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This Marriage Problem Is Leading To Population Collapse · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  All of Western civilization is hurtling towards self-destruction. We're going to have our own babble moment. We're kind of living in it right now. And it's because we've embraced. Hi, welcome to the Family Teams podcast. Our goal here is to help your family become a multi-generational team on mission by providing you with biblically rooted concepts, tools, and rhythms. Your hosts are Jeremy Pryor and Jefferson Bethke, and we can't wait to chat about all things family. All things family.
• 0:27
  Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast. I'm here with my lovely daughter, Sydney Grace Pryor, soon to be something else. How you doing, Syd? I'm good. How are you doing? How are you doing?
• 0:36
  kid, Sidney is engaged in Ready to Get Married very soon, and we are busily trying to prepare for a wedding. So, Sidney, I thought since you're getting ready to get married, our first clip in honor of what's about to happen is to review with you the purposes of marriage. And particularly in this conversation, I thought it was really interesting the way he framed
• 1:01
  having children. So this is a conversation between a Eastern Orthodox priest and a Catholic, I think a Catholic priest. They're having conversation about many things, but when they got to marriage, they began to talk about how do you have a conversation with couples about children? Because that's been reframed as a preference for,
• 1:24
  And one of the things I've been really concerned about is that both the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church have rejected that idea. They see having children as a natural, normal, critical part of what it means to be in a marriage. However, in most Protestant circles, it is considered a preference.
• 1:43
  And I think this is a massive mistake that has happened in Protestant theology. But I wanted to play for you this clip that describes, and it's just interesting to hear the way that the Eastern Orthodox think about this topic. And to me, it resonates so deeply as profoundly more biblical than most of what I hear in the Protestant world. So the one thing I love about YouTube is you get to,
• 2:07
  look and see behind the veil of other traditions and how they process things. And I found this to be really interesting. When I have couples, the first time I meet with couples, I go through them, I go with them over three fundamental purposes of marriage. I said, look, you wanna get married? Let me tell you what marriage is. And then you can tell me if you really wanna get married.
• 2:25
  I said, marriage is designed for the procreation of the human race. And education of children, yeah. Marriage is designed as a solution to our own passions. Right. 1 Corinthians 7. Marriage is also designed to create what the saints call a sacred friendship, a holy companionship in the journey of this life. I said, so look, you say you want to get married. And then I'll ask the man. I'll say, what would you want me to say to someone?
• 2:52
  If a couple came, I told them what the three purposes of marriage was. But the husband said, you know what? I do really like my wife. And she is going to be my friend, just not my chief friend. I got to stay with my buddies. I've been with these buddies since I was 14. I mean, we play basketball together. We get drinks on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday night. And I'm still going to take care of my wife, but I can't replace them. I said, would you think that that man's ready to get married? If he's not going to adopt his wife as his chief friend? The answer is no.
• 3:18
  I said, and what if he came next? And I said, another couple comes. And I said, look, you know, you have to be faithful to her sexually and no one else your whole life. And he says, well, you know, I had a lot of girlfriends. I want to be married to her, but can't I just, can't I keep the girlfriends on the side? I'd say, brother, if you have to keep the girlfriends on the side, you can't get married because that's not what marriage is. Those, if you ask a person those two questions, I've always got the answer. Of course, they're not ready for marriage.
• 3:45
  Well, then you take it to the third question. I want to get married, but I don't want to have children yet. Well, that's fascinating. So there's three purposes of marriage. The other two purposes, you clearly see if you can't do them, you shouldn't get married. In this case, you're telling me you don't want to. Okay, I'm going to put off for five years until I get a house or until I make some more money. I'm going to put off having children. Okay.
• 4:05
  Can this man put off being faithful to one woman for five years after he's married? Can he keep his buddies as his chief friends for five years after he gets married? I think not. Everybody knows that's nuts. Right, right. It's a package deal. It doesn't work. That's not how humanity works, right? This is God's definition of marriage. You either take it or you don't, but you're not free to make it up yourself. Right. That's...
• 4:26
  And what that leads me to, what breaks my heart when I see couples, okay, good, they're married. Maybe they've never been married before, so good, they're badly married to each other.
