This last part comes cunningly as Lee continues on to report the upside: that Germany's government recently announced incentives for couples to have more children. Like a wave of war-time volunteers, German mothers push strollers--not death-reeking wheelchairs, but life-affirming strollers--across the screen. Hope, afterall. End scene. For viewers unable to put the pieces of this morality play together, Robertson explains:

Lee, in order to have babies, you've got to have a hope in the future. I have brought forth--my wife and I, I didn't have 'em, but my wife and I--had four children. They cost a lot of money. That means sleepless nights. You have to be up with them when they're sick. You have to take them to school and little league and all that kind of stuff. You have to be with them when they get in trouble, whatever that trouble happens to be, and although there's great blessing and joy, nevertheless there's heartache. You don't do that unless you have a belief in the future. And if you don't believe in God, if you have an existential view of life, that this life is all there is, then as Peggy Lee sang, why don't we break out the booze and have a ball? Why do we go to all that trouble? And it's only those with strong religious faith who have children. That's the truth.

And so in Europe, where they've lost their central core of religious faith, they're not having babies. Because they don't see a future. They've picked up the philosophy of the existentialists who think everything is hopeless, so if it's hopeless, let's not go to all that trouble, because the future may not be there. Those of us who believe in God believe there's a future for children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and all down the line, but in Europe it isn't the case. And so Europe is becoming statistically irrelevant in the world scene. And so Germany, France, these other countries that used to be great powers are losing their influence dramatically. And it's going to take more than a few financial incentives to get people back having babies again, but that's the key. Here in America, we've cut our birthrate somewhat, but at the same time, we have allowed a wonderful flood of immigrants, and they have bolstered our population, so we don't have that kind of statistical problem. But Europe is in danger of becoming irrelevant. Lee.

Coming from Robertson's mouth, the charges--existentialism ate Germany's children--sound like the set-up for a joke. Bush and Robertson read The Stranger together. But Robertson's corn-pone musings on secular "hopelessness" and its effect on the birthrate are just a down-home reiteration of the sorts of policy that serious Christian right intellectuals have been promoting for years.

Economist and historian Allan Carlson, whose pro-natalist policies I've written about before, is one of the strongest and most eloquent proponents of the ideas Robertson is grappling with: that the government needs to be actively involved in promoting large families both as a salve for a failing Social Security system and guarantee of future workers, and also as a bulwark against the demographic chaos he sees in European countries where Muslim birthrates now outnumber those of "native" Europeans. Though Carlson promotes conservative, traditional religiosity as the key to promoting large families, he also argues for fecundity on strictly social-science grounds.

In fact Carlson's organization, The Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society, exists for the purpose of creating and promoting social science research that backs up conservative social mores and the "pro-family" movement: publishing papers and studies that "prove," from biological, psychological or anthropological perspectives, that the family structure the Christian right is fighting for is really the best environment for raising children on its own merits, Scripture aside. Though Carlson is a particularly literate example of this tactic, it's one that's increasingly being used by an array of social conservative activists trying to cover all their bases: pro-lifers arguing against abortion for its purported effects on women's mental health; anti-birth control advocates claiming that the pill is not just morally wrong but will also lead to breast cancer, obesity, nervousness and dull skin; condemning gay marriage not with Scripture, but with conservative think-tank sociology. It's like the "Intelligent Design" model for sneaking theological arguments past the academic or medical gates: for those people unconvinced by biblical reasons for large, patriarchal families, maybe these sci-fi scenarios can change your mind.

Likewise, conservative Christian "pro-family" arguments are increasingly common in public debates about population decline, immigration and birth rates, but they usually go uncredited as such. Too often the specters of dying "native" (read: white, Christian) cultures take the emotionalism and pitch of Christian right warnings, without mentioning that many of the people building up the threat of a demographic "time-bomb," a Western "baby bust," have seriously sectarian ulterior motives. Even those purporting to come at the issue from "our" side. There's certainly room and need for a discussion of these topics, and what they mean for all countries and populations, but for now, the conversation seems limited to the people who see Europe's population decline as one thing only: a Christian/Western culture call to arms.

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