A new study suggests that today’s white women seem less interested in having children than previous generations. According to the figures analyzed by the University of New Hampshire in a new demographic study, white women increasingly are delaying having children and having smaller families, while growing numbers of Hispanic women are having large families at conventional childbearing ages. As these trends continue, America will likely have a white minority by 2050.

“Census projections suggest America may become a minority-majority country by the middle of the century,” said Kenneth Johnson, a sociology professor at New Hampshire. According to the report, whites currently make up two-thirds of the total U.S. population, but the number of white women of prime childbearing age—20-39 years old—is in decline, dropping 19 percent from 1990.

“It looks like ‘majority’ births would drop below 50 percent around 2012,” said Carl Haub, senior demographer for the Population Reference Bureau.

The researchers also discovered that fertility rates were higher among Hispanics, averaging three children per woman, compared to non-Hispanic white women, who average of just under two children each (1.87).

The research should serve as a “wake-up” for denominations, churches, and Christian ministries serving predominantly white communities. If those institutions do not begin to reach Latinos and Hispanics successfully they are headed for significant decline or extinction. On Sunday mornings or Wednesday nights or at your campus ministry, if you look out at the audience and it’s predominantly white your are looking at an end of era if these demographic trends hold.

The study also indicates that birth rates among black women have declined as well. Black women are now averaging 2.13 children per woman. The sad truth is that black birth rates have been assaulted by an abortion genocide that the black church has been unaware of until recent years.

The interesting question is why do white women seem less and less interested in having children in America? Based on my anecdotal observations from my travels to Christian colleges and involvement with youth ministries, there does not seem to be any difference in how young Christian women think about children and family than non-Christians of the same age and class. Has the backlash against women’s subjugation in the past created a new problem for the future?

Delaying having children and having small families for Christians seems to come into conflict with how many Christians have historically reflected on God’s design for marriage as a sex-based institution between a man and woman for the purpose of uniting the couple as “one flesh” and procreation (”be fruitful and multiply”). This may seem like a stretch but the birth rate decline among white women has a simple marital solution if people are willing to make different lifestyle choices.

The way of Jesus is the way of tears. While many Christians in Western Europe and North America tend to present a Christianity that rescues and protects us from pain and suffering, Christians in the rest of the world are fully aware that just as Christ learned obedience through tears and suffering, so will the rest of us. Suffering is the rule in the Christian life not the exception (Hebrews 5:8).

Middle-class Western evangelicals, seduced by the idols of comfort and ease, often sacrifice being “salt and light” on the altar of easy living. The church has a responsibility to teach its children how to endure suffering instead of investing in suffering-avoidance techniques. When suffering comes, we act surprised as if tear-producing pain were absent in the lives of biblical characters like Adam, Abraham, Moses, Joshua, David, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, Jesus, Paul, Peter, John, and so on.

Could a life devoid of tears be a sign of spiritual immaturity or of being lukewarm (Revelation 3:15-16)? If Jesus learned obedience through suffering then so should all of us, including our children. As John Chryssavgis writes in his essay “The Spiritual Way”:

“[T]ears are at once a foretaste of death and of resurrection. They are not, as unfortunately they are often perceived, a negative aspect of the spiritual life, a way of merely regretting past sins or ongoing weaknesses. As symbols of imperfection, tears are in fact the sole way of spiritual progress.”

Tears signify fragility and woundedness, Chryssavgis suggests, the broken window through which God enters the heart, bringing healing and wholeness to both body and soul. Human shortcomings and human failures should be embraced because they point us to the Triune God. Pain, suffering, and tears present the ultimate opportunity for receiving and appreciating the grace, mercy, and strength of God as are made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).

I’m not saying that we should live recklessly, unwisely, and sinfully in order to create suffering. I only stress the reality that suffering is a normal way of life in the Kingdom.

