The Briefing with Albert Mohler - Thursday, October 1, 2026

Episode Date: October 1, 2026

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 Islamic terrorism attempt on a FlyDubai airliner, the arrest of 5 British men tied to possible terrorist plot, the horrifying and gross immorality on the campuses of Penn State and Cornell, and Backpack, the winner of Fat Bear Week 2026.Part I (00:13 – 10:46)Islamic Terrorism Rears Its Head Again: A Catastrophe Was Bravely Avoided Due to Heroic Actions As Co-Pilot Stabbed Captain and Attempted to Crash AirlinerNetanyahu names ‘hero’ pilot attacked on flight as passengers arrive back in Israel by BBC NewsPart II (10:46 – 15:11)The Arrest of 5 British Men Tied to Possible Terrorist Plot: Order is an Achievement in a Fallen World Where Chaos is the NormPart III (15:11 – 22:03)Penn State, Cornell, and Gross Immorality on Campus: These Situations are Horrifying—And Christian Young People Should Not Be at These Events At AllPenn State’s Campuswide Cocaine Ring Was Fueled by Fraternity Hazing by The Wall Street Journal (Ashley Wong and Jared Mitovich)Part IV (22:03 – 25:49)Backpack Wins Fat Bear Week 2026: That’s a Fat Bear Who is Fat to the Glory of GodSign 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, October 1st, 2006. I'm Albert Moller, and this is the briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. The ugly face of Islamic terrorism apparently showed its face again yesterday. It was an early morning flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv, that is to say, from the UAE, the United Arab Emirates, to Israel. And it was interrupted after about two hours of flight by the fact that the co-pilot staff, the pilot in an effort to take control of the plane. And it was only because of heroism in the cockpit and outside of the cockpit. This massive disaster was avoided. And we're talking massive. We're talking about almost 180 lives. We're talking about a well-known airplane. It was a Boeing 737 max 800. And it had, as I say, almost 180 people on it. That includes a captain and a co-pilot. after about two hours, the co-pilot stabbed the pilot in an effort to take control of the aircraft with the presumption, the only rational presumption that he intended to crash the airplane.

This has happened before, at least twice it has happened before. And so this is one of those situations in which you understand that it was just an amazing providence that allowed this disaster to be averted. It was not averted without a great deal of drama. For about 10 minutes, the plane was under what appeared to be very little control. at one point in about two minutes, it had a descent of about 17,000 feet. That is the kind of angle with the kind of G forces that, by the way, would be a grave danger, not only to the human body, but to the airplane itself. By the time you flatten the airplane's descent and you indeed try to regain altitude,

the G forces could be doubled beyond that. And that explains, by the way, why when you look at the plane on the tarmac where it was able to land in Saudi Arabia, the rudder is basically destroyed. So this was an extremely close call. It was an extremely close call that, as in so many other cases, comes down not only to what appears to be a terrorist intention and plan, but heroism on the part of several. First of all, heroism on the part of the captain of the plane.

Because even as he was stabbed, he managed to get the cockpit door open. That allowed some of the passengers to gain access to the cockpit and to overcome the co-pilot and drag him out, basically. holding him captive. But this was, of course, an incredible drama. And by now, you've probably seen a good deal of the video. And there is also providence in the fact that there were two pilots of the same airline on the plane who were able to get into the cockpit, having gained access, and then to land the plane successfully. It was able to land at a Saudi Arabian airport. And of course, the state of Israel does not have official diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia. But once again,

we can be thankful in the rules of international transport, there was the cooperation in which the plane was able to land safely. There are many people looking at this who say, look, this was an extremely close call. The Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, was at the top of the list, just saying this was a very close call. The Israeli government is already pointing to this as an indication of Islamic terrorism. And there are also major news reports coming from the BBC and London and others, that there had been a heightened level of anxiety of concern in Israel about purported planned terror attacks, partly because of the election cycle. We have elections coming up in Israel, and so that raised the threat level. And that means it was at least in part a very apt

warning. And now there's going to have to be a full investigation of all of this. And that's going to now involve at least three countries. The United Arab Emirates, where the flight began, and this was a fly Dubai plane, and then the state of Israel, of course, and then Saudi Arabia involved not only in terms of its airspace, but in terms of its airport where the plane was able to land. The Saudis also allowed another Israeli flight to come into Saudi airspace and to land at the airport in order to take the passengers safely to Tel Aviv. By now you've probably seen the video of the passengers arriving at Ben-Gurion Airport there in Tel Aviv. There was singing.

