R. Albert Mohler Jr., Author at Refcast

Thursday, August 8, 2024

By R. Albert Mohler Jr. — 7 months ago

This is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.Part I (00:13 – 11:34)Important PSA, Joe Biden is Still President: President Biden is Still Attempting Major (And Even Unconstitutional) Changes in the Last Months of His PresidencyBiden: Forgotten but Not Gone by The Wall Street Journal (Kimberley A. Strassel)Part II (11:34 – 17:37)Petty Politics Guised as a Proposed Constitutional Amendment: President Biden’s Proposed Supreme Court “Reform”Part III (17:37 – 21:48)The New York Times Runs Article Questioning ‘Transgender Care’ for Youth – Are We Witnessing a Major Turn in This Moral Issue? Final Report by The Cass Review (Hilary Cass)Why Is the U.S. Still Pretending We Know Gender-Affirming Care Works? by The New York Times (Pamela Paul)Part IV (21:48 – 25:38)What Happens in California Won’t Stay in California: Governor Newsom’s Horrific Transgender Law in Public Schools Could Be Coming to a State Near YouSign up to receive The Briefing in your inbox every weekday morning.Follow Dr. Mohler:X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTubeFor more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu.For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.To write Dr. Mohler or submit a question for The Mailbox, go here.

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Wednesday, August 7, 2024

By R. Albert Mohler Jr. — 7 months ago

This is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.Part I (00:13 – 07:33)Kamala Harris Chooses Governor Tim Walz as Running Mate – Let’s Look at the Walz Narratives the Harris Campaign is Falsely PushingPart II (07:33 – 13:25)Kamala Harris and Tim Walz Make for Deadly Abortion Ticket: We are Looking at the Most Pro-Abortion Presidential Ticket in U.S. HistoryPart III (13:25 – 20:14)Tim Walz Proudly Signed One of the Most Radical Abortion Laws in the US: Reckoning with the Minnesota Governor’s Commitment to the Culture of DeathProtect Reproductive Options Act by Minnesota LegislaturePart IV (20:14 – 26:18)No, Nancy Pelosi, Tim Walz is Not Everyone’s Governor: The Incongruence of Pelosi’s ‘Heartland Values’ Argument with the Modern Democratic PartyNancy Pelosi Praises Walz as Representing ‘Heartland Values’ by The New York Times (Maggie Astor)Sign up to receive The Briefing in your inbox every weekday morning.Follow Dr. Mohler:X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTubeFor more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu.For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.To write Dr. Mohler or submit a question for The Mailbox, go here.

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Tuesday, August 6, 2024

By R. Albert Mohler Jr. — 7 months ago

This is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.Part I (00:13 – 08:11)Tropical Storm Debby Is a ‘Once Every Thousand Years’ Storm? “Acts of God” and the Remnants of Theological Language in a Secular AgePart II (08:11 – 14:00)Why Would Israel Assassinate the Leaders of Its Enemies? Deterrence and Israel’s Great ChallengeWhy Israel Escalates: Risky Assassinations Are a Desperate Bid to Restore Deterrence by Foreign Affairs (Dalia Dassa Kaye)Part III (14:00 – 20:05)Israel’s Existential Threats Have Changed its Politics: A Lot of Liberal Arguments Disappear After an a Savage AttackIs Israel Defensible? The cruel geostrategic logic of the Holy Land. by Claremont Review of Books (Christopher Caldwell)Part IV (20:05 – 25:04)Presidential Election Realities Come Into Focus—And There Are Massive Worldview Issues at StakeSign up to receive The Briefing in your inbox every weekday morning.Follow Dr. Mohler:X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTubeFor more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu.For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.To write Dr. Mohler or submit a question for The Mailbox, go here.

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Monday, August 5, 2024

By R. Albert Mohler Jr. — 7 months ago

This is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.Part I (00:13 – 17:28)Who is the Future of the Democratic Party? Identity Politics, a Harder Push Left, and Who Kamala Harris Could Choose as Her Running Mate This WeekPart II (17:28 – 24:25)The Prisoner Swap was Not an Equivalent Moral Transaction: The Massive Issues Behind the Hostage Game Being Played by the Biden AdministrationPart III (24:25 – 28:40)Spycraft, Espionage, and Russia: The KGB Didn’t Go Away, It Just Changed Its InitialsSign up to receive The Briefing in your inbox every weekday morning.Follow Dr. Mohler:X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTubeFor more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu.For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.To write Dr. Mohler or submit a question for The Mailbox, go here.

