Monday, January 13, 2025

Part I

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The LA Fires are Shaping Up to Be the Costliest Natural Disaster in U.S. History – And the Political Fires Are Just Getting Started

Our hearts continue to go out to the people of California as we watch the wildfires there even expanding. And with higher winds expected, this could be a far more deadly situation even looking into the next several days. But already you hear a lot of calculation being made. And even as folks are rightly understood to be grieving with those who’ve lost their homes, the reality is that we’re headed towards a death toll with something like 20, with far more people missing and presumed dead, and you have people already talking about the fact that this is the costliest natural disaster in American history.

So let’s be clear, we’re talking here about a financial cost. In terms of loss of life, there have been natural tragedies that have been far larger in terms of the casualty count than these fires. But in terms of property damage, there is no doubt this will probably end up by a significant margin the most expensive natural disaster in American history. And of course the fires are just partly under control, where they are partly under control.

And that leads to another big consideration here. Already you have politicians, national and state and otherwise, who are posturing for the debate that is sure to come after the fires are extinguished and then the costs are tallied. And that is because we are now looking at something that is just a matter of brutal honesty in the United States. We have damages that no one is going to be able to repay. And even though that sounds like a very stark statement, the reality is that it is already turning out to be true, and the conversation nationally and statewide is also becoming quite predictable. People are already asking, “Will the federal government pay to rebuild these communities?”

Well, here’s the reality. Even the federal government has limited resources when it comes to a disaster of this scale. And then you also have people immediately saying, “Well, what about property insurance?” Well, for a matter of decades now, the state of California and property insurers have been at odds, and a part of this is because the very progressivist Democratic government there in California has been putting so many regulations on the insurance business that several of the major underwriters have simply moved out of the area. As a matter of fact, in Pacific Palisades, one of the major property insurers has simply stopped writing policies.

And then you have state initiatives, you have federal initiatives, you have disaster relief. But remember, disaster relief is not, at least in terms of the intention, a promise to rebuild an entire community, to rebuild thousands of houses that have been destroyed, thousands of churches, synagogues and schools and other structures, not to mention businesses. Now, this is where in the United States, property that is in private hands, private property comes with the responsibility of private insurance or some other means of covering an anticipated loss. But then there are just so many issues that come to fore here. For one thing, what is fair and equitable in terms of rebuilding this kind of community?

Well, here’s where you have plenty of evidence from the opposite coast, from, say, coastal Florida in the aftermath of hurricanes. That one of the realities is that when you have escalating property costs or property values, that sometimes you end up with a, say, low or moderately-priced structure that is destroyed on a piece of property that is inherently too valuable to build the same structure upon again. That is to say it just doesn’t make financial sense to rebuild the house that was destroyed, or the other structure. It just doesn’t make sense because of the escalating value of the real estate. Well, is that fair or not? Well, if you own the real estate, it’s fair in one sense because you have an escalating asset.

And then let’s say you had a piece of property and the house was worth say $100,000, the property was worth $100,000. Well, what if the property now is worth a million and a half and the structure is still worth $100,000? Well, no one is going to give you a mortgage to put a $100,000 structure on a $1.5 million lot, or let’s just say it’s going to be extremely difficult to justify that kind of transaction. But you’ll understand that that means that in the aftermath of this kind of tragedy, this kind of natural disaster, almost never are communities rebuilt to be exactly what they were before the disaster. And that’s because if you have an opportunity to start something like this over, you almost assuredly do not do it in the anachronistic and eccentric way, so many communities end up being put together over time.

You already see some other very interesting and predictable developments. For one thing, as I mentioned, Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles was actually in Africa when the worst of the fires began to break out. She did come back on a military transport, but she wasn’t there in the original hours of the tragedy in her own city. And then you also have the governor of the state, Gavin Newsom, a very Liberal Democrat, just like the mayor. And then you have President Joe Biden, also a Democrat, but he’s going out of office in a matter of a week. And then President-elect, former President Donald Trump is going to be President, and he has already established a pattern of conflict with Gavin Newsom, which is about as predictable as the fact that the sun will come up in the morning.

The political posturing is also interesting when you hear, for instance, Governor Newsom in response to questions about empty reservoirs, say none of the state’s reservoirs was empty. Now, wait just a minute, there have been images of empty reservoirs. Well, it turns out that what the governor meant was that none of the reservoirs under direct state control had been empty. But that then begs a whole series of questions, and right now, the most important thing is to put the fires out. But you can already see how you have all the political actors in motion getting ready for the debate after the fires are out. But right now, that appears to be days away.

Part II

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President Biden’s USA Today Interview: The President’s Cognitive Decline was on Display in the Interview – So What Will He Do in His Final Week as President?

Well, next, as we said, we’re coming up now on just the one-week mark of the presidential inaugurations, coming next Monday, one week from today, and so we’re going to look at a change in presidential administration in the United States. And in the days between the election, back on November the 5th, and Inauguration Day, the current President of the United States, Joe Biden, who, after all, a year ago was considered for sure to be the Democratic nominee and turned out not to be because of a disastrous debate and the revelations that made about the effects of age on him, the reality is that he has given one major interview to a print publication, and that was given to USA Today’s Susan Page.

Now, one of the things to note, by the way, is that just about every major national newspaper has had an article about this interview, but the interview was actually conducted by USA Today. The headline on the front page, “Biden Says He Could Have Won Re-Election But Maybe Not Served Four More Years.” Now, one of the things you note in this particular interview is the fact that the effects of aging and the cognitive decline in Joe Biden are as clear in this interview as they were in the debate, certainly if you’re looking at the context. Because just consider the two big things that we are told in this interview. Number one, Joe Biden says that he honestly believes that he could have beaten Donald Trump in the November 5th election if only he had remained the Democratic nominee.