rejoicing. There was an incredible sense of relief. And this just points to the fact that it was very clearly understood that if indeed things had gone differently for just a matter of seconds, these passengers would have been killed in what would have been then a successful terror attack in terms of hijacking the plane and then flying it to disaster. We need to be very thankful that did not happen. But it's another sign of vulnerability. And this is a big worldview issue. And that comes down to the fact that civilization is an achievement and civilization is more vulnerable than people think. And so you look at, say, a civilization, you look at its rules, you look at its expectations, you look at its policies. And by the way, civilization shows up in many different

dimensions. We're not only talking about the countries involved here. We're talking about, you know, modern aircraft. We're talking about modern aviation or talking about the rules and the language. And by the way, the language was really important because the pilot was. was able to offer a warning that eventually became clear enough that this was something like a hijacking attempt. So that meant people on the ground were now very much aware that something is going horribly wrong in the air. They also had flight tracking information that indicated the nature of the problem. This was not a mechanical problem. This was a moral problem. Israel's defense minister, Israel Katz, described the incident to the BBC as, quote,

an attempted jihadist terror attack. Now, the BBC comes right back and says something interesting we need to. note. They said, quote, the BBC is yet to receive official statements from police, emergency services, or investigators regarding any motive. End quote. Now, let's just look at some of the facts. And by the way, a lot of it is going to be revealed. A lot of the facts are, of course, still to be known. I mentioned that BBC statement because if you are a professional news agency like the BBC, then you will say when something is confirmed by government authorities and when it's not yet confirmed. But you'll notice that they went ahead and ran the statement by the Israeli

defense minister, not only because he said it, but because it almost surely is true. But in this case, they can say, if it turns out to be wrong, you can blame the Israeli defense minister, not the BBC. However, there's very little chance that he's going to turn out to be wrong. The co-pilot, who was the attacker in the cockpit, is an Omani, that is a citizen of Oman, or at least someone who has a background citizenship in Oman. And that means he should not have been on the flight crew for this plane that was scheduled to land at Ben-Gurion Air. report in Tel Aviv. The Israeli rules are to bar pilots from certain countries which are openly hostile to the existence of Israel. Over time, Oman has at least part of that time been one of those

nations. And even now, it comes up in the news because of the relationship between Oman and Iran having to do not only with Israel, but also with the military operations currently undertaken by the United States of America. It also turns out that almost all of the passengers on the plane were Israeli, as the BBC reports, it's just a good factual note. Quote, fly Dubai's flight FZ 1073, took off from Dubai International Airport in the United Arab Emirates at 305 GMT, that 705 local time en route to Ben-Gurian Airport in Israel. That's the kind of factual documentation that authoritative news services need to lean on. And that tells you that these passengers were on that plane for almost two hours before they would have known anything was going wrong.

and by some accounts, just slightly more than two hours. And so then everything changed. And one of the things they noted was what some thought was turbulence, but it turns out to be, of course, control issues with the airplane because of the scuffle taking place in the cockpit with the co-pilot, stabbing the pilot. And then, of course, there was far more dramatic movement by the plane. And one of the things we need to be thankful for is that the plane, it withstood this test. It withstood that stress.

And that points out that when you look at civilization, Civilization is not only rules when it comes to moral behavior, suddenly rules when it comes to borders and armies and all the rest. It's also rules having to do with which airliners are certified to fly and which are not. The stress that was experienced by this modern airliner is something that many previous airliners might well not have survived. There are other aspects to this that have become clear, at least in some of the early reports. One of them is that by the time the two pilots and others were able to, to gain access to the cockpit after they were able to get the pilot who had been stabbed out and they were able to take custody of the co-pilot, who was the attacker.

