Tuesday, October 29, 2024

Part I

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Ukraine is Turning into a Powder Keg: North Korea Sends 10,000 Troops to Aid Russia’s War with Ukraine

Even as most Americans are consumed with the final days of the 2024 presidential election, and we will return to that in a moment, the fact is that there is a more urgent crisis facing the world, and it is not in the United States. It is right now in Ukraine and in Russia. The big development is the involvement of about 10,000 North Korean troops in Russia’s effort to subdue Ukraine. Now you’ll remember that this is a war that is now entering basically its third year. And we are looking at the fact that Russia invaded Ukraine, a sovereign nation, that honestly changed the complexion of the world in terms of how you see the major powers lining up. And we have looked at Ukraine fighting back very bravely, but we’re also looking at the fact that Russia has overwhelming force, but Russia has been worn down.

And by the way, that’s one of the lessons of history, an invading army is worn down far faster than the invaded army. And over time there is a shift in terms of the momentum of war. And even as right now, it is still the case that Russia is the invader holding a lot of Ukrainian territory. Ukraine has also invaded Russia, although it appears to be losing some of the territory it had gained. That was largely a symbolic action. The fact is that Russia is a much larger nation. Its military is vastly larger than Ukraine. And even as Russia has allies, so does Ukraine.

But the difference here is that the entry of foreign troops into the front lines there in Russia’s effort against Ukraine, that is going to change the entire world picture. And I want us to step back for a moment and just recognize what we are looking at here. We’re looking at one of the most evil regimes on the planet, and that is the regime of the North Korean government under communist control. You see the North Korean dictator now linking arms with Russia’s president and not only in a symbolic act of solidarity, but in sending troops. North Korea had been sending materiel, that is war weaponry, for a matter of months, at least as is documented by Western authorities. North Korea has been very involved.

Not only is the Russian army being worn down, but Russia is finding itself depleted of weaponry. It’s having to turn to others. And since of course, Russia is not able to turn to the Western nations for the source of those weapons, Western nations are basically in solidarity against Russia, Russia is turning to others. And that includes many of the bad guys in bad neighborhoods of the world. One of the worst of those leaders and one of the worst of those neighborhoods is the repressive regime of North Korea.

Now, this is a very, very dangerous development, and I want to speak of this in the context of world history. I’m speaking to you from Kansas City, Missouri. And here in Kansas City is a memorial and a museum to World War I. It’s a world-class museum, but it is documenting the history of the first World War. Of course, it wasn’t known at the time as the First World War, even though in retrospect it was in this modern sense. It was understood to be the Great War, the war, it was claimed, to end all wars. But what we need to remember is not only that it was not the war to end all wars. We do need to remember that massive powers in the world basically backed themselves into what became one of the deadliest wars in all of human history. And there is the danger that the same thing will happen now.

And as you look at the parallels with World War I and what is going on right now in Russia’s war against Ukraine, you understand that the presence of North Korean, North Korean troops inserted into the battlefield, that is a game changer, and that game is only turning more dangerous and more deadly. So as we’re looking at this, we need to recognize that NATO sources had detected the movement not only of material that is of weaponry and equipment, but also of Korean troops. It is expected that about three North Korean generals are accompanying about 10,000 troops and the insertion of those troops as reinforcements on the Russian side means that, and here’s the bottom line, we have to keep in mind, it means that Ukraine fighting against Russia is now in the position of facing the likelihood of having North Korean troops on that battlefield. That is to say that in a sense, in a very real sense, Ukraine would then be at war against North Korea.

Now there’s no declared war, but when you have the soldiers of one government fighting against the soldiers of another government, you are effectively engaged in war whether one is declared or not, and that complicates the situation tremendously for Ukraine and its allies. Those allies would include the United States. Now, just follow the logic. The United States is providing military assistance to Ukraine. So, arguably, the United States is now facing, in terms of at least providing material support and ammunition and armaments and military intelligence to Ukraine, the United States is now placed in a situation of being at least related to an armed conflict that involves North Korea, which, let’s just remind ourselves, is a nuclear power and a rogue state.