• 4:38
  But when I see that they've been married for 10 years, 15 years, no children. What that tells me, I look at them and I say, these people are contraceptive. They're using artificial contraception. And in my position, as a Catholic, the teaching is very clear against contraception. They said contraception, the church calls contraception an intrinsic moral evil.
• 5:05
  contraception is no good. Yes. Contraception is no good. Contraception, it devalues the purpose of marriage. It devalues your spouse. It, you know... Oh, there's a hundred evils of contraception. A hundred evils, brother. You are using... You are now abusing your spouse by using contraception. You're using your spouse just for your own...
• 5:25
  You're not giving yourself to your spouse. You're abusing your spouse and you're using it for your own pleasure. And also robbing yourself of the great wonder of children. It perverts marriage. This is what the church teaches. Contraception is evil. It is evil and it cannot be permitted. Not even in the context of marriage. I guess he's not a Catholic priest. He's a Catholic apologist. So, one of the most epic voices I've ever heard from in my life.
• 5:52
  Oh my gosh, man. If you have bass in your speakers right now, they're probably still reverberating from that guy's voice. But yeah, so Father Josiah, he was the one making the case. So they were basically, and we can talk about the evils of contraception. I don't hold a Catholic or Eastern Orthodox view of contraception. I think that Protestants have made way too light of contraception.
• 6:18
  I think it's an incredibly serious decision. And I think that there are many cases in which it's probably not right. Many cases, many more cases in which it's not wise. But I think that what I really want to center on is Father Josiah's
• 6:35
  kind of, you know, his argument that there are three purposes of marriage. And so one is to be fulfilled sexually. One is to be fulfilled relationally. And one is to have children. And that if you are not ready for all three, you're not ready for marriage. And that's a pretty interesting idea. It's a package. So, yeah, curious your reaction, your thoughts about the way he's framing that.
• 7:01
  I mean, I'm inclined to agree with most of that. I think that he was right about, you know, your spouse has to be your chief friend. They have to come before anyone else. It is very important to have children. And...
• 7:20
  It is good that God created, you know, the pleasures of sex and that he created the bounds within it is meant to be experienced. I think it's I think also marriage is for the symbolism. Like I was kind of surprised that he didn't say that it was meant to be a symbol for us.
• 7:41
  I know you talk about symbolism with family, too. Like, why is family so important? Because it is the biggest symbol that God uses to describe his relationship with us. And it's the same thing with marriage. As soon as, like, God the Father, family is very important to describe him. But then Jesus, marriage is very important to describe him. And his relationship with the church is very much like a relationship with a husband and wife. And so I think that's also...
• 8:07
  pretty much like equally as important. I think God takes his symbols very seriously. And as we can hear, when people mess them up, he gets very mad. So I think that's one of the reasons that it's so angering to him when marriage gets messed up or that's why the enemy is attacking it so much. I think that's, that's one of the biggest reasons is because it's a big symbol. And God doesn't like when they get messed up and Satan knows that. And so he goes after it. But yeah, yeah,
• 8:36
  Well, I just want to say about this symbol. Yeah, the world is totally dependent on those who have access to divine revelation to live out the symbols of God's character and God's story in front of a world that otherwise doesn't know anything about God. Right. So I think I think that that that bearing that responsibility is definitely that's such a good point, Sydney, that that is that is something that.
• 9:03
  That is a weight and a privilege that we see. And so much of the history of Israel, when you see the suffering and the advancement and the whole story of the Old Testament, what you're really seeing, and people are looking at this and they look at this story and they're like, why is this in the Bible? There were a hundred other people groups that God could have.
• 9:21
  But he chose Israel to stand upon a stage where he was going to reflect his character and because they were symbolically representing what God's character was like, his faithfulness to his covenant to them over and over again, his decision to judge when they are unfaithful to the covenant.
• 9:41
  And I think probably one of the most dramatic examples of God enforcing the need for symbolism that really rocked me, no pun intended, was when Moses was in the wilderness and he was calling forth water from the rock. And people have debated forever about why was it that God...
