The Briefing with Albert Mohler - Wednesday, August 5, 2026

Episode Date: August 5, 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 if the WNBA can exist if its coaches don’t know what the ‘W’ means, the trial of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the resignation of a German politician over surrogacy, and thinking through the issue of surrogacy from a biblical worldview.Part I (00:13 – 12:06)Can the WNBA Exist If Its Coaches Don’t Know What ‘W’ Means? Controversy in the WNBA Reveals Mass Delusion and Dishonesty in Our SocietyFever’s Stephanie White on transgender athletes: ‘I don’t ever believe exclusion is an answer’ by Indianapolis Star (Chloe Peterson)WNBA Coaches Stumped As To What The ‘W’ Stands For by The Babylon BeeCheryl Reeve: WNBA must be ‘safe space for everyone,’ regardless of viewpoint by The Athletic (Devon Henderson)Part II (12:06 – 18:33)The Diary and Trial of Dr. Anthony Fauci: Dr. Fauci Pleaded the Fifth Over 100 Times, But These Questions are Not Going AwayPart III (18:33 – 24:08)The Resignation of German Politician Over Surrogacy: Leader in Christian Democratic Party in Germany Forced to Resign After Hiring U.S. Surrogate Mother for a BabyGerman politician resigns over surrogacy child controversy by BBC News (Henry Moore and Bethany Bell)Part IV (24:08 – 26:56)The Christian, Biblical Worldview is Clear on Surrogacy: Christians Must Think Carefully and Seriously About This IssueSign 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 Wednesday, August 5th, 2006. I'm Albert Mueller, and this is the briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. Well, there is no doubt that right now, the biggest worldview questions have to do with the results of yesterday's primaries in five states, most importantly, the primary in the Senate race in Michigan. And simply because we want to know exactly where the bottom line is, we're going to discuss that issue tomorrow. It is going to be a massive worldview consideration. And even in the period between when we discussed democratic socialism and the Democratic Socialists of America on Monday's edition of the briefing, a lot more has happened just in about 24 to 48 hours. We will be looking forward to talking about that tomorrow. In the meantime, as we are looking at the situation right now, the moral landscape, the cultural worldview landscape in the United States.

oddly enough, what are the most interesting stories has to do with the WNBA, the Women's National Basketball Association. It has to do with one particular player, Sophie Cunningham, who's a player on the Indiana Fever, and it has to do with the fact that she made comments basically to the effect that she thinks that girls' sports and women's sports should be limited to girls and women, and that biologically so. So as a matter of fact, the statement she made was not overly extended, but it was clear, and thus she was running right into an absolute collision with the transgender ideology and also with the ideology that's taken over so much of professional sports. And so when she made her statements basically saying that biological men or biological males

should not be on female teams, and she was speaking, at least apparently, most emphatically, about younger women and girls, the reality is that she's saying something that every human being until very recently in all of human history you would have assumed was absolutely natural, common sense, so common sense of it really didn't need to be said. In one version of this statement, she said, I also think that with love is truth, being honest, and I want to protect young girls in a locker room or young girls in sport who shouldn't have to go up against biological men. Okay, so here's what's most important in all of this. It is the fact that Sophie Cunningham actually used the term biological men. And so she's talking here about biological males. And here is where

there is no question that she was clear. I mean, we know exactly what she's talking about. It is incredibly telling that so many people in the WNBA apparently have no idea what she's talking about. Or they say they don't have any idea what she's talking about. They operate from a completely different worldview. And of course, this was made very clear when you had one of the co-owners of an NBA team get into trouble. This one, the Seattle Storm's co-owner, Celeste Keaton. She was basically thrown out of a game because of an exchange she had with teenage girls who were wearing shirts defending biological male and biological female by simply depicting X, X, X, and X, Y as chromosomes. Okay. So here's the interesting thing as this story is

unfolding, and it is, like so many of these issues, it's unfolding. It's not just about what one player said and then what a co-owner of another team said, it is how other people are now speaking into this. And we've got to look at what they're saying. Okay. So here's where we see that as these events unfold, as the stories unfold, the worldview dimensions just become more and more clear. And a part of this is when other people speak into the situation. And to some considerable degree, they have to speak into the situation.

