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Foreign. It's Tuesday, May 26, 2026. I'm Albert Mohler, and this is the Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. Over the course of the last several days, as America went into and came out of the Memorial Day holiday, President Donald J. Trump had been making the announcement, often on Truth Social, that the United States and Iran might be close to an agreement that would bring a cessation to host and to the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Now, this has been said before. President Trump has indicated there had been a moment in which we were close to an agreement with Iran and that several times in the past, and it might well have been true. But what we're looking at now is the fact that it is clear Iran is being recalcitrant in reaching any agreement with the United States that will be on terms that will be acceptable to the United States and our allies. Israel, of course, being at the top of the list of the allies involved in this matter directly. But it is clear that it is the dominant position of the United States. That now leaves Donald Trump basically with his administration in negotiations with whoever is actually in control in Tehran trying to bring an end to this conflict. Now, here's how the Washington Post reported the status as of yesterday. Quote, the United States and Iran have developed a memorandum of understanding framework that extends the ceasefire 60 days as the two sides reach a final deal. That's put in quotation marks to permanently end the war in Iran, but in the meantime would result in the Strait of Hormuz being demined and reopened. A senior administration official said. Now listen to this, the next sentence, quote, the official, however, said no agreement with Iran had been signed on Sunday. It remains unclear how binding the current framework is, end quote. Okay, so let's talk about how language works in something like this. When you say you're getting close to some kind of an agreement, you're making progress, what exactly does that mean? Well, let's look at the exact wording in this report from a team of reporters for the Washington Post. It says that the United States and Iran have developed a Memorandum of Understanding framework. And the word framework is put in what are called scare quotes or quotation marks. In other words, it is not clear exactly what that means. A framework is what you have when you don't have something else. And it might well be progress towards a memorandum of agreement. But let's also note that a memorandum of agreement is contract language. It is not formally treaty language, which means this is not something tantamount to some kind of enduring peace treaty. This is just talking about a memorandum of agreement. But there is yet no such memorandum of agreement, because there is no such agreement. So at this point, it is a framework for a memorandum of agreement. Now, you have all kinds of criticism coming to the White House right now. And of course, long standing this has been coming from Democrats. And that's true for the almost 90 days this conflict has been yet in duration. But it's also clear that there are conservative Republicans who are quite concerned about what kind of deal, framework, memorandum that President Trump might agree to with whoever might be or might not be in charge and in power there in Iran. And so you have people like Senator Ted Cruz and several others, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, saying that what they have heard about this possible framework for a memorandum of agreement gives them grave concern. And here you have a report from John Hudson, also in the Washington Post, also yesterday, in which we are told, when asked about the criticisms from Republican Senators Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on social media, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the president's commitment to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon shouldn't be questioned by anybody, end quote. Well, now you have Secretary Rubio in the mix here in terms of this report, and we can understand why. He is the secretary of state of the United States. He is also functioning as the president's national security advisor. But as we look at this, one of the things we need to recognize is that foreign policy and a crisis like this, an international crisis even, or maybe especially when it involves the United States of America, becomes very difficult. And it especially becomes difficult where we do not have the kind of political leverage many people would assume that we have. And so this is where we are back to the fact that we are looking at an asymmetry here. We're not talking about symmetrical powers. You don't talk about the United States of America and Iran as nations that are comparable in terms of military power, economy, political system, culture, all of the above. But when it comes to the American military action with Israel against Iran, Iran does have certain capabilities the United States does not have. One of those capabilities is to turn itself basically into a pirate state. Now, if the United States did that, it would bring about the toppling of our economy. It would lead to global chaos. But when it comes to Iran, run by a Shiite Islamic theocracy, it's very clear that they would be happy to create absolute global havoc. And this gets to another issue that Christians need to think about from time to time. And that is when you have this kind of conflict with this kind of asymmetry. The fact is that you now have all kinds of power, all kinds of opportunity, basically in the hands of bad actors here. But