Friday, October 4, 2024

Part I

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Melania’s Moral Disaster: Former First Lady Trump Joins Horrible Legacy of Republican Party First Ladies to Support Abortion

Well, today we find ourselves talking about comments made by the former First Lady Melania Trump on the issue of abortion, and it just shows how volatile this issue is. Just when you think you have reached a certain point in the discussion, all of a sudden a new statement is made, a new development happens, and we as Christians need to recognize we are at a political impasse here. We’re in a moment of very rare, and this case unexpected danger because many of us see the issue of abortion and the protection of unborn human life as the most important singular issue before the nation. And now we are facing the fact that the equation on this great moral question is being reshaped before our eyes. The equation is being reformulated.

Now the change is not coming on the Democratic side. There is marginal change there, but the great change right now is coming on the Republican side. And because we are looking at the 2024 presidential election cycle, this takes on a whole new significance. So we’re going to end up talking about the Republicans, but we’re going to start out talking about the Democrats. The Democratic Party for the course of the last say 40 years, has been moving in an increasingly aggressive direction on the issue of abortion towards the demand for basically no restrictions on abortion whatsoever. Furthermore, the current Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris has called for the elimination of the Hyde Amendment that would require American taxpayers to pay for abortion. And so the Democratic Party right now is the party of abortion, basically funded by the federal government, paid for by all taxpayers, and abortion without restriction.

Well, at least until recently, the Republican Party has offered a clear alternative. And over the course of history from 1980 to the present, successive Republican candidates and platforms have affirmed the sanctity of human life and the moral responsibility to bring about political change to protect unborn life. Now, that’s one of the reasons why Donald Trump was elected president of the United States in the year 2016, and Donald Trump very clearly signaled pro-life affirmation at that time. Furthermore, he did what no previous Republican nominee had done. He said that if elected he would appoint to the Supreme Court and by extension to the federal judiciary only those who would uphold a strict constructionist originalist reading of the US Constitution. He agreed to nominate Supreme Court Justices from a list provided by the Federalist Society, and he did. He had the opportunity to appoint three Associate Justices of the United States Supreme Court, and he had the opportunity thereby to change history.

History was changed in the year 2022 with the Dobbs decision that reversed the Roe V. Wade decision that had legalized abortion. And we need to recognize it wasn’t just about abortion, that’s the bottom line, but it was also about how to read the US Constitution, and it was a revolution in how to read the Constitution. Frankly, a revolution returning to what should be just a common sense understanding of the Constitution that brought about the conservative revolution that reversed Roe v. Wade. But in the course of the 2024 campaign, all this has become quite confused, and the source of the original confusion is the Former President of the United States himself, Donald J. Trump, because even as he had signaled very clear pro-life conviction, he in this election cycle has been saying, “Look, you can’t affect legislation if you’re not elected and right now to be elected, you basically have to have a more flexible position on abortion.”

Now, what I’ve been trying to make clear on The Briefing is that there is still a great distance between the Democratic and Republican positions on abortion. Donald Trump has said he would not sign a national ban on abortion. But you have to contrast that with Kamala Harris, the vice president saying that if she’s elected, she would sign national legislation that would bring about abortion rights. Even in the last few days, she has said that she would support ending the filibuster in the Senate in order to bring that about. You look at Governor Walz, the vice presidential candidate on the Democratic ticket. He signed legislation, some of the most radical pro-abortion legislation in American history, and it is virtually without any restriction all the way through nine months of pregnancy. Now, when you look at JD Vance, Senator Vance has held to a pro-life position and has been making very strong pro-life arguments where he stands right now vis-a-vis the Republican ticket.

Well, he said himself, he’s at the top of the ticket. Donald Trump is at the top of the ticket. Well, where do we stand as of today? The game changer that requires us to talk about this today is advanced publicity about a book to be released by the Former First Lady of the United States, Melania Trump. And the game changer in this sense is that in that book, in an excerpt that she authorized to be released, and in a video that she released just yesterday, largely in promotion of the book, she comes out for basically unrestricted support for abortion rights, and she does so in unmistakable language. In the book that is to be released in just a few days, the former first lady writes about abortion saying that women “should have autonomy in deciding their preference of having children based on their own convictions, free from any intervention or pressure from the government.”

