You're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abadan Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm John Galantis, and we have a great conversation lined up for you guys today. As always, it is so good to be back here in the Clearview Today studio with Dr. Abadan Shah, who is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor, and the host of today's show.
Dr. Shah, start up another great week, my friends. Yes, very excited about this week. We had a great weekend and looking forward to the conversation today. Today's a great conversation.
Before we do anything else, Dr. Shah, I want to update. I'm going to just give the air horns one more time because we are excited to announce the launch of a brand new podcast here from Clearview The Lighthouse. Yes. The Lighthouse, a weekly devotional series hosted by Dr.
Abadan Shah. I feel like at every point in a pastor's career, they launch into daily devotionals. And we did as well back in 2020. It's just that so far ours have been in book form. That's right.
We started with 30 Days Through a Crisis. That's right. 30 Days to a New Beginning. That's right. And of course, 30 days praying for America.
These are all daily devotions, but, but. I just feel like There was something missing. There was a weekly audio segment that was just missing out of our week. We had something Monday to Friday, and we had something on Sunday with your sermons. But there was a little Saturday slot, cold and lonely.
And, you know, this is kind of something that we've been wanting to do ever since February. We were talking about this weekly devotional series. It's just a lot of good things have been happening here with our church, with in the academic field, and then, of course, with Pray.com and Truth Network. Yes. And so we've been sort of.
Engaged in many different places, like having many irons in the fire. And we felt like maybe we will at the end of the summer. And then, when you came to me and said, Hey, look, this is the time we can launch this, and it'll be really good. And a lot of people are looking for something like this from you. And I said, Okay, I'll do whatever it takes if you guys can pull this off.
And prayerfully, yes, prayerfully, you guys have launched this, and it's going to be awesome. I admit, well, you know, Nicholas, you know, your son, he's on staff here at Clearview. He used to engineer this show, right?
Now he has sort of graduated to completely writing. Producing, recording. And editing and posting the lighthouse, it's his project. Right. And so I said, you know, with it being a weekly show, try to get a little ahead, maybe be one or two weeks ahead.
He came to me the other day and said, Yeah, I've written 40. Wow.
So the first year of content from February until now, like almost a year of content he's already got. I mean, he's a machine when it comes to efficiency. For the benefit of our listeners, what he's writing is taking the work that I have done, the sermons I have done, and it has a good bit of devotional content, and then taking that and making it into individual devotions that can go out and help people throughout the week.
So it is, it is. Yeah, again, still my writing coming from the Word of God, and uh, but put into those nuggets. Every sermon that you preach, Dr. Shah, has application, and you know, a lot of times the application is tied to the main scripture that you're using or it's tied to a story behind it. And a lot of those can be condensed.
You know, if people want to hear those applications and they're like, Well, I just don't have time to listen to a 30 or 55 minute or 40 minute sermon.
So that's why we wanted to do a weekly devotional series. A reason why we didn't want to do a daily devotion like everyone else does is because we've already got a daily show. We're sitting on it right now.
So, all that to say, new episodes every single Saturday morning at 8 a.m. That's perfect coffee time, by the way. Get up on Saturday. And if you look, if you subscribe to the Clearview app, here's something else, Dr. Shaw, that a lot of people don't know.
If you're already using the Clearview app, you're going to get this devotional completely free as a push notification anyway.
So, you may as well go ahead and get the Clearview app. That's going to help you stay in touch with what Dr. Shah is doing through the church. But if you don't have the Clearview app, it's going to be available on Apple, Spotify, Pray.com, Dr. Shah's website, Abadanshah.com.
Clearvc.org. It's going to be everywhere. That's right. And so, anyway, that's a great, great resource for people to get. Moving into today's conversation, Dr.
Shah, verse of the day is coming to us from Genesis, very beginning of the Bible, chapter 1. Verse 28, it says, Then God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it. You know, that goes completely contrary to the liberal, humanist, secularist narrative that has been around for quite some time, which is we have too many people on this earth. Yes, that's true.
