young man, Ryan Townsend, wants a home in which the entire family is compelled to be together by the very shape of the house. The style of home of recent decades in which various rooms draw various family members holds little pull for Townsend and at least some of his peers. Many of us have seen and grown up in homes in which the family was separated according to the function of rooms. The kids' play area is in the basement, and so the kids go down there, away from the influence and presence of their parents. The parents stay upstairs, dad watching the big tv in his living room, mom bustling around, perhaps in the kitchen. It is this kind of social segmentation that Townsend and others are rebelling against. These young people see a direct link between architecture and family cohesiveness, and they want to restore this link, believing it to have been broken in recent modes of the family.

I don't know if you're tracking here, but this sidenote, buried in a short article in the Home & Garden section of a Charleston newspaper, is revealing. It shows us the deficiency of the modern mindset. Where once families were (forced) together by the small size of their homes, many modern parents intentionally structured their dwellings to separate the different members of the family. How interesting that this architectural decision mirrored and shaped the larger social patterns regarding the family. It is clear from the rise of the divorce culture and the fracturing of the traditional family in the last forty years that life has mirrored architecture. Where the family once lived together, played together, and slept together--literally in the same room, an unthinkable notion for most Americans--now we do our daily business in isolation. As with so many social trends, it is not clear how much this architectural trend drove the dissolution of the American family, and how much of it was merely a reflection of the dissolution. These chicken-and-egg questions are tough to sleuth. I'm guessing that the two worked hand-in-hand to fundamentally reshape the traditional model of the family.

Whatever the answer, it is clear that "Generation Y" is not bereft of common grace, as it sometimes seems to be in the portraits painted by social commentators. Many of this generation have seen the marriages of their parents crumble. They do not want the same. This reality has so shaped them that they will alter their lives in the most basic ways in order to give their own families the best chance of unity and cohesiveness. All is not lost with the current generation of youngsters (my peers). As with every generation, there are signs of darkness, and signs of common grace. Though their parents might have the cars, the homes, the nice jobs, and all the trappings of conspicuous consumerism that signal high status in our land, the twentysomethings of today know the reality behind these trappings. Many of the "McMansions" that so many of us so easily covet have none of the heart that one finds in the humbler domiciles of the land. This is a lesson for us to read and learn from. The exterior, however eye catching it may be, does not tell the full story. In a world in which riches so easily ensnare, it often covers over a multitude of sins.

The other major lesson here is, interestingly enough, architectural. Simply put, how you structure your home matters. You might not think that, but Mr. Townsend has a point, a great one in fact. He's seen something very basic, so basic, in fact, that most of us would overlook it altogether. The home's structure will naturally shape the life of the family living inside of it. If you lay out your home in such a way as to cordon off family members from one another, that is likely what you will get. Your kids may well grow distant from you. Dad and mom may pursue their own interests and spend less time together. It seems that one of the very best things a family can do to grow close and glorify God together is to, well, be together. Not real complex, is it?

There is something profound that happens when people occupy the same space. They learn to love one another, to quickly resolve conflict, to work together, to talk to one another, to share stories, to work out life's difficulties, to fashion character by quickly and unselfishly forgiving one another, to pitch in and help with household duties, to listen and subordinate one's narcissistic urges to dominate the conversation, all under the watchful eye and direction of dad and mom. Isn't this what the "experts" are always telling us about family meals--that simply eating together is incredibly helpful for healthy rearing of children and cultivation of togetherness? How shocking. It's not therapy and individuality and fanatical devotion to outside pursuits that strengthens the family--it's simply being together, spending time with one another, allowing dad and mom to shepherd their children and the children to interact and grow in a safe and loving environment. It seems that the traditional family structure, however outdated and simplistic it may appear to our twenty-first century eyes, had a great deal of its theory right.

A final note of application concerns our church buildings and how we structure them. Are they set up to encourage fellowship? Or are they split into a thousand sundry classrooms and boardrooms? Is there a large chunk of common area for people to get together and talk? Or have we so segmented our buildings that people find it impossible to get together? One of the best things about my alma mater was that it had a massive quad that drew students like flies and that encouraged the entire campus community to gather in a common place. Many of our church buildings would benefit from a similar design, I think.

Who would have thought that the way we structure our homes will radically direct the quality of our families? On this matter, the "Ys" clearly have it--if we would seek a healthy home, we've got to structure it accordingly. The structure of the building will shape the quality of the home--and we're not talking about the shutters and stairways, but the relationships and experiences.

