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It's Thursday, December 11, 2025. I'm Albert Mohler and this is the Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. Over the last several decades, we've noticed a very interesting pattern. Two things have moved along one pattern in terms of social liberalization, in terms of the redefinition of morality, in terms of a more progressivist understanding. In other words, move it to the left. Those two issues which have graft almost on top of each other, are the acceptance of same sex marriage and the acceptance of marijuana. Now, I'm not suggesting there is some kind of understandable link between same sex marriage and marijuana, except for the fact that in the timing, those two issues happen to become far more liberalized, normalized in the society. And so it tells us something, at least in terms of timing and the revolution and morality around us, those two things came together. But at least right now, on the issue of marijuana, there's a rethink going on. You know, what were we thinking when we pressed for the normalization of marijuana use, the legalization of marijuana use, and we started striking down laws and started allowing commercial cannabis operations and all the rest. And you know, one of the most interesting places that the rethinking is taking place is the state of Massachusetts. Okay, all of a sudden, wait, we're talking about correlation. Well, let's go back to the marijuana and same sex marriage issue. The fact is that the issue is the state of Massachusetts. The state of Massachusetts Goodrich decision. One of the first big steps towards the legalization of same sex marriage and marijuana legalization in the state of Massachusetts was an early development. Massachusetts was an early adopter. And Massachusetts is rethinking the marijuana question right now. And it is because of what's showing up in terms of health statistics and who's showing up in emergency rooms. And it turns out, and this is very interesting, that one of the biggest concerns is not just the increase in the number of persons who are showing up with health crises related to marijuana, but the age of those persons. Now, one of the big issues that conservatives pressed upon state legislators back when, the movement towards normalizing marijuana, decriminalizing marijuana, when that was taking place, a lot of conservatives, a lot of people against that legal movement said, look, this is going to affect children and teenagers. You make something like this available, saleable, you know, commercially accessible in the society, you normalize its use, then guess what, it's going to become a new cool. And the next thing you know, teenagers are going to be involved as well. Okay, so The Wall Street Journal recently ran a statement by the editorial board. So that's very significant. This is not just an opinion piece written by a writer. This is an official editorial statement by the Wall Street Journal's editorial board. The headline is potheads head for the emergency room. Okay, so that gets your attention. Here's how the statement begins. Quote, here's some surprising political news. A referendum campaign is gaining support in Massachusetts, of all places, to reverse the state's 2016 legalization of recreational marijuana. Not coincidentally, two new studies report a surge in young pot users showing up at hospital emergency rooms. So that gets your attention. That's the. But then we're told that doctors at Massachusetts General Brigham Hospital have found that adolescents with psychiatric emergencies who test positive for THC, they're showing up at four times the rate before the legalization of marijuana in 2016. Now, this turns out to be pretty serious. Now, number one, you are talking about in this first report, psychiatric emergencies among adolescents. So anyone who's been around teenagers, and this includes medical personnel, it also includes youth pastors, for instance, as well as parents. There is a clear link that is immediately identifiable between marijuana use at that age and psychiatric disorders. And that doesn't mean it's necessarily a permanent problem. I can just say that the two words, psychiatric disorder are not what you want with reference to your teenager. But it is also another issue known as cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, or chs. There's another one, and that is cvs. It is related. And the fact is that those have to do with physiological issues that are arising from marijuana use, and in particular, the marijuana use that takes place among some teenagers, adolescents, and even young adults who are showing this. And we are told that, again, you have a spike. We are told the ER visits, emergency room visits for the disorder increased nearly Eightfold just in the spring of 2020. So just think about the timing. Covid may have had a role in this. According to this statement, we are told that the number went down in 2022, but it is still. It is stagnant at five times higher than before the pandemic. So we're talking about a lot of kids, and we're talking about a lot of danger, and we're talking about a lot of marijuana. Now, I want to go back to the state of Massachusetts. It is one of the most liberal states in the United States. It has been that way for a long time. And by the way, in terms of history, Christians need to just ponder that, because this was one of the most conservative places in all of colonial America in terms of the Puritans and others who settled there in Massachusetts. But big changes took place in the next 100 to 150 years. And in the 20th century, Massachusetts emerged as a very, very liberal state. And as you think about the states, and you think, of course, the two coasts are where there is a concentration of liberalism in the east coast, it's basically there in the Northeast, Massachusetts at the heart of it. But Massachusetts, which was one of the early adopters of the legislation expanding the legal use of marijuana in 2016, lawmakers There are now moving to reconsider and they're proposing this in a referendum. So this means that the people of Massachusetts are going to have to vote on this. And thus, I'll tell you what's going to happen there. It's going to be a massive campaign in both directions, and it's not going to be an even fight if it's fought