Now, honestly, I just have to tell you why this is the most important story for our consideration today. It is because even as most Americans don’t see this yet as a big story, putting this situation into an historical context, we understand that the situation is extremely dangerous. Frankly, it does point to the November 5th election in which American voters are going to be electing a president, but it indicates that this president may immediately face an extremely dangerous situation in which we could face a radical expansion of the war that began when Russia invaded Ukraine. And very quickly you could see how an alignment in the larger world could all of a sudden lead to, well, a scenario that is frighteningly like what we saw in 1914 when the world powers stumbled into World War I.

Now, one footnote to all of this is that Russia should be humiliated to have to turn to other nations in order to buttress its defenses and its military in terms of the invasion of Ukraine. How embarrassing is it for Russia? And remember, Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, is determined to demonstrate that Russia is a major player on the world scene. Major players don’t have to call in reinforcements from North Korea, but that is where Russia is now having to turn.

But then we need to note this. In a situation like this, Russia is not less desperate, it becomes more desperate. It is not likely to be more open to negotiations that could lead to peace and peace efforts across the board. It is likely to be more resistant. It is in a more fragile situation. Speaking of fragile situations, Ukraine is now facing an expansion of Russia’s invasion. It is a downright dangerous situation and Ukraine is turning into a powder keg and it’s Russia’s fault.

At this point, we need to bring in another fact of reality, and that is that it is extremely unlikely, we just need to say this out loud, it is extremely unlikely that Russia is going to be forced out of all Ukrainian territory. President Joe Biden and the Biden administration along with many European allies have simply said that the only acceptable outcome to this conflict is Russia’s complete withdrawal. And that doesn’t mean just from what we now know as the territory of Ukraine going back, say, to 2021. It also means in the eyes of Ukraine and at least some of its allies, Russia’s withdrawal from the Crimean Peninsula, which it took by force a matter of years ago.

The fact is, that Russia is not going to do that. Vladimir Putin is not going to do that. The reality is, that Ukraine is not able to repel Russia, in this case, from its own territory. It’s losing ground in its own territory. Russia now occupies a good bit of Eastern Ukraine. And Russia is pressing back even without the North Korean forces on the Ukrainian invasion into Russian territory near Kursk. The reality on the ground is that a lot of the assurances made by the United States and our allies are not going to come to pass. I’ll state that emphatically. Many of the assurances given by the Biden administration are not going to be turned into absolute assurances that Ukraine will ever regain all of that territory.

So in order to avoid a worldwide conflagration here, it is incumbent upon American leadership, and that means America with its allies, to make very clear that there has to be some acceptable settlement here, but acceptable has to be within the defined limits of rationality. The fact that this is happening in the final days of the American presidential race is not an accident. If you are a figure on the world scene like Russian President Vladimir Putin, you choose this time to do something like this because you know Americans, and that means virtually all Americans right through the government, are absolutely preoccupied with what’s going to take place in the United States on election day on November the 5th. And the presidential candidates, they’re faced with the reality that it’s virtually impossible to put the Ukrainian situation on the electoral map at this point. It is just erupting at exactly the wrong time. Nonetheless, all of these underlines the fragile nature of the world order and the fact that the United States and our friends, that includes Ukraine, have deadly enemies.

Part II

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The Meeting of the BRICs Nations: Brazil, Russia, India, and China and Other Nations Seek to Set Up Alternative World Power to U.S. and Its Allies

That brings me to another issue that we need to put on our mental map. This has to do with the fact that Russia recently hosted the meeting of other nations known as the BRICS nations. That’s B-R-I-C-S. What does that mean? It means Brazil, Russia, India and China. The effort has been made over the last several years by Russia and by Brazil and India and China to try to come up with the creation of a political bloc. That is not spelled B-L-O-C-K. That is spelled B-L-O-C.

In the language of international affairs, a bloc is a union of nations in a solid front that would include economics, politics, military cooperation, you go down the list. You used to talk about the Soviet bloc, B-L-O-C. And then you talked about the opposition from Western nations. And now you are looking at the creation politically of a group of nations that see themselves combined as offering an alternative to the world, an alternative to what? An alternative to American leadership. Vladimir Putin knew exactly what he was doing. It was a meeting held as if it was one of the most important gatherings of world leaders in world history. It was with all the ceremony, the pomp and circumstance that the Kremlin could provide.

