Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:05]
A
It's Tuesday, May 19, 2026. I'm Albert Mohler, and this is the Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. Sometimes it is important that Christians just step back and observe how the culture works. And in particular, when you see big controversy, or even, let's just say, a moderate range of controversy, but a concerted cultural controversy about something, we often have to ask the question, is this a big deal or not? And then it comes down to two different dimensions. Number one, the thing in itself. Is it a big deal in itself? Is it a controversial thing in itself? Or is the controversy the bigger story? That's often the way things play out in a cultural process. And right now it's playing out. Let me tell you. Over the course of the last weekend, an event was held there on the MALL In Washington, D.C. it was known as Rededicate250. And it was held by some pretty prominent evangelicals. It featured evangelical speakers. It featured some persons in public office, including speaker of the House Mike Johnson. It included overt references to the Christian influence on the American republic and the entire democratic experiment that is the United States of America. And so there was a lot of attention given to it. The Rededicate250 event, of course, is timed because of the 250th anniversary of coming up on the 4th of July, the 250th anniversary of the beginnings, formally. And formally is an important word here, the formal beginnings of the American experience, beginning with the Declaration of independence. So, okay, 250th anniversary, big deal. And there were persons making a very clear argument at this event. And the argument is that an understanding of Christianity, the Christian worldview, the Christian truth claim, Christian morality, understanding that is absolutely essential to understanding the American experiment, and in particular, understanding the worldview of the founders and the worldview behind the founding. Now, remember, we're talking about what's revealed in two different things, what's revealed in the thing, and then what's revealed in the controversy about the thing. So, first of all, again, the thing, the thing was rededicate 250. I think it was a predictable, understandable evangelical Christian event. Now, there was at least one conservative rabbi who spoke, and there were some others representing Catholicism who were also present. But the big thing that's being critiqued by some people is the fact that it was overwhelmingly evangelical Protestant. Well, when it comes to overwhelmingly Protestant, that's exactly what the room would have looked like on July 4, 1776. And there's simply no way historically to Deny that it was a simple fact. Now, you also had a good many addresses. You had, of course, some songs sung. You had patriotic symbolism displayed right there on the National Mall. All, all this, of course, is recognizable to just about any American who's been in this country for any length of time. This looks like a big patriotic display, but it was a patriotic display that made an emphatic point. And that emphatic point is that you can't separate the American experience from the founding worldview that was inordinately, overwhelmingly, unquestionably shaped by Protestant Christianity, period. Now, this does not come with, with the messaging that there is no freedom of religion for others. That wasn't a part of it at all. And as a matter of fact, it was exactly what would not have attracted much controversy at all in the 1950s. So much so, even into the early 1960s, this is exactly what was happening in the context then was the Cold War. You had the face off between the atheistic world of the Soviet Union and what was overtly described to be the Christian rooted world of Western civilization. The that was a statement made by presidents of the United States, political leaders, Supreme Court justices. It was a very clear declaration. And by the way, the Declaration of Independence was modified so that the words Under God were put in the Declaration. In God we Trust also expanded in terms of how often and in what places that was published in the United States. An official government statement. So the thing was. Well, it's newsworthy. I can understand why you'd have national press talking about this because there was a large crowd. It was, of course, an event that focused a lot of energy. But let's move from the thing to the controversy about the thing because that's even more interesting and it's really a bigger story. The controversy about the thing comes down, for instance, to a cover story in yesterday's edition of USA Today. So this would be Monday's edition of USA Today. Yesterday, Susan Page, Washington bureau chief for USA Today, veteran political reporter. The headline is USA's 250th opens with prayer and a fight. The subhead anniversary highlights nation's history division. That's history and division. Susan Page writes, quote, the unofficial opening of the American semi quincentennial. Again, that's 250th anniversary on the National Mall. Started with a prayer at sunrise. That was followed by a day of hallelujahs and Amens and testimonials of Christian musical performers and military bands. She goes on to say the Rededicate250 event was slated to feature a video greeting by President Donald Trump and other speeches in person or taped from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Pentagon Chief Pete Hegseth, and House Speaker Mike Johnson. Quote, the government's most powerful leaders were poised to to focus on the centrality of the nation's Christian roots from its founding, an assertion of some dispute and debate, and the need to rededicate the nation to those values. End quote. Okay, so in that introductory material, Susan Page says, look, this was a big event in many ways the first formal event there in Washington marking the semiquincentennial, the 250th anniversary. But before she gets to the end of the lead section in the article, she says it is a matter of controversy. And of course, that was even in the subhead to the title itself. The headline Anniversary Highlights Nation's History, But Also division. All right, so Susan Page goes on to say there's a debate here, and the debate is between those who say America had a Christian founding and those who insist it had an entirely secular founding. Okay, this is where Christians need to lean in. The controversy is really interesting, really revealing, really important. Robert Weissman, identified as co president of Public Citizen USA Today, even recognizes that group as, quote, a