Friday, September 12, 2025

Part I

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Postponing Marriage is a Bigger Problem Than You Think: The Delay of Marriage Means Fewer Babies and a Civilizational Crisis

It is very tempting just to talk about the headlines day by day because it’s easy to be driven by them. Social media driven by headlines and by online activity, algorithms can tell you what’s most popular, what people are talking about. But as Christians, sometimes we need to take a step back and see if we’re missing something in the big scale. And one of the things I think we are missing is the fact that we are now experiencing as a society a massive amount of social change in the wrong direction. And that social change is coming at the expense of children, at the expense of families, at the expense of marriage, and at the expense even of what these days is sometimes referred to as “adulting”.

The propensity of so many young people not to grow up, and in particular a crisis among young men, has become so acute, that some of the recent headlines even this week have just drawn attention to the fact that we are in a time of turmoil and trouble when it comes to what Christians ought to be able to see clearly, and to understand in basic biblical and creation order terms.

So, let’s just look for instance at the fact that USA Today and the New York Times, both just in the last several days came up with articles about the fact that an awful lot of young adults aren’t actually growing up into adulthood. They are postponing basic adult responsibilities, and most importantly, they’re postponing marriage, and they are postponing having children.

So, USA Today came out with an article just as we head into the weekend, the headline: “Path to Adulthood Takes New Detours.” The headline in the New York Times was a bit different: “Putting off Yearning Until Their Earning,” the subhead “Dating is Easier, and is More Likely to be Satisfying for People who Enjoy a Measure of Financial Comfort.” The commonality between these two articles is the fact that we are told that the factor that is keeping so many young people from moving into adult responsibilities in terms of jobs, living arrangements, marriage and family and children, the reason why they’re not we’re being told is because of financial stress.

Okay. Let’s just think as Christians for a moment about the fact that that can be real, but it cannot be a sufficient explanation. And the reason it can’t be sufficient is simply because even the people who complain about being under economic pressure now, are advantaged over people in previous generations who were just at the norm. And so what we have is a vast rise in social and economic expectations. And honestly, it is horribly unspeakably expensive to live in certain contexts. And there’s so many young people who want to live in a place like New York City, they want to live in Manhattan, they want to live in Los Angeles, they want to live here and there. Well, no wonder they’re under financial strain. Those are some of the most expensive places on planet Earth to live.

And furthermore, if you are expecting to have $7 coffee drinks a couple of times a day, you’re going to have to have some pretty good income. And so what we’re looking at is a redefinition, or perhaps even a rejection of adulthood, in a very clear sense, certainly when it comes to dating, and marriage, and having children, and raising those children.

I want to look at the article in USA Today, because it’s not drawn just from some kind of survey, it is drawn from data from the United States Census Bureau. And of course, that material comes from the census of the United States undertaken every 10 years. And the fact that it’s coming out now years after the census was taken is a reminder of the fact that these numbers are so massive, it takes years of analysis to figure out what the last census meant. Even as the next census is being prepared, there are people trying to figure out what the last one tells us.

But here’s one of the things we know, and we knew before this data set came in, but it is important to look at the numbers. The numbers do tell us a story. USA Today reports, “Young adults are prioritizing economic security over marriage and having children. According to a report from the Census Bureau, these shifting priorities reflect the burden of rising living costs such as housing, food, and travel.” Okay. By the way, that turns out to be a significant thing. Travel. As in travel for fun and leisure and adventure. I’ll just simply say, I think in most previous generations that wasn’t listed as a major category of expectation. That was something to be added to, or at least hopefully added to the responsibilities of adulthood when it came to marriage, family formation, having children, raising those children, etc.

USA Today tells us, “In 1975, about 45% of adults ages 25 to 34 had moved out of their parents’ home, were working and had married and started families.” So, that’s a good number, 1975. So that’s 50 years ago this year. 50 years ago this year, the average person aged 25 to 34, man and woman, had moved out of the parents’ home, were working, had married, and had started families. In other words, they having children. So, 50 years ago is not, let’s just say, it’s not the Flintstones. We’re not talking about the fourth century here. We are talking about 50 years ago, which means an incredible number of people alive then are still alive now. But the social change is absolutely fundamental.

