The bad news is that the indigenous birthrates in the US have been well below replacement levels for decades. Only immigration (both legal and illegal) have allowed our populations to rise. This is nothing new. With the exception of the period 1946-1963, the US pretty much grew because of immigration. But, as the demographic momentuem of the Boomers now fades, the US is left with a problem. The positive effects of illegal immigration is an attendent rise in TFRs. First generation Hispanics averaged a 3.6 TFR during the period 1998-2008. This offset the TFR of 1.7 for non-Hispanics during this same period. The resultant TFR for the US during the period 2000-2010 of 2.0 puts the US above most of the other G20 nations.

But, as the 2010 Census showed, the rate of growth of the US population for the period 2001-2010 was the slowest since 1930. The population is growing (just barely); but it is also rapidly aging. The median age in the US circa 1972 was 24.5 years. Today, it is around 37. In Europe and Japan, the median age is well over 40.

To exasperate matters, once you get beyond First Generation Hispanics, and look at the children of and grand children of Hispanics who emigrated here 20-30 years ago, the TFRs plunge to non-Hispanic levels. And the pool of available Hispanics is dwindling. Mexico, in 1970 had a TFR of about 6.1 children per female. By 2010, it had fallen to 2.4 children per female. If trends continue, Mexico will have birthrates below replacement levels by 2025. Ditto for Central and South America. What this means is that the US will no longer be able to count on immigration to grow its population.

From that perspective, the growth rates of demographic cohorts mean little when the entire society is growing older or dwindling in numbers. And because our population is so mobile, it is not unusual to see regional population fluxes from one region to another. We’ve seen this countless times in our history. Less fecund, but wealthier and more liberal New Englanders move to places like Texas or North Carolina. Within a few decades, not only does the politics of the regions change, but so does population and birthrate trends.

What appears likely in coming decades is a shift from New England and the Rust Belt to points South. The states losing population will see an attendent drop in political representation in the House. But, the Senate will changes little. And as more conservative leaning (and younger) people leave these areas, those areas will become older and more liberal.

But rejecting the simplest version of this story also means refusing to buy the narratives of hardline secularists and triumphant atheists: Christianity is outdated, and, like other illusions in Marxist thought

I’m struck by how the phrase “Marxist thought” suddenly crops up in this essay. In my experience, even “hardline” secularists and “triumphant” atheists overwhelmingly reject Marxism.

One of them, I think, is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is one of the largest single denominations and is growing through both family increase, with larger than average families, and even more through recruitment. One cynical historian who narrated “Ten things you didn’t know about the Mormons” for the History Channel said something strikingly true at the end: “Mormons are tough
!” They inculcate each generation with the understanding that being a Latter-day Saint means “doing hard things”, in much the same way that the US Marine Corps centers its own recruitment on transforming the person who joins into an accomplished and capable human being. Just as the Marine ethic of “Semper Fidelis”–always faithful–evokes a religious order of warriors, like crusaders and Knights Templar, Mormon youth are raised with the expectation and then the actual experience of sacrifice and self denial for two years of missionary service, challenged by learning new languages and cultures, and confronted often with indifference or hostility. Their religious experience is focused on training each man and woman with the capacity to lead and teach that is the foundation of a lay-lead church, without career clergy, which can respond to growth by splitting congregations and replicating all of the officers and teachers out of the body of each new daughter congregation, often sharing existing chapels in staggered Sunday schedules. It is not constrained by the need to maintain an elite corps of dedicated full time priests, who live lives apart from families in the congregation, but instead is the most literal implementation of Luther’s idea of a “priesthood of all believers” in which every male member begins experiencing ordination at age 12 and becomes a priest enabled to baptize and to bless the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper at age 16, even as their female contemporaries are enlisted in service, teaching and leadership that is parallel in responsibility, and often culminates in full time mission service as well. A recent national study by the Pew Foundation found that nearly half of Mormon men had served two year missions, while about ten percent of adult women had done so, acting in a ministerial capacity out in the often hostile world of people who are not happy to talk to them.

So among the possible models for churches that has the character and capacity to take advantage of the demographic wave of growth among the faithful, one of them is surely the Mormons.