More Babies

We recognize that God has a certain created order, the One who has made, as Paul said, "the world and everything in it." We are the "in it" part and God has put us in a special place to steward His creation, to exemplify His glory, and to, as Genesis 1 says, populate it. We can read these words:
26 Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

In God's grand and glorious design, we have a purpose.  And, for those who marry and produce offspring, that is part of that design - the perpetuation of God's plan.  

But, there is a concerning trend that we are seeing today - quite frankly, the human race is not producing children at a rate that will enable us to replace the current population.  As John Stonestreet and Shane Morris put it in a recent Breakpoint commentary: "According to new numbers from the Centers for Disease Control, America’s total fertility is at an all-time low, despite short-lived hopes of a post-pandemic bounce back. At just 1.62 births on average per woman, this means that more people are now dying each year than are being born."

They write: "Once upon a time, married couples having children was the norm, an expected stage in life most people shared. Now, it is often treated as an exception—an individualistic consumer choice undertaken only by those with independent means and lots of free time."

But, they point out: "Yet one group of Americans has resisted this trend toward sub-replacement fertility and keeps stubbornly having kids. Writing at The Institute for Family Studies, sociologist Lyman Stone explains that total fertility among Americans who attend religious services weekly has never dropped below replacement for long, and actually increased in recent years."  They add:

It turns out that active participation in church or another faith community is strongly correlated with the decision to have more children than secular neighbors have. And when people drift away from weekly worship, they also become less likely to trouble themselves with tots.

At the Regent University website, Lynne Marie Kohm states: "...incentives are altered without the influence of a Christian worldview. Dual-income couples with no kids — or DINKs — are interested in financial stability, flexibility, and building wealth, rather than building a family. Millennials also present a paradox. While they are not in a rush to marry, most unmarried Millennials say they would like to marry. Among unmarried individuals, one child, generally, is the norm for those who choose to parent — again bringing down the TFR."  That stands for Total Fertility Rate.

She poses these questions: "What should the Christian response be to population demise? Christians in the United States have more children on average than religiously unaffiliated people, as research reveals that Christian women have a TFR of 1.9 versus 1.6 for women that do not claim faith in Christ. But what does this really mean for someone with a Christian worldview? Is there still a mandate to Christians to be fruitful and replenish the earth?"

She notes:

So, should a Christian family have more children because the TFR in American is too low? The quick answer is “No.” A Christian family should not have more children simply for the sake of raising America’s TFR or just to have more children. Instead, Christians should have more children if they can do so responsibly to honor God and raise those children to love and serve Him for generations to come.

Kohm adds: "Fertility rates can rise to healthy levels by transferring faith values intentionally to the next generation. A few more Christian families having two children, rather than one — or three children, rather than two — and raising them with a solid Christian worldview, can make a tremendous difference. That difference could happen through adoption, as well — becoming a family for a child who needs one."

We are seeing a trend toward something called "pronatalism."  Even Vice President Vance, at the recent March for Life, said that we need more babies. I would submit that a devotion to what has been called a "culture of life" is a solution, which has its roots in Scripture.  When we are aborting millions of babies around the world, that cannot have a positive impact on our overall population. 

I saw a piece at The Washington Post recently that profiled Malcolm and Simone Collins, who have four kids and want more - many more.  The article said: 

The Collinses have fashioned themselves into enthusiastic — and controversial — avatars for a new pronatalist movement.

Their brand of pronatalism embraces technologies such as in vitro fertilization (IVF) and even genetic selection. (They’ve used both for all of their children.) They don’t glorify “traditional” gender roles, nor do they think immigration, pro-family policies or cash will reverse a dwindling population.

Their hypothesis: that encouraging people to have more children will require nothing less than a massive cultural shift. And they are determined to help lead it.

At the time of the article, they had 32 frozen embryos waiting to be implanted.  That leads to another moral question that even our lawmakers in Montgomery should be grasping, in light of the Alabama Supreme Court ruling that embryos produced in IVF are living beings: what happens to embryos that are not used?  Destroying these embryos is destroying life - that is a huge problem.  There have been no laws passed in Alabama that determine what happens to discarded embryos.  

And, another question has arisen just within the last few days.  A conservative influencer claims to have borne the now-13th child of Elon Musk.  Ashley St. Clair, who is apparently popular in Christian circles, went public with this announcement after apparent harassment from a reporter who was looking into the situation. Some in the Christian and conservative community cheered her new baby, but others decried the circumstances of the pregnancy.  And, I agree, we should always be pro-life, but we should also exhibit concern about out-of-wedlock births - the fatherless crisis was also rightly a topic of discussion.  Unfortunately, in entertainment culture especially, we see a cavalier attitude toward unmarried couples producing children.  St. Clair has made pronatalist comments in the past; Musk has produced 13 children, most of them outside the bounds of marriage.  Could this have been, as some of the language suggests, some sort of intentional "arrangement?"  God loves life, as we should, but we also need to talk about moral responsibility.  

As Christian and conservative influencer Allie Beth Stuckey noted on X:

For example, I caught a lot of heat when I did not congratulate a conservative gay couple who announced their two babies via surrogacy. I would make the same choice today for the same reasons. Yes, babies are ALWAYS a blessing, no matter what. But I am genuinely heartbroken by the purposeful creation of motherless or fatherless children and it feels weird publicly applauding that. 

And, when I think about the current drama on X, that’s a big part of why the congratulations feel weird, especially in light of the sad tone of her announcement. This was, as far as I understand, the purposeful creation of a fatherless child. I have a lot of compassion for the mom and baby, but I am very saddened for the child in the middle of this conflict. I understand those who say it’s always right to congratulate the birth of a baby, and I don’t doubt their sincerity in that position. It just didn’t feel like the right response to yesterday’s announcement.

But, we recognize that children are gifts from God.  As Lynne Marie Kohm writes:

Christian couples understand that, when their love for each other is manifested in a child, it is a miracle from God. The blessing of children can never be overstated, and yes, it does fulfill the Genesis 1:28 mandate, as God leads for each particular family. This is amazing love. “And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Colossians 3:17)."

Stonestreet and Morris state: "It also means the faithful themselves are better positioned to inherit that future in many parts of the world. Children must, of course, grow up to retain and own their parents’ faith. They must be 'born again.' But it’s fair to say being born in the first place is an important prerequisite—one that, for the most part, only believers are still achieving."