The Briefing with Albert Mohler - Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Starting point is 00:00:04 It's Tuesday, March 12, 2024. I'm Albert Mueller, and this is the briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. Well, the big news we're going to start out comes from Ireland, and interestingly, it's not about something that happened. It's about something that didn't happen, and it's even bigger news because the leaders of the country were sure that it was going to happen. So what didn't happen? What didn't happen is that Irish voters did not vote over the weekend to approve two constitutional amendments. The government there was absolutely confident that they would pass, at least publicly so, but neither of them passed, and it wasn't even close. And we are talking about two very interesting amendments. The first of the amendments that did not pass would have redefined the family in Ireland, and it would have created a situation in which you had devotion replacing what we would have to call the actual creational form of the family. The family was established by bloodship, Ken adoption, and they were proposing that the definition of family just be exploded to basically any form of relationship that was defined by some kind of mutual devotion. You can understand, given the revolution in morality, of which Ireland is now very much apart, why this would be called for.

Starting point is 00:01:21 You're talking about a nation, historic Ireland, that has been historically formed by not only Christianity, but specifically Catholicism. and yet, in its recent history, it has voted to revolutionize that morality. In 2015, approving gay marriage. The nation's Tayshok, or Prime Minister, is right now an openly gay man. You also have the fact that in 2018, the nation liberalized its abortion laws. And that was huge news. That was earth-shaking news because given the change on the definition of marriage in 2015, and then the change on abortion, the liberalizing of abortion,

Starting point is 00:02:00 laws in 2018, it's almost as if Ireland was being turned from a traditionalist morality society into a very revolutionary society. Now, you might say that there's now an incongruity, because since the voters there in Ireland had moved in progressive directions on same-sex marriage and on abortion, what's the big deal about redefining the family? You also had a second measure that failed. The second measure would not just have redefined the family. It it would have explicitly taken out language related to mothers in the home. The traditional Irish constitution was very clear speaking about a mother and a mother's duties in the home and the nation's constitutional respect for that role, so much so that the nation's laws were to conform

Starting point is 00:02:49 to the expectation that women would be recognized in the home when they were mothers as having particular responsibilities that should not be interfered with. Now, again, you can see in moral revolution, why that would be, well, frankly, embarrassing out-of-date language, almost like some kind of antiquarian statement from the past. The nation's Taoiseach, again, the prime minister, was pushing along with his parliamentary majority towards the referenda, and both of them were presented to the Irish people, and both of them, as I said, just failed catastrophically. Well, what kind of message were the voters there in Ireland giving? You know, that's a very interesting question because the liberal left now says that the problem was confusion, that the voters didn't

Starting point is 00:03:32 understand the proposals, and because they didn't understand them, they did not approve them. So, for example, you have major news stories saying that even as this is a setback for the liberal movement, it was probably more due to voter confusion than anything else. Spokespersons for the Irish government said that it was probably due to the fact that Irish people, turned out in fairly low numbers in this particular public site. And they also were confronted with what the government now says was confusing language, those who are pushing the progressive agenda there in Ireland. See, this is a temporary setback. The language was, admittedly somewhat confusing, because after all, they're trying to confuse marriage and the family. Let's just understand.

Starting point is 00:04:18 There's going to be a bit of confusion here because confusion is the point. For example, in the first of the proposals to redefine the constitution, in order to include, say, cohabiting couples and their children, and let's face it, all kinds of non-traditional, what would be called families under this new constitutional arrangement. It was a shift from what we as theologians call ontology or being, this is a man and a woman in an institution created by God, to something that was merely defined as a durable relationship, durable. Now, just think about that word for a moment. That's a somewhat subjective word. First of all, it's just morally not the right word. What we do not say about marriage is that it's durable. That's what you say about a certain

Starting point is 00:05:01 kind of, say, pot you would have on the stove. That's durable. But when it comes to marriage, it's not only durable. It's actually right. It's objectively right. Or it's not marriage. The creation of this category of durable relationships, I'll just state the matter as clearly as I can. I don't think that can be explained by confusion. I don't think any sane person or anyone with, let's just say, the ability to get to the polling place and vote, it's hard for me to concede that they would not understand the difference between a definition of family rooted in creation order and a definition of the family rooted in merely durability. And so I'm just going to say, I think the leftist argument here is just completely out to lunch. It's virtually impossible that