• 10:03
  doesn't allow Moses into the promised land when he strikes the rock instead of speaks to it. So this scene happened multiple times, but the final time it happened, God told Moses, I want you to go to that rock and speak to it and it'll bring forth water. And then Moses walks up to the rock and says in really a statement of exasperation, shall I bring water from this rock for you people? Grabs his stick and hits the rock and nothing happens.
• 10:29
  Then he hits the rock again and then a water comes out. And God is furious with Moses and says, because you've done this, because you have not treated me as holy before the people of God, I will not allow you into the promised land. A lot of people are like, what? I mean, come on. Moses was so exhausted by this time.
• 10:46
  I mean, 40 years he's spending like with these people who are constantly complaining. And so why in the world would God suddenly say that you're not allowed in the promised land because he slipped up, made this one tiny mistake. And the reason why the penalty was so incredibly severe, we don't discover until we read the new Testament and we get to John these John chapter seven, Jesus is at Sukkot at the, uh, the great water libation ceremony and the priests are pouring out water. And what happens in the final day of Sukkot is this water comes, you know, just rushing into the temple.
• 11:14
  And it's symbolizing this moment when Moses brought water from the rock because the whole festival of Sukkot is really reenacting each of the elements of the wilderness wandering. And all of a sudden, in the middle of this festival, Jesus at the temple starts to shout that he, I am the water. Anybody who's thirsty, come to me and drink.
• 11:40
  And all of a sudden, in all of salvation history, we suddenly realize...
• 11:45
  what the rock was. And so if you go back in time to that moment, Moses didn't know what he was doing. He was, he was being given an instruction. And what Paul says was happening in the wilderness was they were reenacting the cheap people of Israel were reenacting the gospel. And so when you go back in time and think about what was actually happening at that rock, if you understand that Moses for all time was going to represent for, for the people for thousands of years,
• 12:10
  that this rock represents the Messiah and the coming of water that's going to come flooding through because of the power of the Holy Spirit. That was his moment. That was his job to symbolize a spiritual truth forever. And then he strikes the rock. He literally takes his stick and slams it on the rock that is Christ.
• 12:32
  This is really destructive of the symbol. And therefore, in order to basically protect the symbol and recover the symbol, God has to demonstrate that this was a very, very serious act. That Moses' decision to violate the symbolic element of the story is now corrupting.
• 12:53
  people in the future. And we don't live to serve ourselves. We live to express, one of the purposes of our lives is to express the truths of God for future generations. And so to your point, Sydney, one of the things that I think oftentimes we overlook about marriage is this idea that we are...
• 13:13
  We are symbolically describing what God is like when a father loves his son or daughter. He's describing and he's not just for that son and daughter, but for everyone who's watching and for his grandchildren and great grandchildren for for future generations. They are getting an idea, an inkling of what a father is like and therefore what God as a father would be like.
• 13:33
  And each of us have these responsibilities as daughters, as sons, as mothers, but especially, and the most critical symbol, like you're saying, is the husband and wife. Like the husband and wife embodies the gospel in the most purest form because they make a covenant. They're not related. And then they get married. And through the act of a covenant, they're demonstrating the reality of unfailing covenantal love.
• 14:01
  to the entire world and for all their future generations. And so to take that incredible responsibility and to throw it aside in, in a haphazard way, the way it often is done, you know, today is so dangerous for the spiritual lives. Not only the husband and wife, but for everyone watching everyone who saw that, that covenant being made. So yeah, that's a good, good point.
• 14:28
  Like what you hear? Be sure to leave a rating and review for this podcast wherever you use streaming. Yeah, that is also one of the purposes of marriage.
• 14:37
  Yeah, but I think he had good things to say about all the rest of it, too. I don't think that I would call anyone that would have those responses, those negative responses to having their wife as their chief friend or being faithful to her. I don't think any of those people would be ready for marriage if they had that response to it. Because it is like...
• 15:00
  A very big part of it. All of those aspects that he was talking about. So, um, yeah, I think that's spot on. But yeah, the contraception too, I don't have the same view. Um, I don't think it's inherently evil. Um, I think it can be used as a tool for
• 15:18
  to better yourself, especially for the woman. I think that the biggest use I can see myself using it in the future is between pregnancies. I know that a lot of women just get overwhelmed when they get pregnant.