Now, it can’t provide, nonetheless, the solidarity that this BRICS movement might intend or hope to present. For one thing, you accumulate all of its military and its international economic power. And the big issue there honestly is what all of this amounts to. Do those BRICS nations together actually pose a bloc that is seen as some kind of counterweight to the United States and our allies? And just how thick is the relationship inside this bloc? Let’s just start with Brazil. Brazil would like to be a major player on the world scene. It has a lot to contribute. It’s a big nation with a big economy. It shares what has been at least historically something of a non-aligned relationship when you look at the world affairs. But nonetheless, Brazil has to have a different interest than India and China and Russia in this regard.

China, by the way, remember this is the People’s Republic of China, a communist regime, which is one of the most powerful on earth. Some estimate that its economy will outstrip the United States and indeed perhaps even the West within a matter of decades. The fact is that China is increasingly assertive and increasingly belligerent. But China also looks at Russia as something of a rival. And remember, they have a shared history that includes not only cooperation but a lot of competition.

The fact that there is now this solidarity including what Putin announces as a formal pact between what’s known as the Hermit Kingdom of North Korea, that you have Russia and North Korea coming together, China is not particularly pleased about this. After all, North Korea is right there rested against China, and it has been a huge problem for China. China simply can’t be pleased that you have this building relationship between Russia and North Korea. That could be a complication for China. And at the end of the day, China is looking out for its own interests, not so much the interest of BR and I. Where does this go? 

Well, history could be made that indicates exactly where this is going in the next few days. Then again, maybe not so immediately. But what we are looking at right now is a situation that is ripe for radical expansion. And the big question is, what will the United States do in response to this, and not only the United States but our allies? Without a sure hand at the helm, the United States is in even greater danger, and that means the entire world is in greater danger. It’s very tempting. It’s very easy for Americans to think that a story like this with lines based far, far away can’t have immediate impact on the United States, but that’s what Americans thought in 1914, and they were wrong.

Part III

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The Archbishop of Canterbury Drops a Theological Bombshell: Justin Welby Argues Same-Sex Monogamous Relationships are Permissible

But next I’m going to turn to another story, and this still is not the 2024 presidential campaign. I’m going to turn to a theological story, which is also urgent and explosive. Just a matter of days ago, the ArchBishop of Canterbury, who’s the spiritual head of the Church of England and the titular head of the Anglican Communion, he made a statement in a recent journalistic interview that has been described as a bombshell. It is at least that. But in order to understand it, we have to go back to 2017.

At that time, interviewed by the same journalist, Alastair Campbell, the Archbishop of Canterbury is supposed to be the spiritual head of the entire Anglican Communion, he was asked the question bluntly, “Is gay sex sinful?” So in a media interview, this senior cleric was asked, “Is gay sex sinful?” His response was, and this was a bombshell at the time, “I haven’t got a good answer.”

Now, I talked about this on The Briefing at the time, 2017. I wrote several articles about it because that’s a bombshell in itself. Here you have a man who has incredible spiritual responsibility as one who is a minister of a Christian Church, not to mention its leader. When he’s asked a blunt question, “Is gay sex sinful?” That’s something any pastor ought to be able to answer immediately. He responded by saying, “I haven’t got a good answer.” Now, that was the bombshell at the time.

The bombshell now is that the archbishop went back into an interview with the same journalist, Alastair Campbell, just a matter of days ago. And in that interview, Campbell simply asked him if he now had what Alistair Campbell called a better answer. And the Archbishop responded. He said he did have a better answer. This is what he said, “What the Archbishop of York and I and the Bishops, by majority, by no means unanimous, and the church is deeply split over this, where we’ve come to is this say that all sexual activity should be within a committed relationship and whether it’s straight or gay.”

You heard that right. This man who is the senior cleric in the entire Church of England who didn’t even have an answer to the question in 2017 now offered a disastrous unbiblical abdication of responsibility answer. It’s a colossal fall. It is a colossal failure. It is a misrepresentation of the clear teachings of Scripture, and for the most part of the last two millennia, the unbroken consensus and understanding of the Christian Church.

