Point of View April 30, 2026 – Hour 1 : What Really Matters

[00:00:04] Across America Live, this is Point of View and now, Kerby Anderson. Thank you for joining me. This is the Thursday edition of Point of View. In the first hour, we're going to be talking about, as I announced yesterday, with Tim Gagline as we get into his new book, What Really Matters.

[00:00:29] So, we're going to be talking about faith, freedom, and family. Second hour, we're going to get into what the church can do to save faith and family in America. And then we'll get back to some of the issues in the news, not the least of which is a very good piece that I've posted for you to read on what is happening right now in Iran, especially in the economy, as well as a couple of other issues that we'll try to cover before we run out of time in these two hours. If we don't get to all of that, of course, Friday's our weekend edition.

[00:00:58] And I might just mention the Supreme Court has come down with a couple of very significant cases. But since we have Kelly Shackelford with First Liberty Institute with us tomorrow, as part of the roundtable, we will get into those. So, I'm mindful of some very significant court cases that have come down, but we'll wait till tomorrow to get into some of those. Tim Gagline should be no stranger to you. Pennedexter has done interviews with him in the past.

[00:01:24] I was even looking over some of the times in which I have quoted his columns in some of the commentaries I've done. He serves as the vice president for external and government relations at Focus on the Family there in Washington, D.C. As I mentioned yesterday, of course, he has served as the special assistant to President George W. Bush, where he was the deputy director of the White House Office of Public Liaison.

[00:01:48] As an individual, also has served as senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a professor of government at Liberty University. Dr. Tim Gagline, welcome back to Point of View. Thank you, Kirby. It is always a great joy to be a part of this program. Well, let's, if we can, maybe explain the book a little bit, What Really Matters. In some respects, it reminded me of an interview I did years ago with Bill Bennett. He wrote this book called What Works.

[00:02:15] And in some respects, he was explaining what works in terms of education. Your various columns, many of which I've read and some of which I've even quoted on my own commentaries, really, in a sense, tell us what works. If we want to have human flourishing, if we want marriages to flourish, if we want families to flourish,

[00:02:37] in some respects, these columns that you have in there are a reminder of what we have learned through not only biblical instruction, but even through the test of history of what works and what makes for a good and flourishing society. You know, it absolutely does. And I'll tell you, to take one step sideways, Kirby, two years ago, I wrote a book called Stumbling Toward Utopia. Yeah, I remember that.

[00:03:06] Which, yes, you may recall, was a deep dive investigation into what caused the moral and social revolution of the 1960s and 70s. And by God's grace, the book got a lot of attention. And I was rereading that book, you know, about two years ago. And I said to myself, you know, for all the good, by God's grace, that Stumbling Toward Utopia, you know, did,

[00:03:36] I felt that I did not adequately demonstrate the direct impact of the moral and social revolution on the most important institutions of the 21st century. And as one of the vice presidents that focused on the family, I travel all the time. And I was speaking at a very well-known university just a couple of years ago.

[00:04:02] And a young woman who at the time was a junior, after my speech, after the Q&A, there's always a few students who stay around to continue the conversation. And she said to me, you know, Mr. Gaglion, I think I agree, you know, with most of what you shared today. But she said to me, why does the political class never seem to discuss what really matters?

[00:04:25] And I thought to myself, that's the theme and that's the book, which is what really matters is family, marriage, parenting, human life, religious liberty, conscience rights, parental rights, pronouns with objective meaning. Why does the political class shy away from, and this is our 250th birthday year in America,

[00:04:48] why do they shy away from speaking about, defending, nourishing the institutions that matter most? So that is my motivation in writing the book. And what really matters, in my view, should be on the tip of the tongue of everybody who's listening. Because if we're going to have another 250 years, and I'm an inveterate optimist, I believe we will,

[00:05:13] we have got to restore, renew, regenerate the American family. It's an absolute must. Let me just mention, too, since you did mention stumbling towards utopia, also towards a more perfect union, American restoration. I understand you even have one coming out later on Pay It Forward. So we're in the midst of a series of books that you have done. But let's, if we can, one of the early parts of your book talks about cohabitation. And I'll hold up our booklet here.

