the christian community

In the 1940's scores of young men from our great country, some as young as 16, accepted their responsibility to defend the violent threats to freedom against maniacal forces attacking our allies in other lands. My dad was one of them. A graduate in 1941 from Cornell University, Frank K. Finneran turned down offers to play football for the N.Y. Giants and baseball for the Baltimore Orioles. Instead, he enlisted in the Marines, wound up with about 70,000 other soldiers on Iwo Jima in one of the bloodiest battles in wartime history. If you've read the book Flags of our Fathers, you know about the horrific resistance and heinous deaths and tortures some of these young men suffered at the hands of seemingly demonized Japanese solders. Nearly half our troops were injured or never came back. Of the 16-plus million men from America who fought in WWII, over 2 million were under the age of 20. Most were under 30. It's hard to wrap you head around the sheer numbers of men who risked everything in life for a greater cause. But that was the call. Like my father, they left behind on our shores all the hopes of the American Dream, including fiancees, young wives and children, future careers and the nice home with a white picket fence. If my dad had been a statistic at Iwo Jima, only my eldest brother would have been born. The rest of the five Finneran siblings, including myself, would never have existed. Having six children in a family at that time was no exception. That's because WWII was followed by a baby boom. It was part of the national consciousness to replenish the war tragedies of over a million men who were killed or severely wounded. It was normal to be in a family with multiple children. In the 60's I remember only one friend who was an only child. It just wasn't the goal of a man and wife at that time to just have one or two children. My friends and I would joke regarding the comical situation (that would make a good tv reality show) for our high school basketball teammate, Glen Kolb, being the only boy in his family, sandwiched between five older and five younger sisters. We joked about it but never thought it odd. Women were obviously a key factor in this increase in our population. Statistics show that over 70 percent of women married by the age of 24 during this period even up to the 1960's. Today that percentage is under 10 percent. With couples waiting longer to get married and, thus, having less kids, the results are devastating on the traditional Christian family. Our founding fathers averaged 5-plus children per family while Christian families in the U.S. today are barely reproducing. However, from a biblical standpoint, there is nothing in the scriptures that mandates or even anticipates Christian women forgoing their most formidable child bearing years and putting a family on hold in pursuit of higher education and professional careers. Rather, the Bible does implore "that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully. For some are already turned aside after Satan." (1 Timothy 5: 14-15.) The apostle Paul goes as far to imply that the women's sanctification comes not from taking the roles of men but, "Nevertheless she will be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control." (1 Tim. 2:15). This biblical perspective for the Christian woman, though considered the norm and supported by the Church for nearly 2000 years, has been nearly abandoned in favor of prevailing feminist views that erupted in our culture during the 60's. The command to "be fruitful and multiply" has given way to the pressure of social responsibility to avoid overcrowding the earth and the lack of prestige today's modern world allows a woman who births a large family. Education and career are packaged as standard goals for each woman that precedes family, while one or two children are later added to that equation for a complete life. As if children are merely an experience that every woman should get to share, but just don't over do it, that would be foolish. "All things are lawful, but not all things are profitable," (1 Cor. 10: 23), reminds us that, though it may not be a sin to do something not explicitly forbidden in the Bible, it may end up causing negative consequences. Erica Kirk, in honor of her husband, said "His top priority was to revive the American family." If you listen to enough of what Charlie Kirk often said, you'll hear this repeated advice: "Get married, have children," I believe Kirk was thinking primarily of those in the Christian faith: all of us who cherish the greatness of this country and Christ our Saviour. Kirk continually argued that the great Christian values of this country need to be appreciated, recognized and restored before it is too late. I believe Charlie Kirk understood that the most significant way to protect the Christian values previously built into our culture is by repopulation and the passing of those values to our children. That's because we face a massive threat to the Christian society equal or even greater than our previous generation. Zero population growth (meaning the population numbers stay the same or go down for the next generation) in a culture is no match for the estimated 40 million immigrants that flooded our country during the Biden administration who are reproducing at a 5 to 1 rate. This problem is exacerbated in the European Union where Christianity is on the decline and the Islam faith is increasing in astronomical numbers. And most of that is due to birth rates. Christians in all the EU are well under 2 per household while the Muslim immigrants families are reproducing nearly 8 per family. Countries projected to be Muslim dominant by 2050 are France, Germany, United Kingdom, Spain, and Australia. And the rest are not far behind. With at least 5 million Muslims now in the U.S., if birth rates stay as they are, the U.S. will be muslim dominant within 3 generations. We will soon have a country where the majority worship other gods. If a young teenage girl today should say, "My goal in life is to marry a great guy and have a big family," she's far more likely to be looked on with pity rather than esteem. But that is the only way we can fix the problem we've created. Just like our fathers during WWII unselfishly sacrificed their personal desires to meet the dire threats to our country, so now Christian women all across America need to put aside the false cultural emphasis to succeed academically and professionally as the main priority in life for the sake of raising a strong Christian family with as many children as God would bless. If Mom at home, raising children, is not restored in the church, all other efforts to save this country will be futile.