• 15:34
  over and over and over again, like with no breaks in between. So honestly, there I can see just so many cases where it's definitely maybe wise to use it, not required, not good maybe, but maybe wise.
• 15:49
  and useful to your sanity. So, but I also think that it is way overused. So that is that reality as well. So I don't know if you are planning on talking about that, but yeah, that is, that's a big topic for sure. I did a podcast about a month or a month and a half ago, just on contraception.
• 16:11
  Me and Phil Cottenoir went deep into sort of the Protestant theology of contraception and tried to, like, understand why this massive divide happened between Catholic theology and Protestant theology. And I think, you know, his articulation of Catholic theology, which was really, it's very stark. I mean, it's just like, you know, the way he's describing it, such evil. And one of the things that's really weird is...
• 16:34
  is how few Catholics follow that, you know, and I think that one of the observations that's often made in the Catholic Church, at least, I know that in Eastern Orthodox, I think it's different, but because Catholic priests are single, what's really difficult is that, you know, you have single Catholic priests holding the line on contraception when it doesn't actually, you know, impact them in the same way.
• 16:55
  And I wouldn't say that that's necessarily wrong. I mean, you can always hold the line on something. What's really tough about it is how few practicing Catholics also then hold the line. Like if single priests were holding the line theologically wrongly,
• 17:11
  and they were able to convince the majority of Catholics to also decide to forego contraception, then there would be a lot more strength to this argument. But I think that the argument needs to be made first and foremost theologically. And I think the thing he's saying, and I don't really see verses in the Bible that describe –
• 17:32
  that I think are, are like really clear about, Oh, it's evil in every single case. And there's certainly many, many medical cases in which it's, it's not only, you know, necessary, but are not, not only allowed, but necessary. But, um, all, but I think, I think the thing that, that, that, that, um, father Josiah is describing, um,
• 17:51
  I think it's really, to me, what's really difficult to overcome is that contraception fundamentally changed what marriage actually was. I mean, it was, as soon as you saw, imagine a world before contraception. A husband and wife, they would have to know that the minute they make this covenant,
• 18:14
  Children are likely coming. They don't know if they're going to come right away, but they have to be prepared for and not surprised if they come right away. We know how this works. Right. And so everyone to this package he described.
• 18:27
  absolutely always contained children and reliable contraception for the first time has created a situation which which that can be disentangled this package can be can be unbundled and this is a big part of what phil and i kind of worked through and that was um you know the unbundling of the full package of marriage um has essentially been i think the root cause of its of it devolving
• 18:53
  It went from something that included all of these elements, right? You had love, you had covenant, and you had children. And now it's now no longer including covenant. And people are talking about just getting married as an expression of love to each other. And I think that part of the disillusion of the idea of marriage,
• 19:19
  came because it was a, once we were able to totally disentangle it from, from children, then it became something fundamentally different. And it just became a matter of time before laws were rewritten and culture completely re re imagined what this union was all about. And so I'm curious how you think about that. Like, so contraception has, uh,
• 19:47
  has uses in medical cases, has usefulness potentially in cases in which there, it may be wise because what you really want to do is build the strongest, best family you can. And, and does that mean that we need to make sure that there's, we're just having as many kids as possible or is maybe giving particularly a wife, a break, something that is allowed and maybe wise. But yeah, I,
• 20:15
  I think part of what he's also saying, and I think probably the most common thing that I've encountered that I struggle with a lot. I don't, I don't personally agree with is the idea that you can get married and then have an indefinite amount of time where you are waiting for children. So you're, you're getting married immediately going on contraception and with, with a goal in mind to not get pregnant for months or years in order to experience a certain kind of life with your, um,
• 20:43
  your new spouse. How have you guys thought about that? Honestly, that is the only reason I think that I would wait for kids. I can't really think of another reason that would be enough for me to go on contraception for an indefinite amount of time to whatever.
• 21:03
  I don't really know why else people do it, but at least realistically, like in my mind, I can't justify it. The only thing I can think of that would justify it for me is that reason. Like, let me solidify my relationship with my husband first and make sure that, you know, we have...