I remember growing up in India and going to the maternity ward, okay, and seeing outside the maternity ward, this was a railway hospital, there was a big mural. Above the door, and it's like a pretty wide door.
So big mural. on top of the door and on that they had a globe in the middle. And they had children all around it, and some children are climbing on top of that globe and all of that. And the words underneath are. The world has too many kids or something like that.
Maybe there is room for one more, something like that. It was a very depressing thing to put. Outside the door of the maternity ward. Why was it in the hospital? Wow.
I mean, it's coming from Planned Parenthood. Oh, wow. Yeah, Planned Parenthood is everywhere.
Now, in countries like India and other places, I'm not saying I would ever support their way of doing this, but we understand because they're a lot of times indiscriminately they're having children and they end up in orphanages because they're coming from prostitution and things like that.
So it's a real, real tragedy. And no child is an accident. This is something we need to emphasize. Every child is a gift from God, no matter the circumstance in which they're coming into this world. But I remember seeing that and often wondering it's like Is that Good?
There's too many children in the world, and you're putting that right outside. Maternity war. But then there's room for one more. It's like, I'm not really sure what your message to me is. Yeah, or something like that.
It was like, one more has come in.
Okay. And so. It never sat well with me. Yeah, it's kind of like, yeah, you're just come on in, let's have your baby. You're sort of a burden.
Yeah, another one has come into this world. We're sick of this. I want to ask you about that mindset because you've been to big cities here in America where I would look at it and say, man, this city is really crowded. But you've also been to big cities in India where it's like. The crowding there.
People have no idea what crowd looks like.
So, so that's my, even with the massive, massive, unreal, inhuman crowds in India, did you or your dad, or did was there ever a thought like there are just too many people? When you go to a place like A place is like Bombay, okay? You will see people everywhere. Anywhere you turn, it's three o'clock in the morning, they're people. I mean, there's no, it's not a joke.
The population, they say 19 million, 19 million. It's not 19. My dad told me that. He said it's 90 million. Wow.
9-0. The population of India is about 1.4 billion people. That's incredible.
Okay. So all someone has to do is do the math. All they have to do is do the math. What is the population of Maharashtra, which is a state in which Bombay is the capital? All you have to do is do the math.
What is the population of Maharashtra? And Where are those people? Mm-hmm. Oh, you have these number of big cities, and the population of these cities is this number. This number is an add them up.
It does not equal the population of Maharashtra. Until you realize, wait a minute, All those people are in Bombay. Because that's where people go for jobs. Really? That's where they move from the villages because there is no no way to make an income.
The farm has fallen apart. Or the landlords who have been fleecing people for generations. I mean, think about that. People talk about slavery in America. Right.
You they have no idea. There is generational slavery. I mean Not just a couple hundred years. You're talking about over a thousand years. generational slavery because your great great great great great great great great great great grandfather took out a loan from this landlord's great great great great great great great great great great great grandfather Now you are you're paying it off.
You're paying it off and you cannot. Yeah.
So your children will continue in this. Wow.
So all those people go in the cities, they give up and then they s live on the sidewalk. They're never counted in the census. Right. And so You in in Bombay you see On an overpass, he looked to the left or the right, crowds. you know uh 200 hours later you go over another it's another bridge and you look to the left and the right.
Crowd, I remember the video you showed me of the morning commute where people are like cramming themselves so hard into the train that they're like climbing on top of the train just to get to work. This is how they work, they look like refugees escaping the city of their lives when they get to their workplaces. They are clerks, yeah, they are security guards, they are uh teachers. I mean, so they have they have. Good jobs.
Yeah.
Just getting there is you're on top of this. I remember, seriously, and I might link that video. I might drop it in here so you can watch it while we're talking, but it was really incredible to see. Like, it looks like they're fleeing the city for their lives. And it's like, no, that's the morning commute.