And I think the most interesting thing about all of this is that when you look at the same kind of report, the same kind of analysis of Census Bureau data, you go back to previous generations, go back to decades like the 1950s and the 1960s, economics is of course a piece of the equation, but people had less then than they have now, even especially in relative terms, even adjusted for inflation. But financial pressures didn’t show up as one of the major issues of similar concern.

So, let me put it this way. If you just think about, this is a very interesting statistic, it’s a good computational model we can keep in mind. Look at the average home that a couple expects to own. So, that average home was, in the 1950s, somewhere around 800 to 1000 square feet total. 800 to about a thousand square feet. Now, you’re looking homes that are a quantum of that size that are considered to be even starter homes, or early homes. And there were people in my generation, and I know it well because I lived this, in which had four kids, and sometimes two bedrooms, and that’s just what it was. The family room and the living room were one room. And the dining room and the kitchen were one room. And we thought living was grand. And I’m not saying those were the good old days, and now you have these young people and they’re wrong to want more.

I think the problem is that delaying family, delaying marriage, is an indication that something’s wrong in the sequence. Something is wrong in the expectation, something’s wrong in the world view, something’s certainly wrong in the priorities. I honestly don’t want to live in that small house again. I’m thankful that we didn’t raise our children in a house that small. My point is that was not considered a problem in the 1950s and the 1960s.

Now, it becomes a rationale for living in your parents’ house. Of course, financial strains are real. But when you look at this, you recognize, okay, there are two things that tell us that’s not the whole story. The first thing is, when you look at other reports, and that includes the report here in the New York Times, that tells us that even people who have the means aren’t moving towards, dating is the word they use here, or a commitment in terms of marriage. And certainly, they’re postponing having children.

And so many of them think the expectation is they’ll wait until their thirties to have children. Well, going back to 1975, almost half of all adults aged, this median age, you’re looking once again at age 25 to 34, they not only were already married and outside their parents’ home, they had jobs and they already had children.

Now, here’s just a matter of math. We are facing a falling birth rate that is going to be one of the most dangerous realities of years to come. Honestly, the birth rate is falling so fast that it is going to be very hard to imagine how you can continue the American economy as it is. And the economic statistics are simply daunting. And the United States is by no means in the worst shape. Nations such as South Korea and Japan, even some European nations, have a fertility rate well below that of the United States. But the United States without immigration would have a net loss of birthrate. We’ll be under the replacement rate. And as I say, the United States is by no means in the worst shape here.

But worldwide, we are looking at the fact that not only are we not facing the danger of a so-called population explosion, we’re looking at the absolute danger of a population shortfall that will be catastrophic. I want to look at this though, not just in terms of demographics, I want us to think about this as Christians. And it comes down to the fact, if you take the biblical worldview, the biblical worldview associates adulthood with adult responsibilities. And what the Bible, both in the Old Testament and the New Testament, do not contemplate, is someone who is young who is not moving into adulthood. As a matter of fact, adulthood is held out as the aspiration. When I was a child, I thought as a child; but now I am a man, I have the responsibilities of a man. And the same thing for girls becoming women. That’s defined by role and responsibility, by maturity. And a certain degree of independence and attorney from reference primarily to parents, to a reference to being parents of the generation yet to come.

As Christians, we understand that there’s something wrong here when we look at the holistic picture. What’s wrong is that you have a definition of adulthood that it turns out is separated from such realities as marriage and parenthood. And so what does adulthood mean? Well, if all it means is that you’re a certain age, then how in the world are we going to have a functioning civilization? Adulthood has to be tied to the assumption of certain responsibilities, and those responsibilities have to be put into a biblical frame. And rebellion against that is going to lead to a breakdown of the entire order. And the precipitous fall in the birth rates around the world is one indication of what happens when people don’t grow up and they don’t get married, and they don’t form families, and they don’t do what families have to do in terms of establishing the future of the civilization.

Now, it’s one thing though for the secular world to wonder about this. The New York Times, by the way, it really messes this up. But it tells us a lot about where we are morally in the world today, because the New York Times messes this up because it begins by citing a man, and he’s decided he’s going to begin dating and then you figure out, “Oh no, it’s another man.” And so that has to be put into the equation too. Don’t tell me that is not a part of what is now the weakening of the family and the subversion of marriage you bet it is.

