Fertility rates don’t often come up in everyday conversation—at least not for me. But according to Baylor University history professor Philip Jenkins, U.S. demographic trends are the “best indicator yet of an impending shift of historic proportions.” Jenkins argues that “[t]his is, or should be, one of the most significant and newsworthy developments in modern American religion.”

Whether or not you’re a numbers person, consider Jenkins’s assembling of the facts. This isn’t some esoteric, irrelevant fascination with data. As Jenkins explains, what we’re seeing in the United States is following the European model of the last half-century, an “emerging low-fertility and low-faith society.” This, of course, is one vast discussion that has far-reaching implications for apologetics, evangelism, church planting, missions, and more. Armed with the right information, anchored to the timeless gospel and God’s Word, we can be like the men of Issachar who “had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do” (1 Chron. 12:32).