[00:05:42] One of the things, Tim, we do is each month I produce a booklet, or one of our staff does. And we did this one on cohabitation a while back because we were finding not only are individuals who are not Christians living together, more and more Christians are living together. And they say, well, I know maybe the Bible speaks against it, but are there other reasons to be concerned about what that might mean?

[00:06:07] And you spend some time talking about the fact that early on cohabitation is a false hope, and it actually is increasing your likelihood of a future divorce. It absolutely is. And by the way, that's not anybody's opinion. That is a demonstrated fact by the best empirical evidence. One of my favorite presidents is John Adams, and he famously wrote, facts are stubborn things.

[00:06:34] And in what really matters, as you know, I have over 400 footnotes because I wanted readers to understand that even though as Christians, we have a very strong, defensible, beautiful tradition of marriage, family, parenting. But what I wanted to do and what really matters is I wanted to write a book for everybody.

[00:06:55] And as you know, Kirby, one of the most important and distinguished living conservative intellectuals is Thomas Sowell. And Tom is a very good friend in his mid-90s, still doing remarkable work out at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, a conservative of the front ranks. And Tom wrote something that I think, Kirby, beautifully summarizes what you just said.

[00:07:24] And I quote him at length in What Really Matters. Tom wrote that despite attempts to equate married couples with people who are living together as domestic partners, married couples are, in fact, better off than unmarried couples by almost any standard you can think of. And when I read this statement from Tom Sowell, and especially when he uses that phrase,

[00:07:50] in fact, I went back and I looked at every possible study or empirical set of data that I could find on the impact of each individual in that relationship, marriage, of course, being the foundation, but especially, too, on their children.

[00:08:12] And it is indisputably the case that people who are married and have children and raise their biological children together, by any objective measure, both husband and wife do better, the children do better. And it's a remarkable gift. Going to take a break. And when we come back, we are going to continue our conversation today talking about this book, What Really Matters? Restoring a Legacy of Faith, Freedom, and Family. We'll be back right after this.

[00:09:00] This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. Molly Engerhardt writes about the year America stopped replacing itself. We're told that sometime in the future, perhaps around 2040, something profound would happen. Deaths in the U.S. would outnumber births. Unfortunately, the date will be much closer than we expected. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the dismal demographic will arrive around 2030. I've been talking about the declining birth rate for decades.

[00:09:28] The future is merely coming closer than some expected. We've seen what a drop in fertility looks like in Europe, and we're now seeing the impact in our country. The reasons for a declining birth rate can be summarized with two factors. Women are having children later, if at all, and they're having fewer children. The first part is due to environmental factors and social choices. Our bodies are exposed to plastics, chemicals, and industrial compounds which affect both male and female infertility.

[00:09:54] Women are also given the cultural message that they need to pursue a career and only think about family later. They can do so because of contraception and abortion. Molly Engerhardt reminds us that if every abortion were counted back in as birth, the numbers shift in a meaningful way. The United States would move closer to replacement-level fertility, but still likely fall short of it. She therefore concludes that abortion is part of the conversation, but it is not the whole of it. A growing population signals energy and expansion.

[00:10:24] A declining population looks like decay and stagnation. We bring children into the world with the hope that their world will be even better than ours. Many Americans no longer believe that. This is where churches can provide hope. Pastors and Christian leaders need to speak about this dismal demographic. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view.

[00:10:49] Go deeper on topics like you just heard by visiting pointofview.net. That's pointofview.net. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back once again as we talk about the book, What Really Matters. Books just come out. You might be able to find it in your local bookstore. But as you might imagine, we have information about Dr. Tim Gagline as well as the book on our website at pointofview.net.

[00:11:19] First chapter, of course, deals with restoring marriage. But I thought we'd also focus on Chapter 2, Restoring the Family. And in particular, Tim, this is very appropriate because next hour we're going to be talking with an individual that talks about the value of the family dinner, the fact that if you want to revitalize a church, sometimes that happens around the dinner table. And you, of course, have a piece that you wrote about the family dinner making a comeback.

[00:11:47] Also, quote somebody that I quote with some frequency, Robert Putnam and bowling alone and the whole issue of loneliness. So, again, if we're concerned about the future of our country, maybe we need to figure out what we do in our own homes. Don't you think? Absolutely. And I'd like to pick up on both those points, if I may, because in the chapter on restoring the family,

[00:12:11] I share the rather sobering statistic that only 18 percent of American homes now consist of two parents with children. And, Kirby, that is the lowest percentage ever. And, in fact, we have the lowest ratio in recorded American history of marriage. We have the lowest fertility rates, you know, in American history.