One of the people who basically had to speak into the situation was Stephanie White. who is the head coach of the fever. Her statement really deserves close attention. Here's what she said. Quote, I wouldn't say I'm educated enough from a scientific standpoint, but I don't ever believe that exclusion is an answer. I just don't. I do think when we think about various levels of sport,

various governing bodies of sport, and things that go into that, as I said, I'm not educated enough at the different levels. I know growing up that I play with boys all the time. There weren't girls sports back then, end quote. Well, if that's true, then back then was a long, a long way back because girls and women's sports have been pretty clear for a matter of about two generations. And we are also looking here at the fact that this is a woman, if she were not

talented, if she were not bright and very intelligent, she would not be in this role. But she says that as much as she is in this role, and she is the head coach of a WNBA team. So the W, let's just remind ourselves, the Babel and B.B.B. went at this in a very clever way, as if the league is forgotten what the W means. It means women's. National Basketball Association. Okay. So if you are a head coach in this kind of league, then you really do know what's going on here. And thus, when you have Stephanie White come back and say, I wouldn't say I'm educated enough.

From a scientific standpoint, no, you were educated enough in elementary school to know, even before elementary school to know what we're talking about here. But then she just immediately says, but I don't ever believe that exclusion is an answer. Well, you're also looking here at the fact that when you're talking about the WNBA, you're talking about, well, let's just put it in ways that are absolutely secure and beyond refutation. You have a considerable number of those who identifies LGBTQ. But it's one thing if they identify as L or even B. It's another thing altogether if they identify as T. Okay. So the fact is that here you have the head coach of a WNBA team who says, I just don't, that is, have enough education

from a scientific standpoint. She said, and don't. She doesn't believe that exclusion is an answer. So let's just notice what we're talking about here. And this is exactly the way the LGBT agenda has pushed itself forward with such momentum. It is because if you say anything out of line and not entirely according to the ideology of the sexual liberationists, then you are excluding. Very, very interesting. Now, let me just point out something else.

when you say LGBTQ, you are using, you know, several letters, LGBTQ. If they mean anything different, if the L means something different than the T, then the G, then the B, then the Q. You just look at all of this. Here's the thing. You are excluding people all the time by saying someone is this and not that. Or you are not that. You are this. In other words, it is moral insanity for this head coach all of a sudden to work.

wash her hands as if she's free from responsibility to say, I just don't think that exclusion is the answer. Well, here's the thing. If you have a man who identifies as a man, he is not going to play on a WNBA team. If you have a boy who identifies as a boy, he is not going to play on a girls basketball team, girls soccer team.

You just go down the list. If you have confusion over this matter, it's not that you are in some kind of moral high ground, refusing to exclude someone. and you have bought into an ideology that is basically not only contrary to nature, it's absolutely a lie. You have to know the people who are making the lie know they're lying. And so you look here at this WNBA head coach's statement, and he just go, my goodness, how do you do your job if you don't know who a woman is if you're a head coach of a woman's national basketball association team? Now, here's the other thing.

If you have males show up who identify as male, again, they're not going to get in the locker room. they're not going to get in the space. They're certainly not going to get on the team. And thus you have the transgender ideology nonetheless who says, okay, but this is distinct from biological sex. And by the way, here's a clear reality. They don't want to talk about biological sex. Biology, by the way, it excludes. Biology says male and female are different categories.

All right. So we're looking at this. We understand what's going on. It is an illustration to us of a couple of things. we just need to kind of delineate. Number one, mass confusion, self-delusion going on in society. In such a way that you have something as big as the sector of sports and women's sports that is now being just absolutely thrown into turmoil over this.

And it's also just basically the second point would be dishonest. It is not that people don't know the truth. It's that they are ideologically committed to deny the truth. And thus, they actually do know the difference. between biological male and biological female. I think it's also probably true that they really don't want biological males in their space. But they can't say that. They can't be honest.

They can't be honest and come out and say, WNBA means women's national basketball association. And here's the other thing. When you had the statements that were first made by Sophie Cunningham, she was clear she was talking, at least in the most pointed sense, about girls' teams. And so you do have some in the WNBA who are saying, you know, maybe there ought to be a different set of rules. And you also have people are saying, you know, we need to take this on a case by case basis. Again, nobody can say that with a straight face unless they're willing to take responsibility for saying, here's how you would deal with it on a case by case basis.