That's how they do it. I think that's also going to be the evening commute. Oh, my God. The whole point is this: once you leave Bombay. Mm-hmm.
Wide open spaces. There are mountains and farmlands and just plain. I mean, there's nothing there. Nobody's living there. And then there's a village, then maybe there's a town.
And then you go a couple more hours, and then there's a bigger city, nothing like Bombay. But then you go for miles and miles and miles, there's nothing.
So when people say, oh my gosh, too many people in this world. I can understand if you're spending your whole life in Bombay and you don't see anything outside of Bombay, you may feel like this is just too many people, this is too many. But they they are there because This is the only place from which they can eke out a living. Right. So if we can say, I think I see exactly what you're saying, if we can say objectively that India does not have a population issue, then there's no way on earth we can look at America and say there's a population issue here.
Right. I would never say that Indians don't need to be educated and that they need to do something about prostitution and all of that. Help them understand family values, those kind of things. Not family planning, I would say family values. Help them to understand, hey, you want to have children?
Just know this is what it. Takes to raise a family. This is how you do it. And then teach people to be. to be celibate or Don't go out there and and just have A prostitute, and next thing you know, there are children living on the streets.
That's a problem. But that's a different issue, whole altogether different issue. In America, I would say, we can talk about other countries. We can talk about Europe and Africa and South America and all that. But our focus is America.
There has been a. big decline In the number of children that are being born. That's right. And it's really significant what you pointed out earlier, which is that for years, the left in America has pushed this idea that because the world is so overpopulated, that having children, just the simple act of having children, is selfish. Right.
Or it's unfeasible or it's like unsustainable. And that's that's a big fat lie. Because we're seeing the exact opposite where we're having problems.
Now we're in a demographic decline. Yeah.
A little under 3.6 million babies were born in 2023. And that's about, get ready for this, 76,000 fewer than the year before. And the lowest one-year tally since 1979. Yeah, 3.6 million sounds like a lot until you really start looking at the numbers. And it's like, that's pretty alarmingly low.
Yes, I mean the births and I'm looking to Associated Press. I don't look to them for much. But anyway, so this time I am. The births were slipping for more than a decade before COVID-19 and then dropped 4% from 2019 to 2020. And then it went up for two straight years.
I guess people are at home. Yeah, I wonder what that's about. But then again, 2023, you see that it once again drops down. Right. The point is that population is not growing is declining.
Yeah.
In Europe, the same thing. And that is a real problem for any culture, for any civilization. You sent me an article earlier and and I just kind of skimmed it, but I did see something very interesting where the C D C itself said that nearly one in four young adults may not Ever have children. That's what they're claiming. And I think it's kind of pernicious because what we do is we take that and we frame it like, oh, it's just a personal decision.
If they don't want to have kids, they don't want to have kids. But we're ignoring this larger pattern, which is more and more and more people are deciding this because they're being told not to. Right. Because they have this understanding of this. This uh um Conviction that this world is too populated, we need to stop this.
And especially the Gen Zs are being fed this lie that the world is too populated. Why do you need that? Why do you want to bring another child into this ugly Horrible world. Please don't listen to people like that. That's true.
They are joystealers and they are liars. I'm not here to tell you go have. Thirty kids. That's not the purpose of this show. Have the number of kids or not that God wants you to have.
Well, that's why you do see. I mean, I agree wholeheartedly, and I think that's why you see, maybe you can speak to this. That's why you typically see Christians with lots of kids and big families. You know what I mean? It's not because they don't believe in birth control or whatever people say, it's because they have genuine joy that comes from Christ.
And so, all of those things that they're being told, they just don't believe them. They want to have children because they understand that there's a true joy that comes from obeying God when He said, Be fruitful and multiply. The purpose for having children, and we're going to come back to these statistics and what that means for a culture, especially the Western culture, especially for America. But the purpose of having children for Christian homes is not just so that you can have some joy in your life. Be honest with you, kids don't always bring joy in your life.
