Albert Mohler (0:04)

It's Friday, April 18, 2025. I'm Albert Moeller, and this is the Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. Well, just about anyone looking to future election cycles in the United States is asking big questions, and one of them is what is the direction of the young male vote? That became so much an issue of concern as you look at the 2024 election, where by many estimations there was a seismic, very significant shift of the votes of young men towards Donald Trump and the Republican Party at the expense of the Democrats. Furthermore, there's something even more fundamental. I wrote an article just weeks ago entitled Liberal Parents, Conservative Sons. You're looking at a departure from a norm of recent cycles. In one sense, young men have often been more conservative than young women on the political spectrum in the modern age. But it is also interesting to note that Democrats have figured out they can't win without the votes of young men, so they're trying to figure out how to get them back. Okay, so now we're just a few weeks after the election, practically speaking, just a few short months since the November 2024 election, and some Democrats are now getting national attention for trying to figure out how to win back the young male vote. One of them is Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California and of course, a polarizing figure on the left himself. But we've talked about him in recent days because he's been making headlines interviewing, for example, on his new podcast, Charlie Kirk, the Conservative Activist. And in the midst of that coming out and saying not just as a throwaway line, but as a point he was trying to make that he agreed with Charlie Kirk and with conservatives that say boys should not play on girls teams and athletics. He said it's just fundamentally not right. It's not fair. And he spoke as if he were a convert to this argument. I pointed out at the time it's very important that he said it, but we have no idea that he meant it. I'll just openly say I don't think he did mean it because he is the governor of California. If he did mean it, he would try to turn it into policy. I don't think he could get it through his own party. I think he knew the line would cost him the nothing but get him a lot of headlines. There was no threat that the California General assembly, for example, was going to move towards alignment with the position, but it was clear he was trying to figure out how to reach young men. He is showing up in all kinds of contexts now. Gavin Newsom that is trying to look like an attractive candidate for the BRO vote, as it is sometimes known. The way he's dressing, the way he's talking, the way he's culturally messaging. And he's not alone. Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, another Democrat, has also started a podcast. And in his own way, evidently, he's trying to do something of the same thing. And I'll just say on that score, it may work in some parts of the country. I don't think it's going to work in his own state. Here in Kentucky. I think just about everyone here sees right through it. But the New York Times finds this interesting, and it's a conflict inside the Democratic parties. It's a conflict on the left, inside the left that I think is really very interesting here. Probably important, too. Laurel Rosenhal is the reporter in the story. The headline, balancing act of reaching young male Voters, subhead Newsom's efforts to win back group ruffle some allies. So there's a little bit of dynamic going on among the Democrats, and this gets really interesting. I've already talked about Gavin Newsom and what he is doing. So what is the pushback? Well, some of it is coming from, for example, Governor Tim Walz there in the state of Minnesota, who was the vice presidential nominee on the Democratic ticket that lost in 2024, when he was told, for example, that Gavin Newsom had had someone like Charlie Kirk on his broadcast. And Governor Walz came back and said that was wrong. Speaking of the same pattern, he said, quote, I can't message to misogynists, as the New York Times says, quote. He was likewise dismissive of conservative commentators, including the ones Mr. Newsom had interviewed. He then asked the question, how do we push some of these guys back under a rock? Referring to the guests that Governor Newsom had on his podcast is, quote, bad guys. All right, well, the governor of California then said that referring to these men as misogynists was a political misstep. Quote, this is Gavin Newsom speaking here, the governor of California, quote, there's a crisis of men and masculinity in this country, and that's a hard thing for Democrats because we want to lift up women. We want to lift up the oppressed, end quote. Well, here's the predicament for someone like Gavin Newsom. You can't have it both ways. You can't please the, the, the feminist and the, the LGBTQ wing of your party and say, the boy shouldn't play on girls teams. You can't have it both ways. And Furthermore, you can't go after the young male vote while saying, hey, you know, I just want their votes. Trust me, the feminist agenda is not going to lose any of my support. It's also interesting, by the way, that Governor Newsom said that he has been thinking about Marcus Aurelius, the emperor who wrote Meditations, one of the classic statements of Stoic philosophy. He, according to the Times, says he's now reading it repeatedly, quote, the teachings hit me like a lightning bolt. Yeah, it's really interesting. You got the governor of California trying to position himself to win back some of the young male vote, and he's quoting Marcus Aurelius Meditations. I'm not saying that won't win any. I am just saying that is not persuading his Democratic colleagues that they should go along. Now, one of the ones pressing back, also in the Democratic Party against Governor Newsom and his attempt to reach out to the young male vote is the president of Planned Parenthood affiliates of California. She said, by the way, it's a good thing to want to reach out to the votes of young men. And according to the Times, she says she's all for finding better ways to communicate. But she said that Charlie Kirk and others who are appearing on the program represent, quote, hateful rhetoric that is harmful to our young men. And she used a category. Here it is. It's toxic masculinity. She said, I don't think you have to invite those folks on and give them a platform to explore how we can do better