Theologian Louis Berkhof reminds us that Christ not only suffered on the cross but he also suffered during “his entire life.” Perhaps one of the reasons young people walk way from the church is that when they begin to experience the reality of suffering, the Christianity of personal peace and affluence—as Francis Schaeffer once lamented—sterilized and coddled them from the truth that life is hard, and without the Triune God you will not make it. If Christianity has not been presented as the answer to suffering then what good is it?

The black church in America may be lukewarm, but it is not “dead” as suggested in an article by Eddie S. Glaude Jr., the William S. Tod Professor of Religion and chair of the Center for African American Studies at Princeton University. While Glaude offers fantastic observations about the how the black church has lost her way, such analysis is troubling because it reduces what it means to be “alive” to socio-political and “prophetic” activities instead of focusing on moral formation.

Glaude rightly points out that the black church is in trouble, because for one thing, it is not homogenous. Historically the black church has followed the theological trajectories of other major denominations and theological movements in broader Christianity. The idea that the black church began in a single theological tradition, for example, Reformed, and then became “liberal” is something that no black religious scholar would find evidence for. Secondly, black communities are socio-economically diverse, which broadens the need for differentiated applications of Biblical truths. And thirdly, much of the black church’s historic prophetic voice to cultural immorality has been neutralized and often viewed only through the lens of history. Additionally, Glaude points out that the explosion of the prosperity megachurches has distracted and derailed many black Christians.

Again, Glaude raises vital matters but sadly dismisses black churches that are protesting genocidal abortion and supporting Judeo-Christian designs for marriage outlined in the biblical story. He wonders why those same protestors are not also speaking out on poverty or supporting a public option in our healthcare reform circus. Glaude does not emphasize enough that the claims of Christ and his Kingdom demand that Christians mediate between moral and social issues. The black church is dead if there is not a call for black people to follow Jesus with all their heart, minds, souls, and strength. The black church would be doing a huge disservice to black people if she were not vigilant about the morals of human sexuality, the black genocide via abortion, building stable families, and the like, in addition to sociopolitical issues.

The black church, like all churches, must speak to society with a Truth-oriented “both/and.” The moral questions are more easily discerned because of what is clear in the biblical text. The social questions, however, call for prudential judgment and may not be so easily defined and should never be reduced to a political party’s narrow agenda. For example, maybe some black churches do not support a public option because they recognize that it likely will enslave black’s healthcare choices, making them susceptible to another “Tuskegee experiment.” Maybe some black pastors want blacks to have full and absolute authority over their own healthcare decisions, freeing them from dependence on government telling them what health services and procedures they can and cannot have. Maybe some black pastors are aware that a public “option” is a misnomer because having surrogate decision-makers for the physical bodies of black people will actually limit people’s options. Again, these are prudential judgments and cannot be used as a litmus test for what an “alive” black church entails.

In the end, what is needed is for the black church to focus on her dual liberation emphasis: Liberating people from the power of the devil (Acts 10:38) and liberating people from the social structures that destroy human dignity (Proverbs 14:31) are both component parts of being “salt and light” (Matthew 5:13-16) so that God’s will for how the world should be can be realized on earth as it is in heaven.

Do evangelical Christians do justice to the Holy Trinity, especially the Holy Spirit, with our “Jesus only” emphasis in worship? Non-evangelicals often criticize the “Jesus only” spirituality on Sundays, as many churches seem to offer little or no adoration to the work of all three persons of the Trinity from Genesis to Revelation. The story of redemption is the story of the work of all three persons of the Trinity. Salvation comes to individuals and the world through the work of the Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

For example, rarely do “Jesus only” Christians pray directly to the Holy Spirit. Rarely do we sing hymns and spiritual songs to the Holy Spirit. Rarely do we rightly assign the enabling work of the Christian life to the actual, real work of the Holy Spirit. Outside of charismatic and Pentecostal circles, there are many who are so “Jesus-centered” that the Holy Spirit may not even be specifically recognized on Sunday in any form. In some circles, it even seems that “grace” is the third person of the Trinity instead of the Holy Spirit.