Excellent Material from the reThink Conference on Family Ministry

I'm back in the states, and recently received word on an important and helpful conference on family ministry:

"A couple of weeks ago Providence Baptist Church the reThink Conference 08 in Raleigh, NC. The conference came about as a result of Steve Wright’s book on family equipping entitled reThink. What started small has gained tremendous momentum. reThink has already picked up endorsements from Dr. Randy Stinson of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and C.J. Mahaney of Sovereign Grace Ministries, just to name a few.

Alex Chediak flew in from California to live blog the conference and did a tremendous job."

Here are the links to the live-blogs:

Session I: Leon Tucker

Session II: David Horner

Session III: Dave Owen

Session IV: Steve Wright

Session V: Dr. Randy Stinson

I would encourage you to read these blogs, and then to buy the book. I recently got it and am really looking forward to reading it and reaping fruit for my own family ministry.

Wimps, Goofballs, and Thugs: Deconstructing Contemporary Masculine Stereotypes with Salvo Magazine

Note: this piece is cross-posted today at CBMW's GenderBlog.

A recent Salvo Magazine piece by S. T. Karnick, "Girly Men: The Media's Attack on Masculinity", lays out three stereotypical masculine images found in contemporary culture. Here's Karnick's distillation of the roles currently available to men in American society:

"(T)he war against boys seems to have created three main character patterns for the adult male of our time: sensitive guys who want to please women; weenies and dorks who want only to be left alone to drink beer and play video games with their dork buddies; and thugs who, in rebellion against their unnatural education, are perpetually concerned with proving their toughness through increasingly loutish behavior. There are, of course, examples of decent, positively masculine males in the culture, but they are becoming increasingly overwhelmed by the products of educational and cultural feminization."

Each of these characters depresses us, even as we realize that they are not fully imperfect. The sensitive man, after all, is something of a reaction to the cold, emotionless "Lone Ranger" type of man popularized by actors like John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. The sensitive man represents a cultural attempt, then, to correct John Wayne masculinity. Where his father or grandfather never wept, never talked much, never said "I love you", the sensitive male weeps readily, chatters away, and reassures anyone within earshot of his love. In seeking an emotionally alive masculinity the sensitive man seems to have sped past "properly balanced emotional life" and landed in the once-foreign land of "traditionally feminine ways of speaking and feeling". The Christian man stands ready to lend him his roadmap.

However off-base this quest may be, at least the sensitive man seeks to go somewhere. The same can not be said for our goofball. Like other useful items strewn around his room in his parent's home, he could not find a sense of self-control, of shame, if offered a cash reward for it. Where men used to define themselves by taking responsibility, by making money, seeking a wife, fathering children, and so on, various factors changed all this. The rise of collegiate culture unimpeded by institutional Christianity, the booming of anonymous cities that allowed for familial escape, and the rise of the playboy bachelor in the post-World War Two era mixed with the rebellious 1960s to explode responsible masculinity. With that, the man-child was born, and so too a major missiological challenge.

The third group--the thugs--represents a reaction against each of these stereotypes. More accurately, perhaps, this third group is a subgroup of the first. This type of man prizes action, not talk, unlike both the sensitive man and the goofball. This is the kind of man who exalts deeds, not words, who would rather talk with his fists than his mouth. Though all three of these perversions of true manhood have existed throughout human history, this type has caused the most damage, at least physically. Your conquerors, your tyrants, your bullies from high school? They fit here. Driven by pride, motivated by glory and the opinions of others, this group, when unrestrained, possesses the power to cause great harm to others.

If many contemporary men fall into these three rather frightening categories, how are local churches to respond? First, by affirming the element of goodness found in each type. Men of the Bible are by no means silent or unemotional. The father of the prodigal son, for example, weeps openly and deservedly when his son returns home (see Luke 15:11-32). Christ Himself wept when He heard of Lazarus's death (John 11:35). Christ was compassionate, tender, gentle, and merciful throughout the course of His ministry. So we ought to be a balance of strength and gentleness, not either/or. On the other hand, it's a bit difficult to find the goodness in the goofball, frankly. With that said, we can appreciate the way in which this type lives honestly and often happily, enjoying the arts, sports, music, and more. Perhaps this cultural pattern of manhood shows us that men do not need to be grim and dour to be truly masculine. As with sensitivity, we need to work hard to strike a balance here, but we can surely recognize that the Bible affirms a balanced, happy life--see Ecclesiastes for more on that. The Christian man ought to be responsible, but he ought also to be happy.

The thug, for his part, shows us that men were not meant to be wimps. We were meant to be strong, to the best of our capability, and to use that strength for the betterment of others. The patriarchs worked the land, and they worked it hard, in order to provide for their families. Death was a constant threat--to worship in Israel in many ages was to worship with a sword on the belt. Christ Himself stormed through the temple, turning over tables, scourging the wicked. In His second coming, He will arrive as the Warrior-King. Therefore, as men, we should realize that to be a man is to harness one's natural strength, energy, and agency for the betterment of others, namely, one's family, church, and brothers and sisters.