That is simply an evasion. We need to understand it is an evasion. When someone says, let's just take this on a case by case basis, it means I'm not going to tell you what I think. Because I'll just wait until there's a specific case. And then I'll make the prediction. They probably won't say what they think then. Either. Before leaving this, I have to go to another coach. This is Cheryl Reeve, who is the coach of the Minnesota Lynx. She evidently believes enough about the importance of this issue that she's spoken to it pretty

clearly. She said, quote, I don't think we should feel like our safe space is being threatened. That's what I enjoy about the WNBA. And I think we have to continue to safeguard that. She says, I think that these demonstrators are not being peaceful or not that I've seen. She said, I haven't heard everything that's happening, but everyone has a right to peacefully assemble, right? So in other words, She's just all over the place. And this is the kind of thing you get from an awful lot of celebrities are people who don't often speak to the media, although you would think a WNBA coach would have a pretty good experience background in speaking to the media. This is just all over the place.

She went on to say that she pressed against, she didn't like the category of biological men. And so, again, we're at the heart of the issue here. Quote, we have some issues. And she said, number one, we need to protect trans kids. Every kid to me. It's a human rights issue. Every kid has a right to sports regardless of gender, diverse, transgender, end quote. So here again, what you have is simply this ideological statement packaged for what can only be said to be some kind of moral evasion.

She went on to say, quote, now what gets nuanced is when you're beyond puberty, when you're in Olympic sport, when we have scholarships at stake, and that sort of thing. That's why I say that common sense people get together and you find common ground to find a way to be inclusive. Okay, you just notice this is not an answer to anything. It's an awful lot of mixed ideological gobbledygook, which is intentional. Being very clear about where she stands, she said, quote, the answer isn't no. She went on to say, it's not the case that we have biological men in girls' locker rooms, the way it's being phrased, the innuendo that somehow transgender women are predators, end quote. Okay, wait just a minute. Wait just a minute. Here she says, this doesn't happen,

but if it happens, it's not a problem. She concluded by saying this, quote, I'm quite sure that they have eyes on speaking of authorities. They have eyes on and ears on to make sure that it's a safe place for everyone. And that's what makes our league beautiful. End quote. If you look at it this way, the Babylon B had it just about right. Even if they know, and we do know they know what the W means and WNBA, they're having to act like they don't actually know what W means. And that means something.

Okay, another real big news story that deserves some worldview analysis has to do with the, let's just say, non-testimony of Dr. Anthony Fauci before a Senate committee. And the Senate committee was chaired by Senator Rand Paul here of Kentucky. And it was preceded by a data dump, a data dump of hundreds and hundreds, at least over a thousand pages of Dr. Fauci's diaries, personal diaries. Let's just say very personal diaries. How in the world was this leaked? Well, it wasn't really leaked. It was released and it was released because Dr. Fauci not only took the time during the COVID pandemic to have extensive journaling done.

He did it on a government computer. The information is on government servers. And because of that, it belongs to the government. And so Dr. Fauci, evidently, if you look at what he wrote in all these diaries, it's really clear journals. It's really clear he didn't intend for. anyone else to see this. But now millions of Americans have access to it. And let's just say it's a very revealing body of words. Let's just put it that way. It is incredibly clear that Dr. Fauci was

absolutely infatuated with the public contingent he was getting during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. It's absolutely clear that he was infatuated with his press coverage. You also just have entry after entry in which he's simply exulting in the fact that some people are calling him, you know, the most important medical doctor in history, all these things. It just goes on and on and on. But as you know, the big story is that when he actually showed up, he was subpoenaed, he was legally required to testify before the Senate committee, he took the fifth. He pleaded the fifth more than a hundred times. He simply refused to answer on the basis that his answer might incriminate him. And then he went on to say he did introduce

it by saying that Senator Rand Paul is looking for material in order to bring criminal charges against him. And he said that that was his legal justification for refusing to answer questions. Now, let's just think about this for a moment. Here you have a man who, by the way, has a presidential pardon from former President Joe Biden, who issued that pardon as one of his final acts before leaving the White House. And so at this point, at least given that presidential pardon, Anthony Fauci's actions during the time that he was serving the White House, at one point he was chief medical advisor to the president of the United States. He was also. from 1984 to 2022, the director of the National Institute for Allergic and Infectious Diseases,

sometimes known as the NIAID. Anthony Fauci is basically pardoned for anything that took place during the pandemic up to the end of his time there at the NIAID and to the end of the Biden administration. What that doesn't cover is any legal problems that he gets entangled with, in something like Senate testimony. In other words, he's there under oath. He would have to answer the truth. And it's going to be very interesting to see how this goes. I will tell you this.

