Why Americans aren't having kids, Apple CEO steps down, Iran ceasefire & NFL Draft names to watch | Ep. 66

Connor Jones: [00:00:02] Hi, I'm Connor Jones.

Micah Tomasella: [00:00:04] I'm Micah Tomasella.

Connor Jones: [00:00:05] And this is Culture Brief, a Denison Forum podcast where we navigate the constant stream of top stories in news, politics, sports, pop culture, technology, especially this week, and so much more. And we do it all from a Christian perspective. And Micah, I just got to ask you, what do you feel when you hear this sound?

Micah Tomasella: [00:00:25] What goes through your mind? And with the 12th pick in the 2026 NFL draft, the Dallas Cowboys select…

Connor Jones: [00:00:33] I guess we'll see.

Micah Tomasella: [00:00:34] Big question mark. I don't know. I guess we will see. You know, the Cowboys have two first round draft picks this year, which just makes me really excited for the draft, maybe than years prior, just because, I mean, two picks in the very first round of the seven round draft is very coveted. So we'll see what happens. Okay, so here's what we're going to be talking about today. And Connor, you know, you kind of caught me off guard with the NFL draft chime there. That filled my heart with joy. Thank you for that.

Connor Jones: [00:00:59] Right. That's what I said. I want to know how you felt when you hear that sound. What goes through your mind and your heart?

Micah Tomasella: [01:03] I just felt excitement. I just felt excitement. Yeah, me and Connor and some friends are going to be watching the draft together as hopeless and hopeful Cowboys fans. So, okay, today, we're going to talk about Iran just for a minute, give you an update, ceasefire that continues to be a ceasefire for who knows how long, blockade, all that stuff. Connor's going to talk about Tim Cook, and then we're going to be bringing on Parker Jones. Yes, you heard that right. The younger brother of Connor Jones, you're going to be seeing double. You're going to have Jones squared, Connor and Parker and Micah. So let's just see how it goes. He's going to be talking about the birth rate crisis that we're seeing and the reasons behind it, the spiritual implications of it, and so much more. So let's jump into the brief.

Connor Jones: [01:47] The brief.

Micah Tomasella: [01:52] So, I'm going to just give you a quick hit on what's happening with Iran. Again, I always remind the audience, especially with ever evolving stories like this, we're recording on Wednesday, April 22nd. The episode's going to be released on Thursday morning, 5:00 a.m. Central Time on Thursday, April 23rd. So this is as up to date as we can get. So we're entering now the 55th day of this conflict with Iran. Here's Trump's latest Truth Social post at the time of our recording. He put this out there on Tuesday, just a few hours before the original ceasefire agreement was expiring. Here's what he said. We're just going to take his words here. Based on the fact that the government of Iran is seriously fractured, not unexpectedly so, and upon the request of Field Marshal Asim Munir and Prime Minister Sharif of Pakistan, we have been asked to hold our attack on the country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal. I have therefore directed our military to continue the blockade and in all other respects remain ready and able, and will therefore extend the ceasefire until such time as their proposal is submitted and discussions are concluded one way or another, signed President Donald J. Trump in all caps. Connor, what's your initial reaction to this news?

Connor Jones: [03:08] I mean, I'm not sure I'm totally surprised by it. I think the government is trying to figure out who to talk to over there. So Vance was supposed to go over there, right? Like Vice President Vance was going to go, I think on Monday and was ready to go along with Steve Whitkoff and Jared Kushner and they were going to get on Air Force 2 and head over to Pakistan for another round of negotiations and then they just never left because Iran didn't commit to sending anybody. And so it's this question of like, who were they supposed to go talk to? I don't think Iran knows. It sounds like there's like some tension within Iran of like who's actually in charge there. The new supreme leader, the son of the former supreme leader is non-existent. I mean, like we're not even entirely sure he's actually alive. If he is, it sounds like he's really in a bad medical state from strikes that happened on him. And so he's not really the one at the forefront of the conversations here. It's some of the parliament members, the the quasi president over there. But then the generals in Iran are kind of doing their own thing. They're trying to wage their war in Iran and on the straight of Hormuz without communicating with the politicians in Iran. So then it's just like Trump is saying, get your stuff together, send a team to Pakistan and let's negotiate. And then I'm going to give you a few more days to do that. If that doesn't happen, then maybe he he goes forward with some sort of military options. I'm not sure.

