The Briefing with Albert Mohler - Thursday, January 22, 2026

Episode Date: January 22, 2026

This is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.Part I (00:14 – 11:27)An Agreement on Greenland? Greenland is Central to American Interests and Its National Defense, But President Trump Backs Off Threats of Invasion and TariffsTrump’s Greenland offramp by The Washington Post (The Editorial Board)Part II (11:27 – 18:10)The Annual Gathering of the Global Elite: The World Economic Forum Meets at DavosDead Souls: The Denationalization of the American Elite by JSTOR (Samuel P. Huntington)Part III (18:10 – 23:54)Cosmopolitanism vs. Nationalism: The Secular Cosmopolitanism Gathering at Davos is at Odds with the Religious Nationalism of the U.S.Part IV (23:54 – 26:59)The Shot Heard From Florida’s Supreme Court: Florida Supreme Court Denies Gatekeeper Role to the American Bar AssociationSign up to receive The Briefing in your inbox every weekday morning.Follow Dr. Mohler:X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTubeFor more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu.For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.To write Dr. Mohler or submit a question for The Mailbox, go here.

It's Thursday, January 22nd, 2006. I'm Albert Mueller, and this is the briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. Well, the big headline yesterday was Greenland. Once again, that's pretty astounding when you put that into an historical context. It's hard to believe any kind of previous time when Greenland would have been at the top of the front pages and at the top of the news hour. But that's exactly what's happened. And the reason is almost entirely due to President Donald J. Trump of the United States. States of America. And it was President Trump yesterday speaking in Davos, Switzerland, who basically said that the problem has been at least satisfactorily resolved for now. The details are not well

known, and of course there are already previous treaties and agreements, most importantly, one that goes back to 1951, and that's in the aftermath, of course, of World War II. And that gives basically the American military total access to Greenland territory in strategic terms. and that also includes the waters of Greenland, and all that becomes very, very important. So let's just remind ourselves of why in the world we're talking about this. It's because in his first term, but now very urgently in his second term in office, President Trump has stated that it is his personal judgment and his personal intention that Greenland should become part of the United States of America.

That means American territory. Now, there are many in the political class who have cried foul loudly over the way the president's handled this. And to be honest, just in terms of the context of historic foreign relations, let's just say President Trump is a very distinctive and you might say abrasive style. But I want you to notice what hasn't been said. What hasn't been said comes down to the fact that there isn't a major Democrat who has come out in the House or in the Senate and say, Greenland is not essential to the security of the United States of America, to its national security and its national security geopolitical interests. As a matter of fact, you have to have to, you

haven't heard a major politician of either party come out and say, you know, it really doesn't matter how this Greenland thing works out. Why? Well, the answer to that is simple in terms of geopolitics, and when you look at strategic studies, world strategy and understanding, it comes down to the strategic importance of the territory we know is Greenland. Now, in a previous recent addition of the briefing, I talked about the history going back to the Norsemen and their explorations, and we talked about how it is that Scandinavia had an outsized influence. It makes perfect sense when you look at a globe and understand that those Scandinavian countries are far more likely to have, let's just use the word of the age of exploration, to have

discovered Greenland. As a matter of fact, they named it. But it's also very important that Denmark, the kingdom of Denmark, eventually became the sovereign over the territory. And it became Danish territory. But here's the point that President Trump has been making. Greenland is absolutely necessary to American security and our geopolitical interests. The geostrategic understanding of this has to be foundational. And that's where we begin with the age of sail, not with the age of ballistic missiles. And the age of sail, going all the way back to the European identification and eventually partial settlement of Greenland, the fact is that the shipping lanes that go from Europe

to North America, they're very vulnerable when it comes to the territory alongside Greenland. Therefore, when you look back to World War I, especially to World War II, the Danish government in exile after the Nazis occupied Denmark, they asked the United States, pleaded with the United States to take territorial responsibility for Greenland, which the United States did. So even before ballistic missiles, nuclear weapons, the geostrategic importance of Greenland was very, very clear. But we are talking about more than that. Now we're talking about the age of intercontinental missiles, and of course, beyond that, you have other new forms of warfare, but one of the realities is that a trajectory for a ballistic missile is likely to pass over

the polar ice cap, and that means particularly coming from the Soviet Union and from the Western Soviet Union, it's likely to pass over Greenland. So it was shipping and naval threats that were the original strategic importance of Greenland, but now it is in the age of nuclear weapons and now, of course, satellites, and you just go down the list of modern technologies. Greenland is critically important. And President Trump is absolutely right when he emphatically makes that point. And also when he says that the geopolitical importance, the strategic importance of Greenland is not just that the United States must have military control of it, military access to all of it, but also that China and Russia must be prevented from doing so.