There are so many worldview dimensions here. One of them has to do with the fact that if you look at these journal entries, they present a man who's absolutely infatuated. I said that before, but I just have to come back to it again with his publicity. And the interesting thing is that it is also in terms of the scientific and medical dimension, incredibly revealing that, for example, Dr. Fauci took the idea that this was a lab-grown virus, obviously a very big question there from the Wuhan area in China. He took it as a legitimate question and acknowledged that at least in one context,

the majority of the medical authorities there assumed that it did happen in some kind of laboratory context. The big issue for us to consider is that Anthony Fauci is not really famous right now for being a medical doctor. he's famous for being someone who held a political responsibility and let's just say certainly showed the political dimension of that political responsibility as a matter of fact anthony fowci is going to be remembered in history as a man who was just not absolutely enamored with publicity he is also someone who changed his story over and over again and did so in such a way that at least i think it can be plausibly argued and this is where the the publicity celebrity issue really does come in.

It appears that he became, to a considerable degree, exactly what of the media constructed him to be. And thus he really became the great opponent to President Donald Trump, all kinds of issues going on there, the great opponent to conservatives who were raising what we now know are very legitimate questions, not only about the origin of the virus, but also about the shutdowns and the masking and all the rest. And we already knew just from the historical record that Anthony Fauci has changed his story on those things over and over and over again. So it's going to be very interesting to see where this goes.

Senator Rand Paul intends to investigate whether or not charges can be brought against Dr. Fauci or that the context can be created in which he is not able to plead the fifth and is going to have to answer questions. There are huge questions that really do need to be answered. Let's just say that regardless of where you are on the COVID-19 government response, and I think most people are quite troubled by a lot of it, if not the great deal of it, the reality is that those questions do need to be answered. And it is really not good for the nation that Dr. Fauci, who is at the center of this, is not answering these questions. They are questions that are not going to go away. The situation has changed. I want to say that with the release of these diaries, journal entries, this log. And the reason why it's changed is because, as the Wall Street Journal says, they do reveal a

different story than what Anthony Fauci was saying during the time of the pandemic itself. And so there are huge questions to be raised here. And here's something else to watch. When you have the release of this kind of information that gets this much attention, at least some in the media are likely to follow up on the story. There is no question that Anthony Fauci was a darling, the mainstream media. But when you're talking about the media that you're talking about now about a very big landscape, and I think it's likely there are some who are really doing a lot of

investigatory work. There's going to be more about this story. I promise you that. Next today, I want us to look at a story that happened just over the course of the last several weeks in Germany because it's another one of those news developments that brings a worldview angle that the world really doesn't want to deal with. The secular world doesn't even perhaps know how to deal with it. And this has to do with the fact that a major leader in Germany's government, former leader now, and that's a Christian democratic government. And so when you're talking about the political landscape there in Germany, here you're talking about the chancellor, who is Friedrich Merritt,

the Christian Democratic Party is center-right. I think that's the best way to put it, center-right in the German political landscape. There was a man who had been a part of this government, and his name is Jen Spahn. He had been health minister, and as is reported in the financial times, he has stoked controversy and intense debate in Germany after revealing that he and his partner, hear the word partner. This is a homosexual couple. He and his partner have become the fathers of a boy born in the U.S. from a surrogate mother, end quote. Okay.

Now, when many people thought about, say, the opening of the war in Ukraine with Russia's very hostile invasion, of Ukraine. One of the things that became very clear is that there was a huge surrogacy market there in Ukraine, especially for same-sex couples in the United States. But in this case, we're talking about the fact that the United States is actually a market for surrogate motherhood. And remember, this means that you have women who are carrying a baby which is not their own. They are a surrogate carrying on behalf. And if you're talking about a homosexual male couple, it's really clear they can't have a baby. And so with or without some biological contribution from one of those men, the reality is that a surrogate can be hired.