Starting point is 00:05:50 that was misunderstood. But it failed overwhelmingly. What else failed overwhelmingly was the removal of that language about wives and, in particular, mothers in the home. The language that now remains in the Irish Constitution, Article 41 Paragraph 2, states that the government in Ireland, quote, recognizes that by her life within the home, woman gives to the state a support without which the common good cannot be achieved, and furthermore, it pledges the state to, quote, endeavor to ensure that mothers shall not be obligated by economic necessity to engage in labor to the the neglect of their duties in the home. End quote. Now, let me ask you, how does that language sound to you? Because to Christians, it should sound as a simple moral logic that is deeply rooted in the biblical

Starting point is 00:06:37 worldview. In other words, it's a matter of some amazement that the constitution of the nation there in Ireland going back to the, let's say, the early 20th century, is that morally clear? That's something of a miracle. It's perhaps now even more of a miracle that voters in Ireland didn't take it out. So what are we looking at here? Well, we're looking at a confused nation. I think that's safe to say. I am not going to admit for a moment that these measures failed simply because of confusion. I mean, I think I was able to describe them in fairly short summary. One would redefine the family. The other would take out the language related to a special role of mothers in the home. Anything unclear about that? No, I think you all got it. The issue is trying to explain why Ireland, the same voters, would approve same-sex marriage, in 2015, come back and approve abortion in 2018, and now suddenly draw the line at the redefinition of family and the elimination of language about motherhood. Well, there are those who are saying, if it's not confusion, it must be some kind of strange traditionalism there in Ireland. Well, you'd have to say from a Christian worldview perspective, that if it is some kind of

Starting point is 00:07:45 traditionalism, it is showing up at a very weird time. Because when you're looking at the issues of redefining marriage, 2015, and allowing for the legalization of abortion, the killing of the unborn in 2018, this doesn't appear to be that much of a radical proposal coming from the liberal government. Speaking before the vote, the Taoiseach, or Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, said, quote, I think a no vote would be a setback for the country, quite frankly. It would say to a lot of people, hundreds of thousands of people and children, that they're not a family as far as our Constitution is concerned. And that would be a step backwards, I think.

Starting point is 00:08:20 He continued, quote, and it would also mean in relation to care that the very old-fashioned language about women in the home and mother's duties in the home would be maintained and the opportunity to add in special recognition for family carers will be lost, end quote. It's an astounding statement. And of course, it is said by a moral revolutionary. This is an openly gay man and a gay relationship. He is the Prime Minister Taoiseach there in Ireland. He's the one that basically spearheaded this proposal. He did understand what is it stake, but it's that second remark he made that I think is absolutely fascinating. We need to think about it for just a moment. He says that the language about a woman in the home and a mother's duties,

Starting point is 00:09:01 he says that that's very old-fashioned language. That's his term, the very old-fashioned language. And he wants to replace that with respect for simply family carers. So why did the Irish people turn this down? The same people that legalize by a similar effort, same-sex marriage and abortion, why did they draw the line here? I'm just going to offer at least the suggestion that even those who are living in household situations that are not marked by this constitutional language, there's still a respect for it, and I would say even perhaps more tellingly a longing for it. And I can only hope on the first measure that the voters there in Ireland recognize that durable is just not a strong enough word. You're selling nylon? I guess that'll work. You're selling a family structure? No way.

Starting point is 00:09:49 And by the way, the biggest problem with the word durable is that that which is claimed to be durable, seldom is as durable as is promised. Final thought about Ireland, what had staked out Ireland's distinctive identity, for instance, as compared to the rest of the English-speaking world, is that its culture, at least in terms of the Republic of Ireland, has been very traditionally Roman Catholic. And so all this change can only be explained by a massive secularization of Irish society. A lot has gone into that, and there is no doubt that that secularization is very pervasive. But the action taken by voters in Ireland over the weekend reminds us that even in a society that thinks itself secularized, there are impulses it might not be able to name. Though those impulses are still very much alive. But next we're going to talk about controversy about some public statements about abortion. And the first place we're going to look is at the White House in the Oval Office, the president of the United States, Joe Biden.

Starting point is 00:10:51 You'll recall that last week he delivered on Thursday night a state of the union address in which he made the most atrocious comments about abortion. The man who had previously, when he was in the Senate, described himself as a Roman Catholic who was personally opposed to abortion, he then came out for a woman's reproductive freedom as he styled it, clearly talking about it. abortion, clearly celebrating abortion, clearly castigating the Supreme Court personally in a way that offends all constitutional decorum in a state of the union address. He, over the course of the last several years, has become a radical proponent. He says he wants to put Roe back in place, but as we're going to see in a future edition of the briefing, that's not the goal of the Democratic Party at all. That's a lie. They do not want to put Roe back in place. They would not be even close to satisfied with Roe v. Wade.