That’s in the forthcoming book according to the Washington Post and other media sources. But there are also even stronger lines coming from within the video and from other sections of the book that have been released. As of last night, Former President Donald Trump and his campaign were refraining from making any comment concerning the former first lady’s statement. And of course, this raises huge questions. Frankly, it raises huge questions about where the Trump household is on the issue of abortion. It raises huge questions about the future of the Republican Party on the question of abortion, but frankly, it raises some other rather awkward memories, and I need to articulate those. Over the course of the last several decades of Republican history, a pattern has emerged. We have pro-life presidents, pro-life presidential candidates, including former President Ronald Reagan, President George H.W. Bush, President George W. Bush, and then Donald J. Trump in 2016, who articulated clear pro-life sentiments.

Now, I just want to be very honest. No one was particularly sure where these individuals were in terms of reading their heart, but as voters, we don’t get to read a candidate’s heart. We have to read a candidate’s words, listen to what they say, and then watch what they do. President Reagan, well, frankly, some of his judicial appointments were not all that pro-life, but at the end of the day, he did move the needle considerably in the revolution in the federal judiciary in a more pro-life position. President Reagan himself wrote a book defending the sanctity of unborn human life, and he did so after having just a few years before as governor of California signed one of the most liberal abortion laws in American history. So how do you square that? Well, you square it because President Reagan spoke to it directly. He said that he was wrong in signing that legislation and that he had come to pro-life convictions, and there’s good reason to believe he had done just that.

The problem is Mrs. Reagan was not on the same position, on the same page on the question of abortion, and evidently, she made that clear. And then you have President George H.W. Bush, who was Ronald Reagan’s vice president. He was supportive of Roe v. Wade until the night he accepted the Republican vice presidential nomination. His father, by the way, Prescott Bush as a United States senator had been a member of the Planned Parenthood board. And so there’s a long involvement here. The two parties did not really diverge on the question of abortion until the late-1970s. It’s really the 1980 election that marks the hinge in which the Democratic Party goes more and more in support of abortion rights. And frankly, the Republican Party went deeper and deeper into a pro-life position. But you also moved into George W. Bush, who was president, also made many crucial appointments to the federal judiciary, including to the Supreme Court.

He had appointed Samuel Alito, the justice who wrote the majority opinion in the Dobbs decision, reversing Roe. And then we get to Donald Trump 2016 and his appointment of no less than three justices, all three of those justices crucial to the overturning of Roe V. Wade in the year 2022. But when you look at the two Bush first ladies, Barbara Bush and Laura Bush, neither of them was pro-life in conviction, and frankly, they were pretty quiet about it until they made it clear in public comments after their husbands left office. That tells you a great deal. And now Melania Trump is saying the same thing. She’s making an even more radical statement, at least in what has been released. It appears that she’s calling for a woman’s right to an abortion period without any qualification. That is an absolute moral disaster. Now, I also want to be clear that might’ve been the position of both of the Bush first ladies.

It might’ve been the position of Nancy Reagan when she was First Lady. We don’t really know. We do know in the situation related to Melania Trump. Because in this case, the former first lady might very well become the first lady again, but we are not electing a first lady, we’re electing a president of the United States. And so speaking as honestly about this issue, as I can, I see it as absolutely non-negotiable for the Christian conscience. But in a political context where you’re voting for D or R, you’re voting either for Kamala Harris or for Donald J. Trump on the issue of abortion, there is still a very clear distinction. I think the Republican Party and its nominee deserve a lot of the blame for the confusion on this issue. And frankly, I think the future of the Republican Party is going to hinge on whether or not it returns to a consistent pro-life affirmation.

But voters are going to have to go to the polls. Some of them are going to early voting right now, and voters by election day are going to have to decide how they vote. And I think on the issue of abortion, there is still a clear distinction between the Democratic ticket, which frankly is for abortion without any restriction even paid for by the taxpayer. And then you look at the Republican ticket, which I see as inconsistent, but still at this point considerably more pro-life than you would see on the Democratic side. So I knew I would have to talk about this today once the story broke. I do so with frustration, I admit. I’m frustrated with the former first lady in this statement. Frankly, a bit heartbroken over the consequence and the meaning of this kind of statement. I am sad by the tradition unfortunately in the Republican party of first ladies who turned out to be anything but consistently pro-life, and we know they have influence on their husbands in this situation.