Many evangelicals seem to forget in their liturgy (if they have one) that it is the Holy Spirit who unites us to Christ (1 Corinthians 12:13; Romans 8-9), regenerates us (John 3:5-8), converts us by bringing us to repentance (Acts 11:15, 18) and granting us faith (1 Corinthians 12:3), assures us of our adoption (Romans 8:16; Galatians 4:6), works to justify us (1 Corinthians 6:11), sanctifies us (2 Thessalonians 2:13; 1 Peter 1:2), and perseveres us to glory (Ephesians 1:13-14; 4:30).

Irenaus strongly emphasized the joint actions of all three persons of the Trinity. “The Father plans and gives commands, the Son performs and creates, while the Spirit nourishes and increases,” writes Boris Bobrinsky, professor of Dogmatic Theology at the St. Sergius Institute of Orthodox Theology in Paris, in his essay “God in Trinity.” Our liturgical and sacramental life and theology should lead us into understanding the work of the Holy Trinity. Bobrinsky brings a good reminder to evangelicals that Christian worship expresses “the gift of knowledge and of new life that comes from the Father, through Christ, in the Holy Spirit.”

The mystery of Christ, the Word made flesh, seated at the right hand of the Father in the active work of the Holy Spirit allows us to define and clarify the specificity of Christian worship, Bobrinsky argues. As such, no worship experience should conclude without directed focus, worship, and glorification of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Doesn’t the Holy Spirit deserve more than just an honorable mention on Sunday mornings?

Editor’s Note: Be sure to read Marvin Olasky’s interview with Anthony Bradley in the current issue of WORLD. You can also listen to the complete interview by clicking here. Anthony’s new book, Liberating Black Theology, has also just been released.

If I wanted to franchise a church name it would definitely be “Trinity Grace.” While theologically driven church names like “St. John,” “St. Paul,” “Christ the King,” “Redeemer,” “Covenant,” “Trinity,” “Grace,” “Westminster,” “Christ,” “Calvary,” “New Birth,” “The Potter’s House,” and the like, all communicate fantastic dimensions of the redemptive story in the Bible, nothing seems to sum up the essence of the mission of the Kingdom like the juxtaposition of the Holy Trinity with the Old Testament and New Testament themes of God’s grace.

The central actors in the drama of redemption are God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Throughout the entire biblical story we are introduced to a Triune God who has not left the world in a state of chaos as a consequence of the Fall. God the Father has a plan, culminating in the person of Christ and His accomplished work, and applied to believers in time and space through the active work of the Holy Spirit, with cosmic implications for the world.

For example, we learn what it means to love God by looking at the interrelationships between the persons of the Trinity (John 16-17; 1 John 4:9-16). For example, we know what love is because God gave his only begotten Son so that sins are forgiven and true reconciliation with the Father through the work of Holy Spirit is possible.

Moreover, the redemptive story from Genesis to Revelation is a story of God’s constant outpouring of his grace. By grace I do not mean holy “niceness,” which has many confused into a passive Christianity. By grace I mean God showing mercy, affection, love, and liberation to people who do nothing to earn it (Ephesians 2:8-10). Grace is an active and ongoing work of the Triune God. A Triune God with a people engaged in the mission of pressing the claims of the Kingdom everywhere is the fuel of Christian social justice. Churches whose mission is to communicate the salvific and mighty acts of a Triune God in light of the victory of the Cross and implications for the Kingdom could ignite another Great Awakening.

There is actually a church in New York City named Trinity Grace. I’ve never attended the church and know little about it but I was pleased to find a church whose very name brings together the powerful and mysterious realities of redemption, the mission of God, and the roles of Christians in the Kingdom. Regardless of your church’s name, in light of Jesus’ longings for unity in John 17, I would hope that the life-changing dynamism of Holy Trinity, and the liberating mission of grace, changes people from the inside out as God renews and reconciles all things to Christ (Colossians 1:3-23) in the name of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Editor’s Note: Be sure to read Marvin Olasky’s interview with Anthony Bradley in the current issue of WORLD. You can also listen to the complete interview by clicking here and learn how the TV show Family Ties had an influence on Anthony’s life.