The USA Today article also points to this. “The average age for a first marriage in 2024 was 30.2 for men and 28.6 for women. 50 years ago, the average age for a first-time marriage…” It’s kind of sad you have to put it that way, isn’t it? But, “… the average age for the first marriage was 23.5 for men and 21.3 for women.” So we’re talking about a jump of about seven years for men, and a jump of about seven years on average for women.

But you know what? This really cuts into the ability to have children, any number of children. And furthermore, we’re looking at what’s described as a fertility crisis in this country. And when you take a closer look, there are couples who do not marry late, they marry early, and they have infertility issues. And we obviously hope and pray that those will be resolved, and so that a man and a wife married will receive the joy of children. But the reality is that an awful lot of the so-called fertility crisis or reproductive medicine crisis in our time is the fact that you have women who are aging out of the most fertile part of their lives into a later part of their lives, and they’re putting off children. And then what they might be able to do is to have one or two children at the most. And that’s just a matter of timing. And by the way, that’s the one thing human beings can’t regain. You can regain money, you can regain property, you can regain social status. You can’t regain time. That too is a biblical reality.

All right, we’re going to leave this for today, but I do think it’s very interesting that in terms of USA Today’s interest in the New York Times interest, a lot of it has to do with the future of the economy. And that’s a part of the reality of human beings working together in society and civilization. The economy is laden with all kinds of moral importance. But I think it’s very sad that an awful lot of people think the most important thing is the economy. The problem the economy will face is pointing to a far deeper problem that reaches the hearts and minds and souls of the people involved.

Just one final note about this. People who don’t get married and have children don’t have to grow up. They don’t have to mature, they don’t have to sacrifice in order to raise the next generation. And that’s one of the reasons why you have, I think, a leisure and travel as such an important part of the financial expectation of that generation. Having a baby at least, well, at the very least, puts a crimp in that for a while. The rewards, however, are unspeakably rich.

Part II

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What Do I Do with My Anger Over Charlie Kirk’s Murder? — Dr. Mohler Responds to Letters from Listeners of The Briefing

All right, we’re going to turn to questions. And I’m not going to read a question here at the beginning.

I’m going to say that I have received over the course of the last 24 to 36 hours an avalanche of questions about how Christians should respond to the assassination of Charlie Kirk. I wrote an editorial piece, a commentary published at World Opinions yesterday. I dealt with it extensively on The Briefing yesterday, so I won’t repeat that. But a specific question has arisen that I think is worthy of our attention. It’s a bit urgent. And that is, how should we think of the assassination of Charlie Kirk in terms of anger?

I think we need to recognize first of all that anger is a natural response. And that anger, by the way, is rooted in reality. It’s rooted in our worldview that makes very clear that we understand murder to be the intentional premeditated taking of human life by violence and the attempted destruction of the image of God in terms of the human being. And that’s not some kind of extrapolation from, say, a biblical theology. You don’t have to have a deep understanding of biblical theology to get that. All you have to do is read Genesis chapter nine, which makes that abundantly clear.

And I think especially, I hear this from a lot of young men, for whom Charlie Kirk was a big influence, and in many ways they kind of thought of him as a friend in terms of many of the great battles of our age. And they feel this loss so catastrophically and they’re angry about it. Well, I just want to remind us, as Christians, I’ll speak to Christians here, I don’t know how to speak to the lost world about anger, the lost world’s filled with anger. We are not to be primarily characterized by anger, but that doesn’t mean we’re never to be angry. We should hate sin. We should be angry at injustice and wrong. We should be angry about a young woman now left as a widow. We should be angry about two young children left without a father. It is right, it’s even righteous to be angry in that way.

And I wouldn’t know how in the world to think about this, but for the fact that scripture addresses it very directly. Paul, in Ephesians chapter four, verse 26, says, “Be angry, but sin not.” And you have to think about that for a moment. Don’t you? “be angry, but sin not.” Well, if anger in essence is a sin, then it’s impossible to be angry and to sin not. So, in what sense would anger be a sin, and in what sense might anger not be a sin? Well, here’s where our language points us towards some clarification.

