The Briefing with Albert Mohler - Tuesday, August 12, 2025

Starting point is 00:00:04 It's Tuesday, August 12, 2025. I'm Albert Moeller, and this is the briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. Some really big issues we need to look at today. Here's the first headline, medication abortions drove up number of U.S. procedures after Rose repeal study shows. Okay, this is The Guardian. Liberal newspaper coming from Great Britain often has some very interesting coverage of American issues, and in this case, it's big news, particularly for Christians, listening to this kind of headline. what's behind it. This report by Carter Sherman tells us, quote, an abortion provider, so that's one abortion provider, shipped almost 120,000 packs of abortion pills to U.S. residents between July 2003 and August 2024. Okay, so let's just hear that again. One provider, nearly 120,000 packs of abortion pills. Now listen to this. Nearly 100,000 of them lived in states that outlaw the procedure or have laws on the books that ban the maitling of abortion pills.

Starting point is 00:01:06 Now, that's just coming from The Guardian, which, by the way, started out as a newspaper in Manchester, England, very liberal, left-wing, at one point, pretty much a clearly socialist in his leaning. It is now online, a very popular, widely read news source coming from Great Britain, and it's simply now known as the Guardian. But this particular report cites an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association. So this just isn't reporting coming from the newspaper. It is the newspaper distilling what was released in a far more authoritative source, in this case,

Starting point is 00:01:44 the Journal of the American Medical Association. The numbers again, one provider shipping almost 120,000 packs of abortion pills to U.S. residents between July 2003 and August 24. So that's one year. The vast majority, in this case, nearly 100,000 of 120,000 of these packs were sent to people who live in states, quote, that outlaw the procedure or have laws on the books that ban the mailing of abortion pills. So this tells us something about the medical emergency, the pro-life emergency that we face. Because you go back to 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court hands down the Dobbs decision reversing Roe v. Wade.

Starting point is 00:02:25 a great, absolutely necessary, long sought, nearly for a half-century sought, reversal of the deadly decision of Roe v. Wade, legalizing abortion in all 50 states. It returned the question to the states. Now, here's the issue. It returned the question to the states, but now you have abortion providers by medication abortion, that's by pills going around the state laws, and in a massive way, almost 100,000 of the 120,000 packs of these abortion pills. Now let's be really clear. The abortion pill is a human pesticide. That's just what it is.

Starting point is 00:02:59 It is a pill designed to end a pregnancy. That's the way they might put it. But you understand it is a pill designed to end an unborn human life. And for that to end up with the abortion of an unborn child. And this is just one of those articles that comes at us. And honestly, it's almost overwhelming when you consider the numbers here. We're not just talking about thousands or talking about 120,000 packs from an abortion provider. Nearly 100,000 of the sent to recipients who live in states that supposedly outlaw abortion and even include outlawing the mailing of abortion pills.

Starting point is 00:03:39 So what we have here is a giant subversion of pro-life America, a giant subversion by form of pill and by form of, quite frankly, the pill's being sent even where the sending is basically. banned by law. And it's a very effective strategy for the culture of death. And the culture of death seems to find its way to very successful, very deadly strategies. And this is one of those cases. We are told in this article, The Guardian, U.S. abortion providers performed 1.14 million abortions in 2024, quote, the highest number on record in recent years. So again, consider the fact that fewer states are located where abortions are being, that is surgical abortions, are being So now we're being told that more abortions have taken place with fewer states where the surgical abortions are taking place.