left leaning watchdog group. He said, quote, this outrageous event makes a mockery of a core constitutional tenet of American life, the separation of church and state, essentially promoting a particular flavor of white evangelical Protestantism as state sponsored religion. And he went again to say, this is just wrong. Susan Page writing about the event, tells us, quote, this year's celebrations for the 250th anniversary, the declaration of Independence, have underscored the history and resilience of the world's oldest constitutional democracy. But they also have spotlighted today's divides over issues as large as the appropriate role of religion in politics. Okay, so you do have the laying out of many of these things. By the way, other press went further. And so, for instance of the New York Times, Ruth Graham and Elizabeth Dias wrote an article. The headline is Trump Administration Pushes Narrative of Christian Founding at Rally. Okay, so this is an amplification in terms of the political valence of what came with the USA Today front page article. Now we're told that the entire thing was really pushed by the Trump administration. Well, right or wrong? Well, there were members of the Trump administration who were heavily involved. The Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense. There were other prominent Republicans involved, The speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson. You also had the President of the United States involved in terms of a Video address. The White House was involved in the event. The Trump administration was involved in the event, unabashedly so. And by the way, nothing was basically said in this context that hasn't been said over and over and over again in terms of the main messaging. Note the problem here in the controversy. Again, the first thing is the thing. The second thing is the controversy about the thing. The controversy just reveals the panic among the secular left in the United States of America. Sheer panic. And so let me just tell you, the secular edifice, very much in place, is not threatened by a group of several thousand, even many thousand evangelical Christians and other deeply committed religious folk there on the Mall in Washington D.C. the secular agenda is moving ahead. But you also need to note something else. Those who are pushing secularist worldviews and most importantly, leading secularist organizations, they only make their money. They only meet their budget. They can only get a platform if they just continually exist to cry out about conservative Christians in the United States. Look, they're doing it again. They're doing it again. They're doing it again. They're showing up as conservative Christians. And that is a big political problem. But you'll also note something else. This is a debate, a controversy over history. And this is where we understand, as Christians, history really does matter. History really matters. History of Israel really matters. The history of Christianity really matters. The historic nature of the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ, his atoning work in space, time and history. All this is history. The history of the early church in the Book of Acts, absolutely essential for Christianity. Getting history right is an important Christian responsibility. So let's work hard at getting history right. What would we say about the American founding? We would say this. The only available worldviews at the time, the only available worldviews were the worldview of what you could say is basically classical orthodox Christianity on the one hand, and a more post Enlightenment kind of philosophy on the other hand. But let's just note a couple of things. First of all, in terms of the great masses of people, the Enlightenment worldview had really not reached far at all. So you're talking about overwhelming Christian identification. And by the way, that means the only operational worldview in place is go back to 1776. Go back to the British colonies in the United States. The only operational worldview in terms of how the world came into existence, the only operational worldview in terms of why there is a moral truth, a pattern to the world, a structure of the universe, with right and wrong being objectively real, transcendent realities beyond our personal Experience our personal moral judgment. The only grounding for any of that is, was Christianity. Even when you talk about some of the intellectual elites, and look, they were concentrated among the leaders, and then you look at the fact that many of them identified as Enlightenment figures one way or the other. Well, some of them were deists, some of them were. But, you know, it's important for us to recognize as Christians that when you say deist, you better define what kind of deist you are. And when it comes to deism in the English speaking tradition, it is Deism as derivative or as a response to Christianity. In other words, there's an awful lot of basic Christian assumption that comes along with Deism, even as it claims to basically replace Christianity and especially when it comes to morality. But there's something else to notice, and that is that when you look at the main figures in the American revolutionary experience, what is astounding, you could say revolutionary experience, the colonial experience, the early national experience, the overwhelming understanding of all these things is framed explicitly by Christianity. And quite frankly, a lot of it was not just implicit, it was absolutely explicit. Okay, a couple of other historical facts. If you do go back to the founding era, guess what? The vast, vast, vast majority of all persons who were included in this colonial experiment, the vast majority of all of them were white Protestants, Period. That's just the way it was. Now, the left wants to deny that, partly because they understand that a founding model sets the precedent and that's exactly what they want to be ignored. But nonetheless, it is simply a fact. And yet, at the same time, you had in the early national experience in the United States, by the time you get into the 19th century, you have patterns of immigration and other things. You have a lot of Catholic immigrants coming to the United States that really did lead to alterations in terms of the political and religious landscape. But you'll notice when it comes to morality, the main issue there is the basic agreement between Protestants and Catholics on the big moral issues. Let's just say that Protestants and Catholics back then would have similarly found it impossible to imagine anything you might call same