So for example, we have a category that is sometimes referred to as righteous indignation. So let’s put it another way. It’s not just indignance, it is anger. It’s righteous anger. And so what would righteous anger look like? Well, I think it would be being angry about the things that would make God, who is perfect, just and righteous. What makes God angry should make us angry as well.

But God by definition is angry without sin. We by definition in our fallenness have a real challenge in being angry without sinning. And so nonetheless, that’s exactly what the Apostle Paul said to Christians, “Be angry, but sin not.” And so evidently it is possible for Christian believers to be angry and not to sin in that anger. So, what would be the distinction? I think it’s really clear in the context, and that is that we hate murder. We hate sin, we hate death; we hate violence. We hate a young woman left without her husband. We hate young children left without their father. It is indignation. It is righteous anger.

And it is anger that is directed at the act itself, but anger also that is directed to the person who did it, because the separation between the person and the act is not possible in totality for human beings. We can’t do it when it comes to our own behavior. We can’t do it when it comes to the behavior of our loved ones. You can’t parent your children if they’re simply over here what they do and over here what they are. But it is important that Christians understand, in a biblical theology, that human beings are more than what they do. And that means that we put it into a calculation that makes very clear it is absolutely right to be angry. And I don’t mean a little bit angry, I mean angry at sin. And yet it is not right for that to turn over into acts of anger translated into sin.

And that would include, by the way, I think some Christians might try to justify in the name of righteous anger. I think it’s very easy for us to get angry, and to go over a line, and then tell ourselves, “Well, that was justified by the reality.” I think it’s important that fellow believers will talk about this openly, and that the Holy Spirit would open our eyes to see and convict us of sin where that line falls.

But you’re not wrong to be angry about this murder. You’re not wrong. This assassination of Charlie Kirk was clearly intended to send a message. That’s why we call it an assassination. That’s another question that came up in terms of the discussion yesterday on the program. Why did Governor Spencer Cox call the murder of Charlie Kirk an assassination? Why not just say murder? And why do we use that term? Why have I used it on The Briefing? It is because the word assassination means in essence a murder intended to send a political message. And that’s exactly what we’re dealing with here.

And we don’t know everything about the motivation for this murder because we don’t yet know anywhere near enough about the murderer. All that’s going to have to come together in terms of this investigation. But the fact is that it was clearly intended to send a political message, and it’s at this point just impossible to believe that wasn’t the message that was intended to be sent. But I also want to point to something I think that Christians need to observe, and that is the fact that even as there’s some misbehavior out there, someone at MSNBC that was fired for making a horrifying statement, the governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker, made a horrifying statement, even called out by the Washington Post.

Other statements have been made. You have the Coast Guard releasing a statement, you’ve got universities releasing statements about something that a staff member said. You’ve got professional sports teams firing people. And you have others who are just saying stupid stuff and stupid stuff at the point of being evil stuff. And at least some of them are being called out for it. But you look at this and here is what I think we need to know in the main. In the main, in the main. The vast majority of the people who know about the assassination of Charlie Kirk have an internal yearning, a deep desire, a drive, an urgency to want to know who did it, and to see justice achieved. To see the murderer arrested and to see justice in earthly terms satisfied. And again, for Christians we understand, our demand for justice will never be fully satisfied in this life, but only in the judgment of God on that day.

But until then, it is right to strive for justice even to channel anger into a demand for justice. But at the same time, we also understand that this tells us something about human nature. We’re moral creatures. God made us in his image. Even people who want to deny that, nonetheless reflect the fact that they’re made in God’s image by the fact that they do render moral judgment. And at least we should be encouraged by the fact that there is a large number. Indeed, I think, clearly a majority of our friends and neighbors, even those who are in political disagreement with us, know that that murder was wrong. Once again, we’re praying for Erica Kirk, Charlie’s widow, and we’re praying for their two young children.

And events have been unfolding in recent days, and we will simply have to let some of these headlines come out with official statements of law enforcement and others. But it is absolutely right to want to see justice done. And at least channeled into the right energies and the right words, let’s watch our words, channeled into the right statements. I think that anger can be God honoring, rather than dishonoring.

