LIBERTY UNIVERSITY JOHN W. RAWLINGS SCHOOL OF DIVINITY
Helping Christians think about the myth of overpopulation
A Paper Submitted to
the Faculty of the School of Divinity
in Candidacy for the Degree of
Doctor of Education in Christian Leadership (Ed. D) Department of Christian Leadership and
Church Ministries
By
Mary Gracias
Lynchburg, Virginia
9/2022
Helping Christians think about the myth of overpopulation
Recently, viewers were given a new season of “The Crown,” the Netflix series that
chronicles the life of Queen Elizabeth. In the wake of her death earlier this year, the season is
all the more interesting because of the new monarch who sits on the throne, her son, King
Charles III. Charles is being dubbed the “climate king.” His concern for the environment has led
to controversial mentions of overpopulation in the past. But, where does this idea come from,
and how should Christians think about it?
The myth of overpopulation
In 1968, Stanford entomologist Paul Ehrlich published The Population Bomb, warning that
the earth was overpopulated and that millions of people would starve to death. His doomsday
warning did not come true. Starvation has occurred on much smaller scales, due largely to
government mismanagement and corruption, not overpopulation.
Yet the myth of overpopulation persists. Ecologist Emma Olliff of the U.K.-based group
Population Matters recently said, “More of us is only going to make (the environment) worse.
This kind of reasoning was famously cited by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, who are
choosing to have only two children because of global overpopulation.
At the 2020 World Economic Forum in Davos, famed primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall said
that human population growth is responsible for most environmental problems. Goodall stated,
“All these (environmental) things we talk about wouldn’t be a problem if there was the size of
the population that there was 500 years ago.” Apparently, Goodall pines for the good ol’ days
when the average life expectancy was around 40 years of age and infant mortality was around
20%.
Human life is not the problem, and human death is not the solution. Since the publication
of The Population Bomb, several books have debunked the myth of overpopulation, including
The Myth of Over-Population (1969) R.J. Rushdoony, Fewer (2004) by Ben Wattenberg, and
Population Control (2008) by Steven Mosher. Governments in Japan, Finland, Italy, and
Australia (to name a few) are now paying people to have babies.
Currently, no European country has a population replacement rate of 2.1 babies per
woman. Globally, many countries are below the replacement rate, including China (1.7), Brazil
(1.7), Canada (1.5), Puerto Rico (1.1), Thailand (1.5), and Chile (1.7).
In 1968, the fear was global starvation. In 2020, humans wasted an estimated 1.6 billion
tons of food at a cost of $1.2 trillion dollars annually. In 1968 the fear was overpopulation. In
2020, under-populated towns and cities paid people to move there.
Dangers of the myth
Overpopulation is an old myth. Catastrophic predictions about human population and food
shortage go back (at least) to 19th-century Anglican pastor and economist Thomas Robert
Malthus. In his book An Essay on the Principle of Population, Malthus argued that human
population would outpace food production. Malthus advocated preventative measures such as
family planning, late marriages, and celibacy.
Global overpopulation is not only a myth; it is a dangerous myth. Bernie Sanders said that
abortion is an important way of addressing global overpopulation. National Public Radio (NPR)
has even reported on the research of journalist Mei Fong, who in her book One Child (2016),
estimated that China’s one-child policy led to 30 million forced abortions.
In popular culture, Thanos (of the Marvel Universe) channels his inner Malthus in 2018’s
“Avengers: Infinity War,” saying, “The universe is finite, its resources finite, if life is left
unchecked, life will cease to exist.” This is the same faulty logic (and bad theology) peddled by
Malthus, Ehrlich, Goodall, and Sanders. Unlike in the Marvel Universe, the “bad guys” aren’t
always so easy to spot.
A Christian response
God created marriage between a man and a woman, commanded human procreation, and
placed the family as the primary building block of human flourishing in a world that he
equipped to accommodate human growth (Gen 1:26-28). He did this, in part, by creating
humans with a capacity to solve problems using science and technology. As global population
has grown, standards of living and life expectancy have increased while infant mortality and
extreme poverty have decreased. Human population growth is not the problem.
There are a variety of possible ways that Christians can respond to the myth of
overpopulation. First, Christians do best when telling the true biblical story of creation, fall,
redemption, and restoration. Christians can place the growth of population into the storyline of
Scripture where it is a good thing, not a problem to be corrected. It is part of God’s command to
fill the earth and steward it.
Second, local churches can promote and support healthy and normative patterns of human
flourishing by offering biblical counseling and parenting services, supporting pregnancy
resource centers and adoption and foster care ministries, and by welcoming children and those
with special needs into the worship service. In so doing, they evidence that the family is
essential to God’s plan for flourishing and the Church has a vested interest in helping
strengthen this building block of society.
Third, Christians cannot allow the sin of materialism to go unchecked. That amounts to
aiding and abetting the enemy. Human population growth is only a problem if one accepts the
lie that joy, identity, and comfort are found in unchecked consumption and material
possessions. There is nothing inherently wrong with living in a large home, owning recreational
vehicles, retiring early, or sending your kids to the best schools. However, such things are not
the biblical picture of success or an indication of God’s favor and blessing. Christians are to be
those who steward the created world, not those who intentionally put off God-ordained gifts
because they are controlled by the things of this world.
Conclusion
Ideas have consequences. Most tragically, the idea of overpopulation has resulted in global
mass murder, including calls for expanding abortion access in developing nations where
population growth is higher. It is a myth that continues to be used to justify both abortion and
suicide. Christians who believe in the sanctity and goodness of human life should expose the
myth of overpopulation for what it often is: A pretext for murder and justification for opposing
a biblical view of children, family, and procreation.