Micah Tomasella: [04:18] Well, you know, so many of their leadership was taken out and taken out again and over and over again from mostly Israeli strikes throughout this conflict. So you have this fracture that's coming out where like you have Trump, you know, less than a week ago posting that the straight of Hormuz is open. Well, the politicians and negotiators in Iran agreed to that, but then you have the Iranian revolutionary guard, who is more extreme hardline, they didn't agree to that. They said, we're not going to do that. We're going to continue to shut off the straight of Hormuz. But both sides are trying to curry the favor of the supreme leader's son, of the Ayatollah's son. And he's responding very infrequently and again, like Connor said, we haven't seen this guy on film. We haven't seen a photo of this guy. We just see written communication from this guy. So like there is serious doubts if he's alive and if he is, what kind of condition he's in. So it makes sense. The more that I'm reading though, this isn't some sort of unconditional lasting forever ceasefire. I don't know how long they're going to be willing to wait, but at the same time, I think they're just trying to give time for both sides because obviously the US could just go bomb them again. Israel could ramp up all their attacks again and it would be bad for Iran. But at the same time, there are so many other factors playing into this that we've covered over and over again that I think Trump is trying to avoid. And so, you know, prayerfully, some sort of agreement can be reached. Iran cannot have the capability to develop a nuclear weapon and then everyone can move on to a certain extent and this can be over, but we'll see.

Connor Jones: [05:49] I mean, that would be ideal, right? I think Trump is seeing the unpopularity of this conflict here in the US in polling. With gas prices going up, the way the market's reacted to everything. I think he's recognizing, hey, maybe this this is unstable for a lot of reasons and going into midterms and everything, the best case scenario politically for him is also some sort of negotiation and ceasefire peace agreement that maybe achieve some of the objectives they went into this with, but doesn't leave everything so volatile and leaves the Middle East in a better position than it was in and is currently in with all the unstability and gas prices. We can just, like you said, prayerfully, you know, hit our knees and ask for God to to help lead a way through this and to peace and saving lives, everything there. So yeah.

Micah Tomasella: [06:32] So where we stand is that both sides are showing strength. Neither side wants to look like they're giving in. And now the speech, the rhetoric around this keeps getting sharper on top of it. There's still a path to a deal, but if the ceasefire lapses without one, this could escalate quickly. So prayerfully that doesn't happen and some sort of long-lasting agreement can be reached. But that's that's our Iran update. And again, we'll do our best to keep you guys in the loop on anything big, but right now we're kind of in a holding pattern.

Connor Jones: [07:00] Yep. All right, thanks Michael. We'll just continue to pray for that and just see what happens. Okay, something else that happened a few days ago. Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, one of the largest companies on the planet, announced he's going to step down. His last day will be September 1st, but he's going to remain on board as the executive chairman of the board there. So it's not like he's going to completely go away, but he's he's going to leave the day-to-day duties behind. This is a big deal for several reasons. One, he's the guy who took over after Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, the pioneer of the iPhone, the pioneer of the iPod, the Mac, everything. When Steve Jobs passed away from cancer in 2011, he appointed Tim Cook to be his successor a few months beforehand. Under Tim Cook, Apple's value has increased, get this, by 24X from $350 billion in value to $4 trillion in value. They were the first trillion dollar company ever. They're not alone in that department anymore. I think Google's up there, Nvidia's up there. So, but they are one of the most valuable companies in the world under his 15 years of leadership. They just continued to skyrocket in the stock market, way out performed the S&P 500. It's just impressive. They've launched a ton of products under his wing. Part of that's because that's what he was told to do. It's like, you got big shoes to fill. You got to figure out the next steps forward after Steve Jobs launched these world-changing products. I mean, the iPhone changed the world, right? So how do you keep that going forward? First off, you keep developing the iPhone. Second off, Tim Cook was at the top of the company as they launched Apple Watch, AirPods, Apple Pay, Apple TV, Apple Music, an entire movie and TV studio and streaming service, more cloud infrastructure. Just think about all that Apple has done in the years since Steve Jobs passed away. It's kind of crazy, right? Another thing with Tim Cook is it's less visible because it's not product-oriented, but this man is basically like a diplomat. He has to go around the world and meet with politicians and and world leaders, including President Trump quite a bit and just like, you know, serve at the behest of his company and make negotiations happen, find deals, find ways forward with a bunch of companies as they try to limit Apple's power or they try to build new warehouses, whatever it is, navigating the politics is an incredible talent alongside the business side of this company. It's just it's a really hard position and somebody has to come in and do it. That person is going to be John Turnus, who's currently the senior vice president of hardware engineering at Apple. He's 50 years old. He joined Apple 25 years ago. He helped oversee the product launches of things like the original iPad, the Mac. During his tenure, Apple did switch from the Mac to Apple-made processors, which offered basically a huge jump in both the computing power and the energy efficiency. It's part of why the batteries last longer. It's part of why the Macs are more powerful than ever. So this succession plan, this is the plan. They're going to go with this Turnus guy and see if he can carry the company forward. Now, he's got some challenges. I'm going to hit on that in a second, but I'm just thinking about like this company and Apple, this CEO change is right on the heels of the Disney CEO change that we just talked about a few months ago that happened last month, really, the new CEO at Disney happened in in March, he took over. And I'm just thinking about how this is a new transition of generations here, right? Kind of the baby boomer generation passing off these massive companies to older Gen X leaders. And they're basically saying, it's your job now to take us into this new era primarily with AI. That's what a lot of these companies are thinking about. That's what a lot of these boards and investors are thinking about.