So we’re talking here about something that really is a bombshell. It’s hard to imagine theologically anything that could be worse than this. It is a complete abdication of responsibility. But the Archbishop of Canterbury went on, he said, “In other words, we’re not giving up on the idea that sex is within marriage or civil partnership or whether marriage is civil or religious, and that we have put forward a proposal that where people have been through a civil partnership where a same-sex marriage, equal marriage under the 2014 Act,” that’s a civil act I insert here in Great Britain, “the Archbishop said they should be able to come along to a church and have a service of prayer and blessing for them in their lives together.”

You got that right. Not only did he answer the question as a colossal failure and abdication of Christian responsibility and a surrender of biblical truth, he went on to say, “I think we can even find a way to formalize this.” Now, he had to put it the way he put it because the Church of England still says that marriage is and can only be the union of a man and a woman. So you have this kind of dance that the archbishop of Canterbury has engaged in. And you have a response from evangelicals within the Church of England.

Conservatives have responded. I want to quote in particular Dr. Andrew Goddard, the Reverend Dr. Andrew Goddard, who is a tutor in ethics at Ridley Hall, that’s a theological college in Cambridge. He wrote, “The Archbishop’s interview gives the impression that the Church of England, with the agreement of the majority of bishops now teaches that sexual relationships including same sex sexual relationships are acceptable as long as the couple are in a committed relationship, either a civil partnership or a marriage.” He went on to say, “In fact, the theological argument presented by the bishops has been that any sexual relationship other than marriage between a man and a woman is contrary to the church’s doctrine of marriage.” He went on to say what the Archbishop of Canterbury must do, “Such significantly erroneous statements as these from no less than the Archbishop of Canterbury, unless swiftly followed by an apology and correction, can only add further to the widespread erosion of trust and growing sense of disbelief, betrayal, deception, anger, and despair now felt across much of the Church of England in relation to,” he went on to say, “our archiepiscopal leadership.”

Now, that’s a lot of words, but what it amounts to is a statement from a conservative within the Church of England that the senior spiritual leader of the Church of England just committed heresy. He committed apostasy. He committed the undermining of scripture. He committed the confusion of Christ’s people. But here’s where we need to say quite honestly, the Church of England is basically gone in this sense. The reality is that even though there are faithful Christians within the Church of England, and there are many theological conservatives within the Church of England, much of the evangelical firepower of the evangelical world of scholarship over the course of, say, the last several decades, it has come with a lot of Anglican, conservative evangelical Anglican contribution. But the liberals are increasingly in charge. And there’s a story behind this that simply needs to be told. It’s the story about Justin Welby himself.

Justin Welby is the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury. Again, the senior position in terms of clerics within the Church of England. He became the Archbishop of Canterbury in 2013. Prior to that, he had been the dean of Liverpool and the Bishop of Durham. He was described as an open evangelical. Prior to the time he went into the ministry when he had a very well-known career in business and finance, Justin Welby attended a charismatic church that was often described as evangelical there in London associated with the Church of England. But that was then, and this is now.

The fact is that if someone described as an evangelical of any sort, he is at the very least a so-called evangelical who is able to gain election as the Archbishop of Canterbury, and increasingly that means not an evangelical who will stand up in any sense for biblical truth, period. At this point, I’ll simply say that if Justin Welby is an evangelical, then I’m a turtle. The fact is that that uses the word evangelical in such a sense that it makes no sense at all. And just in case you need any clarification, I am not a turtle. And I’ll take the argument further. Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is no evangelical in any biblical or theological sense.

By the way, Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has described himself as an open evangelical, and that’s the problem. It’s not the word evangelical that’s the issue here. It’s the word open, because, well, this latest statement shows just what open means in this context. It means the abdication of evangelical truth. An open evangelical in this sense is an evangelical who is no longer evangelical.

Now, the Baptist in me has to insert at this point that one of the problems here is the connectionalism in the Church of England and the theological claim of the Church of England of what is known as theological comprehensiveness. That is to say the Church of England has claimed now for a very long time, we’re talking centuries, not decades, that it can include within itself comprehensively all theological positions so long as they’re basically related to the Archbishop of Canterbury, to the Anglican Communion, and in some sense to Anglican doctrine. But of course, this means in no accountable sense whatsoever, and I need you to quickly make sense of all of this.