because in a fallen world, in this kind of situation, there's actually no way around it. And that's why there had been the hope early in this conflict that the Iranian regime would simply fall. But as you know, that hasn't happened now. At least it hasn't happened in terms of the Shiite theocratic government being replaced with something else. As a matter of fact, it looks like in one sense, what has been created is an even more extreme government. But that's not to say that it wouldn't have ended up this way anyway, given time, because Iran's now former supreme leader was very aged. There was going to be a change, probably to the advantage of the Revolutionary Guard. But the reality is there's just no easy way to clean this up. There is no easy way even for the most powerful nation on earth to bring this to an accomplished end on terms that would be agreeable to us. And then you're going to have people who say, well, this never should have happened. This military action should not have happened. And, but this is where you also go back to the unanswerable questions of history. And that is what would have happened if this had not happened. And of course, there's also the opportunity question. Was there an opportunity to topple the regime in Iran? And is that, by the way, still at least a live possibility? One of the things that President Trump keeps coming back to is the fact that we basically destroyed their navy, we destroyed most of their high technology. But you know what? We haven't destroyed their ability to enrich uranium and eventually to create a nuclear bomb. And we haven't destroyed what could be called more or less their pirate military ability using drones and missiles and even the attack boats that have been used in the Strait of Hormuz. The other massive asymmetry is one that isn't often mentioned. The main asymmetry people think about, that non symmetrical relationship is when you compare the United States and Iran as military powers. When you look at the size of the military and the global influence of the United States versus Iran, et cetera, there's an asymmetry there, yes, but there's a bigger one. And here's the biggest one. When you are looking at these two nations, you're looking at two completely different political systems. President Trump has to worry about standing in the polls. President Trump is answerable, at least eventually, to Congress. His influence can be checked by all kinds of political checks and balances. And furthermore, public opinion matters a very great deal in the United States. Put bluntly, there is no President of the United States, regardless of what he might say, who doesn't look at the polls every day. Because in the currency of politics, the way it works in the United States, your political standing and the impression among those with whom you deal as to whether you're an ascending power or a descending power, that means everything in a city called Washington, D.C. now, on the other hand, you have this theocracy in Iran, an Islamic and extremist autocratic nation. And, you know, it's a Shiite nation driven by Islamic ideology and a radical version of that Shiite Islamic ideology. And it is tempting to say that public opinion means nothing there. That's not true. That is not true. It doesn't mean nothing there, but it does mean something next to nothing. And so there is a sense in which when you have massive unrest, that is a danger to the regime. And. But the regime is willing to crack down. There's freedom of speech in the United States. If you disagree with President Trump, you can say so in the Washington Post, not so in the Islamic Republic of Iran. There, it is an absolute danger to your own life to say anything that's unacceptable to the regime, even to be in contact with anyone who says something that is disfavorable to the regime. And just recall the fact that even in the midst of what would be, you would think, the most tenuous hold on power, what has the Islamic government there done? The government there in Iran has executed even more people as enemies of the regime. In other words, this is a regime built on fear. That's a very different thing than one that is built on the consent of the governed. That asymmetry is showing up big time in terms of what's happening. And let's also concede what's not happening when it comes to Iran. We also need to look at another big story, this one from over the weekend and from Washington, D.C. this time it was about a young man who had opened fire there near the White House. He was eventually shot dead by security officers connected to the White House security and Secret Service officers. And the bottom line is that once again, you have what was an effort to bring a deadly weapon not only to the White House, but into the White House. And you could just imagine the intention. The intention was made, well, abundantly clear by the context in this case, the young man was Nasir best, and he's 21 years old at the time that he undertook this action. And, of course, he was shot dead. And this took place just as a matter of the weekend. It was on Saturday. Secret Service officers responded to his fire. He ended up being dead. There was also a passerby who was injured. It's not yet clear exactly whose fire injured the civilian. Now, the Washington Post tells us that this man, again, Nasir Best, quote, was described by a friend as apolitical, with a love of jokes and the video game Fortnite and an obsession with running. A friend of about the same age said that he had had a very bad senior year at Dundalk High School there in Baltimore County, Maryland. The friend said, quote, nothing really went his way. Okay, so what