It turns out that he was even at that time the co-pilot, who was the attacker, quote, trying to destroy the instruments in order to disable the plane, end quote. So again, you just look at how close things came to disaster here. And that's true for engineering. It is true for the human body. It was true for the timing in terms of how this would happen. It was true when you have what is called the hardening of cockpits after the 9-11 incidents in the United States. And so that is when you had invaders invade the cockpit.

And thus you had this hardening in which modern specifications call for that door to withstand any kind of external attempt of entry. And that means that this would have led to disaster, except for the fact that the captain was somehow able to open the door from the inside. And thus those pilots and others who did the intervention from the outside were able to gain access to the. the cockpit. And then you look at this and you recognize a policy that was put in place reasonably to prevent an attack from outside the cockpit nearly led to disaster when there is an attack from inside the cockpit. Now, in that sense, there's another moral principle we need to keep in mind, and that is that evil precedes a lot of the rules, which is to say that a lot of the thou shalt and thou shalt nots when it comes even to civil and criminal law in countries is put in place because

they didn't know to say don't do that until someone did that. There was not a name for that until it had to be named in order to make very clear that it is prohibited in the law. And violations of it are punishable by the court system, law enforcement. That's one of the things we have to think about. And that is the fact that when you look at so many of these things, the policies are in place informed by the last evil attack. That means that the great vulnerability is about the next terror attack. It's going to be very interesting to see where this goes, but at the same time, there was another story less dramatic, but not necessarily less significant. It's hard to say. This has to do with the fact that there were several men, five men, who were arrested in England

near a joint UK-US Air Force base, and they were suspected for having some kind of wrongful intent. There was, at least by some reports, an incredible amount of gasoline in the vehicle. And so the immediate reports were that these five men had been detained on suspicion of some kind of evil intent. Immediately, you had law enforcement on both sides of the Atlantic because the Americans were very quickly notified, according to the press. And there was the question, is this something that is related to the, the, military activity going on the U.S. against Iran because this base actually is where some of the aircraft used in the attack on Iran, where they were based there in the U.K. and what's called forward

basing. And so just looking at all of that, you know, this was an immediate, sensical conclusion. And then you had the Americans come out and say they're very concerned about all of this. You had White House statements. You had the Department of State making statements and some of the most important of those made by the Secretary of State himself. And that comes down to the fact the Secretary of State Rubio said explicitly that a foreign actor, those two words were from his statement, a foreign actor was behind what had taken place there. And he called it, quote, a very serious situation. Well, certainly it is. But here's where the thing turns in a very unexpected direction. The British authorities released the five men by bail. Now immediately you have people asking,

how does that make sense? How is that rational? The British law enforcement came out and said, well, at least a part of why they're doing this is because they want further investigation. But, you know, this doesn't sound right. It doesn't sound right that you have a suspected terror plan or attack. And you have these five people who are inexplicably so close to this joint Air Force base. And then you have the connections with Iran war and, well, gasoline and who knows what else. How in the world did this happen? Now, this is where you have the Americans and the British sounding a little bit differently in response to this. The Americans are saying more than the British. So let's ask a question. How do we understand this? Well, in part, it is because both the UK

and the USA operate by the rule of law. But the rule of law in the developing traditions of these two societies are not exactly the same. How you hold someone without a formal charge, that's a question that both societies take seriously, but the two societies answer somewhat differently. The New York Times reported it this way, quote, the five men were released on bail Monday evening and unexpected development that suggested the British authorities had not found enough evidence to link the suspects to a specific act. In a statement, the police said that the vans had been subject to extensive examination and that, quote, no improvised explosive devices were found, end quote. So is that interesting? It's actually more interesting than many people

might recognize because they immediately went to what wasn't found. no improvised explosive devices were found. They said what was not found. There is not yet adequate information on what was found, but it is clear that law enforcement in Britain believes there needs to be more information before there could be further police action. This reminds us, we just live in a very dangerous world. And so you think about what took place on that airliner yesterday, and you think about the arrest and then the release of these five men near a joint U.K. U.S. Air Force Base, and you understand, yes, there are huge threats all around us. We live in a dangerous world, and it seems to be getting more dangerous all the time. And that reminds us that