Starting point is 00:11:40 They want to press much further. The demands they're making are basically for unrestricted abortion. And right now, the current president of the United States has not accepted a single restriction that he would put into law. And so we really are looking at a very radical position. But as radical as it is, some of the news coming out right now about the state of the union address, not from conservatives, but from the left, some of the news coming out is a complaint that the president didn't use the word abortion. what a telling development. The President of the United States pushes a radically pro-abortion agenda and yet the abortion rights movement including some in his own party's leadership

Starting point is 00:12:18 are pressing him for not using the word abortion. And there are those who are trying to say, well, you know, that's just the old Catholic. He's just not comfortable with the word. Well, I need to say from a Christian worldview perspective, in this case, that's even more morally pathetic to actually be an agent for the most radical pro-abortion position

Starting point is 00:12:36 and then somehow hide behind the fact that you don't use the word. Maybe using the word would simply trigger his conscience in a way that would have been quite uncomfortable. Maybe set him off the pace for his very aggressive speech. Jessica Mason Peelclo identified as the executive director at Rewire News Group. NBC describes that as, quote, a news organization focusing on reproductive health care, end quote. Notice there, by the way, the NBC running an article about criticizing the president for not using the word abortion, instead talking about reproductive health, reproductive health care. That's exactly what NBC did in the same article.

Starting point is 00:13:13 Talk about hypocrisy. But nonetheless, what Pilko said is this, quote, the need to say the word abortion from the highest ranks of a Democratic administration is important, adding, quote, not just for optics, but because it helps tremendously in the destigmatization of abortion as a medical procedure, end quote. Well, there's so much here for us to unpack, because here's an article about abortion rights activists, including some in the leadership of the Democratic Party, crying out foul because the president, though, presenting a radical vision of abortion rights

Starting point is 00:13:43 didn't use the word abortion in the state of union address. And they come back and say it's important for optics, but not just for optics, quote, but because it helps tremendously in the destigmatization of abortion as a medical procedure, end quote. Okay, that is the moral goal. And one of the things we as Christians need to note is that human beings do have the capacity to cauterize our own consciences. Over a period of time, we can work very hard to act as if we don't know what we do know, to submerge moral knowledge, to exchange the truth for a lie, to suppress the truth in a lie. That's Romans chapter 1. But it's also true that when we think about it and talk about it, we expose the very fact that

Starting point is 00:14:32 that's what we're doing or what we have done or what we're trying to do. And right now on abortion, that's what the abortion activists are trying to do. Their argument is use the word abortion, use it over and over again. Abortion, abortion. They want to hear it from the White House. They're criticizing the president after presenting such a radical vision for simply not using the word. And then they say that one of the reasons you should use the word is to destigmatize abortion. Well, let me speak as a Christian here. You're not going to destigmatize abortion. It's simply not going to happen. You're not going to destigmatize it. You're not going to reduce it to simply some kind of medical procedure. That's exactly what's attempted in this sentence. But as a Christian,

Starting point is 00:15:11 I just want to argue that's not going to happen. It is because there is a limit to how much truth we can suppress in unrighteousness. There is a limit to the extent that we can exchange the truth of God for a lie, because there is a limit to how much we can deny the Imago Dei and the moral knowledge that God has put within us. And when it comes to abortion, I don't think there's a single society yet that has simply been able to use the word abortion and to practice abortion as if it has no moral meaning. And that moral meaning is going to mean stigma. In the former Soviet Union behind the iron curtain in places like the former GDR, that was communist East Germany, they tried to routinize abortion and yet it still maintained its moral stigma. It might be explained it. It might be

Starting point is 00:16:00 explained, it might be rationalized, it might be paid for by the government, but still historians bring it up as an anomaly. In communist China, which right now is afraid of having too few babies, by the way, rather than too many. We'll talk about that more on a future addition to the briefing. Abortion became government policy. Forced abortions became a part of government policy, and you'll notice we're talking about it, and we understand there is moral stigma there. With forced abortions, there's an increased moral stigma. It's not only abortion, it's the coercion, the murderous coercion of the Communist Party there in China. There's simply no way to remove the stigma of abortion. It's simply hard to imagine how someday, even if America continues down the line of