on the usual terrain. Because the usual terrain is whoever shows up with the most money gets the loudest voice, the most television advertisements and all the rest. And the cannabis industry is going to show up with the money. I guarantee you that. You see this coast to coast where something like this happens. I guarantee you that the cannabis industry does not want to lose the state of Massachusetts. They don't even want the slightest restriction put into place. And so those who are fighting for, I would say here, sanity and public health, and especially against the health crises of young adults and children and teenagers when it comes to marijuana, they are likely to be fighting a very well funded foe. The Wall Street Journal editorial board cites a report and commentary in jama, that's the Journal of the American Medical Associ. And it's really about this syndrome. And again, we're primarily talking about cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome. And this is a physiological problem. But one of the things that's noted by that article in the Journal of the American Medical association is that a lot of medical practitioners don't detect it or diagnose it when it appears. So we're told here. An earlier study found that patients with the syndrome visited the ER on average, eight times times before getting diagnosed. Costing an average. So this is talking about adding up those bills before even the diagnosis is given. The approximate cost is $76,920 per patient. Now, I'll tell you, if you're looking at newspaper, news media and doing analysis, let me just promise you, the Wall Street Journal knows how to do math. Math is at the center of their skill set and they will be able to tell you just how much it costs. $76,920, give or take a few bucks. All right. Jumping beyond just teenagers and young adults looking at the larger problem, because this is not just limited to those age groups. We're also told that the proponents, the defenders of cannabis or marijuana legalization downplay marijuana's negative effects and addictive potential. But they also point out this quote, daily marijuana use is more common than daily alcohol use, according to national survey data that was performed by Carnegie Mellon University. Okay, now, that tells us something, because we have seen in recent months, even in recent weeks, and with the bowl events coming up, the big football bowl season coming up, one of the talking points has been that it's going to be interesting to see what the alcohol advertising is like, not only for the super bowl, but other bowl contexts. And it is because there is commercial data indicating that, at least in some sectors, Americans are drinking less. Now, you have to look at a lot of things there. In other words, does that mean fewer people are drinking or people are drinking less? Those are two different things. But the point is, both affect alcohol sales. And the thing that is being underlined here is that when you look at some studies across the United States, daily marijuana use is now even more common than daily alcohol use. Some of that, no doubt, is a generational shift. So, in moral terms, you know, there are several things to see here. Number one, who would have thought that legalizing marijuana would become a problem? Any sane person, every sane person together should have thought that. Who was denying this in the rush to legalize marijuana? Well, the proponents, but also a lot of legislators who wanted the tax income that was promised through the legalization of cannabis. Who was concerned about this? Doctors. Who should be very concerned about this. Parents. And so, as you look at this, you understand that there's a lot at stake. A story like this doesn't just come out of the blue. And quite frankly, the attention of the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal is a pretty rare thing, which is to say, if they focus on it with this kind of intensity, that tells you that they see this as a big issue, a big issue in American culture, and a big issue potentially with commercial ramifications. All right. Several days ago, we discussed a major report indicating that there is a liberal conservative divide when it comes to having children. Now, I think common sense tells us that so. And it is because worldviews have consequences, and birth rates are one of those consequences. Now, that's not to say that liberals never have babies, and all conservative Couples have as many babies as they can. It is to say the differential is undeniable. It's not only undeniable, it is going to determine the political landscape and the cultural landscape of the future. Now, one of the things we looked at is the fact that some liberals were saying, hey, we don't have to worry about this too much because we'll just let the conservatives have the babies and then, you know, they're ours. I've mentioned before on the briefing articles made by academics who have said, look, you know, just let the conservatives raise them and then they hand them to us on campus. But it's also true that the greatest indicator in terms of how the culture is going to be shaped in the future is who's having the babies, because the impact of parents upon children is absolutely massive. So we know what the left wants to do. It's our responsibility as Christians to press back against that in the way we have children and raise children. Okay, but there are some really bad arguments coming in the wake of this, and it is interesting that so many people on the political left are interested in this primarily because of the election possibilities and what this is going to mean in terms of the vote in the future. So just a matter bluntly, if there are fewer Democrats having babies, there are going to be fewer Democrats, at least. That's a pretty hard theory to refute. All right, so what do you do about it? Well, that's a harder question. Like I say, some liberals have basically said, look, we're so committed to lifestyle liberalism, we're not about to say anyone ought to do anything. And that's one of the problems of the ideological left, by the way. It still has its own set of oughts, but they're as separated as possible from creation, order, and God's design. In this case, when it comes to family and sex, gender and all the rest. Okay, so what's interesting is that