I mean, you have three now, three now, and you tell me right now, how is your sleep? It's right. Oh, my sleep is absolutely obliterated. The joy is deep. You know how they say, I got the joy, joy.
Joy, joy, down in my heart. It's real deep down, right? It's real deep, right? It's there, but man, sometimes I have a hard time finding it. When you find your wife sitting on the couch, just slumping over with the baby at a hand in the morning, five o'clock in the morning, and you yeah, I went to bed.
I went to bed.
So, so Monday nights, I usually try to go to bed around 9 or 10 because we get up and we do the six o'clock prayer in the morning. And I didn't want to have, I genuinely, I did not want to let a new baby stop me from doing that because I felt like now that I've got three kids, I need to be praying more than ever.
So I get up at 5:30 and the bed's empty. And I'm like, I know she, I heard the TV in the living room. Right. I know good and well, she didn't stay up and watch TV.
So I went in there and she's like, her neck is craned over. The baby's falling out of her arms. I'm like, Ellie, get in the bed. I think that's easier because she's trying to feed the baby. She's trying to take care of the baby and feels like if I go to bed and the baby's going to cry another hour, I have to get up.
So I get it.
So. Having children brings joy, but not always at the time that you think it will. That's right. It's not obvious joy. It's not obvious.
Having children is not just so that it will give you some purpose and meaning in life. Maybe some. Because you're watching a child grow up, you're helping them in their development, all those kinds of things. Neither is having children just so that they can take care of you in your old age.
Some people think that way, especially the country that we come from, in India and Asian countries, parents have an expectation: when we grow old, you take care of us. We're taking care of you now, you take care of us then. It's just how things work. This is tradition. And if you don't, how shameful, what an awful person you are.
I'm so grateful for my mom and dad. I was just about to say, your parents being Christians, I'm guessing they're not a Christian thing. Christians do the same thing, too. They have those same kinds of expectations for their children. And to some extent, I think people should have that kind of an expectation to some extent.
Children should look at their parents as their responsibility. Yeah.
But my parents were not just because they were Christians, it's because of how they were. They always told us, we'll be okay. You go out there and you fulfill God's purpose for your life. And if that means you're never coming home, we get it. We want you to come home.
We wish you were more. Hear more, but we understand you're not obligated to do anything for us. And they were always that way. Always that way. And that is very rare.
And the older I get, the more I appreciate that. That that's that's That's tough. Yeah.
To say that to your children, like we don't need anything, we're fine, we will be fine, because that is sacrifice. But it let you go out into the world and build something guilt-free. You know, you don't have to be worried about, well, I'm abandoning mom and dad back home. Like, you knew that your dad was still pastoring, was still making a life for himself and for your family, and you were able to build something great here in America. That's right.
And I could not have done that if there was that guilt sitting on my conscience.
So, why should we, as Christians, have children? Again, It's only if God wants you to. is because we are g We we are giving God a godly seed.
so that he can use Our children to make an impact in the next generation when we're gone. That is the purpose.
Now if you do anything else, just know you will be very disappointed. If you try to find joy in your children, they will break your heart. If you try to lean on their your children, they may not come through for you. If you have those kinds of expectations, just know that you will be sorely disappointed, hurt. And that's when a lot of people get disillusioned.
They become. Um kind of Mean and angry and and and just loose. That sense of joy because they feel like They did all this for the children, and they were hoping to have joy come back to them, and it didn't.
So, like the children are supposed to be a return on investment. Right, and it didn't happen. Don't have those expectations. Our purpose is to provide God with a godly seed for his kingdom to grow in the next generation.
Now, in the process, you will have joy. In the process, you will enjoy them. Playing Little League or going to school and performing on the stage or getting their awards or becoming a valedictorian or getting married or having children and you are now grandparents and all in the process, you may get all those things. But If you think I'm doing this so I can have those things. You'll be hurt.
