The Shrinking Evangelical Family

Take a look at your family photos going back to your grandparents and great-grandparents, if you happen to have them. I have a nice one of my late father’s family when he was a little boy of three, circa 1939, taken on the family farm in North Dakota. A serious, hardscrabble Friesian family stares back at me: eight siblings; one father; no mother, as she had recently passed. Ten. I look at photos of my family of origin: Mom, dad, me, sister. Four. A photo of my own family: Me, my wife, son, daughter. Currently four. A photo of my sister and her husband. Two. Photos of friends: Many singles, many childless couples.

These photos tell the story, I think, of the transformation of the family over the past three generations. My grandparents’ generation took larger families for granted, while my parents’ generation, the Boomers, had ready access to the technology of chemical contraception, and then abortion. My own generation—X? I forget—delays or forswears marriage and children yet more.

The consequences are upon us. Economically, the great welfare states of Europe are set to collapse, as is Social Security in the U.S., as there are not enough younger people working to pay for them. Whole nations are set to disappear in coming generations, as birth rates in many European countries hover around 1.3 children per woman, about half of the stable replacement rate of 2.1. Demographer Nicholas Eberstadt claims that by 2040 “there could almost be one centenarian on hand to welcome each Japanese newborn.” The breakdown of the family tracks with increased social pathologies.

Continue reading at www.firstthings.com

« Previous Article

Posting Policy

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, vulgarity, profanity, all caps, or discourteous behavior. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain a courteous and useful public environment where we can engage in reasonable discourse. Read more.

wesley

the one thing that this article fails to mentioned is the way people viewed the future. Europe's decline is that they do not see any future worth bringing children into. the same thing has happened here in America for you can see a fall in the birthrate corresponds with rise of the belief we are living in the "last days". America is at replacement levels while Europe is not. today the most popular eschatological system is dispensational premillenialism. Christ will return when he is supposed to not when we want him to. Jesus told us the times and seasons are not for us to know, so why are we looking for signs that go through cycles and have taken place for 1950 years. it is possible that even if America is finished as a nation that a new nation that is built stronger on the principles that America was built on could arise from the ashes for future generations. from the ashes of the Roman Empire in eastern half arose the Byzantine Empire built on the gospel of Jesus Christ and His Church which lasted almost a 1000 years after Rome fell.
EVERMYRTLE

The One World Union plans to cut the population in half by 2020. How do you suppose they will do it. I think they have already made big start. Killing the unborn and planning to kill the elderly. Is the reason they have not started with the elderly, because there is still a little fight in us? Well, they plan to whip us into shape!!

The elderly by the Oamahealthscare bill, and believe with millions who are 65 and older it is really a scare health care atrocity.
aceituna

Evermyrtle's thoughts bring to my mind the building of the Tower of Babel in Genesis. The idea there was to bring everyone under one leader. God looked down on this and laughed at it. He came down and intervened, the result the loss of a single language. That divided them. A little later, time of Peleg, He caused a movement of the land to separate the continents. That was the end of that "One World Union". Today's One World Union is at work to do the same as Nimrod did then. Some way God will intervene. I am hoping that the intervention will be the Judgment Day, but wesley is right to remind us that we do not know the time – it is in God's hands.
- bighoss
  
  So, in your opinion–from whatever disordered source–God instituted continental drift "in the time of Peleg"?!
  
  Tell us, aceituna, from what source, other than something you have been smoking, does this zany theory of continental drift "in the time of Peleg" originate? And given that even in the early patriarchal era a human lifetime extended for less than a thousand years, could Peleg and his contemporaries look out across the valleys and plains and see the earth moving this way and that en route to its final continental configurations?
  
  Sheeesh!
  - Evermyrtle
    
    Bigboss, it is you r right to disbelieve in GOD, HE gives us this choice. but HE does tell us that every person will come face to face with HIM in many different scriptures in HIS WORD. What aceituna posted is true. GOD will intervene int today's plans to unionize the entire world under one governments. You can find it all in HIS WORD. It takes a little searching but it is there.
    
    One thing of great importance in who we chose to believe, to follow, can be found in Isaiah 45:23; Romans 14:11; Phil. 2:9-10. ; Matt. 25:31-46. These verses tell us what will happen at the end of every person's life. Where we en up depends on who we honor earth GOD or his arch enemy Satan. Your self righteous will die a natural death, you will be entirely in GOD'S hands.
  - aceituna
    
    It is in Genesis, in the discussions of the nations right after Tower account. It is not made a big thing of but it is there.
    - aceituna
      
      Thank you evermyrtle.
    - keyboardshark
      
      It is indeed right there in Genesis:
      
      "And unto Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg; for in his days was the earth divided; and his brother's name was Joktan."
      Genesis 10:25
      
      However, it may not have been referring to the continental separation, but rather the separation of the peoples after the Tower of Babel, where the languages were confused:
      
      "Four generations after Noah, Genesis 10:25 records the birth of Peleg (meaning division) “for in his days was the earth divided”. Some suggest the continents of the earth were divided at this time. However, this seems unlikely, as such a process would have had to occur within a very confined time period. The resultant geological violence would be overwhelmingly catastrophic—like another Noahic Flood all over again. Any continental separation thus likely occurred during the Flood. 1
      
      The traditional interpretation, which seems more reasonable, relates this verse to the division of people/nations at the Tower of Babel event in Genesis 11. (Just like the English “earth” can have a variety of meanings, the Hebrew erets can also mean nation(s)—thus erets Yisrael, the land (nation, people) of Israel.) According to the biblical chronology as deduced by Archbishop Ussher, the Flood occurred in 2349–2348 BC, and Peleg was born in 2247 BC about a hundred years later. Do ancient writers shed any light on when this happened? The answer is a resounding yes."
      TO READ THE REST: http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/cm/v22/n…
      
      ANOTHER SOURCE:
      "This week’s feedback is a friendly question from Helena K from Finland, about the meaning of the division of the earth in the days of Peleg (Genesis 10:25). The point-by-point response explains that the most likely meaning of the division of the earth was the separation of the peoples of the earth at Babel by God’s confusion of their languages.
      
      …To determine the context, we should always interpret Scripture with Scripture. Take the verse in question, ‘To Eber were born two sons: the name of the one was Peleg, for in his days the earth (erets) was divided’ (Genesis 10:25). There’s nothing else in Scripture to indicate that this referred to continental division. But only eight verses later (note that chapter and verse divisions were not inspired, but added much later, in 1205), the Bible states, ‘Now the whole earth (erets) had one language and one speech’ (Genesis 11:1), and as a result of their disobedience, ‘the LORD confused the language of all the earth (erets)’ (Genesis 11:9).
      
      This conclusively proves that the ‘earth’ (erets) that was divided was the same Earth that spoke only one language, i.e. ‘earth’ (erets) refers in this context to the people of the Earth, not Planet Earth. See also Babel, Towering change and Talking point." http://creation.com/in-pelegs-days-the-earth-was-…