[00:12:40] It's interesting to me that fewer than half of U.S. households now consist of married couples. And, by the way, this is a huge shift just from 50 years ago. In fact, if we were having this wonderful conversation, Kirby, just 50 years ago, nearly two-thirds of American homes were comprised of married men and women. Now, I'll tell you, that's sobering.

[00:13:09] But I'd like to share, and I'm an inveterate optimist, as I said earlier, I'd like to share a remarkable silver lining, which is that when the demographic of American men, 18 to 25 are asked, they say they want to return to religion and faith. They say they want to be married. They say they want to have children. And aspirationally, women in the same demographic say the same thing.

[00:13:38] The challenge is the following. Are those men marriageable? You know, we have millions of young men not in school, not seeking to be in school, not working, not seeking a job. So the idea of marriage-family parenting intimately tied to the idea of the American male and the restoration of the American male. It really all goes together. And that's the third chapter, which I want to get to in just a minute.

[00:14:06] But my commentary today is about dismal demographic. And Molly Englehart wrote about the year America stops replacing itself. And you've been following this for some time. If we want to restore the family, first of all, we need to create families. And if we've looked at the fertility rate, it's been dropping for some time. And abortion is one part of it, but also lifestyle choices and all sorts of other things, Tim, are other reasons why we've seen this declining fertility, isn't it?

[00:14:36] Yeah, absolutely right and well said. There is a very recent study which our listeners should know about. And this study found that about 40% of Gen Z and millennial men and about 52% of Gen Z and millennial women, they say that they in many ways perceive marriage as an outdated institution.

[00:15:00] And yet, despite that fact, according to a Barna survey, about 80% of Gen Z and about 75% of millennials say that they hope to get married in the future. So there's this chasm between what they have been, frankly, acculturated, you know, and if I don't mind saying it, spun into believing about an outdated institution.

[00:15:29] Despite those cultural headwinds, young people still aspirationally see marriage, family, and parenting as a really good thing. So our challenge in the 21st century, and the church has a huge role to play, much larger than government, our challenge, Kirby, is to close that chasm and to go tell a new generation that marriage, family, parenting, and babies is a wonderful way to live your life.

[00:15:59] Well, again, we did talk about the need to restore the American male, and that's your third chapter. And I think you point out some issues. That is, for a long time, they've been talking about women not having the opportunities, but more women graduate from high school than men, more women graduate from college than men, more women are in graduate school than men. So you talk about the campus male, for sure, but I think there's another key to that,

[00:16:26] and it gets back to the men's movement and all the things we've talked about before. If you want to have good sons, you have to have present and engaged fathers, right? Absolutely. And I'd like to share just one remarkable statistic that I think, Kirby, 100% sums up the great point you just made. I was born in the last year of the baby boom, 1964. I'm 62 years old.

[00:16:54] In that same year, Daniel Patrick Moynihan published a very famous study, and he found a mere 62 years ago that 25% of all black Americans were born out of wedlock. That number today is above 70%. 53% of Hispanic Americans are born out of wedlock,

[00:17:18] and about 33% of native-born white Americans are now born out of wedlock. The majority of babies born to American women, ages 30 years of age and under, are now born without a married father. So the fatherlessness crisis is what really matters. The fatherlessness crisis has had a huge impact on the rising generation of young American men. Wow.

[00:17:48] One other point, and maybe into technology for just a minute, because a number of the articles that you have written over the years and a number of the pieces in these first three chapters get us back to the fact that if you want to be engaged, you've got to get the parents off the phone. If you want kids to really begin to thrive, we need to get them off the phone. And it does seem to me that the tech challenge may be one of the most significant, and I know at Focus on the Family you were talking about that,

[00:18:18] but it seems to me to be that's something that pastors need to address as well, don't you think? I'm so pleased that you raised this, because I don't mind saying that the single most important book on this topic, and one from which I have learned over and over again, is Jonathan Haidt's book, H-A-I-D-T, called The Anxious Generation. You know, Jonathan is a social psychologist. He's the author of The Anxious Generation,

