The new baby boom

Remember all the jokes about big families? | Joel Belz

Twice now in the last two years, demographics and population expert Phillip Longman has played the part of an intellectual bomb-thrower. But if he didn't get the full attention of thoughtful Christians with his first missile, his latest should focus our thinking for sure.

Mr. Longman is a senior fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C. He writes from neither an evangelical Christian nor a socially conservative point of view.

Two years ago, Mr. Longman argued in an article in Foreign Affairs that most experts, and most of the media elite, were getting a very important issue wrong. "Most people think overpopulation is one of the worst dangers facing the globe," he summarized. "In fact, the opposite is true. As countries get richer, their populations age and the birth rates plummet. And this is not just a problem of rich countries; the developing world is also getting older fast. Falling birthrates might seem beneficial, but the economic and social price is too steep to pay. The right policies could help turn the tide, but only if enacted before it's too late."