And a lot of people are hurt. Yeah, we know that the majority of young people. Especially in the secular world, don't think this way. How many Christians, how many young Christians do you think? Think this way, where I'm not going to have kids.
I don't want to. Unfortunately, this liberal. Secular, anti-God, anti-biblical, anti-Judeo-Christian value narrative has so infected our culture. And and I I honestly think much of that is coming from social media. Much of that is coming from uh social media platforms like TikTok that are coming from China, where that kind of a philosophy is is shoved down the throats of their people because China is the largest country in the world, even more than India.
Imagine I didn't know that. Oh yeah, China is like larger, but I didn't know it was more populated. Oh yeah. That's incredible.
Yeah, and it's not India. India's not yeah. India is one point four billion, but China is bigger. Wow.
And so that's the narrative. That that's not the narrative. That's that's The law. Yeah.
Okay, so When you have that social media platform. Um Used as a propaganda in the West, especially in America, guess what?
Now people here young people here are picking up an ideology From a communist country. And it is at its heart, it's anti-human. You're absolutely right. Anti-god, anti-everything. And so we're paying the price for that.
Personally, I think. TikTok should be gone or be bought. And I hope President Trump, I know he's working on that. I hope it is taken and redone. I 100% agree with you.
I said this on the show months back. I deleted it. And I can tell you, I don't miss it. I really do not miss it. I thought like I would have.
A big hole in my time, I'm getting way more stuff done. Yep. I mean, we just got it, we got a new show launching, we got a new book coming out. And plus, your mind is not being attacked by a very sinister ideology. Oh, true, true.
Ideologies. I was way more argumentative when I was on TikTok. I was always, maybe not always, but a lot of the times if someone was trying to tell me something. Whether it's my wife or even my pastor or my friends, I was looking for ways that they were wrong.
Well, I'll say this, and again, I don't have any hardcore evidence to prove other than having seen. From you guys, some of the things that have been floating around on TikTok for several years now, especially through the pandemic years, is there was a concerted effort to bring a divide between parents and children. You're right. You're 100% right. To turn kids against their parents.
And that. Is what we are seeing in our culture and our society over the past half a decade. I think you're 100% right. And like I said, I would go so far as to say, I think everybody listening to this, if you've got TikTok, or especially if your kids have got it, man, you should really because it is, it's, it's anti-human, it's antisocial. And I know it's, it's branded as social media, but it's really not.
No, it's a propaganda coming from China to infiltrate the mind and the heart. And if you can break apart the American family, you have now gotten something. And now we're in a place, you're exactly right. And now we're in a place where, oh, surprise, America has too few people. Right.
There you go. That's exactly. There's a reason why we're talking about this because all of this is connected. Yeah.
And so let's go to the source of the problem, which is the enemy, of course, but also these outlets that are causing this mind wash. I agree. Right. And begin to. to reteach People, especially church kids, not that you have to go out there and have 10 kids.
10 kids, that's what God wants from you. No, maybe not. Yeah.
Maybe God wants you to have only five. Maybe God wants you to have three. Maybe God wants you to have only one. Maybe God says, none for you. I want you to just use your life to bless others.
Okay, that's fine. There is no rule that you have to have these many. But don't let someone else's agenda. Keep you from having children. And especially in America, when that population drops, it affects.
It affects our economy. Oh, yes. It affects our industry. It affects everything. Yes, we have a shrinking workforce.
We have strained support systems for elderly people. We have cultural and generational disconnect, just like Dr. Shah said.
So, I mean, we are paying the consequence of this. And what the last administration did was by opening the southern border, what they were doing is they were trying to compensate for. People here not having children. And we need the workforce, let's bring it. No.
We're not going to indiscriminately bring in people, for one, who don't like America, who want to cause America harm, who want to take away and destroy the very fabric of what it means to be American. Why would we want that to help our population grow? Right. Right. No.