I’m very frustrated with the mixed signals that the current Republican nominee has sent Former President Donald Trump on this issue. But I’m also aware of the grave threat that is represented by the Democratic ticket, which holds to an even more radical position. Pro-life Americans pro-life Christians are going to have to think hard on the other side of this election about how we move forward. But we can’t stop this election from happening, and it is coming fast. It’s going to require even more of us than we knew a matter of months ago.

Part II

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The Page of Pearl Harbor Has Turned: The Last Surviving Japanese Aviator from Attack on Pearl Harbor Dies at 106

Finally, before turning to questions today on The Briefing, I want to talk about a historical occurrence that reminds us of how history flows. Now, you might say, we all know how history flows. It flows from the past to the present to the future. Yes. Well, I’m talking about the passage of history as we think about those who experienced, participated in, observed certain historical occurrences passing from the scene.

And this is something that should be deeply humbling to Americans of the current generation, and that is this. Those who fought in the great battles of World War II are passing from the scene. Whereas we were looking at a good number, though a declining number of World War II veterans even say 10 years ago, the youngest Japanese aviator who was part of the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7th, 1941 has died now get this at age 106. As Brian Murphy of the Washington Post reported “when Pearl Harbor came into view, black smoke was already rising from the US ships hit by the first wave of Japan’s surprise attack, the crew of a Nakajima B5N2 torpedo bomber ready for its turn. The 23-year-old navigator and bombardier on board, Masamitsu Yoshioka,” according to the Post, “had practiced his part of the maneuver for months without knowing the mission.” He was stunned when he was told his carrier group would be part of a massive strike on American territory that included more than 300 Japanese warplanes.

The young man recalled, “The blood rushed out of my head. I knew this meant a gigantic war,” and of course it did. And of course, the course of history often brings some surprises. Right now, the big story in international headlines is increasing closeness between the United States and Japan, and South Korea. Considering the war crimes that Japan committed against both the United States and South Korea, particularly given the great wound that is felt by South Koreans, it tells you something about how history shifts and history changes. Right now, the alliance between the United States and Japan and the United States and South Korea is amazingly strong. That would not have been conceivable on December the seventh or the eighth of 1941, Japan did launch this absolutely stunning surprise attack upon American forces at Pearl Harbor. We now know that the ambition of the Empire of Japan led by its military chieftains was to embarrass and to weaken the United States in the Pacific in such a way that the United States would have to negotiate in Japan’s favor.

Of course, that’s not the way it turned out, and at least many of the warlords in Japan had fully expected this would lead to a full conflagration in the Pacific. And what we know now, of course, is that Japan could not win that war. It did not have the resources to win the war. It did not have the ability, the economic power to win that war. But it did begin that war. And that war became one of the most costly in human lives of all human history, by some measures, a conflagration that had a death toll so high that you would have to roll up many of the wars throughout all of human history to come very close to the carnage. But as we say, history does pass and pass very quickly within a matter of years, a short matter of years, the United States and Japan, by the conclusion of the war and by the time that the Japanese warlords had signed a writing of unconditional surrender, the fact is that America and Japan have become very close allies, very closely intertwined economically in other measures as well.

And it is interesting that the young men who were on those ships at Pearl Harbor, who were absolutely attacked by the Empire of Japan, and all of them are very, very old. Most of them 100 years old or older, some of them by the way, maybe a little bit younger because they lied about their age when they enlisted, but they’re still very old. This is the last of the Japanese aviators who survived Pearl Harbor. It’s just a reminder to us of the flow of history and the fact that God made us as chronological creatures. We live in a certain time, we have a birth date, and if the Lord tarries, every single one of us will have a death date as well. We live through a certain passage of time and we are responsible for our stewardship of this lifetime in that passage of time.

But in the flow of human history, there are those who came before us, and in the flow of human history, if the Lord tarries, there will be those who come after us. But when we look at momentous occasions and it’s hard to come up in human history with any more momentous occasion than the Second World War, the death of the very last of the aviators of the Empire of Japan who participated in Pearl Harbor at age 106, that’s a news story that ought to humble us and ought not pass without our interest.

Part III

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Is There a Situation That Would Make It Acceptable for a State or a Group of States to Secede from the Union? — Dr. Mohler Responds to a Letter from a 15-Year-Old Listener of The Briefing

All right, it’s time to turn to questions. And as always, I appreciate the thoughtful questions sent in by listeners to The Briefing. You can send your question by just writing to mail@albertmohler.com. Again, I’m always astounded by the questions that come from young people as well. A 15-year-old young man wrote me asking, “Would there ever be a point where it might be considered biblically acceptable for a state or group of states to secede from the United States.”

