Day of reckoning

May you live in interesting times.
  - Ancient Chinese curse

Don't make me come down there!
  - God

Many in my parents' generation were convinced that Hitler was the Antichrist and WW II was Armageddon. My generation read and believed Hal Lindsay's Late Great Planet Earth and Paul Ehrlich's The Population Bomb. Apocalyptic portents seem to be part of every age, and many folks find such prospects oddly fascinating, and even attractive.

Others are repulsed by prophets of doom; they debunk and ridicule them, proclaiming with reciprocal certainty that no such evil will befall us. God is good, and will certainly protect his people from all harm, not to fear.

It is my opinion that the truth lies, not somewhere between these two extremes, but simultaneously in both. How so? Glad you asked.

We undoubtedly live in interesting times. While 'Global Warming' is a foregone conclusion in many circles, some scientists are actually warning of a possible Ice Age. Many cling stubbornly to a fear of overpopulation even as more developed nations face demographic implosion. Terrorism and turmoil continue unabated. Our newly elected leaders seem intent upon destroying our Constitution, and the new spending bills appear likely to result in economic chaos.

Some (including myself) see apocalyptic potential, not so much in these natural and political disasters, but in our culture's spiritual and moral disarray. Indeed, the former are merely the consequences and manifestations of the latter. A culture like ours that slaughters its innocent preborn and forsakes its foundation in the monogamous family is an empty shell, devoid of strength because devoid of virtue. It is certain to fall. Moral rottenness is the primary cause; one or more natural or man-made disasters are merely the proximate causes which will finally topple the emaciated phantasm.

Surely our doom is near.

Surely God will deliver us.

The two expectations are identical. History bears this out. God's cleansing, purgative work is usually not very pleasant. True love can cause awful pain.

There is, I believe, an alternative. A way to stay the hand of God and avoid his judgment. It's a pretty simple concept, too. It's called repentance. Lent is almost here; maybe we should give it a shot.

Unoriginal sin

The first sin of man was eating the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Original sin enters in when man decides to make up his own definition of what is good and what is evil.

What might the final sin look like, the un-original sin? This is pure speculation on my part, but there seems to be some hint in Scripture...

The very first command given by God to man is to "Be fruitful and multiply..." (Gen. 1:28 RSV) With rare exceptions, this command has been obeyed throughout human history, even by pagans and heathens. Indeed, fruitfulness has been considered a blessing, and sterility a shame in virtually every culture - until recent times.

Jesus, carrying his cross, spoke his final prophecy, "For behold, the days are coming when they will say, 'Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never gave suck!'" (Luke 23:29 RSV) Those words must have seemed incredible to his hearers. Yet here we are.

The spurning of the first command, and the fulfillment of the final prophecy. Sounds rather apocalyptic.

Crisis of authority

A summary of the past 6 posts would go something like this: The shallow selfishness of consumerism and the myth of overpopulation has led to an irrational fear of human propagation, and to a widespread acceptance of artificial contraception. The acceptance of contraception has in turn led to an ideological divorce between sex and procreation. This divorce then leads inevitably to the acceptance and even approval of abortion, fornication, adultery, pornography, and homosexual practice. It's quite logical: If sex is primarily about the father-mother-child thing, the family thing, then traditional mores make lots of sense. But if it's just intimate pleasure between two partners, these various aberrations are no big deal.

There seems to be one more piece to this puzzle, another fundamental cause for the widespread acceptance of contraception and of all that follows. That piece would be a crisis of authority and of obedience to authority. In fact, if our culture manages to survive into the future, I believe future historians will name the crisis of authority as one of the defining elements of our time.

I was a teenager in 1968 when post-Vatican II changes were sweeping through the Catholic Church. Those were the heady days of great social upheaval; of hippies, free love, and the questioning of authority. Some priests of my acquaintance - hip and relevant and groovy - were confident, and assured us lay folks, that the Church would soon get with it and relax most or all of her sexual hangups. When Pope Paul VI issued Humanae Vitae, and it wasn't what we were expecting, and did not seem relevant (true prophecies are rarely recognized at first), the cold reception it received was to be expected, given the milieu. Yet this was unprecedented, and has proven to be tragic.