Yeah, I didn't even think about that. That's the point. That's what they're trying to do. Yeah, you're right. That's why a lot of these senators and whatever were silent on this.
It's like, well, guys, we need the labor force. Yeah.
Yeah.
We don't have any more people. We need the labor force. We need the market needs this.
So, yeah, I mean, the borders open. And I know some bad elements came in, but overall, I mean, we need this because our birth rate is down.
So Americans are having less and less and less kids every single year, and more and more and more illegal immigrants are coming into the state to fill the gap.
Now we are turning this around. In fact, President Trump. You know, he's giving incentives towards having children. That's right. And he said, and I'm going to quote him correctly.
He says, $5,000 baby bonus for moms after they give birth. And he said, It's a good idea. I'm with you. I'm like, really? And this came out in the Independent, which is a news channel.
I mean, a news outlet. He has praised the idea of a $5,000 reward to new mothers. And he referred to himself as the fertilization president. Hey, man, go for it. We just had a baby three weeks ago.
$5,000. Where's your check? Send me a check. I was going to say that. I'll check it.
Send me the check. I'm there. Dr. Show, other than have more kids, what is your prescription for this problem? Because it's going to take more than just having kids.
I would say, don't look at your children, your family as a burden. We never did. We never did. As Nicole and I, we loved our kids. We enjoyed time with them, and they're.
Difficult days, you know, when kids don't listen, or you're having difficulties in your marriage. And keeping a family together is tough. And then financial struggles, and those kind of things, and then health problems, or job problems, or people problems, or family problems. Those things happen. But keep your eyes on the Lord.
Keep. trusting him, keep connected to the church. Hear God's word on a daily basis and just know that these seasons will change and there are better days coming. That's right. And, and.
That's what you have to do. Amen. Amen. I think we're probably going to have one more. I know Nicole are probably done.
You think we can convince Ryan to have one more, man? I don't think so. Based on what Ryan and Elizabeth have already told me, I think five was their limit. Limit. Five is their limit.
And they're done. I think I'm going to follow your limit. I'm going to stop at four. Four seems like a good number. We had three kids, so I'm like, all right.
I remember, in fact, I think I shared this on the podcast the day we announced. I told you about Carson that we found out he was a boy. You said, Are you worried about three having three boys? I said, Nope, I'm worried about having four kids because I know Ellie's going to want one more just to have a girl, right? That's right.
We got to get a girl.
Well, Dr. Shah, thank you so much. Thank you guys for listening. Make sure you join us next time, same time, same station, right here on the Clearview Today show, diving into another great topic. And a big thank you to all of our sponsors for supporting the show.
Don't forget, you guys can support us by subscribing to the show on iTunes. You can subscribe on Spotify, Apple iTunes, anywhere you get your podcast and content to re-listen. And don't forget, you can always support us financially at Abadanshah.com. Couple of big things before we leave, I want to leave you guys with. Number one, we're doing another live stream on August the 15th at 7 to 9 p.m.
as part of our 24-hour prayer vigil. You guys can call into the show. We're going to pray with you live on the air. That number is 252-582-5028. Go ahead and save it in your phones right now.
Also, and I cannot stress this enough: go subscribe to the lighthouse with Dr. Abadan Shah. It's a new podcast from Clearview Church. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Pray.com. Speaking of Pray.com, Dr.
Shaw, we have passed 31,000 followers on Pray.com. Wow, that's a I just got to give the Lord a hand. Praise God for that. We want to do a big celebration episode once 50,000 subscribers or 50,000 followers.
So if you're on Pray.com and you have not followed Dr. Shaw yet, make sure you go ahead and do so. Thank you to everyone who's using the Pray platform to give financially. We appreciate all of your gifts, and it's because of that that we're able to keep this conversation going. All right, that was a big mouthful, but we love you.
We value you guys, and we'll see you tomorrow on Clearview Today.