• 21:21
  Because depending on who you are, maybe you got married fast and didn't really get to know each other that well or something. Like, who knows what the case may be. But that is kind of the only reason I imagined myself going on contraception before even having kids in the first place. However, I think it was interesting when me and my fiancé talked about it. I was like, what do you think of that idea? And he was like...
• 21:46
  I have trusted God with everything else in my life. I don't see why I shouldn't trust him with this as well. With him, you know, with us leaving it up to him when we get pregnant. And I was just like, okay. I mean, it wasn't like super attached to the idea in the first place, but I was like, that is a good reason to not do that. I think that's...
• 22:10
  I'm really obsessed with the idea of original design and how it's so fascinating to think about because we have made civilization. We've come so far that I think so many of the things that we just think of as second nature are actually against the original design and it's all a creation of humans that is just so normal now.
• 22:33
  And it was never meant to be part of the original design. So it's very fascinating to me to think about what the original design is. And honestly, in a lot of cases, how different that is from just the cultural norm. And I think a lot of that has to do with men and women. There is a very set original design between men and women. And so much of that has completely transformed now in the modern age to the point where if you even talk about it, so many of the statements are offensive and offensive.
• 23:00
  It's like it makes you gasp like to hear like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe you said that. Men should be the leaders and women should submit and things like that. Like, that's a crazy statement. So, yeah, that's it's very interesting to think about.
• 23:17
  what was originally supposed to happen. And thinking about contraception in that conversation is very interesting because you're right, like before contraception, it was just a given that this is how it works. You have kids pretty soon, if nothing's wrong, after you get married and that's just how it is. And that's what you should expect when you get married because there's no way to stop it. So like that's gonna happen. It was just a given that that was a product of marriage.
• 23:46
  Yeah, I think it's really good to say, are you, is this a really good design? And one of the things that occurred is when you have a, when you think about what is a woman, what is a man, these questions that are suddenly coming into the culture where people are, I think, genuinely confused. They don't know any longer what these things are. Where did that start? And I think that started with contraception.
• 24:11
  And I think the reason why that started with contraception is that before the adoption of widespread reliable contraception,
• 24:22
  Everyone knew that a man needed to be prepared to provide and protect for a woman. If he's going to get married, he's going to become a father in an unknown number of times. You don't know how long your wife's going to be pregnant and with how many children. And it requires a certain kind of person to be able to provide and protect for somebody in that state and who's going to be in that state for decades.
• 24:49
  And so that is what a man was, somebody who was trying to become the kind of person, the kind of man who could provide and protect for a family, for his wife and an unknown number of children. And so if you think about the kind of characteristics that you would want in a man who was going to reliably stay faithful to his wife and provide and protect for her through an unknown number of pregnancies and that she was going to be that vulnerable for that long, that's what defined masculinity. Okay.
• 25:17
  And I think that once reliable contraception came into existence and people started to question everything and marriage itself started to fall apart, then it became incredibly confusing about what is a man? Like if it's not a future father and a father isn't defined by somebody who is going to be able to provide and protect for a family like that, then we really don't know what a man is.
• 25:41
  And this is why people like Mary Harrington, who said this is also true of women, you know, she basically says that women who are on birth control are essentially cyborgs because they are they're basically a human being fused with a technology, a technology that's not designed to heal her from something. It's designed to take something away from her that was fundamentally a part of her original design.
• 26:05
  And she said, look, in every other, and she's not a Christian or anything, but she's like, in every other aspect of the world, when you're writing science fiction, if you were to do this, if you were to take a piece of technology and fuse it with another human being in a way that violates the way that they're designed, and that they would be fused with that for life, and it would become a part of who they are and reshape their identity. We have a, science fiction has a word for that. They're called a cyborg, right? It's, that's a, that's a.
• 26:31
  provocative way of saying, of course, but I think that we have vastly underestimated the impact of this technology and how it's reshaped all of our ideas. We are living a post-contraception age, and I think the future will never, ever look the same. Now, this brings up...