Many priests and a few bishops openly repudiated both the new encyclical and the Church's long-standing condemnation of contraception. Other priests and bishops were simply silent, neither openly rejecting nor openly applauding the Pope's teaching. Only a few were vocal in their support. I have no credentials as an historian to say this was absolutely unprecedented, but can report that, even as a progressive-minded young man, I was surprised at this change of posture. For a reigning Pontiff to be thus ignored and even rebuffed was something I had never heard of.

This crisis extends beyond the Catholic Church. Lines of authority within the family are now typically pooh-poohed as well. Patriarchy is summarily dismissed as outmoded and irrelevant, and the father's authority in the home is questioned along with the bishop's and Pope's in the Church. I suppose this revolution took many decades, but the late 1960's have seemed to be the watershed moment.

But notice where authority is still esteemed - in the military, and in our places of business. Occasional exceptions aside, the chain of command in these settings is still clearly defined and adhered to. The corporate equivalent of a Fr. Richard McBrien would be quickly shown to the door. Perhaps the difference is: We need our businesses and our military to succeed; failure is unacceptable. But the health and success of the Church, or the family? (yawn) Who cares?

In 20-20 hindsight, it should now be obvious that Pope Paul VI was right. The dissidents were wrong then, and are wrong still. Even more fundamentally, rebellion against legitimate authority is both immature and arrogant. Rebellion against divinely ordained authority within the Church and the family is sinful, and is tantamount to rebellion against God. The 60's mentality - question traditional morality, question the status quo, question authority - seemed cool and relevant at the time, but has turned out to be merely stupid and selfish and short-sighted. Question one more thing, all you old hippies - question the questions!

Thanatos antidote - 2

The previous 5 posts have comprised a thread, a progression of related thoughts. The link between contraception, abortion, population control, and the irrational fear of human procreation has been pointed out by minds much greater than mine. Pope Paul VI, for example, in his 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, prophetically foretold the dire consequences that would result from an easy acceptance of contraception and the cheapening of human sexuality. Or, take the terse profundity of JP II's phrase 'Culture of Death'. Or, as reported a couple posts ago, Jacqueline Kasun's massively researched work. I would only like to add these additional thoughts:

I ended the last post by asking if the clamor for population control were driven by pride, or hatred of God's sovereignty, or by fear of an imminent calamity which population stresses may threaten. If you who read this are in favor of population control, and if that conviction is driven by pride or hatred, then I have nothing more to say to you (but, beware - God may have a word or two with you one day, and more than mere words!)

But if imminent calamity is what concerns you, consider this little thought: People per se don't stress the biosphere; wasteful consumption of resources and reckless production of toxic wastes do. And then consider this: It lies within the human genius to find better alternatives to waste and toxicity. People are the solution, not the problem. We have no inherent need to waste or to poison; the 'ism' in the word indicates that 'consumerism' is a belief system. And belief systems are voluntary; they can be changed.

Allow your belief system (and behavior) to be changed. Be converted. Do not accept the 'consumer' moniker (as if you were nothing more than a complex alimentary canal). You are much more than a consumer; you are a person. You have an eternal destiny. You are much more than an alimentary canal; you have a brain with which to think, a body with which to do productive work, a heart with which to love, and a spirit with which to worship and trust in God. Employ all of that, your entire being, in creative and productive ways, and cease to accept the degrading label of 'consumer'.

Start with something modest. Walk to work or to church instead of driving. Plant a garden. It lies within you to do good, rather than wring your hands over evil. Be on the lookout for little ways to shake off the shameful moniker. And don't expect the government to do anything remotely useful in this regard. Those folks live within their own little institutions; most of them couldn't think their way out of a paper sack if you pointed them toward the open end. Goodness, they seem to think that outlawing light bulbs and fireplaces is the way to go. So, don't wait for bureaucrats; do it yourself, start now. The same applies to you bureaucrats; rather than institute more and more heavy-handed programs and restrictions for other folks, shake the cobwebs from your skull, and do something good yourself. Let's improve the world, one person at a time. Above all, just know that you need not be a consumer, but a free and beneficial person, created in the image of God.

Population control (or - David's sin)

The 21st chapter of 1 Chronicles tells the intriguing story of King David's worst sin. Judging from the punishment it drew, this crime was, in God's eyes, even more serious than the Bathsheba/Uriah incident. The sin? David took a census of the people.

Huh?