Starting point is 00:16:42 authorizing abortion, legalizing abortion, accepting abortion, it's still hard to imagine that you drive down a prestigious street in an American town. You pass a clinic and that clinic's an abortion clinic. No, the abortion clinic is located where abortion clinics are located. It's a very different thing. than mainstream medicine. And still, just imagine doctors getting together. You know, it's 20 years since we graduated from medical school. What have you been doing for 20 years? Saving lives, transplanting hearts, delivering babies, I've been aborting babies. You know, it's simply impossible to imagine, given the way God created the world as a moral universe, that that loses its stigma. By the way, for the record, we should note that President Biden has used the word abortion. Maybe

Starting point is 00:17:28 it slipped out. That might have been the case last month when speaking at a fundraiser in Maryland. Biden said, quote, I'm a practicing Catholic. I'm not big on abortion, but guess what, Roe v. Wade got it right, end quote. There's so much moral confusion there. Indeed, I'll go on a limb here. There's so much political corruption in that statement. I'm just going to let that stand for a moment. And I'm just going to step back and say, that's an amazing statement in terms of its moral content. Quote, I'm not big on abortion. Just imagine saying I'm not big on prostitution. I'm not big on lying. I'm not big on manslaughter. I'm not big on treason. You know, what an amazing statement. We are trapped by our words. And in this case, President Biden used the word abortion, but I would argue he used it in a way that

Starting point is 00:18:19 actually reveals far more than his willingness in that context or his slip up to use the word. when he said, I'm not big on abortion. Let's just state the obvious. He is very, very big on moral confusion. But next, I want to turn to a statement not made by the president of the United States, but rather by a young woman who is an actor, sometimes referred to as an actress. The article appeared in USA Today, and it led me to go back and find the transcript of words spoken just over the weekend by Hallie Bailey. And the headline in USA Today was Hallie Bailey stands up, for women and their right to privacy. USA Today was not very illuminating in that particular report, but the comments made by the

Starting point is 00:19:02 actress are very illuminating. She played Ariel on The Little Mermaid and also appeared in the recent movie The Color Purple. She was being honored at an event. She's a six-time Grammy Award nominee as well as an actress. She did speak up for what's defined in this headline as a woman's right to privacy. She did speak up for what she called, quote, our reproductive. rights. She did so, by the way, in a very interesting way. And this is eventually going to lead us to London and the royal family, but we're not there yet. So she did so in a very interesting way

Starting point is 00:19:36 by saying that she invoked her right to privacy by refusing to speak to the fact that she was expecting a baby and then had a baby. And the baby's name is Halo, a little boy. And she was talking about protecting her privacy, her personal privacy as a woman when she was expecting this baby. And she spoke very, very candidly and quite assertively about her privacy in this. She said, there is no way, and then I'm skipping some bad language, I was going to share the biggest joy of my life with anyone. Hela was my gift. He is the greatest blessing, and I had no obligation to expose him, me, or my family,

Starting point is 00:20:13 to that unyielding spotlight. And then she says this, and this is where things get morally fuzzy. Quote, of course they did. But with the state of the world and the place that it is in with men trying to force their will and our bodies and our reproductive rights, no one on social media, and more bad language again, no one on the planet was going to tell me

Starting point is 00:20:33 what to do with my body or what to share with the world. Let's just back up and say, number one, when it comes to a mother with her child, we should all respect a certain zone of privacy. But in this case, it's a rather morally complicated issue because this woman is an actress and she is an entertainer,

Starting point is 00:20:51 and she has put herself out there in the public, and she clearly wants a lot of media attention. And that's the problem morally. If you want a lot of media attention, guess what? You get a lot of media attention. And if that is the fuel for your own brand, well, guess what? People develop an interest. Now, again, I want to state that I want to respect the relationship between a mother and a child

Starting point is 00:21:13 and certainly in a mother's right to protect her baby, even a responsibility to protect her baby. But you'll notice this particular opportunity at an award ceremony was undertaken by Holly Bailey in order to push abortion rights, as if to put it all together to say men are trying to reduce our choices. Well, once again, you see moral confusion, and you see it reflected in this kind of language. And you also find it perplexingly in a woman for whom publicity is the business who's effectively complaining about. Publicity. And by the way, she posted at least one photograph of her child's foot.