Okay, I’m encouraged to know that 15-year-olds are thinking about this kind of question, but I’m also a little bit suspicious because I’ve been doing this a long time. So I think there just might be a homeschool curriculum that has raised this question. But nonetheless, it’s a good question. And I simply want to say that the United States experienced a horrifying civil war over this question. And just as a matter of history, it’s important to recognize the language that was used at that time. So for example, the federal government, that is to say, the northern states of the United States of America did not acknowledge the secession of the Southern states. It was not legally acknowledged. It was instead treated as an act of treason and it was a rebellion in the southern region. And so we need to recognize that so far as the federal government of the United States is concerned right now, there never has been a secession.

And you might put it another way and say there never has been a successful secession, but it’s also interesting to note that after the Civil War, for instance, in the year 1869, in a case known as Texas v. White, the Supreme Court of the United States, this is just four years after the end of the Civil War ruled that there was no legal authority for a state unilaterally to depart the union. Okay, now that’s really crucial. That’s really crucial. So it doesn’t say that a state can’t leave the union. It says it can’t leave the union unilaterally, which means the federal government and the state would have to agree for the state to leave. In other words, good luck with that. It’s not going to happen. So this just affirmed the stance of the federal government between the period of, say, 1861 to 1865, where they said, “Secession, what’s secession?”

And it affirms the fact that the federal union, well, going back to the beginning, states had to join by ratifying the Constitution, but even as the states had to join, they had no power to leave. Now, what’s interesting, some of the states said that if the state has the right to join then it has the right to leave. But the argument from the federal government as reflected in Texas v. White from 1869 is that the federal government, in terms of the Constitutional Convention and the acts of the federal government that preexisted at the time, that it was a positive action by the federal government or what would become the federal government to invite the states to join, meant that it was a bilateral issue even then, going back to the late 1780s. Now we’re in pretty deep water, but a 15-year-old asked this thoughtful question.

And so I will simply say this, looking at your question, is there ever a time when a state might be considered, say, biblically mandated to secede from the United States if there is any biblically acceptable reason? Well, of course, the Scripture is a higher authority than the US Constitution, but I do not envision a situation in which it would be constitutionally possible for a state to secede from the union. But I have to say we’re looking at a situation of cultural stress in the United States where we already are accustomed to talking about red states and blue states, and we can envision a divide between the states that I think could be extremely dangerous, but insofar as authorization to secede from the union, I have to say, I can’t come up with any adequate justification. So I’ll quote the Supreme Court and just stop.

Part IV

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How Does Margaret Thatcher’s Maxim, ‘First You Win the Argument, Then You Win the Vote,’ Apply to the Issue of Abortion in Our Day? — Dr. Mohler Responds to Letters from Listeners of The Briefing

All right. It’s very interesting that we go from a 15 to a 72-year-old who is writing in, and I love the way he describes his location. He says, “A blue state from Chicago,” that means a blue state citizen from Chicago, “now residing in Miami.” Well, great. I appreciate you sending the question. He writes on the question of abortion, “Could you please comment on Margaret Thatcher’s famous maxim ‘first, you must win the argument then you win the election.’” Many people have echoed similar sentiments and he cites a good many. And he goes back to Thatcher and asks, would you agree that the church and he’s Christian needs to embark on the long march through worldly hearts and souls and minds and spirits, or will there be no political victories that is without the gospel, there’s no ballot box victory. Well, that’s an interesting question, and it is posed with an interesting turn in it from this listener.

And I want to say that just looking at the bare question, even looking at Margaret Thatcher and her statement, and by the way, I’m very proud that in my study there’s a picture of me with my wife hosting who was then Baroness Thatcher at one point after her retirement as Prime Minister. And I think the world of Margaret Thatcher. Don’t agree with her on everything, including frankly, the issue of abortion and how it was handled in terms of the National Health Service in Britain. But there is no doubt that Margaret Thatcher was one of the most significant people on the political and historical scene in the 20th century. And her defense of liberty and classical constitutionalism and frankly constitutional principles is really, really important. And thus, I’ve admired her for those things. Her principle argument here, first you must win the argument, then you win the election.