according to the biblical worldview, civilization is an achievement, and it can only take place under certain conditions. The picture in the Old Testament is of civilization on the one hand and chaos on the other hand. And in a fallen world, chaos sometimes appears to be the default category. And I think biblically there's an argument that says that's true. It takes intentionality. It takes order. It takes commitment. It takes will. It takes exertion. It takes labor. It takes commitment and conviction to bring about civilization. It only takes evil intent to try to destroy that civilization or to undermine it, in the air or on the ground. All right, now I want to come back to the United States. And let me just tell you up front, I'm not going to go to this story in any kind of moral detail. But I just want to say there are two big stories that have to do with major American universities and moral behavior.

All right? The first of these has to do with the drug ring that has been exposed at Penn State University and a fraternity in which, and what amounts to a hazing activity from senior fraternity members to junior ones, they turned them into cogs in an illegal drugs machine. And, of course, this has led to big stories. front page of the Wall Street Journal, Penn State Drug Ring was fueled by hazing. And one of the clear things that comes out in this front page investigative report by the Wall Street Journal is that you're talking about a fraternity that's supposed to be a social organization of young men in a college or university context, and this is Penn State University. You don't expect to find a cocaine ring running inside a college fraternity. That's exactly what the authorities alleged was taking place and that with multiple arrests. And the further that investigators look into this question, the darker the picture becomes. And it turns out to be a story of older young men, basically manipulating younger young men into a

situation that they had not expected and obviously had not defended themselves. And it's also a story about how older young men can manipulate younger young men in this kind of context, even to the point of involving them in criminal activity and a criminal conspiracy when they thought they were trying to join a fraternity. Now, that doesn't excuse the younger young men at all. It is just an indication of what can go horribly wrong in a social environment. And it's not just that. Of course, we're talking about Cornell University. We're talking about another fraternity. And by the way, that fraternity had already been kicked off the campus because of the events that took place in 2024. But now you have this running all through the major media

where a young woman is now coming to say to law enforcement and also what's assumed to be a tort trial that she was horribly abused and attacked. And that includes all forms of sexual abuse by fraternity members at a night in 2024. I'm not going to use all the language here. Don't worry. I'm simply going to say it is a horrifying situation. It's absolutely horrifying. It's beyond any kind of simple moral statement. It was simply this or simply that. the context is what I want to point to. And so let's be very, very clear. It is already documented by

law enforcement, and that includes the police there at Cornell University, that there were young men involved in absolutely horrible and horrifying, morally corrupting, and morally abominable behavior. Let's just put it that way. But it's also clear that there was a context in which you had a social cycle, a social culture there on that campus that involved an incredible amount of alcohol and who knows what else. And it is in a volatile mix where really, really bad things turned into even worse things. Now, I'm in no position to comment on the criminal investigation other than to say that the governor of New York has herself, Governor Kathy Hokel, she is called for an independent investigation and there is going to be a lot of legal attention to this. I just want to step back for a

moment. And I just have to wonder how many Christians, before you even get to the legal issues, we understand this is an absolute moral mess. And it comes down to something that isn't politically correct. But Christian parents have better think this way. Those who are Christian leaders working with young people, you better think this way. We all better think this way. The key in both of these situations is that young people should not have been in these contexts in the first place. They should never have been in this context, a context in which you had so much out of alcohol consumed, that there's very little self-awareness and the opportunity for just horrifying things to happen. And I'm just saying you add alcohol to a situation. It just becomes

all the more corrupt. And then you look at drugs, you look at other things, and I don't know if drugs are directly involved here, but the whole picture, I do know it was at the Penn State situation, but the whole thing just turns into a situation in which you have to wonder how young people walked in the door and stayed there. But it just shows that the social context of sin is far more significant and far more powerful than a lot of Christians want to think. The social opportunity of sin. Remember that what you have in the New Testament is the Apostle Paul talking about sin seizing the opportunity. And that's exactly what sin does. It seizes the opportunity. I'll just say that I think all right-minded persons should want all