Being a black male puts you in one of the least desired categories of Americans, because “dark skin” and “negro dialect”—as Sen. Harry Reid suggested—can keep one from being embraced by mainstream America. What is worse is being a black male orphan born in America. According to a new study by the Centre for Economic Policy Research in Great Britain, African-American males are the least likely to be adopted. To reach that conclusion, economists analyzed specific data from an online adoption facilitator that assists child services agencies that deal with birth mothers and adoptive parents. The data, gathered from June 2004 to August 2009, cover more than 800 children who were available for adoption.

According to the report:

We show that adoptive parents exhibit significant biases in favor of girls and against African-American babies. A non-African-American baby relinquished for adoption attracts the interest of potential adoptive parents with probability 11.5% if it is a girl and 7.9% if it is a boy. As for race, a non-African-American baby has a probability of attracting the interest of an adopting parent at least seven times as high as the corresponding probability for an African-American baby.

This problem could easily be remedied if more evangelical adoption organizations partnered with black churches to increase the number of adoptions. In most black churches, adoption has not been popular because, historically, black orphans are usually rare, as family members, however distant, would take in the children of relatives. However, as the breakdown of the black family occurred in the 1970s by much of the social programming of the federal government, black orphans became more of a problem.

In 2008, the North American Council on Adoptable Children, the Child Welfare League of America, the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, and the National Association of Black Social Workers sought to amend federal laws dealing with transracial adoption, arguing that black children in foster care are ill-served by a “colorblind” approach meant to encourage their adoption by white families. The colorblind approach may actually harm black kids if they are not consciously connected to black culture, as is inferred from a report by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute.

Increasing the number of black adoptive parents will require more education, cooperation, and partnerships among the roughly 46,000 black congregations in America. Evangelicals are growing in their awareness of the implications of James 1:27 and are leading Christians nationally in is this area in many ways. The next big step is to include more church leaders from minority communities in the Christian adoption movement.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, there are only 36,913 black kids ready to be adopted today because they are truly without parents. If one family in every black congregation would adopt one child, all the black children currently in the system would have a Christian home, especially black males. It really is that simple.

The movie The Blind Side, which depicts a white family’s successful adoption of an at-risk black male, has stirred the charge of “racism” for many in the black community. The word “silly” comes to mind as the most charitable word I would use in response to such a charge. A movie depicting a re-told true story recounting what the white Tuohy family actually did for a kid in need, who happened to be black, does not contain what we normally think of as racial dehumanization. It seems that many blacks are confusing “racism” with our distaste for “White Messiah” movies.

The Blind Side—which yesterday picked up Oscar nominations for best picture and best actress (Sandra Bullock)—is not racist, however it does depict the often told story of white people coming to the aid of some indigenous, needy ethnic person. My guess is that many white people appreciate movies like this because they help defend against the constant charge that all problems in America have a direct causal link to white people. Movies like The Blind Side tell the world that, even with America’s complicated history, all white people are not bad people.

Ironically, such movies are convicting to many middle-class blacks because, outside of family members, they are just as unlikely to take in at-risk black males as whites. If suburban blacks had a regular cultural habit of doing what the Tuohys did, it would change America.

Alternatively, movies like Avatar, which also is up for the best picture Oscar, elicit suspicions of racism because they depict a common Hollywood fiction that white people are here to save the universe. A couple of weeks ago, The New York Times’ David Brooks explained the racism of Avatar:

“Avatar is a racial fantasy par excellence. The hero is a white former Marine who is adrift in his civilization. He ends up working with a giant corporation and flies through space to help plunder the environment of a pristine planet and displace its peace-loving natives. The peace-loving natives—compiled from a mélange of Native American, African, Vietnamese, Iraqi and other cultural fragments—are like the peace-loving natives you’ve seen in a hundred other movies.”