[00:18:48] and he has so powerfully documented the exact implication of this digital age that we are living in. And among many other very, very difficult impacts on our young people is the idea of the kind of digital dislocation, the loneliness crisis, the dating recession,

[00:19:12] that is such a voluminous part of the rising generation in America. And it seems to me that we have to do something more than absorb and learn from this. And this is why I wrote What Really Matters, because as you know, it's not just a book about here's where we're at. A big part of this book is what can we do about it? That's the power of What Really Matters. It's a tool in our toolbox to share with our fellow Americans that, in fact,

[00:19:41] hope is ahead and there is a way to address these massive problems. Let's take a break. I might just mention that we've had Jonathan Haidt on, actually, to talk about the coddling of the American mind. But, of course, we'd love to get him on, if that ever is possible, to talk about The Anxious Generation, which we quote quite often here on Point of View. But we do need to take a break. And when we come back, we're going to talk about the idea of an ordered society, as well as the importance of history.

[00:20:09] And just as a promotional piece, we have not even mailed it out yet. But this new booklet I've just created here on Why Empires Fall is certainly one attempt to help us understand how significant history is. And, of course, during this 250th anniversary, of course, we have the booklet molding up right now on a biblical view on the Declaration and a biblical view on America's founding. If we want to understand more about our society and even the importance of history,

[00:20:38] something which I've seen Tim write about so often, you certainly can find some of that material in what we make available to those of you that are donors. If you're interested in this book, and I would say it is quite readable. And as he pointed out, I think we end up with 460 different notes. So if you find yourself saying, well, I want to read that for myself, it's part of this book. Tim Gigline and Craig Osteen are the authors of the book.

[00:21:06] It is entitled What Really Matters? Restoring a Legacy of Faith, Freedom, and Family. Fits, of course, to the kinds of conversation we've had. We've talked about marriage. We've talked about family. We've talked about men. We want to talk a little bit about an ordered society, a little bit about history. And certainly we are privileged to have with him today. And if you'd like to know more, go to our website, pointofview.net. We'll be right back.

[00:21:33] Many years ago, they began saying that we live in the information age. Well, today there is so much information coming at us from every direction. The hardest thing is to discern which issues are really important and how can I make a positive impact without wasting my time trying to figure out accurate information. Let me give you a suggestion to help with that. Visit pointofview.net. Look at the tabs across the top.

[00:22:02] Find the one named Viewpoints. Kirby Anderson and others on our team are constantly watching for news to identify those issues that you really need to know about. They boil things down in a brief summary. And then you can decide if it's something on which you want to learn more and get involved. Again, when you go to pointofview.net, click on Viewpoints, you'll see exactly what I mean. You'll see the issues that we are covering right now.

[00:22:29] And when you like what you see, I honestly think you will, you can slide on over, enter your email, and get them automatically sent to your inbox each day. That's it. Take a minute now. Be informed. Pointofview.net. Click on Viewpoints. Point of View will continue after this.

[00:23:00] You are listening to Point of View. The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station. And now, here again, is Kirby Anderson. Back for a few more minutes with, again, Dr. Tim Gagline, who, again, is the co-author, actually the author with Craig Osteen, of the book What Really Matters? Restoring a Legacy of Faith, Freedom, and Family.

[00:23:28] In the section on the importance of an ordered society, you talk about Gen Z. And I thought I might just point out that for some time, we really felt the need to reach out to the younger generation. We used to have a millennial roundtable. Now we call it the Next Generation Roundtable. Just had one Tuesday. And also, I'm holding up our little booklet on a biblical point of view on NextGen with some of those surveys.

[00:23:50] But you do raise some very important questions because without a compass to guide them, Gen Z wanders in the wilderness, as well as things like what Gen Z believes. For Gen Z, one is the loneliest number. Gen Z is trapped in the virtual cage. It is a topic you have come back to time and time again because as we look at this youngest generation now coming of age,

[00:24:15] they are affected by some of the things we've already talked about, the fatherlessness of America, the divorce rate, cell phones, tech, all sorts of other issues. And there is really a need for individuals, whether it's at Focus on the Family or Point of View or at churches or Christian ministries, to really reach out effectively to Gen Z. You are absolutely right, Kirby. And so well said. Men account.