for our young men. End quote. All right, I just want to stop here for a moment. The important thing I want us to understand is that the director or president of Planned Parenthood of California, who is a woman, is criticizing the governor of California, who is a man, for reaching out to try to get the votes of young men by saying that what so many are representing is toxic masculinity, saying, I don't think we have to quote and invite those folks on and give them a platform to explore how we can do better for our young men. Okay, okay. I just want to ask, so what exactly would be the plan of the president to Plan Parenthood in California for winning back the votes of young men. I'm just going to go out on a limb here and say, if there's one person on planet Earth, I would think who would not have an adequate answer to that question, would not have an adequate proposal along those lines, it'd be the president of Planned Parenthood of California, a more sane person quoted in the article, a pollster who worked on the Biden campaign and is now associated with the Institute of Politics at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, said, quote, the Democrats largely took them for granted. Speaking of young men, quote, it was overemphasis on social issues and under emphasis on economic issues. Well, I think there's something to that. I say this is a more sane assessment. I think there was an overattention to social issues and an under attention to economic issues. But the point I want to make is that I'm not sure that's at all helpful to the Democratic Party because the Democratic Party is so sold out to these social issues. In one sense, this is intersectionality at work. This is critical theory and intersectionality in organized form. The Democratic Party is a coalition of these intersectional groups. It is all about social progressivism and leftist ideology. And there is nothing, practically speaking, other than that intersectionality that is tying the current party together. Well, it's going to be very, very interesting. The New York Times piece coming back full circle to what we talked about yesterday, also says that in the Democratic Party, there is now a split over trans athletes, and in particular, boys playing on girls teams, men playing on women's teams. But, you know, even as we're told there's a split in the Democratic Party, it doesn't appear to be much of a split. I mean, let's take the Democrats in the US Senate right now. Let's make them vote on the issue. You know, the problem in terms of national politics when you think of something like, well, senatorial elections, is those are statewide elections. And in the state where you have a Democratic senator, there's a really good chance that you would have the risk of a primary challenge against that Democratic senator on these issues. And it's real tough to imagine a situation in which the special interest groups and the Democratic Party don't have to side with the person who affirms the LGBTQ agenda unconditionally. And now there's a similar kind of orthodoxy that operates in the Republican Party when it comes to the threat of being primaried, and you see that as one of the major dynamics in the Republican Party as well. It's just a different set of issues. My point is the Democratic Party is so dead set on these social issues, I don't see how they can possibly abandon them without whole scale redefining the party, and that in almost any situation, situation as something that can't be done. Well, all right, we'll be tracking this. It is just really interesting to know that all of A sudden Democrats are trying to figure out how to reach young men. And I'll go back to the point I made. You know, if you're asking the president of Planned Parenthood of California how to do that, I think you got a big problem. Now let's turn to questions. And as always, I appreciate the questions sent in. Always impressed with the thoughtfulness of listeners. You can send your question to mailbertmuller.com a very significant number of letters were sent in. Questions were sent in having to do with what is commonly called Easter on theological and biblical terms. I prefer to refer to it as Resurrection Sunday. Now, every Sunday is the celebration of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is going to take me to another question in just a moment. But I received a good number of questions about why it is timed as it is timed. And especially given the Passover and other events, how could it have been timed differently? I'm going to say that it is a spring festival. That's the way it emerged. I want to be ruthlessly honest. In the history of Christianity, you had a winter festival that eventually became Christianized and became Christmas, the festival of the Incarnation. We have no idea what time of the year Jesus was born, what point in the calendar that's an arbitrary festival. The spring festival, when it comes to the church year celebrating the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, it does have a firmer tie in terms of us understanding when it happened, because it is timed according to the Gospels, according to the Passover. But we're also looking at some calendar complexities here. I want to be very honest. We're looking at the adoption of different calendars over time. We're looking at some approximations. I think it would be very unprotestant in this case, and I think thus not right to try to be overly technical about this issue. I think that would point to the problem of festival days. I do not believe in holy days. I think the Roman Catholic Church's teaching on holy days is a distraction from the Gospel and indeed can become a real stumbling block for the Gospel. I don't think it's wrong for the church to have festival days in which we simply say we're going to, in a particular way, celebrate this essential biblical truth on this day. And it's more controversial about the resurrection celebration than the Incarnation celebration. So I have some pastors who say, you know, every Sunday is Resurrection Sunday, so we're not going to celebrate the festival of the Resurrection, and we don't follow the church calendar, and thus we're not even gonna preach on resurrection on that day. That's one of the things I hear, you know, that we shouldn't be distracted. And I'll simply point out that they kind of violate that by observing Christmas and preaching on the Incarnation related to Christmas. So, you know, consistency is consistency. I also have dear friends