Micah Tomasella: [10:11] Which is mainly what Apple has been lagging behind on is their AI. That's one of their biggest probably failures.

Connor Jones: [10:17] Well, you could say it's a failure. Some would say they've actually been smart, kind of staying out of the AI race, letting all these other companies spend billions and billions and billions. We've talked about Mark Zuckerberg at Meta spending billions on just getting the talent to come in and build AI, let alone the actual computing costs and data centers and all that. Apple's kind of taken a step back and said, we're going to let others do it and then we'll take their AI models and implement it into our products. Apple kind of maybe saying, maybe we should focus more on our hardware, let other companies do the AI things and then we'll have the tools that AI can actually work on, such as our iPhones with Siri or the Macs or whatever. So it's either they're going down the wrong path and they're not investing in AI enough. This is something they have been dinged on. The stock market has reflected that as well when they announced new iPhones last year and didn't have any update on their Apple intelligence. That's what they call their AI there. People are like, uh oh, that's not a good sign. But we'll see. That's part of what Turnus's job is going to be. Lead this company into a new generation of artificial intelligence and the next 10, 15 years, what does that look like? One thing that he's got to consider is the Apple Services head, his name is Eddie Cue, he's pretty popular in the tech world. He's even said that AI is changing so rapidly that you may not need an iPhone 10 years from now as crazy as it sounds. That's an insider, a top executive at Apple saying that. If that's the case, where does Apple go from here? Well, I don't know. To be honest, I'm not sure anybody knows, but that's what Turnus has to figure out with his team is what is Apple's long-term plan beyond the iPhone if they're really actually worried about AI taking away the need for an iPhone, which is crazy to think about because we all have one in our pockets, right? As Axios said this week on the announcement, they said, Cook, Tim Cook proved Apple could continue to grow without Steve Jobs. Turnus must prove it can still innovate. And I think that's true. And I just kind of spiritual application here, Micah, as I was thinking through this. You know, I don't know the heart of Tim Cook who is obviously just a business genius. He is well regarded. He's going to write books and everything and it'll be a bestseller because people want to know how he pulled off this incredible just tenure of 15 years at Apple. I don't know if he knows the Lord. I don't want to guess or anything, but even if he doesn't, I think we can still look at his time as CEO of Apple and recognize that he stewarded his resources, he stewarded his time, his team, his disciplines very well to the point of extreme success in the business world, right? Now, he's doing that in the interest of the company and of his shareholders. But I think we can still glean lessons from that. Scripture calls on us to steward our resources faithfully and responsibly. That includes not only our money, but our time, our talents, our possessions. Psalm 24:1 says, the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell within. Proverbs 27:23 says, know well the condition of your flocks and give attention to your herds. It's our responsibility to take what God's blessed us with and recognize first off that it's actually his. Everything we have is his, our family, our time, our resources, our finances, our home, is all his. And so when we recognize that and that we're dwelling in his earth, it changes the way you go about how you steward these things, right? So I would say, if you were the CEO of one of the world's most valuable companies like Tim Cook has been, like John Turnus is about to be, how would you steward it? You might feel the pressure to know as many details as you could about your company, to set routines to ensure you were up to speed on everything going on, and to come up with strategies to ensure future growth, right? That's how you would do it with a company. Maybe some of you are CEOs listening to this and you're thinking, yeah, that's what I do. It may not be Apple sized, but whatever you're doing, you're thinking through these routines. I think where I want to go with this is I could say that we should apply those same strategies to our own daily life with our spiritual life, right? You are the CEO of your life, but you don't serve the interest of shareholders, you serve the God of the universe and he deserves our very, very best. So as you just think through your days, as you think through your relationship with God, is your time well stewarded to ensure time with him is at the forefront of that? Is time with God daily part of your routine? Are you dedicating your God-given talents to the Lord? Are you making sure your dollars are not being wasted but are being used wisely and stewarded well that he has blessed you with finances and an income? Are you using that wisely? Are you tithing? Think about all these things and just remember, you are the CEO of your own life. So how do you want to go about your routines and your strategies for growth, spiritual growth, right? That's kind of I don't know. I was just reading about Tim Cook. I was like, I think there's some applications we could take here and apply this to my own life.

Micah Tomasella: [14:37] 100%, man. That is a wonderful application. Thanks.

Connor Jones: [14:41] Yeah, absolutely. Okay, we are here with Parker Jones. He is the groups pastor at Midway Church in Pilot Point, Texas. He received a bachelor's degree in politics, philosophy and economics from Dallas Baptist University and recently completed a master of arts in theological studies from Southern Seminary. Parker's main interests do include baseball, football, history and current events. He's married to Kayla. They have two, I would say just absolutely amazing daughters and I feel like I can really say that because they are my nieces and I just love them to death. So, Parker, yes, he is my younger brother. We're happy to have him here. Parker, welcome to the show.

