Multiplying fears: Islam and the demographic freedom of the church

I saw this video a few weeks ago and was shocked. Not so much at the demographic claims (which have been around for a while), but at the manipulative attempt to scare Christians/Americans (the groups are treated as almost synonymous) into reproductive action. This video is little different from the tactics used to perpetuate the White Australia policy during the first three-quarters of last century, in which the fear of Chinese or Indonesian hordes descending onto our country to fill our wide open spaces was the justification for encouraging a higher birthrate and restricting immigration from those outside of the preferred race.

I am all for married people having children where possible and think that the loving and sensitive evangelisation of Muslims (and western nationalists) is a duty and a privilege of the church. But I found this video disturbing in its implicit theology and its barely concealed racism.

Christian honouring of the gift of singleness (based in Jesus' own life and the teaching of 1 Corinthians 7) is, amongst other things, an affirmation that the church is not reliant upon biological reproduction for the gospel to be passed on from generation to generation. As a missionary faith, it is not the natural children but the spiritual children who are our next generation. Of course, being raised in a nurturing Christian family is a great way of passing on the faith, but our hope is not in demographic trends. Children are a wonderful blessing and gift from God, but they are not a strategy that we employ in order to preserve a culture.

Indeed, the church is not bound to any single culture (whether European, American or Australian) and if it diminishes amongst some groups during the next few decades, that would be sad, but not the end of the world. This century the church will be far more African, Asian and South American than European or North American, and perhaps God may use this to bless the church and the world through fresh vigour and creativity in obedience and love.

I love the Australian cultural heritage in which I have grown up, but it is not sacred. It has its own many blind-spots and weaknessess. May God use our brothers and sisters around the world to help us notice and repent of the cultural sins that we drink in with our mother's milk.

One of those sins is a deep fear of those who are not like us, whose beliefs, habits and loves differ from our own. We are right to love what is good in the familiar arena of our own history and current society. And when something we love seems threatened, it can be right and good for some concern to be part of our response. But may God teach us also to love the alien and the stranger in our midst, for we too are aliens and strangers.
UPDATE: This post by Matt also seems highly relevant to this discussion.

Thy My will be done

Do you have a will? This is not a philosophical question asking about volition; I'm talking about the legal document, a.k.a. last will and testament, telling people what to do with your stuff after you're dead. If not, why not? Jessica and I have been intending to make one since we were married and have still not got around to it. We didn't even get to it after the events of the last twelve months or so. It seems like an obvious thing to do, a straightforward way of caring for those who will have to pick up the pieces after your death.

In any case, I was thinking this morning about wills and the sociological effects of the economics of singleness (or more specifically, childlessness - whether through lifelong singleness, infertility or choice). I began wondering whether there have been any studies done on the wills of childless people: do they bequeath proportionally more to organisations which promote and sustain patterns of social cohesion beyond the familial level?

I am curious: how do you think about your will? How do children (or the lack of them) shape your attitude to the future of your material blessings?
For those who might be worried, this post was not prompted by any new developments in my life (which continue to be good on the health front) or by any recent deaths or illnesses.