law enforcement to do exactly the right thing in investigating all of this. There are huge questions that are going to have to be answered. You have a district attorney. You have the Ithaca city police who were not involved. You have the police there, the police force at Cornell University that was involved. And now there are allegations coming from this young woman that they mishandled the case. I do not know. What I do know is that the picture that is just agreed upon is the context for all of this at both Penn State and Cornell, it's just toxic. It's horrifying. And so one of our responsibilities as Christians is to encourage Christian young people to have the moral sense and conviction not to be in these contexts at all. I think it's also incredibly telling that that's the one

thing that the secular world can't say anymore. They can't say it anymore because now everything has to be about their new rules of the sexual revolution and all the rest. There are new rules about even the use of alcohol and all the rest. This is a situation in which it takes moral courage to say a young person should not be there in the first place and should be able to have the moral sense to see something like this and recognize this is not where I belong. If you allow yourself to be there, we do understand that sin is a social contagion and sin as an agent is blinding and temptation can be an incredibly powerful thing and that social context can just amplify all of these things, which is why we have to encourage young people to be in a healthy social context,

which, by the way, ought to begin with a healthy family and a healthy church, and then hopefully a healthy campus where there are rules and policies in place that actually mean something. And I don't mean by that the new artificial, socially constructed rules of the sexual revolutionaries. The new sex codes on these campuses and the new behavior codes, they are a negotiation with absolute nonsense. And that nonsense can turn very dangerous. as we see actually in both of these news accounts. All right, just because of the headlines we've had to talk about some heavy things today,

I want to end in something a bit more encouraging, and that is the winner of Fat Bear Week in Alaska. Now, I've been talking about this on the briefing for years back before a lot of people knew about it. I simply had heard about this competition and looked into it, and then I found out that there were cameras involved where you can actually watch these bears. And these are bears, they're called brown bears. Otherwise, we would call them grizzly bears, and they are preparing for hibernation by putting into their bodies as many salmon as possible with as much fat as possible in order to gain as much weight as possible to be able to hibernate as healthfully as possible through a long Alaska winter.

The winter of Fat Bear Week in Alaska in 2006 is a bear known as Backpack. Now, you're going to love how he got his name. Backpack got his name because as a cub, he loved to ride on his mother's back, like a backpack. That's how he got his name. And, of course, you also have the fact that because of modern identification technologies that are able to see these bears and know these bears, it is also interesting that over the course of just this one year, backpack put on so much weight that he doesn't look like the same bear.

It takes that kind of identifying technology to make very clear this is the same bear. His hair color changed, as brown bears will do over the season. But he put on so much weight. About a year ago, backpack was quite the object of concern because he had a very bad injury to his leg. He seems to have overcome it. He is also noted for some distinctive behavior. He likes to sit in the middle, the river on rocks and fish from those rocks. At least some people think it's because he just doesn't like to spend that much time in water that's that cold.

One close observer with a scientific background estimates that backpack now weighs between 1,000 and 1,200 pounds. that's a lot of bear. Any way you look at it. We're also told that T is now 20 years old. And there are some people who said he basically was favored by many viewers because they had sympathy for his injury last year. And he's old enough. He just might not be around for future fat bear weeks.

But it's also true that if you look at the competition, he's very fat. One final thought about all of this? These bears, in such an astounding way, have an identity that is so far. familiar to human beings because we come to know their character, we come to know how they act, we look at the expressions on their face, you look at how they sit or how they stand in the river, you look at their contentment when they have just finished a meal, and you know what, we can identify with those brown bears. So much so, by the way, that Alaskan authorities have had to say, the only safe way to watch these bears is on the video feed. Please get that,

people. These brown bears are there to eat salmon, but if you show up at the wrong time, they might expand their diet. It is also kind of sweet to know that one of the finalists was a mama bear with three cubs born just this spring. You see in these bears something that's just absolutely interesting. You see in these bears, even a reminder of some of our own human delights, such as eating. You also see in these bears, and this is what the secular world just doesn't know to see the glory of God in the wonder of his creation. Thanks for listening to the briefing. For more information, go to my website at Albert muller.com. You can follow me on X or Twitter by going to X.com forward slash Albert

Mueller. For information on the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbtsd.u. For information on Boyce College, just go to voicecollage.com. I'll meet you again tomorrow for the briefing.