sex marriage. Just give one example. All right. It is also interesting to look at some of the critiques again in the controversy of the event in Washington. Now, let me just say, when you look at a lot of this as a thinking Christian, as a biblically minded Christian, as a patriotic American Christian citizen, you may look at some of this and go, you know, some of that's just a lot of symbolism. But here's where we also need to understand that when you talk about symbolism just is a dangerous word to modify it because symbolism is really important. When you say just symbolism, well, it's often a lot more than that. But then again, once again we look at the event, the thing itself is something that would be an interesting conversation. But the conversation is now about the controversy. And thus you see the secularists are really pushing back along very similar lines. The New York Times, and we're talking here not about the front section of news, we're talking about the art section yesterday. So this is the art section of the New York Times, the most influential paper arguably in the United States. Yesterday, on the front page, lower right, here's the headline deploying Washington to promote faith's role. Subhead images of the leader at prayer have been embraced by the right. Okay, so you're supposed to be scared. Now. Conservative Christians in the United States are attracted to artistic portrayals of the first president of the United States, George Washington, during the time he was leading the revolutionary armies at prayer. In particular, a painting known as Prayer at Valley Forge by the late artist Arnold Freiberg. And we are told that he painted it to counter what he saw as a decline in patriotism. And that was a couple of generations ago. Alright, just a couple of astounding things we need to recognize. Number one, evidently some of the people in the world at the New York Times, and in particular in this case of the art section of the paper, they find it noteworthy that conservative Christians are attracted to artistic portrayals of George Washington at prayer. Let me just tell you, I grew up seeing those artistic portrayals. I think most Americans did. And they would have been absolutely non controversial. That's the big story here. The controversy exists now precisely because there are persons who are pushing back not only against conservative Christians gathered on the National Mall there in Washington D.C. last weekend, they are opposed to the reality of American history, period. Now in this article there's some interesting people who are cited and one of them is someone who I think we're sometimes at odds with, at least by his own description in terms of making some arguments. John Fea, an historian at Messiah University in Pennsylvania, in response to the story here about evangelical Christian interest in the artistic portrayal of George Washington at prayer, he said, And I quote, 50 years ago, this image would not raise eyebrows. And that's absolutely honest, that's absolutely true. I think it's important that it be said and I appreciate the fact that he said it. He went on to say, quote, it would have just seemed like a form of civil religion. God bless America. Faith of our founders and so on. He then went on to say, quote, but Christian nationalists are now in power and that is why you are seeing it. I think he means the painting there in different kinds of spaces, end quote. Well, I'm not sure what he means by that, but I think it's a cycle of American patriotism. And I think further, we understand that the 250th anniversary, it's almost assuredly going to be the catalyst for another of those cycles. It is interesting that Professor FIA says that Christian nationalists are now in power. I'm not sure exactly what he means there. We might disagree in terms of just looking, for instance, at the current Trump administration, but I do appreciate his honesty that the art here would have been non controversial in so many periods of American history only lately and you have other statements of secular outrage and people trying to make the claim that America had an entirely secular founding. And again, I want to say, look, Christians can exaggerate the nature of orthodox Christian commitment found among many of those in the founding generation, but I want to come back and say their basic understanding of morality in the larger world, it was all framed within the larger Christian reality. And so even when you had Enlightenment figures, they were still influenced by Christianity. And furthermore, I'm going to argue that when you actually look at the founding era, what you're going to find is far more explicit, non questionable statements of Christian identity and even Christian conviction that were really, really clear and clear, by the way, enduringly for some time, especially in several of the state constitutions. You also had figures involved directly in the founding who made such statements. You had persons of such questionable theological positions is John Adams, who made very clear that this constitutional order is only going to work in a moral framework that is supplied by religious people. And of course, overwhelmingly at the time, that meant explicitly Christian people. The Times article concludes by stating in his book Reading the Bible with the Founding Fathers, Daniel L. Dreisbach, a legal scholar at American University, argues that the writings and rhetoric of Washington and others are shot through with allusions to the Bible, which they look to for insights into human nature, morality and politics. I'm going to stop there and say that Professor Dreisbach has done an outstanding job showing just how infused, for instance, George Washington's own speeches were with direct citations and allusions to and from Scripture. And so it is really interesting to see this debate is often premised upon a lack of historical understanding. The New York Times article goes on, quote, many scholars today quote, either miss or dismiss the vital role religion played in the founding generation's political thought and practices? Asked Dr. Dreisbach again in an email to the reporter. Quote, the result has been a somewhat distorted account of the founding. And then the article goes on going back to Professor John Fia of Messiah University, saying he also questions the idea of a purely secular founding. End quote. Again, I think that's just honest history. It's frankly beyond any imagination that someone can distort America's founding as entirely secular. That just doesn't make any sense whatsoever. It doesn't fit the time. Even if you don't