Now, there are a couple of interesting twists and turns in Greenland's history that we should think of here. One of them came very early in terms of European contact. And that was when the sailors, the Norsemen, were able to travel not only from the east coast of Greenland, but down to the southern tip of Greenland, and then up on the southwest side, that's where they found the green, as in Greenland. It was an enormous surprise, a fertile territory of plains, not the frozen icecape, which is the continuation of the polar ice cap. And that's what has made Greenland in terms of the parts that really have a concentration of human population. Again, that population's only about less than

60,000, but they tend to be found in this area, and of course that has to do with the fact that this, an access to soil. But the other reality is that even as the Norseman made claims about Greenland being green, there is a portion of it is green. So by the time you had the eastern coast of Greenland, understood, discovered first, and then you have the southern and then southwestern part. Yes, we understand how that happens in an historical progression. What is the game changer now? It's the receding of the polar ice cap. This is what many people haven't taken into consideration. Why does President Trump, and frankly many others more quietly, why is Greenland now ever more urgent and ever more important? It is because with the receding of the polar ice cap, an exposed northern portion of

Greenland could be open to international commerce. That is a really big issue, and that means that you could have Russian and Chinese ships and subs in that territory. The United States, to put it bluntly, is very, very concerned about that. So if you just look at a globe, you look at North America, and you could include Canada in this. Look at the United States of America and Canada. The defense of both of those massive nations, in terms of landmass, that national defense depends upon allied control, if not national control, by the U.S. or Canada, of both Alaska and Greenland. So you just look at the globe and you consider that North America is like a body, two outstretched hands reaching up to the north, Alaska on the west side, and Greenland on the east side.

They are both connected in their own way to the polar ice cap. They are both there in terms of land masses right up to the Arctic region. Strategically, you are talking about some of the most geopolitically important space on all of planet Earth. Now, in terms of President Trump's handling of this issue, honestly, it's going to take some time to figure this out. There's a sense in which there's an inevitability to the United States reaching some kind of agreement with Denmark and with Greenland

about how to use the territory and how it needs to be included within the security umbrella. And quite frankly, that is to the interest of Greenland and to the interest of Denmark and to Denmark's European allies as well. Now, those allies know it. Denmark knows it. One of the problems that President Trump has underlined is that Denmark, which has a level of sovereignty, historic, certainly sovereignty over Greenland, it doesn't have a military that is in any sense capable of defending Greenland from what the United

States sees as likely attacks. And not only that, intrusions. Take the word attack off and just say intrusions. It's a vulnerability that the allies cannot afford. But there's national pride going on here. and quite honestly, President Trump intends to be a bull in a China shop on these kinds of issues. And I do think it's going to take some historical distance to understand whether the president really brought about what will be a durable agreement that's quite possible. Maybe he just called out Denmark and called out Greenland and frankly called out European allies for a lack of action and responsibility in this. On the other hand, it could be that history has a darker judgment. it will take time to tell.

If this, in any sense, weakens the NATO alliance, that will be a huge problem. And that's because that NATO alliance in ways many Americans do not understand has not only been for the defense of Europe, but also the European allyship and defense of the United States of America and American interests. That last part is really important. Americans often think of that interest only in terms of direct military action by an enemy.

But our national interests are far broader than that. And all you have to do is look at the impact of this kind of crisis on the American and European financial markets to understand, yes, there is a connection. The Washington Post editorial board came out last night and said that President Trump has now diffused a crisis that he created. Well, you can see how they make that argument, but I want to point out that I think President Trump intended to create this crisis.

And this is part of his leadership style, and frankly, Americans elected that leadership style. But you could defend that style by saying it achieves results. And quite honestly, it has brought these issues out into the open. There are others who would say, no, the way to do this is through bilateral agreements that take time to work out. President Trump is in his second term and time is running out. He does not see time to his advantage.