And here's the thing. It's not just Ukraine that before the Russian invasion was shown to be a market for surrogacy. The United States is an international market for surrogacy as well. And even though some states have some limitations, the reality is that nationwide, we really have no legislative restriction on this whatsoever. Okay, so here's the big story in Germany, though, and this has to do with the fact the Christian Democratic Party, and remember the the chancellor, that is the head of government, there is a member of the Christian Democrats. He and his party adopted a policy anti-surrogacy, not allowing it legally in Germany. Okay, now, as I mentioned, Jen Spahn, the man who resigned his health minister,

well, we just said it. He was health minister. He was behind that policy. He was behind the policy. At the same time, he was defying it by he and his partner contracting with a woman in the United States. He's against surrogacy. He said he didn't believe surrogacy should be legal in Germany. At the very same time, he and his partner were contracting with a woman to be a surrogate mother with the child they now declare to be the boy who has two fathers. This man said, quote, over the past few days, it has become clear to me that my personal happiness, starting a family with my husband and becoming a father. Let me just say again, if you just think about the span of human history, that sentence just flies in the face of any kind

of moral reality. He went on to say that with his husband, becoming a father, quote, is not compatible with my political office. Well, this has to do with the fact that once he was exposed, he had to resign. There's simply no way he could plausibly have continued in this role. And by the way, his statements were really, really clear. It's not just that he supported the government's policy. He basically had to run as a point person for the government's policy. And so he was really, really clear. And he was considered to be at some point kind of a rival to Friedrich Merritt's, but he was certainly a part of the Merritt's government.

He had to resign. That's the point. He has since taken another political office. And by the way, this story may lead to some kind of moment in Germany in which the government reverses his policy on surrogacy. My point is that when you look at the mainstream media, they really don't seem to think there's any problem with surrogacy at all. And you understand that when you're looking at the secular worldview, it is so now detached from reality.

This is where we began and this is where we end today. We began by looking at the WNBA, losing any rational grasp of what the W means. And now you look at the fact that when you are looking at a surrogate motherhood industry, and you now see it's possible in the United States. And by the way, on the West Coast, big headline story we talked about some months ago in which it turns out that a Chinese man was buying embryos and hiring surrogate mothers and actually buy the dozens. But you are looking here at the reality that here you had a German government that was against

surrogacy on the basis, here's what's interesting, of defending marriage, defending parenthood, and upholding the Christian part of the Christian Democratic Party's heritage. And again, we're not talking about some kind of really clear evangelical Orthodox affirmation. In other words, it really has been so outside, considered so far outside any Christian consideration, that even a government like Germany still restricted it. And, you know, this is where so many people in the West, and that includes Western media, but also, frankly, just an awful lot of people, you know, who are on the progressive side in the United States and elsewhere in the Western world, they simply say, look, it was his choice. He and his partner,

his husband, yes, it's hard to say, but that's legally what is declared to be true. they had the right to do this. And here's where we, as Christians need to understand, we really do believe this is morally wrong. It is contrary to nature. It is contrary to God's plan. It is contrary to Christian morality. But it's also clear that a lot of Christians don't really know how to answer the question

as to why. And it has to do with the fact that the biblical worldview, which is comprehensive and absolutely true, revealed by God in his word, the Christian worldview has a consistency. see, and it also has a wholeness. And the wholeness is you don't separate the parts that are not separated in creation order. So you do not separate babies from marriage. You do not separate marriage from male and female.

You do not confuse the family just as an economic unit or just as the unit of some autonomous adults who simply decide to act in some kind of joint manner for as long as they do. That's just the refutation. of the Christian biblical worldview. The Christian biblical worldview is clear on this. It's clear in its parts, and it's even more clear in the composite whole. It is the picture in which the gift of children is to the mother and the father as husband and wife. That's exactly in Genesis 1, repeated in Genesis 2, what we find, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, was not said to a surrogacy industry. It wasn't said to human beings in general. It was said to the man and the woman.

in what a chapter later is clearly defined as the institution and covenant of marriage. I want to raise the issue just to point out that many and the media on both sides of the Atlantic, many cultural influencers on both sides of the Atlantic, government officials on both sides of the Atlantic, have looked at this story coming from Germany and said, you know, we don't know if this is right or wrong. And if it is wrong, we don't have any clue why it's wrong. And that just shows you what happens in a secularizing culture. But again, it goes back to what we were talking about with the WNBA story.

When you think about it for a moment, it's also clear they really do know. This is not what we were made for. In Romans chapter one, Paul tells us that a part of the essence of sin is suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. And as we've seen today, that can show up in various places, some expected, some perhaps unexpected. Thanks for listening to the briefing. For more information, go to my website. Albertmuller.com. You can follow me on X or Twitter by going to X.com forward slash Albert Moller. For information on the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbtsklee.org.

For informational boys' college, just go to boyscology.com. I'll meet you again tomorrow for the briefing.