Parker Jones: [15:17] Thank you guys for having me. Excited to to be on today and talk about a few really important things.

Micah Tomasella: [15:23] I'm seeing double here. Jones times two, man. This is this is crazy. What did you say at the top of the episode, Micah?

Connor Jones: [15:28] Jones squared is what I said. Yeah, you know, Parker, you come up on the show. I know that you're a loyal culture brief listener and you also contribute to our website, Denison Forum and write insightful articles, one that we're going to talk about today. But Connor seems to always clarify that Parker is my little brother, younger brother. I've never heard him say Parker's my brother. He seems to tend to clarify that you're the younger little one. I don't know.

Parker Jones: [15:58] Well, he he's been on earth a few years longer. I guess he's earned that right.

Micah Tomasella: [16:03] There you go. There you go. Very diplomatic answer there, Parker. I like that.

Connor Jones: [16:07] I'm going to get my gray hairs earlier. Yeah, Parker's written quite a few articles for us here. You've probably read some of them before. Your article last month on Project Hail Mary, just a review of that movie and kind of the spiritual applications we could take away from that was one of our most popular articles in the month of March. So that was really cool. But this week, Parker, we published an article by you on Monday morning called The Birth Rate Crisis is looming. Where do we go from here? And so, you know, Micah and I have talked about covering the birth rate crisis on the show before. We've never really had time to get into it because the weekly news is just always going, going, going. But this week was a little bit slower, so we were like, this is the perfect time and your article came at the right time here to talk about this birth rate crisis because it's real and it's cultural. It's at the forefront of culture. There's a lot of implications to the lack of births going on in culture. And so we want to talk about what's causing that and how can we respond as Christians. And so, you know, last week the CDC released new data on the status of births in the US that shot the conversation, I would say to the forefront of the culture. A lot of people started talking about it last week with this new data dump. So Parker, can you just give us a rundown on what you covered in the article at the top with what the data is showing, what the CDC report showed and what we're learning about the current state of the birth rates here in the United States and then even a little bit around the world. We're going to hit on that too.

Parker Jones: [17:17] I mean, the first thing I would say is that the CDC data, it's an annual report and it just shows that there was a 1% decline in births last year, which doesn't sound alarming on the surface, but this is a trend that's continued since 2007. Some years have been a much steeper decline than that 1%. Really, it's put the birth rate in the United States at 1.57 children per woman, which effectively is far below the replacement rate necessary to continue to stabilize a population. That replacement rate is 2.1. So, barring any significant cultural shift, we're headed towards eventual population decline. That's why I would call this a birth rate crisis. Decline doesn't sound alarming to some people, but the long-term effects of it are severe when you consider the economic and social issues that come with it, the destruction of welfare state and the destruction of rural regions as younger people migrate to find each other in urban areas. The the rural areas really get left behind. So, that's that's kind of the overview of why this matters, why the CDC data is important and why this trend is important. And and the US is not alone in this. This is absolutely a worldwide concern.

Connor Jones: [18:36] And what's one of the data points was that it's like at a point where it's 53 point something births per 1,000 women last year versus like in the 1950s, it was 120 births per 1,000 women. I mean, that is a drastic decrease.

Parker Jones: [18:49] Specifically women between 15 and 44. So that's that number is is just women in childbearing ages, which kind of makes it even more concerning because it already sounds like kind of a low number, but if it was all women, then that's that's one thing, but that is specifically childbearing aged women. Yeah, it's a very low number.

Connor Jones: [19:09] Yeah, it's a good clarification. I'm just thinking about like the difference in 2025 versus 1955, the baby boomer years. I mean, post-war and people were just moving to the suburbs and started to really have kids and kids and kids as technology advanced and economic prosperity happened. And now we're here many years later, decades later, and it's it's declining. So definitely interested to dive into this a little bit more. Before I let Micah ask a question real fast, is this a bigger issue in the US or other countries?

Parker Jones: [19:34] You could argue it's a bigger issue in other countries. For the most part, the countries that are struggling with this are all smaller than the US. Obviously, China has an issue and and that's much larger than the US, but the US is one of the largest countries in the world. So, on one hand, it feels like it's of greater magnitude, but we are probably a couple decades behind countries like Korea, Germany, and Japan and several other European nations. Korea has the lowest birth rate in the world, 0.75 was their uh births per woman in 2024. It bumped up to 0.80 last year. So they've seen a a very slight increase over the last two or three years on their birth rate, but it's taken a lot of intentional policy incentives to to create even that small bump. Japan, they've got 9 million abandoned homes. Most of those are in the countryside or in suburban areas, not really in urban Tokyo. That's where people have migrated to. It's part of the reason for the abandonment. The other part of the reason for the abandonment is population decline. The average age of a farmer in Japan is 70 years old. And then Germany, 61% of the German population could be of retirement age by 2070. In other words, there will be double the amount of people receiving retirement social welfare program money than the number of people in the workforce funding that those social welfare programs.