• 26:53
  you know, the fertility crisis that I love to talk to you about, Sydney. And my favorite writer on this topic is probably Louise Perry. And she wrote, somebody tweeted out a part of, I think, one of her books that I found so interesting. And I wanted to read this to you and just kind of get your take on what she's saying here. All right. So she says, the nature of geometric progressions means that a population drop can be very sudden if the fertility rate does not recover to replacement level.
• 27:20
  When fewer children are born, fewer future parents are available to raise the next generation and so on. In South Korea, the country with the world's lowest total fertility rate at 0.7, the number of babies born in 2100, that's about 75 years from now, is on track to be 93 to 98% lower than the number of babies born this year. 93 to 98% lower. No disease whatsoever.
• 27:44
  or invading army has ever managed to destroy a country so thoroughly. And the word that springs to my mind when contemplating such an event is biblical.
• 27:52
  The question that preoccupies me is this one. Is it possible that there is indeed a God and that he does not want us to be modern? So one of the things that Louise Perry, she's a Oxford kind of trained thinker and feminist. And she has been like really thinking deep and she's been kind of exploring Christianity for the first time in her life. And it's been fascinating to hear what she's been saying about it. But anyway, she goes on to say, nevertheless, I,
• 28:21
  It is hyper fertile groups like the Amish who will define the future of humanity. The world they create will look quite different from our own, but I suspect that it will look neither post apocalyptic nor techno utopian. Rather, it will probably look much like much the way human societies have always looked static.
• 28:41
  parochial, low-tech, clannish, religious, and dependent on sunlight and muscle. The great experiment of Britain's Industrial Revolution may not be remembered at all. If it is, it will likely be remembered as a failure displeasing to God. The Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city.
• 29:05
  Need a blueprint to revise your family to be a multi-generational team on mission? The book Family Revision by Jeremy Pryor is the book that summarizes all the big picture ideas you hear on this podcast. Available on Amazon or familyteams.com. So, yeah, Louise Perry is basically describing...
• 29:25
  The fact that all of Western civilization is hurtling towards self-destruction. And it's because we've embraced the technology that has destroyed fertility. I think multiple things that we've done has destroyed fertility. Contraception is one of those things that gave us power over fertility. And so what's going to happen in the future is...
• 29:46
  And any demographer can tell you this is that if you were to fast forward 100, 150 years from now, the earth will primarily be populated by religious groups that have decided to forego contraception. The future belongs to those groups.
• 30:03
  And it is ironic that when you look at the Tower of Babel that she's referring to, it was the technology of the brick that created this rebellion against God. That God then came and said, I'm going to have to take away this technology because as God says in Genesis 11, if this continues, nothing will be impossible for them. They're going to violate my design. And so I'm going to have to confuse them.
• 30:29
  And I'm going to have to hit the reset button because this technology is about to destroy the human race. And Luis Perry is saying, basically, we're going to have our own babble moment. We're kind of living in it right now. That would be so crazy. Yeah.
• 30:44
  I guess we haven't really considered the possibility of technological collapse or, you know, usually our visions of the future of just more and more technology just keeps on advancing. So that would be crazy if we just worked ourselves into self-destruction simply because we're not having babies. Right. That's crazy. But that is like the one thing. Like she said, no other civilization has been destroyed so well and so like...
• 31:10
  We've never seen the apocalypse that's coming without this going to create. This one thing will collapse humanity if it stays on this trajectory. That is so insane, except for these religious groups and people that have actually refused to go along with the contraception. And it's so wild how no one is realizing the significance of that. You know, in South Korea, we're like the worst...
• 31:36
  birth rate in the world and no one cares. Yes. Crazy. It's unbelievable, yeah, what's happening in South Korea. Well, and the thing that, so maybe a question that people might be asking is, oh my gosh, what do you do with this? And one of these that Louise Perry is saying is, it's really important to understand that the future is not post-apocalyptic or techno-utopian, but what we have seen in the past, which is basically, essentially, tribes who know how to work with their hands.
• 32:04
  Who know how to provide for their own needs. And so I would say to those of you guys listening, if you think about what you're trying to do, what you want for your grandchildren and great-grandchildren, you're going to need to, as if you're going to multiply, you're going to need to, number one, make sure that...