[00:24:43] And this is really dramatic. American men now account for three out of every four suicides or drug overdoses. And approximately 15% say they have no friends. And by the way, overwhelmingly, these numbers I've just shared are within Gen Z, Gen X, as you say, the millennials.

[00:25:07] I mean, it's a very large number in an otherwise complex continental nation, you know, of 340 million souls. I was speaking just two weeks ago at a very prestigious private New England liberal arts school. Everybody on this, you know, listening to us would know this college. And I was speaking to a very large group of young people.

[00:25:34] And I said, how many of you and I and I, you know, asked just generally, how many of you would say even today in all candor do not have at least one close friend? And my friend, a forest of hands went up, you know. And I know that the plural of anecdote, as I said earlier, is not data.

[00:25:54] But when you realize that 50% of conservatives and 40% of progressives share in common a deep anxiety about the state of American men, you know that even in our polarized country, people, at least on most days of the week, are sensing or shimmering the same kind of thing.

[00:26:19] I was smitten, however, with a Pew Research study, Kirby, that found that 70% of adults believe it is very important for a man to financially support his family if he's to be a good husband. And I looked at those numbers very closely and realized that progressive men and women and conservative men and women,

[00:26:44] again, for all the chasm and polarization in our beloved country, they still come to the conclusion that men have a particular role that the rising generation, I think, has to once again be the recipient of what George Orwell said. I mean, I love his observation that the first duty of an intelligent person is to restate the obvious.

[00:27:09] And I think we have arrived at that moment in 21st century America, Kirby, where we have to go restate the obvious. It's more important now than ever. Restate the obvious because common sense isn't so common anymore, and so we need some of that as well. Well, on your chapter on restoring faith, I could pick, of course, we've just been talking about loneliness, but there's a very good question you ask at one point. Does the church follow the culture or does the culture follow the church?

[00:27:38] And I know, Tim, we have quite a number of people listening who are in church leadership. They may be a deacon, an elder, a pastor. They may be a Sunday school teacher. They may be a small group leader. And it does seem to me, and you've seen everything from George Barna statistics to some of the things that you've done there at the Focus on the Family Research and all of that, to realize that we should actually be a thermostat, not a thermometer.

[00:28:08] And yet, in some respects, we're not actually determining the heat of the culture or the temperature of the culture. The culture is determining us. And it seems to me that we need to turn that around. It's so remarkable that you would mention this because just two months before the last presidential election, I was speaking in behalf of Focus on the Family to about 500 pastors. And the very first question after my remarks was something like the following.

[00:28:38] Mr. Gagline, I think this pastor said, he said, I think I speak for most of us when I say that we really do everything we can not to pay attention to the federal government. And I said, you know, the federal government, you may have a sense that you're uninterested, you know, in the federal government.

[00:29:00] But I said, you all need to be aware as pastors and church leaders that the federal government cares a lot and is paying a lot of attention to you. And I think that we have got to wake up the church and we have got to tell the church that you need to engage in the public square more than ever, that God created the church. He created government. He created family.

[00:29:28] And all of these great institutions are not to be confused with the other. But that does not mean in any manner that we need to build a high wall between the influence of the church and the ability to address the moral and social and, frankly, spiritual issues that most bedevil our country in its 250th year. Wow. Well said.

[00:29:53] Well, again, just to keep it moving, chapter six was an encouragement to me. And you've been an encouragement to us because I've really felt that Christians do need to address the issue of history. And it is always encouraging to have somebody that even knows who Howard Zinn is, as much of an influence as he's had, or the 1619 Project,

[00:30:15] or just the fact that we have a whole generation of young people that sometimes can't put the Civil War even in the right century, much less the right half century, don't even know what precipitated World War II. And if we can't figure out our history, we are destined to repeat it. And it does seem to me that one of the things I've always appreciated about your writing is that you are a student of history, and you've been calling us back to learn our history.

[00:30:44] Well, I'm very honored by that. And I'll tell you, in the 250th year of our nation, and as you know, Kirby, the cover of what really matters is Red, White, and Blue. Yep. And it's because of the year we're in and about this wonderful conversation we're having. I think if people forget everything we've said in this dialogue, and I pray they won't, but if they do,

[00:31:09] they need to be sobered by the fact that the average U.S. history score at the eighth grade level in America, this is overall in our beloved country, decreased by five points just between 2018 and 2022, and by nine points compared to 2014. And what I did, Kirby, is I disaggregated those numbers. And here's what I found.