Micah Tomasella: [21:10] That's not going to work.

Parker Jones: [21:11] No, it won't. And and so they're going to eventually it's going to be tearing down elementary schools to build nursing homes.

Micah Tomasella: [21:18] Wow. So, Parker, I have two questions for you. I want to stay on this topic and then kind of switch it over to kind of more the meaning behind it. What have you seen these other countries do to try to correct the issue, right? So like if you say, you know, in the early 2000s, for example, let's say let's just go back 20 years. Let's say in 2006, Germany or Japan or Korea was kind of raising the alarm here and saying, hey, we have an issue. What strategies have you seen them or what what have countries tried to do to try to reverse this trend? Like what could we see coming to the US as far as what are some things people could do to kind of correct this other than like we're about to get into the just the kind of vibes are low, economic issues, spiritual issues. But like what practically have you seen these countries do to try to reverse that? Because obviously everybody in power is probably trying to, you know, reverse it in some way.

Parker Jones: [22:06] Yeah, well, we'll talk about this in a minute, I'm sure, but at the end of the day, it really requires a heart and cultural shift. But there are a lot of policy efforts that these countries have undertaken. A lot of them have have started way too late. And that's probably where the US is at at this point. Like we should have started with with some of these ideas a a while ago. But you'll see in Korea, for example, that they are giving baby bonuses and they are creating tax benefits for marriage and trying to to financially incentivize people to get married and have kids. And really, I think marriage is the place you start because most people, though marriage is more unpopular today than it has been historically, most people still desire marriage before children. And so incentivizing marriage to take place is an important part of this just as it's important to incentivize people to have kids. So there's a lot of financial incentives that are are floated around and I think that's that's the hope is that if you can make it cost effective and affordable to have kids that people would do it. I don't know that that is necessarily the case. I think there's also a heart matter at hand.

Micah Tomasella: [23:18] Well, and let's get to that. I mean, and that just makes a whole lot of sense to me, right? It just kind of sounds like we're just slapping a small bandaid on a on a wound that's bleeding out here. It needs something more drastic. It needs something truly transformational to actually fix the problem, which is what we talk about here in the US with laws being passed or executive orders signed or politicians doing this, politicians doing that. To what end? What's the foundation of it? Why are you doing it? Right? So let's talk about that. So let's focus on the US here. What are the societal trends lending to the overall lack of births here in the US? And then furthermore, how much of this is economic versus cultural, right? And so in other words, is this mainly about cost of living or has something shifted in how people view their family and their purpose?

Parker Jones: [24:06] Yeah, I think I'll actually I'll answer the last question first because it'll help inform the trends. I think that economic is a factor. For people that want to have kids, they might hesitate because of the economy. And historic trends have shown that that when there is economic instability, people have less children. When there's economic prosperity, like post World War II, people have a lot more children. So it's not that the economic piece is not a factor, but I think it's it's only a factor for the people that already desire children. So some of our trends have have suggested people don't desire children as much as they they used to. One key trend is prolonged adolescence or extended adolescence. And the idea of this is that even at the earliest age, you'll see that that kids are starting kindergarten later than they used to. And I know that sounds silly, but it's true. And that those kind of things add up over time to a a point where people are finishing their education later than they ever have. And the this kind of period of dependence is extended into their late 20s or even early 30s before they embrace independence. And people, even if somebody did want to have kids, they probably want to be married first. And if they do want to be married, they probably want to be in their careers first. If they want to be in their careers, they got to finish their education. And you can see that ultimately this just leaves less and less time for people to even have children. And along the way of that prolonged adolescence, people lose may even lose that desire to have kids. The second trend is an emphasis on family planning. And so family planning on the surface sounds like a good thing. And in some ways it is and it can be relatively basic, but in our current climate, it's all about maximizing choice. And this is a symptom of our liberty, right? People want to maximize choice. And so that choice may be exercised through contraceptives or abortifacient contraceptives. It also may be exercised through the embryo selection process with IVF. This is kind of the design your own baby idea that has become popular for primarily wealthy people that can afford the genetic labs that are run to to tell you different things about each embryo and then you select.

Micah Tomasella: [26:17] That is crazy. We could do a whole episode on just that. Just that concept and topic. That's crazy. Yeah.

Parker Jones: [26:20] Correct. And then there's just an aspect of family planning is abortion. And last year, there was nearly one abortion for every three babies born. And that is a staggering and heart-wrenching number. And so abortions are continuing to incline as as the birth rate declines. And so those are all part of this larger scale, very profitable industry called family planning. And family planning, again, while there are elements of it that are not harmful, overall, when we look at it, it's an industry that is cratering our birth rate and and lending us towards demographic collapse.