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Friday, August 2, 2024

By R. Albert Mohler Jr. — 7 months ago

This is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.Part I (00:13 – 09:53)Sex Education, A Nexus of Our Cultural Debate: The Anniversary of the True Love Waits March Raises Big Debate Over Influence of Abstinence-Based Sex Education30 years later, the evangelical purity movement still impacts sex education by NPR (Magnolia McKay)Part II (09:53 – 13:45)Transgression and a Major Engine of the Sexual Revolution: The Legacy of ‘Dr. Ruth’ and the Broader Strategy of Shaping Morality By the LeftRuth Westheimer, the Sex Guru Known as Dr. Ruth, Dies at 96 by The New York Times (Daniel Lewis)Part III (13:45 – 16:06)Is There a Chasm Between Christians and the Political Left? If So, How Will It Affect Our Religious Freedom? — Dr. Mohler Responds to Letters from Listeners of The BriefingPart IV (16:06 – 19:53)How Can Pro-Life Christians Support the Republican Party After the Shift in Its Platform at the RNC This Year? — Dr. Mohler Responds to Letters from Listeners of The BriefingPart V (19:53 – 23:28)What Are Your Thoughts on Endorsing Political Candidates? — Dr. Mohler Responds to Letters from Listeners of The BriefingPart VI (23:28 – 26:39)How Did Satan Manifest Himself When He Tempted Jesus in the Wilderness? — Dr. Mohler Responds to a Letter from a 13-Year-Old Listener of The BriefingSign up to receive The Briefing in your inbox every weekday morning.Follow Dr. Mohler:X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTubeFor more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu.For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.To write Dr. Mohler or submit a question for The Mailbox, go here.

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Thursday, August 1, 2024

By R. Albert Mohler Jr. — 7 months ago

This is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.Part I (00:15 – 06:34)Democrats Utterly Reshape the Political Landscape: A Look at the Looming Reset of the 2024 ElectionSpecial Edition: President Biden Drops a Political Bomb: President Biden Makes History as He Withdraws from Presidential Race Just 100 Days Before the 2024 General Election by AlbertMohler.com (R. Albert Mohler, Jr.)Part II (06:34 – 11:37)Watch the Media Narratives: How the Control by Progressive Media is Shaping the Public Political ConversationPart III (11:37 – 17:06)Who Will Kamala Harris Choose as Her Potential Vice President? The Chaotic and Orchestrated Race for Her Running MatePart IV (17:06 – 25:55)Joe Biden, the Liberal Gateway Drug of the Democratic Party: The Liberal Legacy of Joe Biden’s Presidency and How Kamala Harris Will Push Much, Much Farther LeftAbortion at the center of her agenda: Kamala Harris will be the most radical abortion advocate in American political history by WORLD Opinions (R. Albert Mohler, Jr.)Sign up to receive The Briefing in your inbox every weekday morning.Follow Dr. Mohler:X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTubeFor more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu.For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.To write Dr. Mohler or submit a question for The Mailbox, go here.

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The Impotence of Secular Conservatism

By R. Albert Mohler Jr. — 7 months ago

Written by R. Albert Mohler, Jr. |
Tuesday, July 30, 2024
I’m not denying that Christian conservatives can have secular allies. I’m not denying that we can share vast areas of common agreement and common concern, but I am saying that at the end of the day, without an ontological commitment which is grounded in theological conviction, I don’t believe there’s any lasting conservatism to be found. Actually, I am certain that without ontological commitments (grounded in theism), conservatism is just an endless negotiation with progressivism and its progeny.