we're looking at here is the fact that later in the article, this is a very troubled young man that becomes very, very clear. Listen to this quote. Best was previously arrested and charged with trespassing. On July 10, he was apprehended for allegedly using an exit turnstile to access a restricted portion of the White House grounds. At the time, according to an affidavit, he claimed he was Jesus and was trying to get arrested. The affidavit also said the Secret Service was previously acquainted with this man for, quote, walking around the White House complex, inquiring how to gain access at various entry points. Quote, he was also involuntarily committed on June 26 for obstructing vehicle entry to the White House complex. It just goes on. Listen to this quote. After the July incident, prosecutors charged Bess with unlawful entry into private property. He pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor charge the day after his arrest at a hearing in D.C. okay, he was due back August 7th. I'm summarizing here. He didn't show. So a bench warrant was. Was issued. But we're told that in D.C. it's not unusual for bench warrants not to lead to any kind of immediate arrest unless there's also a stop by, say, police in a traffic stop or something like that. In other words, this was a young man who was very much on the screen, both federal and local law enforcement. This is someone who had been known to be asking questions about gaining access to the White House in terms of what kind of weaknesses might exist. This is someone who was already speaking in the most extremely unstable terms. His threat was obvious, and yet he was able to do what he did until he was stopped with armed force at the White House. When he Came with a gun, he began firing the gun. This is a very sad story, but, you know, it really does demonstrate something important to the Christian worldview. And I guess a couple of things we need to keep in mind. Number one, we cannot read someone else's mind adequately. That's just true. The human heart is very difficult to understand someone's true intentions. They can hide it for a long time. The other thing is, even when people send all kinds of signals, our legal system appears to be, well, imperceptive and incompetent at preventing someone like this from just walking the streets, going right back to the White House, asking the same kind of questions, making the same kind of incipient threats, until something like this eventually happens where he stopped because he opened fire with a weapon. The recent incidents in which there have been assassination attempts, what are sometimes called alleged assassination attempts against the President of the United States, very real actions that we have witnessed over the course of the last several years. We have to wonder if we are really at the point of taking these threats seriously and understanding this is a basic threat to our entire constitutional order in terms of, say, a facility as important as the White House. And you could say, well, this man did not get through the perimeter into the White House. Yes, that's true. But you know what? He demonstrated himself to have a malign interest. He really revealed himself to be very, very well, lacking in stability and too much afflicted with curiosity. And even when legal action was taken and he didn't show up for court action, still no one went after him. And instead, this is how the story has unfolded. It's very easy, we all know, especially when looking at this kind of case, to say, well, what if, what if, what if? And ask those questions. On the other hand, we also need to understand that as Christians, we understand that these questions turn out to be inevitable. One of the saddest things about the human condition is not how fast we learn, but evidently how slowly we learn about some very real and present dangers. But now we need to leave Iran. We need to leave Washington, D.C. we need to go to Rome, where yesterday a very influential text was released by the Vatican and in this case, personally, by Pope Leo xiv, who is the author of the latest papal encyclical. This is the first of his tenure as pope, entitled Magnifica Humanitas. That's translated Magnificent Humanity. Okay? It is a major statement on artificial intelligence and its dangers. We're talking about a document that's 42,300 words long. I read the entire document and read it carefully. And at least part of what I found is exactly what you would expect the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church to say in such a context, especially a Pope that has demonstrated the fact that he's very committed to pacifism, and he actually cites that and discusses that in this encyclical, which means he is quite concerned with uses of artificial intelligence in war and in many other contexts. But there is also a great deal of material here that is going to create a lot of discussion. And I'm very interested to see exactly how Silicon Valley and others respond to this major statement coming from the Pope. So let's just remind ourselves of how this kind of thing works in the Roman Catholic Church. You have the Pope, the Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church. These are teaching documents, major documents that are dated, and they become a part of the ongoing tradition and the papal authoritative teaching of the Church. Now they are submitted to the Church as major statements on behalf of the Vatican and its policy. So this is a major statement coming from Pope Leo xiv. Now, one of the things we had to keep in mind here is that the Pope gets to name himself, and this pope, who is, in the second year of his pontificate, the first