at USA Today, one of their own opinion writers, Ingrid Jakis, has written a piece which is headlined, liberals May Not Want them but need to have Kids. All right, I've seen some really bad arguments before, but, you know, most bad arguments in a major newspaper are at least somewhat disguised, dressed up to appear less awful than they are. But in this case, I want to just read that headline again. It is one of the worst statements I have seen in print in a major newspaper in a long time. Liberals may not want them, but they need to have kids. Let's just take the obvious for one thing. Kids are now a matter of want or not want. Which is to say, the modern contraceptive birth control revolution, the sexual revolution, separating marriage and sex from having children and sex from marriage altogether. All of this adds up to the fact that on the left, there are fewer babies, also fewer couples getting married. That's just a matter now. It is claimed of choice. It's a matter of self expression, as we saw this week. It is the problem of autonomy. And so you'll notice here that it's all presented not as if marriage means having children or even sex means marriage, but just liberals. You know, you may not want kids, but you need to have them, because otherwise it's going to harm the future of liberalism. And I just want to make clear again, I'm not paraphrasing the headline. That is the headline. And so in the article itself, the author goes on to say, quote, are liberals avoiding children just because Trump and many conservatives are so pro family? Some certainly are. Trump derangement syndrome has made women do some drastic things, including sterilizing themselves, end quote. Okay, maybe that is a thing, but I'll simply say it has to be a very rare thing. And by the way, when you look at this, the trends didn't begin with the election of Donald Trump as president. This is just liberal propaganda. If they're making themselves feel better with it, well, go at it, I guess. But, you know, this cannot be the major issue. The major issue is liberals aren't having babies. And, you know, that's not a decision that's being made in the White House. The article goes on, quote, yet the broader answer is more complicated, said Brad Wilcox, a professor of sociology at the University of Virginia and senior fellow at the Institute for Family Studies. Wilcox co authored the report Looking at How marriage and family are cratering. That's the word in quotation marks, cratering. That's not a small thing among young liberals, the author says. Wilcox told me that while economics plays into people's decisions to marry and have children, culture matters as well. And the left hasn't been prioritizing family, end quote. Okay, now that's true. It's clear, and it's an understatement when it comes to the ideological left. It not only has not been prioritizing family, at least at the level of social theory, it has been seeking to subvert the family, to redefine the family, to remodel the family, to subvert the family, to basically undermine parental authority, to replace the family and its operations and authority and functions with a larger social unit. Perhaps you remember a certain first lady who wrote a certain Book entitled It Takes a Village to Raise a Child. So it is true that liberals, the left, hasn't been prioritizing family. I'm not saying everyone on the right, everyone among conservatives, is making the right prioritization on these issues either. But the pattern is really clear. The distinction's really clear. And so if you're looking at red and blue America, red America is having babies, blue America isn't. That's a trend, a pattern. The USA Today article cites that IFS report concluding quote, if the left wishes to build a better future, it must show up for that future by reconsidering its thinking, messaging, and devotion to the nation's most important institution, the family. And then the author here again ends by saying, if current trends continue, expect the future to look a lot more red. I want to go back to the headline. The headline had an ought, and that is, liberals may not want them, but they need to have kids. They ought to have kids. I just want to make the statement that it's hard for me to believe that if you look at the left and you take liberal prioritization of personal autonomy, as we've seen, personal autonomy, above all, it's hard for me to believe that you're going to have a couple of people who've been absolutely prioritizing personal autonomy who are going to go, you know, we really, honey, we really don't want kids. We really don't. But you, you know, we just need to have them for the movement because otherwise there aren't going to be enough Democratic voters in the future. So, hey, let's be determined to make a baby. We don't want him. We don't want her. We do not want the baby. We don't want all that responsibility, you know, Oof. But nonetheless, we need to take one for the team. Let's go have a baby. I just want to suggest. I don't think that's going to happen. I don't think it's even close to something that might happen. I don't think that. The biggest issue here, by the way, is politics. Politics is downstream in this case from far more fundamental issues. And the most fundamental issue of all is creation, order. It is marriage and family. Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. If you do not see that as your responsibility and see personal autonomy as your only goal, then guess what? You're not going to be persuaded by an article in USA Today that says even if you don't want them, you need to have them for the team. Not to mention the fact that the same research is demonstrating that on the left, persons are even less likely now to get together in romantic relationships that end up in marriage, and they're less likely now to intend to establish a family. So let's just say all the trend lines are pretty much moving in one direction. One last issue, and it's really important. There is no evidence in the last several decades that government policy to encourage people to have children has any effect whatsoever. Country by country. And some countries are in a very deep demographic crisis. They're trying to figure out what can we do to incentivize having children. And it appears that in a culture, when you pass a certain point, people