Must it always be the case that a white male comes to save the day (again)? Perhaps this may explain the movie’s popularity. There are those who believe that Avatar affirms white supremacy—the same kind of white supremacy that juxtaposed Christian missions with the African slave trade and colonialism in Africa, Asia, and elsewhere, for example, in India, South Africa, and Haiti. Brooks explains that this type of white supremacy:

“. . . rests on the stereotype that white people are rationalist and technocratic while colonial victims are spiritual and athletic. It rests on the assumption that nonwhites need the White Messiah to lead their crusades. It rests on the assumption that illiteracy is the path to grace. It also creates a sort of two-edged cultural imperialism. Natives can either have their history shaped by cruel imperialists or benevolent ones, but either way, they are going to be supporting actors in our journey to self-admiration.”

While movies like The Blind Side are clearly not racist in the least, fictional films like Avatar may explain the growing consternation of stories involving minorities that depict white people as the heroes. I guess this means we need more Will Smith-as-hero movies than Keanu Reeves ones. Who knows? The debate continues.

Is it not odd that many people who complain about government involvement in the housing market are the very ones who encourage zoning laws for their preferences? While there are good critiques on the short-sightedness of the Obama administration’s plans to increase the government’s role in helping the poor acquire access to better housing, the problem is that government intervention is one of the largest variables in the housing crisis in the first place. And this includes zoning laws.

The major government players in the housing market include the Federal Reserve, the government-created and privately owned Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac), the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and multiple state and local agencies. These agencies tend to serve as guarantors of risky lending practices that, when left to market forces, would have saved thousands from taking on debt they could not manage.

One of the unnoticed villains in the crisis were local zoning laws. Zoning laws are generally ways in which the elite use government intervention to keep “riffraff” out their communities as well as to thwart local land development that does not fit with the social preferences of the elite, explains Thomas Sowell in the book The Housing Boom and Bust. Restricting the use of land for the sake of “preserving open space,” “saving farmland,” “protecting the environment,” “historical preservation,” and other political mantras actually work to drive up property values in ways in which the market would reduce. Having minimum lot-size restrictions, for example, is a sinister way in which the elite, according to Sowell, “watch the values of their homes shoot up after the restrictions, so that they gain financially as well as by keeping out less affluent people and thereby preserving the character of the community as they like it.”

Local planning commissions often introduce so many regulatory impediments for housing developments that it is no longer cost-effective to build new housing in the first place. Land use restrictions, used by liberals and conservatives, over the past 50 years had a role to play in distorting the supply and demand matrix in the housing market. The market was not free to meet real needs because the elite used the government to prevent development. The elite doesn’t want low-income people living near them, either. Why aren’t those against government intervention fighting against zoning laws that prevent low-income housing developments?

Because of property inflation due to zoning restrictions, there are more and more calls to “make housing affordable.” This is happening in some areas because lower-priced options like trailer parks, apartments, homes on smaller lots, and so on are similarly not available nor allowed in certain areas. If conservatives are truly against government intervention in low-income housing, they should also be against government intervention used to codify social preferences of the elite.

There are times when I do not know whether to call myself a liberal or a conservative. By liberal, I mean “classical” liberal, which is connected to a tradition of individual liberty and small government instead of today’s popular construction with its socialistic worldview. I generally have to ask people, “What do you mean,” when I’m queried on my political ideology. David Koyzis offers helpful distinctions in his book Political Visions & Illusions: A Survey & Christian Critique of Contemporary Ideologies, which is well-worth reading.

Koyzis rightly points out that we all tend to waffle between idolatry and gnosticism in our political alignment. We are idolatrous when we believe that our political preference is the remedy for the world’s problems, and we are gnostic when we believe that competing ideologies are inherently evil. In an honest moment, I would confess that I do believe that my political ideology is right and all others are wrong because, at the end of the day, I think I’m always right. This is why I struggle with whether I am liberal or conservative.