American pope, he named himself Leo xiv. The most important part here is the Leo part, because the Last Leo, Leo XIII, in 1891, released an encyclical having to do with the advent of the Industrial age. It was known as Rerum Novarum, which means new things, the most important new thing in the background to Pope Leo XIII's encyclical, going back again, as I say, to 1891. It was the advent of the Industrial revolution, the urbanization of mass populations, the fact that people were working. They were. They were working for wages in factories. And in many cases, there were systemic injustices, to be sure, there's no doubt about it, from the exploitation of child labor to many other things. It's also clear that it came with massive changes in society, and urbanization itself came with a lot of consequences. The Industrial Revolution was not immediately applauded by the Roman Catholic Church. That had been based in a very different economic model, at least in terms of what it saw as normative. But it did reflect that 1891 statement, did reflect a major change of modernization, you might say, of the Roman Catholic Church at the time. And it came with grave warnings about the moral impact of the Industrial Revolution. And quite frankly, there'd be many evangelical Protestants who would agree with at least some of those concerns when it comes to Pope Leo xiv. And this statement on artificial intelligence, I'll be honest, I think it demonstrates one of the reasons why the Catholic Church has an advantage in this way, and that is that this is a major document, as I say, about 42,300 words in the original, and it's released by the Vatican. Massive press conference. You've got a lot of cultural attention. I mean, here we are talking about it on the briefing. You have evangelical Protestants talking about it, and it is because, given the influence of the papacy, this kind of statement is going to be discussed. And frankly, when it comes to the current challenges coming from artificial intelligence, you might say from Silicon Valley, the fact is that there are very few counter forces with any kind of voice that can be amplified to just about any extent to raise concerns. And so, in this sense, the papacy is one of those forces. Even those of us as evangelicals who do not accept the Pope, we don't recognize him in terms of the claims made by the Roman Catholic Church. We can understand, in the same way evangelicals saw the power of Pope John Paul II in terms of his defense of human dignity, his opposition to Marxism and communism, and his defense of the unborn. Similarly, Benedict xvi, we can understand that these statements do play a role. Now, in this case. The other thing we see is that the Pope really has considered, or at least the report in his name. There's no doubt he is a major force behind this, but it's also clear he has this massive administration in the magisterium of the Church. But you're looking at some very important points made here. Pope Leo XIV says there is a basic choice between two cities. He cites Augustine, of course, the famous theologian of the 4th century, and the City of God. Talking about the City of God and the City of Man, Pope Leo talks about the choice between the City of Babel and the City of Jerusalem, that is constructing a new Babel. You understand exactly what the threat of that is, or seeking to. To rebuild Jerusalem. Now, there's not an evangelical on the planet who doesn't recognize that distinction, the distinction between Babel as revealed as that center of human pride and arrogance there in the Book of Genesis. And then, of course, Jerusalem identified as the very City of God. And of course, the city which was so central to the public ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ and also is still very much a part of. Of Christian eschatology. And so we understand that's a clear distinction between trying to build the Tower of Babel and trying to rebuild Jerusalem. And in that sense, I think that's a very Powerful metaphor. I think it's also important to recognize that the Catholic Church is drawing on some very deep principles here that are deeply, well just established in Christian theology. And that's a Christian theology that evangelical Protestants share, that evangelical Christians share the belief in the uniqueness of human dignity and the uniqueness of human intelligence, which is to say, we have to be gravely concerned when you have people making claims for a technology to threaten human dignity, as if the technology could have a superior intelligence. The Pope's absolutely right when he says this is basically still digital processing. You're not talking about thinking, feeling, rational, machines. You're not talking about machines that have a soul. No. You're just talking about sophisticated data processors. Even when you're talking about advanced artificial intelligence and generative artificial intelligence, you are looking at something undoubtedly powerful that is going to reshape the economy. And the Pope's very concerned about that. Much like Pope Leo XIII and the Industrial Revolution. He's very concerned that human beings maintain the ability to hold jobs, and the economy recognized that. He doesn't exactly say how that happens, but that was also true in 1891. But the warnings are actually very powerful. And you also have the application of very important theological principles here, including the principle of subsidiarity, just pointing to the essential fundamental nature of the family in the order of creation, and abstractions from that now threatening the integrity of the family, and I would say also the integrity of the Christian Church, the integrity