who aren't having children never intend to have children. But now I need to look at one other issue related to recent headlines. This has to do with the Islamic State, with soldiers of isis, and with wives who are also, in some cases, widows and children, who are in some cases orphans, currently in camps under supervision in Syria. Now, remember that we're facing right now the one year anniversary of the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, the toppling of the Assad regime, which had been in place as a totalitarian, dictatorial government for a matter of decades. That toppling was a good thing. The big question is, what's going to come in its wake? And as a matter of fact, some of the people who are now leading Syria were involved with isis, or at least in terms of belligerency. And as a matter of fact, the man who is now the political leader of Syria, who appeared just recently with President Trump at the White House, was at one point wanted by the United States with a very significant bounty on his head. So things are changing fast. But there is going to be a withdrawal of international authorities there in Syria, and that is going to leave these giant camps in which ISIS personnel were put, along with their wives, widows and children, orphans. And the problem is these are hotbeds of Islamic radicalism and hotbeds for terrorism, hotbeds for jihad. And this is something that so many people in the west, in Western civilization, just they cannot recognize for what it is. So many people in Western societies have been so secularized, they really can't imagine that there is no secular possibility there in the world of Syria and elsewhere. You're talking about an Islamic culture, you're talking about a jihadist culture. And once you have people radicalized in terms of something like the Islamic State, there's absolutely no evidence that you can really all of a sudden just flip a switch. And persons move away from those kind of terroristic ambitions and jihadist aims. Now, this is a really sad story because when you are talking about wives, but then I say again, widows, when you're looking at children and then you think orphans, the fact is that the New York Times is offering some really insightful reporting from these camps. And one of the big problems is that the widows are incredibly committed to the terrorist aims of the Islamic State. And their children are growing up indoctrinated in this to the extent that they are also incredibly radicalized. The administrator of one camp, speaking of the women, said, all the women here are radical. They all stayed with the Islamic State until the end. But the bigger problem is that the mothers are educating their kids according to Islamic State ideology, end quote. That's a very insightful point, because we're told here that if these women stayed in these camps, in these ISIS concentrations until the very end, they are by definition committed. Because if they weren't committed, they would have left long before the fall of the Assad government. Furthermore, we're being told here that it is the women who are so radicalized and they are educating their children according to the Islamic State ideology. Now, let's just go back to a basic Christian understanding. No one has greater influence on children than parents. And especially in a case like this where you have an ideological, a very committed, jihadist, ideologically inclined mother who is a widow, guess what? You are going to be raised in this. You are going to be marinated in this. And one of the problems faced by governments is, okay, so what do you do? So you put together a camp in which you place these people who represent a direct threat to the existence of your government, to the existence of the entire nation. You put them together in a concentrated place, but you can't keep them there forever. And so what happens afterwards? This is a huge problem the United States has faced in Iraq. It was a huge problem America faced in Afghanistan. And America and our allies and the current Syrian government are now facing this in Syria. One of the horrifying realizations is that there is no good answer to the problem. Once you have persons who are so deeply committed to this kind of jihadist ideology, frankly, no sane state wants them. Nobody wants them anywhere close. And when you can no longer just maintain these camps, the fact is they're going to go somewhere. And I guarantee you, every nation in the Middle east is watching this situation very, very closely. And so should nations in Europe, and so should the United States of America. There's another point here. We were just talking about Americans, birth rates, differential between liberals and conservatives. But even when you take American conservatives, frankly, there's a differential when facing many other places around the world. The fact is that jihadists have babies. The fact is that radical Islam has a much higher birth rate. Now, it's not as high as it was just a matter of a few years ago, but get this, nearly 60% of the population in the two family camps are under 18. According to Camp administrators, most of these children have spent years in a place where restrictive ideology of ISIS prevails. End quote. Once again, you have to ask the question, where is the population trend line pointing? Well, it's obviously pointing at the future, but the point here is, who is going to be in that trend line? 60% of the population in these two family camps are under 18. That answers the question, there's your future. It is just a matter of fact that the vast majority of those in the western elites are highly secularized. Secularization is a pattern when you look at American academics, American culture leaders, etc. The opinion shapers, they're the very people least equipped to understand someone with deep theological convictions. They're the very same people who are seemingly unable to see a serious argument coming at them, even in the shape of ideological terrorism, with a theological commitment in terms of Islamic jihadists. And just because they don't see it, I think we all know this. Just because they don't see it, that doesn't mean it's not real. What you see in these camps, all too real. 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.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.