The lesson for all of us is that the statement by the Archbishop of Canterbury is another indication of how the church falls in terms of its doctrine. And remember Christ said, “Upon this rock, I will build my church in the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” So the issue here is not that the church itself will fall, it is instead that the Church of England is now falling in terms of its representation of Christianity. And throughout Christian history we’ve seen the rise and the fall of many such denominations, congregations, and alliances of churches. It’s a sad story, but it’s a true story.

Part IV

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The Time Is Not Ripe? Tumult in the Roman Catholic Church Should Serve as a Warning of the Consequences of Giving Unbiblical Practices Time to Ripen

But okay, now I have to shift to something I’m going to summarize just briefly, and this is a development in recent days within Roman Catholicism. As you know, Pope Francis is known as a liberal pope in response especially to the two previous popes who were theological conservatives. The issue here is not Catholic doctrine. The issue here is the pope undermining that doctrine. And the pope put together a process that really began in Germany known as Synodality, and that means that you have an alternative authoritative system for the development of doctrine that comes up involving a synod, that is a gathering of church leaders. And in Germany, this has led to absolute theological liberalism, and on the LGBTQ issues, at least a proposal for absolute surrender.

But nonetheless, the pope, instead of protecting the Roman Catholic church from these intrusions, decided to try to put together a synod on Synodality. Only the Vatican could come up with such a title. It recently came to a conclusion. And the big issue is the pope himself had fed the expectation that perhaps there would be an opening to women serving in the ranks of those known as the diaconate, the deacons, who can perform some of the duties, many associate with priests, other than presiding at the mass itself.

But that isn’t something that simply won’t go in much of the Catholic world, particularly where the Catholic church is growing in places such as Africa, and so the pope basically had to retreat. And so he told the synod on Synodality that they cannot operate as a synod on Synodality and instead they’d have to avoid that issue. Now, here’s what’s important to us. At this point you may say, “What in the world does that have to do with Evangelical Christians?” And the point is this, the doctrinal head of the office in the Roman Catholic Church that is assigned responsibility to protect and defend the doctor of the Roman Catholic church, now remember, he is a theological liberal basically who was put in place by a liberal pope, what he said on many of these issues, particularly on the question of women serving in this role, remember the Pope said, “We’re not going there right now. That signal was sent.” But the reason why that signal was sent according to the head of the Vatican office is that the time is not ripe for that discussion.

Here’s the lesson. When you have theological leadership in a church and it says that the reason the church isn’t going to do this thing is because the time is not ripe, that tells you the issue is not the thing, it’s not truth, it is just timing. That is a deadly, deadly statement we need to recognize, because even those of us who aren’t Catholics look at that and say, “You know, that could happen in my denomination. That could happen in my church.” Someone could say, “You know, we’re not ready for that yet.” But that statement “we’re not ready for that yet” means you’re not saying, “Here’s what the Bible teaches.” You’re just saying, “I don’t think we can go there yet.” And here’s the reason why I brought this up. The moment you hear that, you can be assured of this, if someone says the time is not yet ripe, what they’re saying is you can pretty much count on this happening. It’s not an if. It’s a win. And that’s how theological liberalism wins. And that’s how churches on issue after issue simply collapse.

In this case, as we’re looking at these issues today, we have two negative examples from which we need to learn, the negative example of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the negative example of the Vatican and the synod on Synodality. Both of them should serve as warning signs to us all and about issues that really are even more important than the Earth-shakingly important issues in the 2024 election, to which I can promise you we will have to turn very quickly.

Part V

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Kamala Harris and the Death of Religious Liberty: Vice President Harris Reveals She Would Sacrifice Religious Liberty on the Altar of Abortion If Elected

For today on that score, I just want to point to an article that I published at World Opinions Yesterday that is entitled, “This is How Religious Liberty Dies.” And what I’m looking at there is the statement made just days ago by Vice President Kamala Harris in which she made very clear that on the issue of abortion, she’s also said similar things on LGBTQ issues that religious liberty is basically going to have to take a back seat to what she claimed is a woman’s right to an abortion. That’s how religious liberty dies. I document how that happens in that article. You’ll find the link to that article with the posting for today’s edition of The Briefing.