who say that they're not gonna celebrate Resurrection Sunday in their church. They don't make a special issue about the resurrection they're gonna preach on, just continue their expository series. And because every Sunday is a celebration of the resurrection, there will be the declaration of Christ raised from the dead and the celebration of Christ's people in the resurrection, but it's not gonna be set apart in terms of a calendar. And yet some of those same churches in the last, say, 20 or 30 years have started Good Friday services to commemorate the substitutionary atonement accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. Well, in other words, you haven't completely abandoned, you know, these festival days, these church calendar days. If you celebrate Christmas and if you have a Good Friday service, then guess what, you're involved in some degree with the church calendar. All right. So I'm not going to say it's a matter of irrelevance. Nothing concerning Christian worship can be a matter of irrelevance. I'm going to say it's not a matter of dividing orthodoxy from heresy. It is a matter of congregational conviction and congregational practice. And I believe we as gospel loving evangelicals driven by Scripture, should not harshly judge one another as congregations on these issues. But it's a good thing that there are some questions that arise about this. And one of them also is related to this. When another listener wrote in to ask, where and when did we get the tradition of meeting on Sunday mornings for worship services and to hear sermons. Well, the Sunday part, the first day of the week part, is in the Scriptures themselves. Not only that, in the New Testament, with the argument that Christians gather together on Sunday as the Lord's day to commemorate Christ's resurrection from the dead. And so that's right there in the practice of the New Testament. It's right there in the text of the New Testament. So the first day of the week being the day of Christian corporate gathering, that's New Testament. But then you ask about the morning. There is no particular indication of time in the New Testament. As a matter of fact, in the apostolic history, you take the Book of Acts, you have someone like Eutychus, the young man who fell out of the window and died. It appears that the congregation was meeting on the Lord's Day and in the dark, in the evening, and he had worked all day. And that was a circumstance relative to, to the context of the Roman Empire in the first century. Christians gather when they could, on the Lord's Day, whenever they could gather. Remember Sunday, the Lord's Day was not observed by the empire at that time, only by Christians. But you ask about the morning. Two things play into this number. One, the biblical theme of the morning watch the biblical theme of beginning the day. So in that sense, when else would the church meet customarily? But first of all in the morning. But there's a second thing, and that is the agricultural cycle. And it has to do with the fact that throughout most of Christian history, an awful lot of Christians have been involved directly in the agricultural cycle. And you say, well, the planting of crops, what's that got to do with the Lord? Say it's not the planting of crops, it is the tending of the herd. So for example, you would have a morning milking and then you might have an evening milking. And between the two you have an opportunity. And so it was probably, especially in the English speaking world, that you had an agricultural influence. Just because you got to take care of the animals, you're going to have to do it early in the morning, you're going to have to do it again in the evening. So somewhere between there, as early as you can, you're going to have Christian corporate worship. And you know, in most churches it has to do, you know, at least some analogy with what's going on the rest of the week, where you start out the day with what's important to you. And so as closely as that can be done in the assembling of Christians together, that's pretty much the way it is. There's nothing in the scripture that says on the Lord's Day what time you should meet. By the way, the agricultural schedule is at least in part how you ended up with a morning and an evening service in a lot of Protestant churches. And then it was the development of electric lights that made it even more common for churches, say in a city to be able to have an evening service service. So sometimes it has to do with something as simple as agriculture. Sometimes it has to do with the fact that, guess what, we can meet later in the evening than we could before because of the development of electric lights. A little thing that may have a big impact on timing. All right, I love the question sent in by a listener based upon Matthew 22:30, I'll just read it as it was sent to me here in this translation from for when the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage. In this respect, they will be like the angels in heaven. And this husband says, my wife and I always struggle with this when we come across it. Does it mean my wife won't be my wife in heaven? Is heaven a sort of state or experience? Well, that won't matter, he says. I think I can accept that, but it does cause some consternation when discussing it with my bride. Okay, fair question. Let me tell you what I think is most important here, and that is that we understand that heaven and the glorious reign of Christ in his kingdom, the kingdom in its fullness, the promises of God in their fullness. It means no subtraction, only addition. So every good thing on earth is not only going to be present in heaven, but perfected in heaven. So I do not believe for a moment that this means that all of the precious relationships we've had on earth are dissolved among believers when we are in heaven. I find it incomprehensible, given biblical truth and sustained Christian theological reflection, that something as important to us as marriage is absolutely relativized in terms of our love for one another in the kingdom to come. So what does it mean? Well, I think most importantly, it transcends every human relationship. Marriage is not in heaven what it was here, and you know, also I think the common Christian consensus through 2000 years here is also right. What is one of the key fundamental functions of marriage in this age? Well, you take the book of Genesis, it's be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. So the earth is marked by