Thus the urgency. He thinks he has to get done what other American presidents have not done and maybe would not do. Okay, at this point, we need to say that much and not much more, precisely because we do not yet know the details of the agreement that either has been reached or is reached in terms of an agreed-upon framework. It's going to take time to see that. But it is really clear these issues are in the open, and again, I just ask you to note that you have democratic politicians, you have a bipartisan situation in which no one's coming out in saying, you know, Greenland is not really important to American security or North American security.

You also have European leaders that, by and large, are absolutely appalled by Donald Trump and by his style. They're intimidated by his honest speaks. He calls them out for such incredibly low defense spending. He calls them unsurious about their own national defense, and he said that at Davos just yesterday. But here's the thing to keep in mind. Even those European allies understand that it is to their advantage that the United States, States have this capacity and have this military reach into Greenland. It is to their advantage. That's one of the reasons why their statements at times look like outrage, but when you look at them more closely, those statements are rather cagey. That tells you something. All right, I mentioned that President Trump made some of these comments, including the statement that the United

States would not invade Greenland, use military action to take Greenland. I'm sure that diffused a lot of tensions there in Davos, but why was the president there? Why is anybody there, why in that Swiss mountainous village do you have so many world leaders and cultural leaders together in one place at one time? The background to this is rich in worldview significance. The event is often described as simply Davos, because that's the Swiss village where it takes place, but the event is formally known as the World Economic Forum. It was established back in 1971. A German engineer by the name of Klaus Schwab formed the World Economic Forum as a way to bring together global elites to coalesce around common concerns and quite frankly to come up with

common plans. 1971's pretty crucial. It's well into the post-World War II period. The Cold War is still a reality. But the worldview that brought together what became known as Davos, the World Economic Forum at Davos, this annual meeting is really a gathering of the global elite. Now, how do you know that? It's because they call themselves the global elite.

They act like a global elite. This includes cultural elites, Hollywood types, actors show up. They don't have really anything to add to geopolitical conversation, but they're there because they're famous. The rich are there. Silicon Valley is there. And you also have globalist political leaders and academics who are there. You have national leaders, including heads of state, who are there.

President Trump is speaking because he wanted to go to Davos. He gave a very long, very direct address that seemed to infuriate the crowd. In a sense, you understand that's why President Trump went there. By the way, he arrived barely in time to give his address because after Air Force One had taken off in the president's flight to Switzerland, along with members of his team, including the Secretary of State, what was described as an electrical problem required the plane to turn back, the president then got on another plane because the president's on it, regardless of which plane it is, it's known as Air Force One, but it was a modified 757 in the presidential fleet, which is a smaller plane, certainly less comfortable than, the 747, generally known as Air Force One. By the way, President Trump and other recent presidents

have complained about the aging nature of the presidential fleet. Nothing can underscore the need for new presidential airlines. They've been delayed for years by all kinds of technical and economic issues. The reality is that the need for new planes is pretty clear. When the president of the United States has to be on a plane that makes a U-turn and goes back to Andrews Air Force Base and then gets on a smaller plane to go back over the Atlantic to head for a major international gathering, that's, let's just say, embarrassing to the United States of America. It underscores, well, we can be very glad that there was no major problem with the plane, but it does underscore the fact that aging equipment shows up as aging equipment, no matter what you call the plane. But let's

go back to Davos, because the worldview issues here just demand our attention. This is an annual meeting. The theme of this year's meeting is, quote, a spirit of dialogue. That's the kind of statement that as a title means nothing. That just basically means it's another excuse for the cultural and political and Hollywood elite, Silicon Valley elite, to get together. And the biggest thing that is done here is connectivity and making deals and establishing these relationships. And frankly, the elites patting each other on the back when it comes to the wisdom of their leadership. And you know this because you get to see it. It's right there in the press reports.

You get to see it in the speeches. You get to see it in the publicity about the event. Kla Schwab, by the way, is no longer leader because he was basically toppled when there were charges against him in recent years. It's under new leadership, but it is still the same gathering of the global elite. But here's some of the things that turn out to be very, very interesting. Because you have major news coverage in, for instance, American and international newspapers in which you have people there at Davos,

Members of this elite, and more about that in just a moment, but they are making statements like, well, the world order, as we've known it, is gone. Donald Trump is indicative of, if not the cause of, the world order as we've known it, being gone. Well, let's just wait a minute. What is the world order they're talking about? Well, the world order they're talking about is the post-World War II order that they basically wanted to transform into something else. Now, we know this because they said so. Class Swab, in the middle of the COVID-19, pandemic, actually argued for what he called, this is not a conspiracy theory, you can look it up. He wrote the book. He used the term the Great Reset.