know the people, it doesn't fit the time. But especially when you know the people, you do understand it doesn't fit either the people or the time. However, again, conservative Christians filled with patriotic fervor and frankly sometimes being a little loose doctrinally in terms of worldview, can use just about any illusion or reference to Christianity as evidence of a deep Christian commitment. And we as Christians should understand that's a misreading, or at least it's something that has to be justified by other evidence as well. That's one of the reasons why we understand that Christianity had an influence beyond regenerate Christians. That's just a fact. Christianity was the authority for most of the entire moral code. Indeed, throughout much of the time of the American experiment, certainly in the founding era, even dies held to something like a doctrine of creation and a creator who had very little least had created the world and put it into motion because they had no other explanation for the material universe. The article referring again to Professor Fia says this is not his words, but the article quote, but the public debate about religion and the nation's origins is ultimately less about 18th century facts than 21st century politics. Direct quote. Right now everyone is looking for a usable past and having Washington on his knees sends a powerful signal, end quote. Well, of course it does, but that's not a new thing. And when Professor Fia says that this is at least partly about what happened in the 18th century, but more so the issues of debate in the 21st century and 21st century politics, I don't think he's wrong to point to contemporary politics and the contemporary cultural challenge as the context in which all these things are being hammered out and argued. But I also want to come back and say what actually happened also really matters. What the founders really said and what they really believed really matters. That doesn't settle every question for understanding how to handle some of our contemporary issues, but honesty and just a straightforward understanding of the American founding and understanding the fundamental assumptions Mental assumptions, intellectual assumptions, even, yes, theological assumptions that were basic to that experiment and the entire moral universe of which the founders thought themselves apart. That's all very much a part of what is at stake now. And you have people on the left who want to not only overthrow that and overcome that, but they're also living in this world of denial in which intellectually, they're trying to argue that it can't be what it looks like. By the way, I do think it's important to recognize, I'll give the New York Times credit here in that it points to stamps issued in 1928 and in 1976 as depicting the very same scene. The difference, just to put it bluntly, is those images were uncontroversial, non controversial then. The fact that they're very controversial now tells you a lot about the challenge we face and the context in which we live. Okay, finally, for today, sometimes you look at headlines and you go, you know, you just can't make this stuff up. Here's the headline. Nyu, That's New York University Students Object to Speaker who calls their generation coddled, pampered. Okay, so the subhead, Jonathan Haidt, a professor, says that colleges shield students from challenging ideas, but student leaders said he does not represent their values, end quote. So here's my point. If you were trying to make up some kind of satirical work on today's American college graduates and, and of course, at a university like New York University, very, very much a part of the cultural and ideological left, particularly, at least it's often described that way in the student body. It's a very, very liberal progressivist student body. Here you have a professor, perhaps the best known professor right now on the faculty at New York University, who is known for describing the problem in contemporary America, at least in part coming down to a generation of young people who've been raised in an age of parental anxiety, and they have been a coddled generation, and they expect to be coddled. You couldn't satirically, sarcastically come up with anything better than the students at his own university claiming that he should not be the commencement speaker, basically because his very existence hurts their feelings. Jeremy W. Peters and Matthew Hague reporting for the Times, tell a student government leaders at New York University are objecting to. To his meaning. Jonathan Haidt's selection as the commencement speaker at Yankee Stadium, calling it deeply unsettling, and in a letter asked university officials to reconsider before the ceremony. This would be just days ago last week. And then we hear it is not uncommon for some student to protest A graduation speaker. And we are then told that one of those who represented the university, a spokesperson, said that Dr. Haidt is one of the most consequential scholars of the 21st century. End quote. But for, we're told, the unhappy students, the choice reflects a dismissal of their values at a moment they should cherish. End quote. I won't take this further today, except just to point to this incident at New York University. And by the way, Dr. Haidt did deliver his address, and I was able to get a copy of the text of his address. And let me tell you, my critique would be that he said basically nothing very consequential at all. He comes to the end of his address, and again, I have his text before me, and knowing the background and the controversy and all the rest, just listen to what he said. But if you treasure your attention and then use it to do hard things with other people in real life, then, and trust me on this, as a social psychologist, your life is going to be amazing and the world is going to be a far better place because you're in it. End quote. Okay, so I'll just be honest. If you're trying to come up with sarcasm or satire, you can't do better than the headline. But on the other hand, if you're going to talk about absolute banality, meaninglessness and such an occasion, you actually can't do better with this address and particularly how Professor Haidt ended it. You be you. The world will be better for you. Thanks for listening to the briefing. For more information, go to my website@albertmoeller.com you can follow me on X or Twitter by going to x.comalbertmohler for information on the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. for information on Boyce College, just go to boycecollege. Com. I'll meet you again tomorrow for the briefing.