What made this such a travesty was that it was an act of immense pride on King David's part. Not just the pride of a self-inflated ego, but of usurping Divine sovereignty and province. In taking a census, David was arrogating to himself an authority that belongs to God alone, an authority over human life.

From the beginning, God has given to man dominion and authority over all other life on this Earth - over all the animals and plants. This authority is explicitly given in two places: to Adam & Eve in Gen. 1:26-30, and again to Noah after the flood in Gen. 9:1-3. Two things are noteworthy here. Both passages include the command to "be fruitful and multiply", and neither passage grants man authority over himself.

Human life belongs exclusively to God. Murder is a crime against a human victim. But even more, it involves a sin against God's sovereign authority over the victim's human life. Suicide is a similar sin, since no man owns his own life; it belongs by right to God alone. And so the crime of population control is likewise a sin of unmitigated arrogance, of assuming control over human life itself.

Two posts ago, I asked who or what ought to be controlling human population. Individual families? Governments? A world government? A population control agency? The answer, from the above, is: God alone.

Which leads to one more question. Why do Bill Gates and Warren Buffett and Planned Parenthood and UNFPA and other rich and powerful folks clamor for world population control measures? Is it pride? Is it hatred of God and of His sovereign claims? Is it fear of some calamity resulting some day, somehow, from (gasp!) Too Many People? Is it, perhaps, fear or loathing of the people themselves, and of demographic threats to their affluence?

War Against Population

A host of issues such as poverty, hunger, AIDS, and Global Warming have been attributed by many to the general ill effects of overpopulation. But when the particulars are looked at case by case, no causal connection can be shown. Consider a certain famine, and you find its primary cause is a civil or regional war. Examine an epidemic, and you find that it resulted from widespread sexual promiscuity. Another devastating crisis is seen to come via a combination of political greed, incompetent management, and uncontrollable natural forces. Show me, if you can, a specific, serious human problem that was demonstrably caused by Too Many People. To date, I haven't seen a single instance.

Is there something in the human psyche that demands simplistic answers? ("If we can just solve the overpopulation problem, everything will be OK.") Or do we find dark delight in news of impending doom? Or a secret self-loathing, that readily embraces the notion that we ourselves are the biggest problem? I have already discussed what I refer to as this self-loathing "Thanatos" phenomenon, and have suggested a possible antidote as well.

A more sinister explanation to consider is that some people are deliberately beating the overpopulation drum to further their own agenda. One extremely well-researched book that explores this possibility is Dr. Jacqueline Kasun's 1988 (later updated) book, The War Against Population. Read this online book review for more info, or, better yet, get the book and read it yourself. This is not some nutty 'conspiracy theory' work. It is well documented in showing that some very powerful elitists view population control as a key to their political and material interests. To really control people (and their stuff), control their numbers. One well-exposed example is the Nixon Administration's 1974 National Security Council Memorandum 200 (NSSM 200), a.k.a. the "Kissinger Report", and subtitled "Implications of Worldwide Population Growth For U.S. Security and Overseas Interests". Consider just this one citation among many from NSSM 200:

Whatever may be done to guard against interruptions of supply and to develop domestic alternatives, the U.S. economy will require large and increasing amounts of minerals from abroad, especially from less developed countries [See National Commission on Materials Policy, Towards a National Materials Policy: Basic Data and Issues, April 1972]. That fact gives the U.S. enhanced interest in the political, economic, and social stability of the supplying countries. Wherever a lessening of population pressures through reduced birth rates can increase the prospects for such stability, population policy becomes relevant to resource supplies and to the economic interests of the United States. (NSSM 200, CHAPTER III - MINERALS AND FUEL)

Population control advocates have nearly always been members of rich, industrialized nations. Do they fear the demographic advancement of poor nations? Typically, they are also kindly disposed toward Planned Parenthood (obviously), and antagonistic toward Christianity (especially Catholicism). On a personal note, when I began to recognize that there might be ulterior motives at work, I finally started questioning the scientific neutrality of many population studies. Dr. Kasun's book helped me to sharpen these questions.

In addition to exposing an anti-population agenda, Dr. Kasun presents a formidable quantity of evidence to debunk the myth - and groundless fear - that we humans are too many in number, or anywhere near too many. Do you find this important? If so, you may want to read her book, or get more general information from The Population Research Institute.