Starting point is 00:04:32 So we have abortion migration. We have abortion tourism. We have an entire world in which women go from one state to another precisely for abortion. And of course, you have the left wanting to go back to a situation not only akin to Roe, which was handed down by the Supreme Court, legalizing. abortion, horrifying decision in 1973, they want to go back without the restrictions even of Roe. And in some of the states, there are no restrictions, even tantam out to Roe. And so we really are looking at a very dark picture here. Now, I think the assumption of the paper in this case is that

Starting point is 00:05:10 people will read that and say, well, bravo. And yet those who have concern for the sanctity and dignity of human life have to look at this and say, this is a horrifying subversion of the culture of life, and it is just another manifestation of the culture of death. The culture of death seeks to find its way and to have its way in virtually every situation. And it celebrates every refutation, every resistance to a pro-life logic, even pro-life laws. And that's exactly what you see here. The last line in the Guardian's article is that, quote, experts widely predict that the dispute, that's the dispute about the abortion pill being sent to states where it is illegal. that the dispute, quote, which test the relationships between states that ban abortion and those that protect it will eventually reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

Starting point is 00:06:01 I think that is profoundly right. This is eventually an issue that will get all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is going to have to decide it, but I want to warn pro-life Americans that what is not likely out of that case is a nationwide ban on abortion. For that, we're going to have to continue to work in legislation, and we're going to have to work state. I stay, and yes, we're going to have to work at the federal level. And the political prospects of a federal ban on abortion, tantamount to what you have in pro-life states, that is politically right now almost inconceivable. It's our job to make it conceivable and then to press on so that it is actual. Nothing short of that is going to change these headlines much. Okay, now I want to shift to the

Starting point is 00:06:45 issue of marriage. Pew Research, very credible, a research organization. It's been around now for a generation, done just incredibly important work. They often contextualize it in ways that are meant to gain headlines. That's certainly the case with the report that was just released. Here's the headline from Pew. So this is not a media headline. This is Pew Research Center's own headline. Quote, majorities of LGBTQ and non-LGBQ U.S. adults under 50 want to get married someday.

Starting point is 00:07:18 All right. So we try to look at things in several levels. One is the level of how does this kind of thing become plausible, the level of plausibility. And so it tells us something that at this point, in 2025, a research center can use the phrase LGBTQ, and everyone knows what that means. And they can go on in a headline to mention the fact that that majorities of LGBTQ and non-LGBQ U.S. adults under 50 want to get married someday. And so that insinuates that same-sex marriage is a thing, which, of course, it is, in terms of action by the United States Supreme Court. Let me remind Christians, we don't believe that a man and a man actually can be married. We don't believe that a man and a man actually are married in terms of the creation institution. We do believe that you have laws in rebellion to creation order, and that's what we're talking about here. So I'm not arguing that under the circumstances of prevailing law in the United States, I'm not arguing that a man can't be legally wed to a man or a woman legally wed to a woman in the United States at present. I'm simply saying that doesn't change the creation order institution of marriage.

Starting point is 00:08:32 It does change the legal definition. But second issue here is normalization. How does a moral revolution, a revolution and morality become normalized? It's by even presenting headlines like this in which you just have different kinds of couples. You have, or different kinds of adults, as indicated here. You've got LGBTQ adults. You've got non-LGBQ adults. And it's just normalized to make that kind of reference.

Starting point is 00:08:59 All right. So how does the report come to us, quote, 10 years after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, 59% of LGBTQ-U.S. adults under 50 who have never married, say they want to get married someday. A similar share of non-LGBQ adults in this age range say this. same, 63%. So we're being told here the majority of those adults who are LGBTQ identified under age 50 say they want to get married someday. Now, I guess one of the first things I would note is that

Starting point is 00:09:28 it seems odd to go as high as 50 for this kind of research. But I'm going to suggest that one of the reasons why the Pew Research Center might say they did so in this case is because same-sex marriage has been legally available in the United States nationwide only since 2015. So that, That might be the rationale that they're using. But I do think it's very, very interesting that they present it this way. We're then told, quote, however, LGBTQ adults under 50 who don't have children are much less likely than their non-LGBQ peers to say they want children someday. End quote. Again, not a surprise here.