a population that is produced by, in God's plan, marriage. It is the structure of marriage and the fulfillment of marriage that fills the earth with image bearers. That will not be true in heaven. There will be no conjugal relations in heaven. That central function of marriage will be no more. Heaven is populated by the saving purpose of God, by the electing act of God, and by the lordship of Christ over his people. That is a defined people bought by the blood of the Lamb. And on that day that will be complete, the saving work of Christ will be visible in the gathering of all Christians, men and women from every tongue and tribe and people and nation gathered together in one body. And there will be no propagation. By the way, little footnote here, that is one of the heresies of what is most commonly called Mormonism. Mormonism's view of eternity is of an eternally sealed Marriage, which in the cases of men will be in at least the celestial reality, the promise of plural marriages, in which there will continue to be the propagation of those defined as spirit beings. You know, this came from the mind of a very creative teenage boy in upstate New York. And evidently we know what he was thinking about. But at least in part, understandably, it is about propagation. And that is not, according to the scripture, what heaven is going to be about. But heaven is not the subtraction of any good thing. It is about the fulfillment of all things. And I think it is really sweet to think of who we will know in heaven and who we will gain the opportunity to know. Nothing good in God's creation order is good, gone in heaven. It's fulfilled in heaven perfectly. We're supposed to find satisfaction in that. And I think it's a sweet satisfaction. Okay, another good question coming with a scriptural basis. The reference here is 1 John 2:2. But the larger question, at least the listener thinks may be of a distinction between the Calvinist camp versus the Arminian camp. There's something to that. And this man says, rather than put myself in a camp, I trust in God's living word. Well, that trust is absolutely right. But I do think reading the scripture, inevitably you're going to be in one camp or the other. And I'll be really honest, I am driven by Scripture to a consistently reformed understanding of these things. And I don't think there's any problem here, frankly, with the text you mention. So, for instance, this listener asks Christ unlock the gates for all. However, only those that believe and accepted Jesus sacrifice will be allowed to enter the gates. Is it then sound? He's asking to say that God's power is infinite and Christ's power is limitless. Yes. It is absolutely right to say that God's power, Christ's power is infinite, limitless. That's absolutely right. But he exercises that power in keeping with his character, and he demonstrates that character in what he ordains and decrees. So there's no theological problem here. Christ died for sinners. Yes. Christ died for the elect. Yes. All who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Yes. Chosen before the foundation of the world. Yes. It is all in the consistency of the one true and living God in who he is and how he acts. Okay, an honest question coming in from a woman, a listener, who, who writes in. Because of the attention I'd given to the White House statement on the festival of the resurrection and the clarity, the doctrinal content, I didn't agree with the way everything was expressed. I'm a theologian, so I'm going to find something to say. I think that could have been said a little better. But the remarkable thing is that it included so much theological content and was so explicitly referencing Christianity. In a statement coming from the White House, this woman says, I am pondering how we should balance the fact that while there is encouraging language from the current administration, there's also troubling information about how they are operating. And I'm not even going to go into all the details she mentions. I'll simply say that the remarkable thing about that statement, before we think about anything else related to any other part of the equation, the remarkable thing about the statement is that it was largely unprecedented, I think, in terms of even presidential history and the amount of doctrinal theological content that was in it. And it was a statement of the administration, was signed by the president. Yes. And I have tried to be absolutely candid about the fact that I have no idea what President Donald Trump truly believes on any of these issues. He has himself made statements that have distanced him from a classic understanding of the Christian gospel and have distanced himself from. From some of these theological issues. And so I don't feel any responsibility to reconcile all of these things. I think I'm responsible to speak about them honestly. And that's why, honestly, I think the standout nature of that statement is important. And, you know, I am not saying that the government of the United States is there affirming in the clearest way in a consistent application Christian doctrine. That's not the challenge at the present. The interesting thing is how unprecedented that statement was in terms of its direct theological content. I think we properly pay attention to that and do our best to understand exactly what it means and what it doesn't mean. I appreciate all these questions. And as the Scripture encourages us, we as Christians should learn how to reason together about these things in scripture. It's a good exercise. And that means that the conclusion of this program should not be the conclusion of our thinking about these issues and our researching of the Scriptures on these questions. And the most important place where these things are discussed would be in the Christian home and in the local congregation. I'm thankful that we get to talk about them here, too. So thanks for your questions. As we close this edition of the briefing, I wish for you and your family a wonderful celebration of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that means every day of our lives, especially every gathered Lord's Day, celebrating the festival of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. May God bless you all. Thanks for listening to the briefing. For more information go to my website@albertmuller.com you can follow me on Twitter or X by going to twitter.com AlbertMohler 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 on Monday for the reefing.