Starting point is 00:21:54 That wasn't by accident. But finally for today, while we're talking about publicity and photographs, yeah, you know we've got to do it. We've got to go to the royal family. We have to go to the acknowledgement made by the palace that it was a deliberately manipulated photograph

Starting point is 00:22:13 that was shown of the Princess of Wales, Catherine and her children, timed for the British observation of Mother's Day, in order to try to reassure the international public that she is well after having been outside the public eye and acknowledged abdominal surgery. It now turns out that the Twitter feed of the Princess of Wales took responsibility as an amateur photographer for having manipulated the image. Meanwhile, major international news agencies that had published the photograph had already called

Starting point is 00:22:44 for a takedown or a kill order on the photograph simply because it was manipulated. and people were able to look at it and they came up with at least six or seven different parts of the photograph that were clearly manipulated. The assumption is that the royal family was the victim of this manipulation. And yet it was the palace that had released the photograph. It was a statement made by the Princess of Wales released by the palace, we think, on Twitter or X, that led to the supposed clarification that the royal family had itself released an intentionally altered photograph. in this case, a photograph, it was argued that was altered by the Princess of Wales herself. Here's the bottom line. We don't know what actually took place here. What we do know is that this is a massive royal mess.

Starting point is 00:23:30 And it's a royal mess for reasons that are actually more interesting than what the mainstream media might talk about. It gets back to the fact that if you live by publicity, guess what, you live by publicity. And when it comes to the British royal family, it's more than publicity. They make a very strong historic claim. as the identity of the nation. The identity of the nation, not only in the royal family, but by British constitutional tradition in the king's body, which makes the health of King Charles III of such intense public significance. But it's also, of course, a public interest. And here's where the royal family is itself playing a certain sort of game. And that game has been pretty transparent in recent years to the embarrassment of Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace and the royal family

Starting point is 00:24:18 in general, it is very hard to claim that your dignity is the ground of the nation if you don't act in dignified ways. I think most people would think that at least since becoming king, the former Prince of Wales, who's currently King Charles III, has acted with a lot of decorum. He's acted kingly. Some members of the royal family have acted much less royally. And of course, the stakes are incredibly high because his eldest son, who is right now the Prince of Wales, William, married to Catherine, well, the future of the royal family at this point rides on his shoulders. And the role of his wife is extremely important. And she had been, at least in terms of the British royal family, fairly uncontroversial. But there's another part of this is really important.

Starting point is 00:25:05 The pact, now this is not so much a written contract, but it is very clearly a moral pact between the British royal family and the British people is, you see what you get. And now we know that is not exactly the case. Indeed, we now know that's precisely not the case. And as a matter fact, there is no unretouched photograph that has been made available by the palace. As some observers have pointed out, a photograph that was evidently meant to quell rumors has now become an atomic explosion of credibility crisis for the House of Windsor. Now, you know, one of the questions that often comes up in terms of damage analysis, is the question, is what was done here bad or was it done badly? Well, in this case, at least at this point, while we wish for everyone in this situation,

Starting point is 00:25:57 good health, the reality is that this was both bad and done badly. As I conclude, I want to remind you about Voice College Preview Day coming up. It's March 21st to 22nd. I'm incredibly thankful to God for what's happening here at Voice College. it's just one of the happiest things I get to be involved with. Boyce College is one of the most faithful, outstanding educational options for Christian young people looking for a Christian worldview undergraduate college experience. Every one of those words really important.

Starting point is 00:26:27 That Boyce Preview event is March 21 through 22. You can register for the event you. You can register a student, a prospective student in your home. Students and parents will join hundreds of other students and their families for the Boyce Preview event. you'll have the chance to tour the campus, learn more about our academic programs, meet our world-class faculty, and I'm looking forward to meeting those who come, and I'll have the opportunity to speak with you and to you. They're going to have a special Ask Anything session, by the way, a private one just for those gathered here for this event, and that's always

Starting point is 00:27:01 interesting. You can register online at boyscology.com slash preview, and if you use the code, the briefing, you can register for free. That's all one word, by the way, the briefing. Again, Boyce College Preview Day, March 21 through 20 seconds, coming up fast. I hope to see you there. Thanks for listening to The Briefing. For more information, go to my website at Albertmuller.com. You can follow me on Twitter by going to Twitter.com forward slash Albert Moller. For information on the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbtsbtsk.edu. For information on Boyce College, just go to voicecollege.com. I'll meet you again tomorrow for the briefing.

The Briefing with Albert Mohler - Tuesday, March 12, 2024

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