Part III

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Was Charlie Kirk a Martyr? — Dr. Mohler Responds to Letters from Listeners of The Briefing

I have to tell you, I am particularly touched. It’s one of the reasons why I had a special session with students at Southern Southern Seminary and Boyce College yesterday. I had an hour-long discussion on some of these things because I thought it was important.

By the way, I think that’s already up. If you want to see it, you can look at my website. And I was joined by three colleagues in having that conversation, we hope to encourage students and help us all to think through some of these issues. I had a question come in, I sent in a question from his 14-year-old son, and the boy asked a question, “Was Charlie Kirk a martyr?” Interesting question. And I think it’s very encouraging to me, frankly, that a 14-year-old young man would come up with that question. Let me just put it this way, a martyr, rightly understood in its historical setting, and of course also made very clear in Scripture, the word martyr comes from the word for witness. And so a martyr in that sense is one who dies as witness to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so in terms of Christianity, a martyr is one who dies because of his or her faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, his commitment to Christ, and has been the case of so many believers even unto death.

And so that word has been picked up in a secular culture and used towards anyone who may die for a cause. And I’ll simply say that in the case of Charlie Kirk, we have to know more about the crime. But he was a believer, and that was a central part of his identity. And so to some extent, I think we won’t be surprised to know that was very much a part of the picture.

We’re also in a different position than say the Roman Catholic Church in terms of saints and martyrs in an official sense. And so I have to say in a more general sense as witness, here’s something I really hadn’t thought about until this 14-year-old boy asked this question, and I thought about it. Just looking at it here. You know what? I think it’s absolutely amazing how much attention has been given to the gospel of Jesus Christ in the last several hours because of the witness of Charlie Kirk. And I think we just need to pause for a moment and think about that. I’ve heard some very touching words, some very deeply moving words of witness to Jesus Christ and to the gospel of Christ occasioned by his death. And at the very least, that is a part of the witness that came by his death.

So in that sense, I think this is a very appropriate question, and I’m impressed, I have to say, and my heart is warmed by both the father and the son in sending this question along.

Part IV

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Was It a Sin for Me to Watch the Video of Violent Crime? Murder? — Dr. Mohler Responds to Letters from Listeners of The Briefing

Honestly, I never anticipated having to talk about this, but I also received many questions from listeners about viewing or having viewed the video, in all of its gruesomeness of the murder, that is the assassination of Charlie Kirk. And they’re wondering about the effect on their souls and whether that is sin. Well, I’ll simply say, I think the fact that there are so many people writing in asking that question, I think they’re clearly showing the conviction of seeing what they should not have seen. And I think it’s because there are people who will say, “Well, if it’s real, you should see it.”

And I just want to come back and say, I think there are all kinds of things Christians are not to see. Now, I also think there are a lot of people who saw some of this without even anticipating that they would see it. They were sent it, or it came up on them. I think there are others who didn’t realize exactly what this was going to be. And I’ll simply say, one of the things I think all of us have to pray, and this gets to issues, even sins of lust, and sins of anger, and all kinds of things, we need to pray that the Lord will cleanse our minds even of some things we have seen, and even of some things we have heard. And it’s not a matter of truth that we say Christians need to see everything, or hear everything in order to know what we’re talking about. No, that is just not the case. We are to take care where we let our eyes to go, and we’re to take care what we hear.

Now, there are things that are shouted at us, there are things that are shown to us. And sometimes we just have to pray that the Lord will protect us even from being traumatized by those things, or frankly tempted by those things. I think there is a reason why so many people are asking this question, and that is because there is a strange allure to the horrifying violence that is all too real in the world around us. And I think the great danger is that it’s very hard to see those things and not have problems in one’s own heart. I think that’s one of the dangers of social media, and just the immediacy and the power and reach of digital media. Things that you once used to be able to hide from, now come at you. I think as Christians, it takes all the more determination to say, “I don’t need to see that. I need not to see that. I’m not going to see that.”

I received so many questions, especially some questions related to family, gender, the roles of men and women and other things, child-rearing questions, other really sweet questions from Christians. I hope to get to those next week. Until then.

I want to tell you again, I’m glad to receive your questions. Just write me at mail@albertmohler.com.