Editor’s Note: This is a transcript of a speech delivered at the National Conservatism Conference on Tuesday, July 9th, 2024. It is printed here with the speaker’s permission. Video of this talk is availabe at National Conservatism’s YouTube channel.
It is an honor to be here at NatCon 2024, and we all know that we are meeting at an urgent moment and we can also see that the urgency has been made clear by some events just even over the last couple of years that have been very sobering. When last I had the opportunity to address this movement in late 2022, I spoke on the impossibility of a secular state. What I want to speak about today is the impotence of a secular conservatism. I don’t mean thereby to divide the room, but rather to speak honestly about where I think we are and what I think we should be thinking. I do speak as a Christian. I do speak as a theologian. I speak with a great deal of common concern and common cause among all of us here.
I appreciate the invitation to address this conference, but I also want to acknowledge a bomb on our moral landscape that reshapes our consideration, and that is the 2022 Dobbs decision and its aftermath. These developments force a new awareness on us.
I have been a part of the pro-life movement my entire adult life. I’ve had the privilege of being in rooms where major decisions have been made, strategies have been laid, and where facts and analytics have been considered. I can tell you that there are those now, and were those in the past, who were quite convinced that this is an argument we were winning. Many had convinced themselves that we were winning the argument for life, even if we were not winning that argument everywhere evenly. But the pro-life movement shared the confidence that if indeed all those years of work in conservative argument, and conservative organizing, and what became a conservative legal recovery, a constitutional recovery – if all that led to a reversal of Roe v. Wade, we would be ready for it and we would discover a pent-up, pro-life conviction on the part of the American people, certainly in key states painted red, where we would see pro-life conviction translated into pro-life legislation.
And of course, what we’ve seen is exactly the opposite. First in Kansas, but then also in my own Kentucky, suddenly the bomb went off, announcing to us that whatever commitment there was to the pro-life cause—commitment to the sanctity of human life, to the life of the unborn— was much less substantial than we had thought. It was much less convictional than we had thought. It was, most fundamentally, far less ontological than we had thought. And that leads me to the consideration for today. To be conservative is to hold allegiance to certain fixed truths and principles.
Now, I’m old enough to remember in my own adult lifetime the argument that conservative basically means holding to a conservative temperament and a conservative commitment to timeless tradition. But the truth I want to underline today is that the tradition without a fundamental commitment to truth – and that truth being fundamentally transcendent and theological – will soon evaporate.
I would take that argument further and insist that conservatism requires fixed religious truths as well as traditions. I would underline the fact that these fixed religious truths are grounded in specific acts of divine revelation, on which we are entirely dependent.
There are two points of urgency I want to make. Number one, conservatism is not just another form of liberalism, and then secondly, conservatism is not just liberalism or progressivism arriving later on the schedule with greater respect for the costs and challenges of what is defined as inevitable social and moral progress. Neither of these positions is genuinely conservative.
I believe the great challenge that now confronts conservatives, and I mean to include conservative Christians here, as well of course, all conservatives writ large in the United States, is the challenge of first things and fundamental truths. I do speak with a particular appeal to religious conservatives and American evangelicals. The great challenge is understanding that any worldview that does not ground itself in divine revelation, in the moral character of the self-existent, omnipotent, omniscient God – any conservative tradition that is not grounded in a prior commitment to ontology is going to evaporate. The only question is, will that evaporation happen quickly or more slowly?
One of the things we’ve witnessed in recent weeks, as a matter of fact, just in recent days, is the collapse of the Conservative Party in Great Britain. I follow that party and that Anglo-American tradition very closely, and the argument I made in an article published immediately after the election is that we should not be surprised that the so-called Conservatives lost, because the Conservative party had abandoned conservatism long ago. I would point to an incident that had taken place now more than a decade ago, when David Cameron, then the British Prime Minister and head of the Conservative Party, just basically came out and demanded that the party abandon what had been a very longstanding commitment to social conservatism. Indeed, he called for the party, and thus the government, to abandon the definition of marriage as the union of a man and a woman. In his memorable words: “I don’t do this despite the fact I’m a conservative. I do this because I am a conservative.”
At that point, it was just like the entire ontological structure of Creation Order was just denied by a party that still dared to call itself conservative. I don’t believe a party that does such a thing deserves a conservative reputation, much less conservative affirmation. This act, taken so brazenly, was a repudiation of Creation Order and the order that had made his civilization possible.
I’m not denying the importance of social traditions, morals, political principles, constitutional norms, and much more shared among conservatives and shared as a glad stewardship. I want to emphasize anew how important that stewardship is, but I do want to argue that if it all is a matter of constant negotiation and a process of accommodation to changing circumstances, we are losing and are destined to lose. There is no lasting conservatism that is not self-consciously grounded in revealed truth and in ontology. To be conservative is to affirm what is real. If we lose this conviction, we lose everything.
Now, when you consider the challenges we face at this moment, it’s impossible to say the challenge is not ontological. We’re living in a society that increasingly believes a boy can be a girl and a girl can be a boy.
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Special Edition: President Biden Drops a Political Bomb: President Biden Makes History as He Withdraws from Presidential Race Just 100 Days Before the 2024 General Election