Well, it’s interesting because some Republicans are saying that on the issue of abortion, it’s the opposite. First, you need to win the election, then you need to win the argument. Well, I think what Margaret Thatcher was talking about is the fact that she was a conviction politician. She wanted to win a campaign on the basis of the idea she represented. And she was a very interesting person, and she perplexed even many within her own party in a similar way that Ronald Reagan did, even with the Republican Party during the years he was president. He actually believed the ideas he was articulating, and he believed that by articulating them, he could win arguments, win hearts, win minds, and he did. That’s the amazing thing he did. You can look at Ronald Reagan’s leadership, and Americans thought differently about issues when he left office than they did when he entered office.

And Margaret Thatcher was the same way. She so redefined British politics at the end of the 20th century that even someone like Tony Blair of the opposing party had to confirm most of her economic theses, and so many of her practices and leave them in place even when he was elected as the leader of the opposite party, A party that, by the way, just a matter of years before had been openly socialist. After Margaret Thatcher, that was impossible. And so I just want to say I think it goes both ways. This is a smart question. I do think you have to win the argument to win the election. That’s one of the reasons why I’m so worried about the course of America’s recent history, just with the 2024 presidential campaign. We’re going to have to be very concerned about what this means for the future.

But eventually, and this is where you had very interesting statements made by President Trump, Former President Trump speaking about even the issue of abortion. He said, “Oh, none of this matters unless you win the election.” Okay, if you’re a political strategist, that makes sense. But at the end of the day, I think we understand as Christians, you have to win the argument and the election or winning the election doesn’t really matter. That’s the haunting thing.

Part V

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What Does Christian Faithfulness Look Like in Regard to Obeying Traffic Laws? — Dr. Mohler Responds to Letters from a 19-Year-Old Listener of The Briefing

Oh, okay. I got so many good questions because we had to deal with some of the news issues I was a bit delayed from the norm in getting to questions. But I do want to end with a question sent in by a 19-year-old young man, and he writes, and by the way, I appreciate his kind statements regarding The Briefing. Then he says that in a recent episode, I had answered a listener’s question by saying that though speeding on the road is less serious than other ways of breaking the law. It is still wrongdoing and therefore sin.

Okay, so this 19-year-old young man is following up with a question. “I agree that the Bible instructs us to submit to the authority of government. My question is if speeding is a sin should I take measures such as always going five under the speed limit to give myself a margin of error without sinning or avoiding unfamiliar hills, which may increase my speed over the limit looking at other traffic laws? Would it be a sin to stop my vehicle, a fraction of an inch past the white line at the stop sign or stoplight? Or if that’s the case, I wonder if driving might not be something wise for a Christian to participate in. It might not be something wise.” He said, “I do believe that driving is something Christians should participate in, but these questions fill my mind often as I drive.”

All right. My first answer is think about driving. When you’re driving don’t think about these questions. Think about driving safely. Okay? But this gets back to another issue that has really vexed Christians through the years, and there’s some people listening to this who would say, “I’m not even sure that’s really serious.” I’m going to say I’m taking it as a serious question. And it comes down to the fact that, okay, if we are not to sin, if we are to resist sin, then what do we need to do short of sin to make sure that we do not sin? Well, this is something that has been described throughout Christian history as a problem of overthinking or overanalyzing a situation. It has sometimes been associated with certain movements in the Christian Church, and it comes down to this. We are to resist sin, but we are not to involve ourselves in just saying, “Okay, well then we’ll draw this line and then we’ll back up to this line and then we’ll back up to this line.”

I mean, honestly, God wants us to be effective in the world. And so again, I just want to say, don’t overthink this issue while you’re driving. Make certain that you’re driving safely. Pay attention to driving. I don’t want to drive with people who are thinking too much about whether they should stop an inch before the line to avoid sin, but it does come down to the fact that it is interesting, and this is, I think a 19-year-old man who wrote in, and that’s the age at which I think a lot of Christians are really starting to think seriously about what faithfulness looks like, and that’s a good thing. But faithfulness does at times come down to inches. It does in some situations, but mostly faithfulness comes in positively doing what God has made us to do, created us to do, commissioned us to do, and set us in the world to do.

And as Martin Luther, the great reformer said, “You will not in faithfulness do that without sin, but you do that in order to avoid sinning.” But you avoid sinning mostly by doing the right thing, rather than just not doing the wrong thing. And I just have to say to my 19-year-old listener here, I hope sincerely that you are not listening to this while you’re driving. In any event, thank you for the question.