Micah Tomasella: [27:00] That is such a great point, Parker. I'm just going to say this real quick, Connor, and then I'll pass it off to you. But it is a symptom of our own prosperity that you already alluded to of the more technologically advanced things become, the more choices people have, the more the world has to offer, the more sinful fallen people like us can fall into the trap of whatever the world's offering me, whatever the next thing is, this temporal thing, that's going to provide me with whatever I need, the peace and comfort, the direction that I need. And so you're just trying to plug this hole that we were created for only God to fill. And so what happens is is you have this prosperity over time here in our country. We're celebrating 250 years as a country and yeah, like things aren't great right now, but at the end of the day, things are still pretty great here economically compared to a lot of other places in the world. Then you couple that with this prosperity and then on top of it, all of this choice that people have, all of this uncertainty that people have, and it just creates this concoction where there's just a lot of reasons to delay and a lot of reasons to not have a family. And that isn't God's way, I believe, but it does make sense when you lay out all the factors.

Connor Jones: [28:10] Yeah, it does. I would say I've I've seen over the last couple years here, probably post COVID, what feels like a some sort of vibe shift of people really saying, hey, actually, there's a lot of meaning and purpose in kids and family. One in like getting married, go get married, have a relationship with God, have kids, grow a family, see if you can make it work with one income. If you can't, find a way to do it with two incomes. But there are, I mean, I get the economic uncertainty because personally, I mean, I we're sitting here, we're three young dads. We deal with this. Like life is expensive. Daycare, child care, nannies, whatever you're trying to do is expensive. It's hard for people to to work around that. So, Parker, I'm just curious if you could tell us a little bit about what you found out about what's called the pronatalism movement, what's going on there, what are the initiatives they are trying to pursue to try to convince people, hey, babies are great, have them.

Parker Jones: [28:58] Yeah, the pronatalist movement is a social and political movement that promotes reproduction, high birth rates. Right now in the US, it's not really what I would call a well-oiled machine. You have figures like Elon Musk and some other wealthy figures, there's Silicon Valley people like Simone and Malcolm Collins that are regularly commenting and advocating for this. But there's not really centralized voices on this that that are trusted across the pronatalist umbrella, if you will.

Micah Tomasella: [29:29] Because at the grassroots level, most pronatalists are conservative Catholics and Protestants that have a worldview that informs their understanding of the nuclear family and and having children. And so there's kind of a separation, I think, between some of the grassroots level and these kind of wealthy, more agnostic figures. I was about to say, man, we need some normies. Like people who are normal, who are the spokes people for this, right? Like if you have billionaires saying have more kids, I mean, even I would be like, yeah, that's easy for you to say, Elon.

Connor Jones: [30:01] I mean, Elon Musk has a whole compound for all of his. He's got like 13 kids on a compound for them.

Micah Tomasella: [30:05] And he can more than afford that. I mean, the movement needs a rallying voice, a rallying cry, a central figure that's more normal than some of these Silicon Valley tech bros.

Parker Jones: [30:16] Well, and and maybe one of them will emerge. There is a belief that JD Vance is is pretty pronatalist. The challenge is he's a very partisan figure. Yeah. You you need somebody that that is not necessarily partisan. Yeah. He is a Republican. Yeah, he's the vice president of the United States. Yeah. You need somebody that maybe isn't in office. They may have other conservative political leanings, but that can kind of cross over to people that otherwise maybe would be turned off to to conservative politics. Really, the the movement needs that centralized figure to help them reverse course. There's no NRA for the pronatalist movement that's got this significant influence in Washington and also mainstream outlets and again, Elon probably doesn't help this, but mainstream outlets really kind of mock pronatalism and a lot of times just try to associate the movement with racist or religious extremists. And at the end of the day, that is most of the people that are having lots of kids do not fit that category, right? And so there are organizations, I mentioned Simone and Malcolm Collins, they have something called pronatalist.org that is trying to make some movement in the political realm. There's a a writer named Lyman Stone. He works for an organization called Demographic Intelligence. Those are just two examples of people that are actively advocating for policy changes and have a decent level of influence, but they don't necessarily see eye to eye on things. So that that doesn't help. And and there are very basic, mild pronatalist ideas that have surfaced in the United States. Obviously, we have a child tax credit that gets a boost every once in a while. And then there are what's called Trump accounts that are coming out on July 4th of this year. $1,000 gets put into that account for any babies that were born in 2025 or 2026. That alone is not going to incentivize people to have children. It's just a nice perk. So there's a lot of work to be done.

Micah Tomasella: [32:07] Well, and Parker, I mean, this is going to be my last question because I think this kind of rounds out the discussion of what we were talking about before. What is and how do you think, like what is the Christian approach to this? What is the biblical approach to this? How do you think that Christians should approach this subject? And personally, we believe as a ministry, as a podcast, the foundation of God's word, God the creator, us as humans being made in his image, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, right? So at that point with that understanding, how should we as believers understand this and how can Christians be a part of the actual solution to this, not just a bandaid?

