Tuesday, June 23, 2026
6/23/202625 min
This is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.
On today’s edition of The Briefing, Dr. Mohler discusses the decline in coupling and the decline of the birth rate, the effect of the smartphone on birth rates, the concern in India over an aging population that surpasses the growth of the economy there, and the resignation of Keir Starmer.
Part I (00:14 – 12:44)
Couples Aren’t Coupling: A Major Contributing Factor to the Global Declining Birth Rate
- Why birth rates are falling everywhere all at once by Financial Times (John Burn-Murdoch)
Part II (12:44 – 18:31)
The Smartphone is Killing the Birth Rate: Much of the Precipitous Fall of the Birth Rate Across the Globe Can Be Attributed to the Smartphone
- A drop in US births due to smartphone use? These researchers say so. by USA Today (Greta Cross)
- Global birth rates are falling…phones are a big reason why by Financial Times
Part III (18:31 – 23:07)
India is Growing Old Before It Grows Rich: India’s Birth Rate Decline and Its Resulting Economy Should Have the Attention of the World
- India’s surprise baby bust is a warning to the world by The Economist
Part IV (23:07 – 24:42)
Keir Starmer Announces Resignation as Prime Minister: Another British Prime Minister’s Role Has Been Cut Short By His or Her Own Party
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsAlbert Mohler· Host0:00
[intro music] It's Tuesday, June 23rd, 2026. I'm Albert Mohler, and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. You know, as Christians, we understand that numbers matter, but not all numbers matter equally, at least not in terms of financial reports and statistical reports, even trends, even demographic trends having to do with population. They're not all equally meaningful. But I think as Christians, we do understand that if we're talking about a very big news story when it comes to a falling human birth rate, that's a big story. As a matter of fact, for Christians, it almost can't be a much bigger story. Here we're talking just in the framework of creation order. We're talking about Genesis one, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth." Now we're talking about human beings evidently en masse, just as a global reality, basically deciding not to do that anymore. Now, let me just give you one statistic and, and one number. This is a number that you can keep very much in mind. The number is zero. In many countries right now, the largest number of women are having zero babies in their lifetime. Zero. That's a number I think we can understand. Now, as you're talking about other numbers, what you have is a falling birth rate. And the big story is that we've learned several things over the course of the last several years that weren't expected in this at all. Number one, there had been a pattern going all the way back to the beginnings of the Industrial