So what's going on here? I want to go back to the year 2004, where the situation, Davos, everybody knew, at least those watching, knew what was going on. The situation was best described by political scientist Samuel P. Huntington. Huntington was one of the deans of political science that is to say, one of the major shapers. And by the way, he also, he also, also understood geopolitics better than just about everyone else in his generation. He talked about the clash of civilization, something very, very important to see there playing out right now in terms of Russia, Ukraine, etc. But Samuel P. Huntington wrote an article entitled Dead Souls, the denationalization of the American elite. And he pointed to the Davos meeting as exhibit A of what

happens when you have a national elite. In this case, he's talking about the American elite, and they basically denationalize themselves. They want to minimize the importance of the nation state. They see that as an embarrassment. And so in their rendering of this so-called world order, they meant this newly devised world order in which a global elite basically calls the shots, sets the agenda. They are the trendsetters, and increasingly they are in control.

Now, you ask, how could a group like this, meeting in a place like Davos, believe they rule the world? it is because they intended to do so through the engines of the movement and control of capital, and then the formation of national and international policy. You don't have to just infer this. You don't have to wonder if this is some kind of hidden agenda. The agenda was right out in public. They wanted multinational corporations and multinational organizations,

basically to replace the sovereignty of the nation state. And if they didn't have to do that politically, they could do so through their own economic and cultural, activism and their own leadership setting of the terms and all the rest. They really thought history was going their way. Samuel P. Huntington is really clear about the nature of the elites. Again, he refers to them as dead souls. By the way, in his article, one of the things he says is that if you look at the American people,

they are overwhelmingly far more religious than the secularized elites. The secularized elites meeting at Davos, they can basically come up with an entirely secular globalist plan. Samuel P. Huntington said that has to be seen as a direct distinction between those elites and the vast mainstream of the American people. And as he points out, the history of the American experiment. Now, Samuel Huntington, you should note this, taught at Harvard University for more than a half century. His influence is long and frankly, it demonstrates the kind of person who at least at one point did teach in a place like Harvard University. He makes this argument in his article, quote, the central distinction between the public and elites. is not isolationism versus internationalism, but nationalism versus cosmopolitanism. Now, that's a key statement. In other words, it's not nationalism versus internationalism. American conservatives are not against looking at the international picture and taking that into consideration, but they are not cosmopolitans. They are not advocates of some kind of

vast, new, global monoculture. They also reject the cosmopolitan impulse to minimize national identity and raise up to a far higher degree global identity. And of course, those who are not cosmopolitans will point out there is no such identity in the first place. And Davos, if you look at it more closely, it just simply makes that point. In one sense, there's something very scary there. In the other sense, there's nothing there. Remember, he wrote this back in 2004, Huntington wrote, quote, the number of dead souls is small but growing among America's business, professional, intellectual, and academic elites. He goes on to say, quote, the view found among intellectuals, academics, and journalists is what he's talking about here. Quote, economic transnationalism

is rooted in the bourgeoisie, moralistic transnationalism in the intelligentsia. So he's saying here that you have conservatives and just plain American folks who want to see America do business with foreign countries, they do not want to see the erasure of citizenship and the erasure of borders, the erasure of national identity. That's not something they're buying into. Now, by the way, as Christians look at this, we need to remind ourselves that there is no verdict against cosmopolitanism more graphic than the Tower of Babel. That's exactly what we are looking at. God's judgment upon the arrogance of human beings who wanted to use a motto culture, basically as a form of idolatry, well, the Lord God put an end.