[00:31:39] Only 13% of American eighth graders are deemed proficient in the most basic American history. And I thought to myself, you know, we need to absorb this because our founding fathers and mothers knew that if you want to preserve liberty and freedom over time, you have got to nourish and create moral excellence, virtue in the people and in the leaders and in the citizens.

[00:32:08] You know, democracy is not a spectator sport. And the beautiful thing is that our friends at Hillsdale College have created what I consider to be the best single resource on the teaching of American history. It's called the 1776 Project, spearheaded by Hillsdale, and it is a remarkable K-12 program. It's a curriculum that can be used in homeschools, charter schools, school choice, government schools,

[00:32:37] of course, Christian schools. It is a remarkable note to these really grim statistics. And again, we've had Matthew Spaulding on even yesterday when we were talking about the making of the American mind. Of course, he is at Hillsdale. But first of all, let me, just before I let you go, mention that we have a link to Focus on the Family. And that link is there. So if you are not already on their mailing list, you should be. Number two, if you scroll down, you will see the book. And I suspect you might be able to find it in your local bookstore.

[00:33:07] But if not, we've made it very easy for you to get that. What really matters, restoring a legacy of faith, freedom, and family. I'll hold it up so you can see that it does have the Star Spangled Banner look to it. And, Tim, it has always been appreciative of us around the table of the kind of writing that you do. And we appreciate the fact that you gave us some time today to talk about your new book. An absolute joy, an absolute honor to be a part of this great program, Kirby.

[00:33:36] And you have my everlasting thanks and blessings. We're going to take a break, and we'll come back and get into some very important issues in the news. I hope that you will stay tuned. We have a lot more to cover. All that coming up right after this. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:34:04] Back once again, I hope you appreciated the conversation with Timothy Gagline. Again, he had to head on, but I'm glad that we were able to get 45 minutes with him as his book, What Really Matters Helps Us Understand Faith, Family, and Freedom, something we talk about so often here on Point of View. And he has divided it into six chapters, as I pointed out before, just an enormous number of end notes. So if you find yourself saying, well, I'd like to see the original study there. I'd like to get some of those facts and figures, statistics.

[00:34:33] This would be a great resource for you, and that's why we're thrilled that he could be with us today. And I did mention some of the booklets, because if we're really talking about the fact that we're in America 250, and we are, then, of course, I held up the booklet here. This was the one that came out just in April, and that is a biblical point of view on the Declaration. And if you are not an individual that is part of our truth team, you might want to get a copy of that.

[00:35:01] Of course, then the one that has come out more recently, which is the one of biblical point of view on America's founding, and those two sort of come together. But in some respects, even though this is a change of pace, the one that's coming out in June, I'm holding it up. We just received it. We haven't even mailed it yet, so you'll just be looking for it in your mailbox, is biblical view of why empires fall. And we talk about some of the different empires that have fallen,

[00:35:28] and then, of course, focus on do we see some similarities here in the United States. And I would have to say that we do see some similarity, if for no other reason than we have not done a good job of educating the next generation. We are dedicated to providing that in a number of different contexts. Of course, we have the Know Why podcast. We have the Next Generation Roundtable.

[00:35:53] We, of course, have very soon releasing of an app that can be on your phone, so you can learn there. Of course, we have the Outlook magazine. I'm holding up the ones that already arrived in your inbox and in your mailbox, if you have already been a donor with the one on the war on Iran. And, by the way, we are going to be talking about some of that next hour. And also, we'll be talking about tomorrow this whole issue of Supreme Court decisions on a variety of different issues,

[00:36:22] one having to do with the issue of racial gerrymandering, which was a 6-3 decision, but another one on a particular attempt to force pregnancy resource centers to reveal their donors. That one was won by Alliance Defending Freedom, and I think one of the amicus briefs came even from First Liberty Institute. They won that one 9-0.