Parker Jones: [32:44] Yeah, I think it starts with the local church. The local church needs to embrace this idea, teach this framework, and ultimately be a welcoming place for children. There are churches, I don't think it's most, but I think it happens that subconsciously treat children like a problem that they need to solve in their strategizing and in their planning. And children need to just be part of the church because they are. And so it begins with the local church teaching it and and practicing a kind of pronatalist framework in in the way that they care for their families and welcome children. Secondly, I would say that Christians that have been given the opportunity to have children should do so joyfully. Christian parents raising children in Christ-centered parenting is discipleship making. We are executing the great commission in doing that. And so we should we should do so with joy and boldly. And then thirdly, I would say the church as a as a whole, the larger universal church should see this as an opportunity because as secularism plummets the birth rate, imagine a world where the church is reproducing at a rate that allows for a godly cultural shift to take place in future generations because there are more Christian men and women being raised up to take up a a more significant portion of the population. It's it's kind of a a unique way in which Christians have the opportunity, the church has the opportunity to to really advance the kingdom of God here on earth. And then the last thing I would say is that in our conversations, in our prayers, and in our online presence, we have the ability to promote kind of pronatalist ideas. Not all of them, you you'll find some pronatalist ideas do not align with our faith. But we have to be discerning and wise in that, but really just promoting, making people aware of the birth rate crisis, but then promoting things that try to reverse the course of it.

Micah Tomasella: [34:33] You know what? And one way we can do that is, you know, I think it's less about like especially as a believer, like if you're looking for a movement to get behind, the pronatalist movement's great. Sure, right? But under the banner of Christ, we should all take inventory and stock of our own lives. So all three of us have young kids. So we should all from time to time, frequently, count our blessings, thank God for our our spouses and our kids that we've been blessed with to steward and we should be up front and out front of not being fake, acknowledging the difficulty, but also sharing what God is teaching us through this, how he is refining us and discipling us and how we are becoming more like Jesus as we raise our kids that although it's difficult, it is the most precious blessing and there's nothing I'd rather be doing than raising my kids. Absolutely. You know, and so I think that we can be on the forefront of it as followers of Jesus while also acknowledging the difficulty of it, but sharing very strongly how it's positively grown us and how our lives are so much more fulfilling because of it.

Connor Jones: [35:34] And I think that's what I'm seeing when I said the vibe shift earlier, I'm seeing that like on social media. Like like people are saying, hey, kids are amazing. They bring you a joy that nothing else can bring you besides the Lord himself. Like and to do it with your best friend in marriage is just incredible to have children together or to adopt children, whatever it is, to to to raise a family and to grow together and to watch your kids grow up and yeah, they're I was up at 5:00 a.m. with my one and a half year old this morning. But I'll tell you what, two hours later when we were eating breakfast and he smiled at me, I was like, this is it, man. I will remember these days forever. I don't want them to go by too fast because children are a beautiful, beautiful blessing and it's your legacy and you get to look back and hopefully one day be grandparents and there's probably grandparents listening to this and they're like, yes, my kids are amazing, my grandkids are amazing, my great grandkids. It's a beautiful, beautiful blessing. I think that's part of what we get to do as Christians is show what family means, the purpose that it brings, the beauty that it brings and the way it glorifies God as we multiply on the earth as as scripture says. Parker, this is this is really great, super insightful. Grateful you took the time to research all this and write the article. We'll post that article link in the show notes and grateful you came on to join us today to talk about this. But that's not the only thing we're going to talk about with you here. Because the thing is, I don't know anybody who knows college football better than Parker Jones himself. And so I couldn't think of a better person to come on and talk to us a little bit about this week's NFL draft. Micah and I, we already talked about the NFL draft at the top of the episode a little bit. We are big, big NFL fans, big college football fans as well. Parker is a college football aficionado, which is funny for a guy who didn't go to a school with a college football team. You still know.

Micah Tomasella: [37:13] None of us did. None of us. We all went to DBU. We got a baseball team, bro. We're a baseball school, but we still love we still love football. And so we're looking forward to the NFL draft. If you're listening on Thursday, it starts tonight. Round one is tonight at 8:00 p.m. Eastern on ESPN. It's in Pittsburgh this year, Steelers country. Rounds two and three will be Friday and then four, five, six and seven will be on Saturday afternoon. But Parker, you as the college football person, I wanted to have you come on. I gave you three things to do. We're really two. One was to give us some background on who Fernando Mendoza is, why he is the guaranteed first pick of the draft this year for the Raiders. Everybody knows he's already going to be the first pick. It kind of takes a little bit of the luster out of this draft. This one's been a little bit slower, a little more boring because there's not as many quarterbacks or game-changing guys. But I also wanted

Connor Jones: [37:57] Well, that's not as a Cowboys fan though. I mean, two first round picks. We got something to look forward to here. Two picks on Thursday night. But the other thing is because it's a lower draft like that, not as much talk this year, I wanted you to bring three names for us to look out for for the the casual fan, for anybody listening to this to look out for of like, oh, I'm going to make sure I I listen for where that name, that person goes, what team they end up on so we can kind of track their movement. First, tell us about Fernando Mendoza.