To conserve something, says Koyzis, means to keep it, maintain it, in the face of forces that might tend to eliminate it over time. A conservative fears that something is being lost with change that cannot be replaced. Conservatives tend also to regret nothing more than the loss of their own power and privilege. What makes someone a conservative is not so much one’s views on government but common attitudes toward tradition and change. Conservatives do not like change. Conservatives want to conserve their own traditions and institutions even if that means trading off innovation and progress.

Liberalism starts with the fundamental belief in human autonomy, which means being self-directed and free to govern oneself in accordance with rules in which one willingly submits. The most basic principles of liberalism, according to Koyzis, is that everyone possesses property in their own person and must therefore be free to govern themselves in accordance with their own choices provided that those choices do not infringe on the equal right of others to pursue the same. Human persons should be free from coercion that favors one person or group’s preferences for another. As such, true liberals have a consistent aversion to government coercion in ways that conservatives do not.

The liberal/conservative distinction may explain why many conservatives do not mind expanding the size of government to maintain their own values and traditions. Many conservatives have no problem using the coercive nature of government to enshrine “traditional values” in America in ways intolerable to liberals. For example, conservatives and liberals would disagree about having prayer in (former Protestant) public schools. Conservatives lament the absence of prayer while liberals see no place for prayer in that setting, or even the idea of public schools.

We saw this distinction clearly in the politics of Ron Paul during the last presidential campaign. Paul stood out among the other Republican candidates because he was more concerned about liberty than using government to preserve traditions and preferences. At the end of the day, I have more affinities with liberals than conservatives because there are some American conservative cultural traditions that America has benefited by extinguishing.

The holidays and birthdays can be difficult for some because of severe family dysfunction. In recent years fathers have been faulted for complicity in emotionally wounding children but little attention is paid to the role of emotionally abusive and unstable mothers. On Mother’s Day women are praised. On Father’s Day men are reprimanded. Christine Ann Lawson in Understanding the Borderline Mother makes the case that much family dysfunction originates with a child’s intense, unpredictable, and volatile relationship with mom.

According to Lawson, adult children wounded by toxic mothers often have these common thoughts in her presence: “I never know what to expect,” “I don’t trust her,” “She says it didn’t happen,” “She makes me feel terrible,” “Everyone else thinks she’s great,” “It’s all or nothing,” “She’s so negative,” “She flips out,” “Sometimes I can’t stand her,” and “She drives me crazy.”

While the book is primarily targeted for adult children with mothers with borderline personality disorders, I find that looking at the four types of mothers Lawson describes can be helpful in understanding most difficult mothers:

1. Waif. The waif mother presents herself as helpless. She is primarily a victim and seeks to evoke sympathy and caretaking from others, especially her children. On the outside the Waif may appear strong but internally she feels like an impostor. Waif’s tend to have been a victim of childhood abuse or neglect, were treated as inferior, or were emotionally denigrated. The primary message to her children is, “Life is so hard.”
2. Hermit. Hermit behavior evokes anxiety and protection from others. The Hermit fears letting anyone in because she was likely hurt by someone she trusted. She tends to be overprotective of her children and lives in fear of bad consequences. The primary message to her children is, “Life is too dangerous.”
3. Queen. The queen’s inner experience is one of deprivation and her behavior demands compliance and allegiance. She is the demanding mother who often intimidates to get her way. She can be vindictive, greedy, manipulative, flamboyant, and greedy. Her emotional message to her children is, “Life is all about me.”
4. Witch. The witch mother is angry. She takes her anger out on others. Her behavior evokes submission. She actually is filled with self-hatred and may single out one of her children to bear the brunt of her rage. Her emotional message to her children is, “Life is war.”

These mothers have different public and private personalities, and only their children know the truth and roll their eyes when they hear, “Your mom is great!” The verbal assaults coupled with passive-aggressive guilt manipulation corners children into embracing their mother’s twisted emotional messages. This can make being around her unbearable. What makes Lawson’s book so valuable is that not only does she explain difficult mothers, she also gives fantastic advice for adult children so that they can simultaneously love their mothers while creating healthy boundaries that thwart future conflict.