Starting point is 00:10:07 A creation order worldview, a Christian worldview based in God's Revelation, even in the structures of creation, reminds us in the doctrine of Revelation, that among the first word spoken by the creator to the human creature was be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. And that was said to the man and the woman in the institution of what is rightly called marriage. And all of that is right there in creation order. By the way, front and center in the first chapter of the Bible. And children are very much a part of marriage. Now, here's what's also interesting. The phrase have children. It just makes sense evidently to Millions and millions of Americans, you can speak of have children when there is no biological process implied at all. Or no necessarily biological process involved at all.

Starting point is 00:10:58 And that is to say that a man and a man can't make a baby. And a woman, a woman, are in the same predicament. And so when you just use the expression, have children or some similar kind of phrase, you realize that you're just using that word in a way that would have been inconceive. to most previous generations. And in this case, by the way, the lead sentence of that interest in this report says want children. So want children, I think we can understand that. But then again, here's a huge distinction here. So it turns out that same sex identified persons who do want to be married, they have a much lower indicated desire to have children. And in this case, it just refers to

Starting point is 00:11:42 adults, not to couples. All right, some other very interesting things that come out in this. Quote, LGBTQ adults are more likely than non-LGBQ adults to say they want to get married again someday. So here again, that might be a timeline issue, but there's still moral significance. Quote, among non-LGB adults under 50 who don't have children, 47% say they want kids someday, a much smaller share of their LGBTQ counterparts say, the same. In turn, LGBTQ adults are much more likely than non-LGBQ adults to say they don't want to

Starting point is 00:12:19 have children. So you notice that's a flip in the moral statement. We've gone from want to have children to don't want to have children. Again, in Christian worldview analysis, those are not too equal propositions. They're not too equal statements. They're presented that way here. We're also told that, quote, LGBTQ men and women are equally likely to say they want to have children someday, but among non-LGBQ adults, 54% of men say they wanted parents someday compared with 39% of women. So that's, it's a very strange thing.

Starting point is 00:12:52 I just wanted to read it right out of the report. Non-LGBQ adults. That would mean heterosexual adults, at least presumably. And evidently, heterosexual adults, if you just take the adults and divide them between men and women, here's the very interesting thing. More men than women indicate they, want to have children someday. I think that's another indication of a giant cultural shift that showed up,

Starting point is 00:13:19 I think, on the radar screens of a lot of the major media, most emphatically in the 2024 presidential election, when all of a sudden you had a male vote, which was decidedly traditional, decidedly conservative, and I think that came as a surprise to many people. But I think you also have here a male impulse that gets right down to the fact that we are meant for something. And the surprising thing here is not the high male number. The shocking thing is the low female number. Because at least as a constant of human history, it has been more demonstrable that women have wanted to be mothers than men have wanted to be fathers.

Starting point is 00:14:02 But now we're being told that among current adults, non-LGBQ, adults, got to say it again, there is a far less pronounced desire for children among the women of that sample than among the men. That is just hugely significant. I think it shows the impact of the feminist movement. I think it also shows the fact that women are moving in more socially liberal directions than men. And that's demonstrable, it's provable across different issues. It shows up again in the electoral results where young women and young men are voting. differently, markedly differently, with young men far more likely to be conservative than young women. And I think the liberationist lifestyle, the liberationist worldview, personal autonomy

Starting point is 00:14:51 worldview that has been so communicated to women, I think it comes out here. And in a very, very tragic way, I think this is just an enormously sad report. I do think the Christians need to look at something like this and recognize that there is a very, very tragic way. I think this is a, this is just an enormously sad report. I do think the Christians need to look at something like this and recognize that there is a yearning for marriage and there is a yearning to be a father or a yearning to be a mother that is a part of creation order itself. And even as in a time of moral rebellion, in a time of moral and cultural subversion, there's an effort to deny that, to cloud that, even to reverse that. The fact is that that's really hard even with the ingenuity of human sinfulness to bury entirely. and I think there's full evidence of that here.

Starting point is 00:15:38 Another encouraging word for Christians in the middle of a very discouraging picture. All right, but speaking about marriage and family, I want to go to a report out by Brad Wilcox. He ran an article of the Atlantic, Why Marriage Survives. And he starts out in a very unusual way. He starts out by citing Andrew Tate in the Manosphere, very much against marriage, advising young men not to get married.