We see, then, that there is a fourth model: the redeemed leader, whose type we derive from the Bible. In a sense, this fourth model is a composite of the earlier three types--or rather, the three types are all realized in Christ, the God-man, whose model is elaborated in the Bible. We must not let our children learn what it is to be a man--or a woman, of course!--from MTV, or Hollywood, or the NBA. No, we must embody robust, godly masculinity in our churches. This starts with a pastor who embodies biblical manhood and who then teaches men to do the same. A full commitment must be made to teaching men the rudiments of biblical masculinity--Proverbs, the Gospels, 2 Timothy come to mind here.

Churches must thus teach men not to be feminine in matters of communication and emotion, not to shirk responsibility and maturity, not to mistreat and abuse others, but to emulate the Savior. When churches train men in this way, fathers will trains their sons, leading to sea changes in Christian culture. The pastor is important, but he trains only one family directly. Every Christian church, however, has many fathers, and it is up to them in an earthly sense to determine whether they will raise men of Christ or men of culture. It is not too much to say that all of the above, all of the preceding discussion, rises or falls with the simple matter of what a father teaches his family, what models he holds up before them, and how he lives out that teaching.

Will our boys be wimps, goofballs, thugs--or will they be a fourth type: Christian leaders according to the dictates of Scripture? The answer depends not on what the culture says, not on what it parades before us on television, but on the conception of man that we teach, that we exalt, and that we embody before the eyes that are always watching, the hearts that are always taking shape and form.

taking shape and form.

August Rush: Another Movie Searches for Transcendence and Finds it in Music, and Family

The movie August Rush, which debuted in November 2007, presents an uneven but inspiring tale of one sweet boy's search for transcendence in a world of isolation and evil. The movie is not flawless, but its depiction of the power of music alone makes the film well worth watching.

The plot centers in two musicians (played ably by Keri Russell and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) who chance upon one another, sleep together, and then lose touch completely with one another, despite the fact that they developed an incredible bond with one another (yes, in one brief night of passion; cue eye-rolling now). Russell's character ends up pregnant and gives birth to a boy she never meets (you'll have to watch the film to see why). The boy, "Evan Taylor" (played by Freddie Highmore of Lost in Neverland), ends up in a miserable home for boys. Sweet-spirited and mystically in touch with music, which he hears in even the most ordinary of sounds, he escapes from the home, ends up in New York, and embarks upon an adventure in which he trains himself to play a number of instruments at a lyrical level. The plot, as noted above, is a bit uneven and seems half-heartedly devoted to aping the story of Oliver Twist. In addition, some of the characters are less than plausible (Robin Williams shows up for several scenes of extended, and unneeded, histrionics).

These factors, and the act of fornication that drives the movie, are regrettable, but the movie has significant strengths as well. This is a film that quite simply is in love with music. As one who loves music (a rather broad statement), I resonated with its appreciation of harmonic beauty. The film, though not Christian, does also pick up on elements of common grace (though it would not call them such). Though little Evan is mired in a painful station in life, he finds beauty all around him, and maintains a disposition of hope and good cheer. It's touching and challenging to watch. Most of us are far too swallowed up in our own selfish little existences to notice the beauty of the world, let alone to draw others into it through creation and celebration. The movie further succeeds in representing man realistically. He is not inherently satisfied with life as it is placed in front of him. No, he searches, and quests, and storms until he finds that which he deems transcendent. For Evan (or "August", as he is renamed), the search ends with music, and also with a reunited family. These same ends bring transcendence to Evan's parents; throughout their young lives, they wrestle with music as Jacob with the angel, and even when musically accomplished search for their other family members. There are two insights here: one, music elevates our earthly existence, and two, family does the same. Without these two goods, we are impoverished, living isolated, hopeless lives.

As Christians, we can resonate with these points. As I've very recently said (in writing on the movie Once, which carries some similar themes), music is imbued with transcendence. It is not cheap and small; it was given us by God to explore the moral and spiritual complexity of the universe. Though music is not God--and thus August Rush fatally overreaches in ascribing it such significance--yet we can say that music is a strange and magical thing. It is another language, a way of speaking about our lives and experiences and the truths and mysteries of this world that defies verbal communication. Music is not Transcendence, then, but it is a transcendent art form, capable of reaching across structures and thought patterns to grab hold of our soul and plunge us into pools of mysterious and beautiful reality. I love that August Rush believes this and seeks to communicate it. Though it strains in this endeavor, and misses the truth that music points us to--that God alone is Transcendence--yet it succeeds in capturing something of the essence of music. It is a beautiful film, and there are several scenes that moved me on a deeply emotional level and made me thankful that people take up cameras and attempt to capture aspects of human existence such as music.