• 32:21
  You are following a faith that is causing each of your children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren to want to get married and have children and a lot of children. Like you want to prize children and fertility. You need to create a durable culture, a faith-based culture that...
• 32:43
  That is passing on the value of children and large families. And then as you are building these large families, you are increasingly working together to provide for your own needs, creating a micro economy within your own society.
• 32:59
  your own tribe, so to speak. And this, I think, should include believers. And we need to be doing this across other families as well. Like we need to be supporting one another, but you need to be building this for your own family as well. Because this is what the future is going to look like. One of the things that is the easiest way to predict the future is through demography. One of the things that if you ever want to like read the history of
• 33:23
  people that have made the most shocking predictions 50, 100 years in the future. It's always people that are studying demography, people that understand what birth rates are doing to the future. It's very difficult to predict what will happen in five years or 10 years, actually easier in some ways
• 33:40
  to project like macro movements in 50, 60, 70 years in the future, because we know, we know what the demographic of the, of the planet's going to look like. Like all, um, the, the basic way to say that is if you're, if you fast forward to, you know, 2075, we know exactly how many, um,
• 34:01
  50 year olds, right, are going to be alive on the earth. I mean, some will die, but we know that it won't be more than those who were born this year. And we know we can count how many are born this year. So that tells us something about 2075 that's incredibly valuable.
• 34:16
  And likewise, when people look into the future, even further than that, like, you know, 2,100, which is what she's doing in, in this essay, um, you look that far into the future and you see, oh my gosh, well, South Korea is, you know, Japan and, you know, half, half the Western nations will be almost totally depopulated, um, of whatever kind of native, um,
• 34:35
  people were in those places. There might be mass immigration. There's other things that could happen. But that itself, we're seeing this kind of population collapse happen even in the developing world now. So crazy times. But yeah, I love to to dive into just kind of taking a big step back and
• 34:54
  And just marveling at God's design. And one of the things I just want to really encourage Christians to do is to, and I think that when you described, you know, Sydney, what your fiance said, I think that that is the ultimate message is we have to decide to put trust in God and his word over human planning.
• 35:15
  Um, we have to understand that we don't know much about what we should value. We don't know much about the future. We don't, there's a lot of things we don't understand. And so one of the things that we need to declare in humility is we need to declare that we, we trust God and his ways.
• 35:31
  And so when you hear all these movements and all these changes and all these technologies and you look at these things, you're like, is this ultimately a good thing? Like, we need to trust in the Lord and trust in what his word says. And if what you're doing is increasing your trust, then...
• 35:48
  then I think that's a trajectory you need to really embrace. And that trust is not an abstract idea. That trust in a personal God is revealed in the pages of Scripture. And so that's why I think as culturally explosive and crazy as even having a conversation about the problems with contraception is, this should not be crazy at all. This is the time to have this conversation.
• 36:15
  And that's why, you know, on our channels, we want to constantly be stirring up this conversation. So anything else that you want to say that's stirring up for you?
• 36:25
  Yeah, I guess just I encourage everyone to wrestle with God about it because, you know, anything that leads you to God to interact with him more is good. Even if it's something you might initially, you know, think doesn't apply to you or disagree with. I think it's always good to talk to God about it. Always good to get his input on it and see what he has to say.
• 36:46
  Um, especially if it's something that is so culturally like, um, assumed almost, um, it's good to double check with God and be like, what do you say about this? So, um, yeah, I definitely encourage everyone to do that because I, I had to do that after my conversation with, um, my fiance, just reevaluate some things, wrestle with God and then be like, okay, it, it is always better to trust God.
• 37:14
  Um, when in doubt. Yes. So yeah. Amen. Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be shaken, but endures forever. One of my favorite verses. So yeah, we, we have, we have a God we can trust. Um, and I know that that's not popular, but it's, it's something we really want to encourage you guys to embrace. So Sidney, thank you so much for jumping on there here today with me.
• 37:36
  Yeah, thank you. Thank you for listening to the Family Teams podcast. If you're enjoying this content or have learned something new, please make sure to leave a rating and review and share with a friend. To stay up to date with our events, new content and products, you can follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Family Teams.