to that. And Genesis makes that abundantly clear about the Tower of Babel. And so national identity in a fallen world turns out to be something very, very important. And it's something that goes back, by the way, to ancient Israel. As a part of the argument that many Christians in the United States miss, the rise of the nation's day is not just something that happened in the Enlightenment, in the Congress of Vienna, or at the end of World War II. And Israel was a nation. It was understood to be a nation. It was to be a nation among nations. That was the biblical vision. With a lot of insight, later in his article Huntington wrote, quote,

cosmopolitanism and imperialism attempt to reduce or eliminate the social, political, and cultural differences between America and other societies. He continues, I quote, A national approach would recognize and accept what distinguishes America from those societies. America, he said, cannot become the world and still be America. Other peoples cannot become American and still be themselves. America is different, and that difference is. defined in large part by its religious commitment and Anglo-Protestant culture. He continues, and I quote,

the alternative to cosmopolitanism and imperialism is nationalism, devoted to the preservation and enhancement of those qualities that have defined America from its inception. End the quote. You just have to understand. That's the kind of language most Americans would recognize and respect. It's the kind of argument that would be absolutely anathema, heresy, unthinkable in Davos. If nothing else, that explains the clash between President Trump, the President of the United States, and the global elites gathered there at Davos. What he said, well, it is the absolute rejection of just about everything they stand for. He knew it, and by the way, they knew it. Just look at their faces. By the way, I think there are some people, even some Christians who would say, well, you know, your point is valid insofar as you cite the Old Testament.

But what about the New Testament? Well, of course, we find in the New Testament the Great Commission, But that great commission is to go into all people. And let's just remind ourselves that in the book of Revelation, the very last book of Scripture, the last book in the canon, the last book of the New Testament, you have repeated the pattern nation, tribes, peoples, and tongues. Okay, those four words tell you that such entities are still important. As a matter of fact, a part of the glory of heaven is that among the redeemed will be men and women, saved by the blood of the lamb, from every nation and tribe and people and tongue. That only makes sense if different people have different tribes, different tongues, different nations. Otherwise, that makes no sense. All right, as I said,

we're going to have to wait for the verdict of history in terms of the entirety of President Trump's approach here. And the Washington Post, as I said, said that he had now diffused a crisis that he had created. There's a part of that that is undeniably true, but we also have to recognize the president intended to do just what he did. Again, the verdict of history is something for which we will have to wait. All right. But the verdict of the Florida Supreme Court on the American Bar Association is pretty clear. Just in recent days, the High Court in Florida, which has responsibility in the state for determining of the certification of lawyers, it has decided to end the gatekeeper role of the American Bar Association in the state of Florida when it comes to that certification.

Now, that's big. That's huge. It doesn't say the ABA, the American Bar Association, has no importance whatsoever. It does deny to the American Bar Association that gatekeeper role. Now, in years past, the American Bar Association has had a very strong say, for instance, in the confirmation of nominees to federal courts. When the United States Senate takes up that responsibility, at least for decades, the American Bar Association rating had a lot to do in a bipartisan manner with the Senate's reception of those nominees. Furthermore, again, has a lot to do. do with who's recognized as an attorney within the many, the several states. Okay, so here's the thing. The American Bar Association has been largely captured by the left. Ideological capture is very much a symptom of a kind of Marxist maneuvering, and that is the long march through the institutions, the American Bar Association is one of those key institutions. You have conservatives now who are simply saying, okay, the ABA has taken sides and it's the wrong side. They have taken sides. they are no longer just making decisions, recommendations, ratings, et cetera, certifications

on the basis of a common sense, shared understanding of what it means to be a lawyer and what it means to be qualified before the bar. Now it has taken on a political hue, and so the Florida Supreme Court has taken action, and you're likely to see similar action elsewhere. There are many conservatives, indeed many Christians who feel that some of those institutions such as the American Bar Association could be just to vote away from taking action of a discriminatory nature against, for example, lawyers who would come with a Christian conviction. The same kind of fear is found among doctors with the American Medical Association

and then the associations for medical specialties and subspecialties as well. These have an enormous gatekeeper responsibility, and we understand why over decades they came to possess that power. But it's very important now that as those institutions, those organizations are given over to the ideological left, they must be discerning. certified and no longer recognized as having that gatekeeper authority. So I appreciate the action by Florida Supreme Court. I'm here in Florida. It made news here. It is a shot that should be heard elsewhere as well. All right. Thanks for listening to the briefing. For more information, go to my website at Albertmuller.com. You can follow me on X or Twitter by going to X.com

forward slash Albert Moeller. For information on the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to SBTS.org. For informational voice college, just go to boyscology.com. I'm speaking speaking to you from Jacksonville, Florida, and I'll meet you again tomorrow for the briefing.