The film, as noted, also shows a powerful belief in the family, and perhaps unintentionally, the nuclear family (dad, mom, child). This is a great insight as well. Though the family is also not ultimately transcendent, as August Rush might lead us to think, we may say that the family is perhaps God's greatest earthly gift to us. It is simply impossible to enumerate the ways in which we are blessed on a daily, even hourly, basis by our families, even if they are not families of considerable health. Just having a family is immensely meaningful. The support that one has in being part of a family is not often consciously thought of but is precious beyond quantification. The film knows this, and shows us what it means for people to live without the structures of family--and most clearly to live without parents as an abandoned boy. One can have talent, and beauty, and joy, but without a family, one is ultimately unhappy. We Christians would of course go beyond this to say that God alone is our greatest need, that it is our most urgent necessity to enter into not an earthly family but a spiritual family that transcends this earth. On an earthly level, though, it is clear that God has structured the family to be the central part of our earthly existence. He has done so, I would argue, to show us something of the taste of familial perfection as expressed in the Trinity, the union of Father, Son, and Spirit, of which our families are but a type and shadow.

August Rush seeks true transcendence and fails to find it. But we may commend it for its pursuit and enjoy for its depiction of two of the choicest gifts God has given humanity: music and family. This movie shows us for the hundredth time that the people around us are not living atomistic lives, at least not all of the time. No, they are looking for something; something greater, something higher, something unified, something beautiful. Though they may discover numerous gifts of common grace in their search, we know that until they find the Christ, the salvation-giver, this search will prove fruitless in the end. We must be around them, then, to tell them where transcendence, and joy, and true hope may be found. It is not in music, but the One who created music; not in the family, but in the One who created the family; it is not found in the gift, but only in the Giver.

The Supposed Evangelical Crackup, and New Areas of Focus and Ministry

A recent New York Times article explores the changing public face of the evangelical political and social movement. I don't agree with all of the article's points, and I'm not sure evangelicalism is quite as divided and defeated as the author claims, especially because there is yet a good deal of time for Christians to sift out which presidential candidate they like and will support. (Good grief, we're still a year away!) With the unnecessarily alarmist (and celebratory?) tone of the article pointed out, it does show how some evangelicals are turning to different social causes than those of previous generations. This shift in interest draws my attention because it reveals that Christians are devoting time to less traditional causes, and pouring effort and energy into climate change and the defeat of global poverty.

I have no personal ax to grind on either of these issues--they're complex, they take time to sort out, and I am quite happy for Christians who know more than me to do so and to inform me as to a suggested course of action. However, I do have an ax to grind when it comes to the shape of the family. A recent book by Voddie Baucham, Family Driven Faith, published in June 2007 by the Southern Baptist pastor and speaker, re-started a whole line of thinking in my mind about the absolute necessity of evangelizing and discipling our children. Now here is an area that every evangelical can recognize that they need to address. A staggering number of people who profess to believe evangelical Christianity do so because they were raised in a Christian home. The Christian home that holds out the gospel and that does not subcontract with a youth pastor, a Christian summer camp, and an FCA group to lead their children to the Lord is doing the right thing. Baucham, a reformed author, an excellent speaker, and a good writer, makes this case quite convincingly in his book, which I encourage everyone interested in this subject (or not interested) to buy. The Christian faith is meant to be driven by families, not by the parachurch, not by "experts," and not by strangers.

But I have an even stronger burden than this. I would re-suggest a model of evangelization that is itself focused on the family. I would encourage Christians to befriend young, inner-city boys and girls and evangelize and disciple them. I would encourage whole churches to target troubled areas and to "adopt" children who come from broken homes. There is little hope of reaching troubled youth (who teem in our nation's cities) without a strong, family-based model. I would in particular suggest that men should target boys and teach them how to be the cornerstone for a family. I was reminded of this need this morning as I spoke to an inner-city FCA group. As I walked through the halls of the school in search of the classroom where I would speak (I do this on a regular basis in the Louisville area--I speak and briefly rap in order to connect with students and share the gospel), I was surrounded by testosterone-filled boys, many of whom have no dad in their home, and many of whom will grow up to vacate the home just like dad did. I'm not sure we grasp the magnitude of this problem. If we do not teach boys to be responsible, godly dads and fathers, the cycle of suffering and death will only continue in the American inner-city. So long as many inner-city children have no evangelistic family structure, they will reject the gospel, and produce more children who will only do the same. If we want to evangelize these youths, then, and if we want to see their children saved, we must reach them through the Bible's primary evangelistic model, the family. This is a social emphasis that could use great attention from evangelicals.