By R. Albert Mohler Jr. — 7 months ago

This is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.Part I (00:13 – 13:52)President Biden Drops a Political Bomb: President Biden Makes History as He Withdraws from Presidential Race Just 100 Days Before the 2024 General ElectionExit, stage left: In a stunning development President Biden leaves the race, but huge questions loom by WORLD Opinions (R. Albert Mohler, Jr.)Part II (13:52 – 18:00)Can Democrats Come Up with a Winning Campaign in 100 Days? Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party’s Unprecedented Challenge for the 2024 Presidential ElectionPart III (18:00 – 24:19)President Biden and the Democratic Party’s Vast Leap to the Left: The Progressive Legacy of President Biden and the Left’s Grip on the Democratic PartyPart IV (24:19 – 26:00)‘One of the Most Monumental Collapses in Political History’ — We Will Long Remember This Day in American HistoryBiden Drops Out of Presidential Race, Endorses Harris by Wall Street Journal (Andrew Restuccia, Annie Linskey, Catherine Lucey)Sign up to receive The Briefing in your inbox every weekday morning.Follow Dr. Mohler:X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTubeFor more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu.For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.To write Dr. Mohler or submit a question for The Mailbox, go here.

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Providence and Presidents

By R. Albert Mohler Jr. — 7 months ago

Written by R. Albert Mohler Jr. |
Tuesday, July 16, 2024
Why? Because the Christian faith underlines the two realities of divine sovereignty and human responsibility. Both are absolutely necessary to Biblical Christianity, and both are absolutely necessary to the Christian worldview in every respect. But though both are necessary, they are not equal. Human responsibility is real, but it exists only within the transcendent reality of God, and within the context of his unconditional providence. The reality of God’s providence is something many Americans, and no doubt many Christians, think about with far too little seriousness.

The attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump represents one of those rare historical moments when fundamental truths are clarified. Yesterday’s attack at President Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania shocked the nation and the watching world, and it instantly revealed so many essential truths.
First, life and death can come down to a matter of a millimeter. The video of President Trump grabbing his ear and then diving onto the platform will be indelibly etched into the nation’s historical memory. Just the slightest deviation in the path of that ammunition round would have changed a bleeding ear into a dead former president, even as Trump is just days from his official nomination as the Republican candidate in the coming election. How can human life be so fragile as that? But the fragility of life is essential to our understanding of the gift of life. In a world of sin and evil, assassins and pathogens, every breath we take is a gift. At some point, a single breath will be our last.
For Donald Trump, his last breath could have come yesterday, broadcast to the entire world. Thankfully, that was not the case. But why? Those who hold to a purely materialistic and naturalistic worldview have no answer but luck, which is a major doctrine of secular theology. But Donald Trump (and the watching world as well) must surely know in his heart that something far greater than luck preserved his life. Speaking to the press, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., acknowledged the hairline distance that separated life and death in the assassination attempt: “Fate stepped in.” Interestingly, it was President Trump himself who clarified the issue, posting on Truth Social that it was “God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening.” Indeed, it was God and God alone, for God alone is the sovereign ruler of the cosmos.
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Special Edition: God’s Sovereignty, Moral Evil, and the Attempted Assassination of Former President Trump: The Theological, Historical, and Political Issues

By R. Albert Mohler Jr. — 7 months ago

This is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.Part I (00:13 – 15:05)God’s Sovereignty, Moral Evil, and the Attempted Assassination of Former President Trump: The Theological, Historical, and Political IssuesProvidence and presidents: The attempted assassination of President Trump raises the deepest of all questions by World Opinions (R. Albert Mohler, Jr.)Part II (15:05 – 19:26)Is Human Responsibility Real? (Yes) Is God Truly Sovereign? (Yes) — When Theology Hits HeadlinesPart III (19:26 – 20:29)Limited Options on the Question of Providence: Understanding What’s at StakePart IV (20:29 – 25:09)The RNC Faces a Big Moment of Moral Decision on the Abortion Issue: Let There Be No Retreat on Pro-Life ConvictionSign up to receive The Briefing in your inbox every weekday morning.Follow Dr. Mohler:X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTubeFor more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu.For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.To write Dr. Mohler or submit a question for The Mailbox, go here.