Starting point is 00:16:03 He said, quote, there is a zero statistical advantage, as Wilcox reports to getting married, if you're a man in America today. And Wilcox says he argued that in a, quote, viral 2022 video on, quote, why modern men don't want marriage. Wilcox summarizes women, he believes, are worthless anchors. They want you monogamous so that your testosterone level drops. He posted that on X, we're told. Quote, and your marriage is likely to end and ruin anyway. if you use your mind, if you use your head instead of your heart and you look at the advantages of getting married, there are none. And I'll end the quote from the article there. Now, I'll just say

Starting point is 00:16:44 that all it takes is one simple hearing of that kind of statement. And the Christian understands, you know, that's a complete rejection of creation order. That's a complete rejection of God's design. That is a complete rejection of God's order. But you can understand that it does gain traction. I think all of us, whether male or female, young or old, I think we want to be told that we're losing out, we're on the short end of the stick, someone's taking advantage of us. And I think when you see this kind of argument coming from someone in the manosphere as it's called, look, women are taking advantage of you. I think we just need, as Christians, to come alongside with a very loud megaphone to say to young men, there's a lot more to this story. And that is not the right way to

Starting point is 00:17:31 construe this. That is a fundamentally godless way of understanding your role in life, your being, your personhood, your manhood, and God's design for your life and is design for marriage. And I go back to the fact that thanks be to God, the vast majority of young persons, at least still want to get married, and young men want to be married. And young men not only want to be married, they want to be fathers. And increasingly so. But the point made by Brad Wilcox in this article why marriage survives is that marriage is pretty tenacious. And even as there are many statistics indicating a retreat from marriage, a subversion of marriage and all those things are real. And he does acknowledge that. The fact is that some of the trend lines should be encouraging to us.

Starting point is 00:18:18 He talks about one of the major trend lines in the 20th century, something he refers to as the great family revolution of the late 20th century. It brought about divorce and single parenthood in a surge. But he goes on to say, right now, however, quote, rather quietly, the post-60s family revolution appears to have ended. Divorce is down and the share of children and two parent families is up. Marriage is a social institution is showing new strength, even among groups that drifted away from the institution in the 20th century, including black and working class Americans, and contrary to criticisms on the left and right. That's good news and clearly so. And it's really interesting that Wilcox cites family historian, and he says rightly progressive family historian, I can verify that's true.

Starting point is 00:19:04 Stephanie Coontz said in an address to the National Council on Family Relations in 2013, quote, if the ongoing revolution in family and gender arrangements is largely irreversible, then we have to recognize divorce families, single-parent families, and married couple families are all here to stay. End quote. We'll clearly shed an agenda in saying that. And you notice a big if. the big if is if indeed the ongoing revolution in family and gender arrangements is largely irreversible. Now, I want to tell you, I think Stephanie Coons firmly believed then and believed now that that is so, and I see no evidence to the contrary. And I will say that conservatives fear that it's so. I think conservatives Christians, we're concerned that it's so. We're concerned that some of these trend lines are at least long-term irreversible.

Starting point is 00:19:52 And Brad Wilcox here is not arguing. a convincing case that over time, there's a giant reversal going on. But it is really important, as he underlines here, that there is an uptick on marriage. There's an uptick on two parent families raising children and staying married. There's an uptick on some of the things that we would want to see happen. A decline in the divorce rate. He points out that has been accelerating. Since the early 1980s, he writes, the divorce rate is now fallen by almost 40 percent.

Starting point is 00:20:23 quote, and about half of that decline has happened in just the past 15 years. Again, in quote, that's enormous in the last 15 years. So that's not just like a, you know, a six-month reporting period. Over the past 15 years, a considerable percentage of Americans have clearly decided not to divorce and rather to stay married. Now, I do want to put in a little footnote here sometimes with these statistics. You've got to watch, in this case, he talks about divorce rate. That's important because sometimes the action. number can go down, in which case you're not sure what the percentage is that remains.