Parker Jones: [38:22] Yeah, sure. Mendoza, he's a national champion. So he made his name playing as the quarterback for the Cal Bears a couple years ago. He played there for three seasons before transferring to Indiana to be a part of Kurt Signetti's freight train that dominated college football last year, went undefeated and won their first national championship in school history. And Mendoza, outside of being just an absolutely sensational talent, he's a high character guy. He's overly positive. He's a absolute top-notch teammate. He gives incredible post-game interviews. There's plenty of clips to go and and watch of him just being hilarious after the game. But really, what I think it comes down to for the draft is he is a bright spot in a historically disappointing quarterback class, which has increased his value even more. There is very short supply to meet the demand at the quarterback position this year. And so it's certainly solidified Mendoza as a Las Vegas Raider. I almost said Oakland.

Connor Jones: [39:28] Oh, it is weird to say Las Vegas Raiders. That is weird. Yeah. Just doesn't add up still.

Micah Tomasella: [39:33] Yeah, I think he's going to change the Raiders for the good. Hopefully. And he's going to go, I mean, Tom Brady's my owner over there now.

Connor Jones: [39:37] I don't know. I don't know, man. Nothing's changed them for the good in a long time. I I don't know. I think Fernando Mendoza is great, but the Raiders are still the Raiders and they have been for a long time. They were so bad they packed up and moved states. But he's great. I mean, Fernando Mendoza is great. I love his post game interviews. I love how he wears his faith on his sleeve, how he proclaims the name of Jesus every chance he gets. You know, he's got a wonderful family story too, just what he's come from, the ailments his mother has, the fact that he's staying home for the draft to be with his family. He said specifically, I want to enjoy the draft with the people who invested in me to get me to this point. That is beautiful. That is beautiful because none of us have gotten where we are today by ourselves. And so I love the fact that he is that he's doing that. So he's absolutely a bright spot. I just still think the Raiders are the Raiders and it is what it is.

Connor Jones: [40:30] That's true. All right, uh Parker, what are some other names we can watch out for?

Parker Jones: [40:34] Yeah, these are three guys that I've just really enjoyed watching in college. And the first one is David Bailey. He's a edge rusher from Texas Tech. There's some mock drafts that think he could go as high as number two, but he'll certainly be in the top 10. He was out there in oil country, Lubbock, where the money moves. And and he was wreaking havoc in the backfield every single play. I mean, every single play, he was the the guy you wanted to watch because you knew wherever the ball ended up, it was going to be affected by him in some in some way. And so I think he'll be in the top 10 tonight. And then the second player I I find a lot of interest in is Jordan Tyson. He was a wide receiver at Arizona State. He had a couple injuries that banged him up each of the last two years, but when he was on the field, he was the most electric player on the field for for sure. And and some projections suggest he he'll be the first wide receiver taken. I kind of hope that's not the case because it may allow him to fall down to the Cowboys. But yeah, I know the Cowboys have a lot of needs. I just think this this guy is such a radical playmaker. And and so the same thing is true for David Bailey. So I I'm extremely intrigued by those guys simply because they are fascinating players to watch. The third guy I'll mention, this is somebody that is is really intriguing. Caleb Downs, who was a safety at Ohio State. He started his career at Alabama before transferring and becoming arguably the best defensive player in college football. You know, Ohio State, the Buckeyes have four or maybe even five, but almost certainly four guys that are considered top 10 caliber picks tonight. And Caleb Downs may be the the best among them, even if he's not taken first among those four or five guys. But what really stands out to me about Caleb Downs is his willingness to be open about his faith. He was part of organizing an on-campus worship night at Ohio State each of the last two seasons where he boldly proclaimed his testimony and boldly shared the gospel. You can find plenty of quotations out there of him explaining the gospel in a way that is orthodox and and true. It's not shallow. He genuinely believes that Jesus Christ is his Lord and Savior and that he paid the price for sin and that's the the gospel invitation that he gives to his teammates and to others on campus and publicly. And so I I think Caleb Downs will be an interesting guy to watch. I I pray that he keeps his faith public and and strong as his platform grows and he enters into a a bigger stage with the NFL.

Micah Tomasella: [43:05] Love it, Parker. I cannot wait to see Caleb Downs continue to proclaim his faith in Dallas, Texas, Frisco, Arlington specifically. What a great stage for him to proclaim the gospel for America's team. I do hope he falls to the Cowboys. Parker, it was really awesome to have you on today, my friend. It was fun to sit down with these brothers. You guys are both wonderful. So thank you for joining us for this week's episode of Culture Brief, a Denison Forum podcast. All the articles and videos mentioned will be linked in the show notes. If you want to help us reach more believers with truth in today's chaotic culture, please share this podcast around and leave a five-star rating and review. And we'll see you next Thursday.

Connor Jones: [43:45] See ya.