of local congregations. I'll speak very clearly as a Protestant here, but I think it's important to recognize that people all over the world are going to respond to this either by saying, you know, these are important issues, or they're simply going to dismiss them. And so it's really interesting that in some of the immediate response to this papal statement, you have people in Silicon Valley saying, well, you know what? Who does he think he is? He's just the Pope. There are those who follow such a mentality of technological determinism and technological utopianism that they're not going to be warned by anyone. Now, as I say, one of the interesting things about this Pope is how he is stressing a principle of pacifism. And by the way, that is not an absolutely consistent principle in any sense, of the Roman Catholic Church in its moral teaching on war. You can go back to the medieval period, even to very early Christian periods, for at least the fundamentals of what is known as just war theory. But nonetheless, he applies that to artificial intelligence when he says artificial intelligence needs to be disarmed he said, the word is strong, I know, but it's deliberately chosen. He said, quote, the Church has been long working for nuclear disarmament. Artificial intelligence now demands to be disarmed, freed from logics that turn into an instrument of domination, exclusion, and death. The Pope went on to say, quote, like nuclear energy, it must be at the service of all and of the common good. Decisions about technology must never be separated from conscience and responsibility, end quote. Well, you know, frankly, that's a statement with which just about any thoughtful person should be in agreement. We are talking about direct challenges to human dignity, perhaps even to human dignity of work, and we're talking about those who want to claim that machines are conscious, machines can even become persons, and, of course, even superior to human beings. That's something the Pope really didn't reference too explicitly. But there are those who are saying not only that artificial intelligence will be the equal of human beings and human intelligence, but the better, that human beings will simply be succeeded, superseded by this new, highly intelligent, much more highly intelligent technology. About halfway through the document, the Pope gets very specific in condemning what he describes as pornographic and hypersexualized material often sent to young people, including children and teenagers. He goes on to say other online phenomena such as grooming, blackmail, and the sexual exploitation of minors are not uncommon and are made more insidious by the use of fake profiles, algorithms that facilitate dangerous contact, and AI tools capable of manipulating images and videos. He goes on to say, quote, having a personal mobile device at too early an age and using it without adult supervision can exacerbate young people's vulnerabilities, foster addiction, and expose them to isolation, bullying, and cyberbullying, as well as to pressures to share intimate images or sensitive information, end quote. Now, that's just profoundly true. We've been talking about that on the briefing regularly as events unfold. It is important, however, that this kind of statement now comes, and in this case, we just have to acknowledge, as evangelical Protestants, it comes with a force, at least in terms of historical awareness, that is greater than any other source right now. In other words, if the president of the Southern Baptist Convention puts out a statement, that's one thing. If a bishop of the United Methodist Church or of the Episcopal Church puts out a statement, likely one coming from the left, that still it's one thing, it is that thing. The press might report on it, the press might not report. But when it comes to the Pope, and when you're talking about the size of the Catholic population worldwide and you're looking at a statement of this kind of magnitude. I mean, quite honestly, it is something that someone's going to pay some attention to. But there's another dimension to that as well. In one of its reports on the Pope's statements, the New York Times cites Greg M. Epstein, who is a humanist chaplain at Harvard and mit. He is also the author of a book entitled Tech How Technology Became the World's Most Powerful Religion and why It Desperately Needs a Reformation. That's all one title. He went on to say he appreciates the Pope's report. Now, remember, he's basically an atheist. He identifies as a humanist. But then he said this as a word of warning. Big Tech is essentially its own religion with its own theology and rites. R I T E S not to mention its own power and influence. Pope Leo's encyclical will be automatically viewed as false doctrine. End quote. If nothing else, that statement helps to reveal to us all that when you're talking about the challenge of artificial intelligence, you are talking about something that is absolutely foundational and fundamental. Christians understand it, Evangelicals understand it, Roman Catholics understand it, Orthodox Jews understand it. You have other people around the world who understand it, even the humanist chaplain at Harvard. I guess you should say that. If he's worried, we all better be worried. Thanks for listening to the briefing. For more information, go to my website@albertmohler.com you can follow me on X or Twitter by going to X.com Albertbert Albert Mohler for information on the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. for information on Boyce College, just go to boycecollege.com I'm speaking to you from Washington, D.C. and I'll meet you again tomorrow for the briefing.