Starting point is 00:21:00 But this is a very strong report. He also points out there's health and the number of new marriages. He concludes one paragraph by writing, stable marriage is a norm again and the way that most people rear the rising generation. Okay, that's just really, really important. And I think Christians should celebrate this. and it does point to something that is very important and very encouraging to us, and that is the absolute persistence of creation order in shining through.

Starting point is 00:21:30 And so that creation order, in terms of God's institution of marriage and the creation of the family and the mandate, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, all of this is more a part of human moral awareness than human beings who deny even the existence of God, could possibly understand. Where does this come from? Is this just some kind of social programming? Where does this come from? Is this just some kind of evolutionary principle and the replication of genes? You know, I think we know there's far more to this. And I think most Americans, whether they want to recognize it or not, or whether they can explain it or not, knows that there's far more to this. Brad Wilcox refers to marriage's comeback as good news for society points out, for instance,

Starting point is 00:22:16 why children raised in two-parent homes are much more likely to graduate from college than those raised in other families, less likely to be incarcerated. Kids who don't live with both of their married parents are far more likely to be depressed than those raised in intact families. He cites economist Melissa Carney, who said, quote, the evidence is clear, even if the punchline is uncomfortable, children are more likely to thrive, behaviorally and academically, and ultimately in the labor market and adult life if they grow up with the advantages of a two-parent home. He does warn that some of these trend lines are not necessarily permanent. Some of these rather hopeful trend lines can be reversed. But this is good news and we need to recognize it. It's also being published in the Atlantic.

Starting point is 00:22:56 It's a very important affirmation of creation order showing up in what might be an unexpected place. And I think that's something we need to recognize and something we need to celebrate. I want to point to another piece by Brad Wilcox that ran also the Atlantic last year about the awfulness of elite hypocrisy on marriage. And with just a little bit of time remaining, I just want to point out that he is underlining in this article and in his research, the fact that you have an awful lot of progressives, of liberals in the United States who argue on absolute moral relativism when it comes to the family arrangements, having children inside or outside of marriage, family structure, marital status, all this. They want to argue basically just personal autonomy. That's all that matters.

Starting point is 00:23:48 It's wrong to make value judgments. But as Brad Wilcox points out, there's hypocrisy in the fact that the higher you get in the elite status, I mean, frankly, the more conventional the family arrangements become. He teaches at the University of Virginia, and he's really clear. He points out that his class of students at University of Virginia reflects the fact, quote, the great majority of my students, about 80% report hailing from an intact family with married parents. He goes on to say, quote, my class at UVA is not exceptional. In this regard, 73% of students of elite colleges and universities nationally were born to married parents who have since stayed married versus 51% of high school seniors across the country. At the same time, he says, a majority of my students are liberal or progressive on many social issues. They are at a minimum non-judgmental about lifestyles unlike their own. End quote.

Starting point is 00:24:41 And this isn't just remarkable for liberal hypocrisy. It's remarkable for very bad arguments gaining traction because people believe what they're supposed to believe is absolute non-judgmentalism. But if they look at themselves and their own classmates, there is full evidence of why moral judgment is absolutely necessary. It's not only necessary. It's actually a gift, not something to be denied and discredited, something to be embraced. and acted upon. These two giant issues we've talked about today, abortion on the one hand and marriage on the other,

Starting point is 00:25:18 it's just another way of underlining the fact that all these issues are front and center in our national conversation every single day, one way or another. And there's a reason why we come back to them from time to time. We understand as Christians how urgently important they are. Thanks for listening to the briefing. For more information, go to my website at Albertmohor.com. You can follow me on X or Twitter by going to X.com forward. For information on the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu.

Starting point is 00:25:47 For informational voice college, just go to voicecollege.com. I'll meet you again tomorrow for the briefing.

The Briefing with Albert Mohler - Tuesday, August 12, 2025

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