[00:36:45] So we are certainly seeing tremendous success in a lot of Supreme Court decisions coming our direction, and we'll get into more of that tomorrow with Kelly Shackelford, and I think it'll be a great roundtable discussion. But let me just real quickly, since I did mention my commentary today, get into that just a little bit, and that is it has the title, A Dismal Demographic, and it has to do with the fact that there was a very good article came out by Molly Englehart

[00:37:14] about the year America stops replacing itself. And we've been told for some time that sometime in the distant future, we're going to have a situation in which the deaths in the United States outnumber the births. And we have been heading in that direction for quite some time because we've seen a decline in fertility. And the argument was, well, maybe it would hit at 2040. Well, that's like, you know, distant.

[00:37:44] Now they're saying maybe closer to 2030. And if you've looked on your calendar, we're already at 2026. So that's less than four years away. So, of course, we've been talking for some time about the declining birth rate in America. And some of that is simply just a reality that the future is going to hit a lot faster than we expected. And we can get a pretty good idea of what that looks like when we go to Europe

[00:38:14] and see how the fertility and declining fertility rates in Europe. Also, I might even mention some places in Asia, like South Korea and others, and Japan, how that's affected it. And there are a couple of factors for why that's taking place. Number one, women are having children later, if they're having children at all. And they're also having fewer children. And so, as a result, the first part has to do with some environmental factors.

[00:38:42] Sometimes there's a rise in infertility for a variety of concerns, plastics, chemicals, industrial compounds, and all that. But a lot more of that is just the social-cultural message that says, well, you might want to postpone having children and maybe not have children at all because, after all, they might be a burden. And we need to come back to a biblical point of view that sees children as arrows in our quiver, that children are a gift of God, children are a blessing.

[00:39:11] And yet, nevertheless, we have had this cultural message that if you're a woman, you need to postpone marriage. If you're married, you need to postpone having children, being a mother. And, of course, that is aided by contraception and abortion. What's so interesting is Molly Englehart points out the fact that even if abortion were counted back as births,

[00:39:33] which they're not, but, okay, let's say they were, it would change the numbers significantly but not completely. And that is we would still not necessarily be at what we would call replacement-level fertility. What she concludes is abortion is part of the conversation. Matter of fact, a significant part of the conversation. But it's not the whole of it.

[00:39:58] And, again, we can recognize that a growing population signals energy and expansion. A declining population looks like decay and stagnation. So we, of course, bring children into the world with the hope that their lives will be better than even ours are. And yet there are more and more adults that are starting to wonder if that's really been the case.

[00:40:25] And part of that is when we look at some of the economic issues. And that brings us back to my commentary even yesterday where we talked about this issue of government and inflation. Because the dollar has been devalued, you do have a number of young people, Generation Y, Millennials, Generation Z, which we talked about today with Tim Gagling, that are saying, I'm not sure as well, I'm going to do as well as my parents did.

[00:40:52] And it seems to me that there are some very important structural changes that can and need to be changed if, indeed, that is going to be significant. But I think it also illustrates, again, that in the church we really do need to put out the cultural message and the biblical message that children are a gift from the Lord. And that we should encourage families to actually have children.

[00:41:20] And I recognize that sometimes there's a hesitancy on the part of pastors to talk about encouraging families and encouraging people to have children when they recognize that some couples may have a problem with infertility. But they, I think, would also say we would want to have those children even if all we could do is be an aunt or an uncle to that child or we could adopt a child.

[00:41:44] And so it does seem to me that if we're going to deal with some of the issues in society, it comes back to the church and it comes back to the family. And that's why we're going to spend some time in the next hour for a while talking with J.P. DeGantz about what he has been doing in order to see what the church can do to begin to be more effective. But a lot of it goes back to what happens around the family dinner table.

[00:42:13] So I think you're going to appreciate his commentary. And then we'll get into this because one of the articles I've posted is how the war really has destroyed the Iranian economy and why that is, I think, a higher target, if nothing else, for especially many of the Christians in Iran.

[00:42:32] But also for a need for some kind of resolution in that conflict because though we want to remove the regime, we don't want to destroy the Iranian people. And certainly that is something we will talk about. And a couple of other very important pieces that I've posted for you to read today. And, of course, don't forget that tomorrow we're going to spend some time looking at a lot of religious liberty issues, a number of Supreme Court precedents that are all coming our direction.

[00:43:02] Exciting time to live. And we will come back and talk more about that and about what we can do in our own families and churches right after these important messages. It was not that long ago that censorship appeared to be almost inevitable. Free speech was being attacked and strangled in many places. And some of us wondered if this was the end.

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