Now, it is really interesting to note that Susan Page, who was conducting the interview for USA Today, and she’s been writing for an entire adult lifetime in terms of the American presidency and presidential elections, there is no doubt that she saw through the statement and even pressed the President on that statement. And he came back and said, “Well, you know you can’t say for certain.” But nonetheless, it is clear that he thinks that if he had been the nominee he could have won. But then he went on to say that he was not sure he could have served for four years.

Well, that is a massive revelation. As a matter of fact, it is such a big issue that once again you have to wonder if the President is capable of hearing himself talk. Because if indeed he said that he didn’t necessarily see himself serving at age 85 or 86, how old does he think he is now? The answer is 82. So just do some quick math. If he’s 82 now and he won a second four-year term, as dubious as his claim that he would have won had he been the nominee is on its face, nonetheless, if he had won it, he’s saying he’s not sure that he could have been an effective President at age 85 and 86. Which, by the way, in terms of his own projection would have been the third and fourth years of a second term in office.

Once again, the interview just demonstrates the kind of cognitive decline and confusion that is, well, in large part indicative of the kinds of things Joe Biden has said in interviews and in press context going back to the beginnings of his political career. He has often mangled words. Not a joke. But it is also true that President Biden at this point seems to have a particular problem understanding the reality even of what he is saying when the stakes are so high. So in any event, it is going to be very interesting. But President Joe Biden has one week left in office, and that also raises a huge question of what he may do in these last several days in office. Just consider the commutations, consider the pardons, consider the awards that were given, the Medals of Freedom. More on that in days to come.

And even today we’re going to talk more about the fact that just over the last several days, he has awarded the Medal of Freedom with Distinction to Pope Francis. He had intended to do so over the weekend on a state visit to Italy, which would have been the last of his foreign trips as President. But because of the fires in Los Angeles, he did not make the trip, but instead had the medal presented to the Pope on his behalf. More on that in just a moment. The point is there are still things he could do and still might do over the course of the last next few days. And just keep in mind that already he has issued executive orders, clearly trying to tie the hands of the incoming administration on many issues. At least if he doesn’t understand what he’s doing, those around him surely do.

Part III

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The Commendation of One Inconsistent Catholic to Another: President Biden Awards Medal of Freedom with Distinction to Pope Francis

But next, as I said, just over the weekend, on Saturday, the White House announced that the President had awarded to Pope Francis the Medal of Freedom with Distinction, and that is a rare level of the nation’s highest recognition, those words, “with distinction.” He was actually given the Medal of Freedom with Distinction by President Barack Obama; that is to say the Vice President, Joe Biden, then as Vice President of the United States, had received the same award from President Obama during his term. Now he has awarded it to Pope Francis. “Pope Francis, your humility and your grace are beyond words,” said the President, “and your love for all is unparalleled. You are a light of faith, hope, and love that shines brightly across the world.” As I said, the President had intended to present this to the Pope in person.

Now, one of the things to note is that when you’re looking at Pope Francis, the current Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, and you look at Joe Biden, a Catholic President, you’re looking at two very similar men. They are similar in terms of their outlook. They’re similar in terms of their politics. They’re similar in terms of, frankly, how closely they adhere to Catholic doctrine. Now remember, one of these is the President of the United States, the other is actually the Pope, and the point of being the Pope is to protect and to teach Roman Catholic doctrine. But when it comes to so many of the cutting-edge issues, and the LGBTQ array are out there, frankly Pope Francis has said so many things on both sides of the issue that there is absolutely no coherence to his position whatsoever. But then again, as I say, that’s what’s similar to Joe Biden.

When it comes to Joe Biden, here you have the famously pro-abortion President; and I mean it just the way I said it. At one point in his political career, he might have described himself as pro-choice. No longer. As of 2020, Joe Biden is on the record avidly pro-abortion. That’s in direct conflict, contradiction to the Roman Catholic Church and the Roman Catholic doctrine. But it’s really not a matter when it comes to Pope Francis. Pope Francis, so far as we know, has made no public comment about the President’s contradiction on this issue of Catholic teaching, but rather has accepted him as a Catholic.

And furthermore, he called, it is now documented, that he called President Biden to put pressure on him in terms of commuting death sentences when it came to federal prisoners. And then the White House turned around, the President did exactly what the Pope had requested in just a matter of days. By the way, disastrously so.

And we’ll be tracking this in future editions of The Briefing, but the commutations in this case were particularly disastrous because there were commutations of classes of crimes rather than criminals with a specific justification. And this means that you have the commutations of some people who, quite honestly, absolutely deserve the death penalty beyond question.

And furthermore, here’s the other interesting thing we’ll have to follow at a future date. Two of the federal prisoners on death row didn’t accept the commutation, because they intend to appeal their sentences. But anyway, going forward, it’s just important to recognize that in Pope Francis and in Joe Biden, you have a certain Catholic type, and it’s the Catholic type that is loudly Catholic but not particularly consistent when it comes to Catholic doctrine, Catholic moral teaching, Catholic positions on issues like sexuality and abortion. Now, when it comes to abortion, Pope Francis is unquestionably pro-life. 

Part IV

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The Pope Appoints Liberal Archbishop to DC: Watch as Legislation and Legislators Move Left as a Result

But in terms of how he looks at, for instance, the appointment of bishops and archbishops and cardinals in the United States, he has been moving the bishops in the United States by his own appointment process in a more Liberal direction, and a part of that is away from pro-life politics and pro-life policies. There is no doubt that as a matter of emphasis, Pope Francis does not put abortion at the top of the list. The President’s inconsistencies on this issue, and nonetheless his insistence of identifying publicly as Roman Catholic, it has aided and abetted his political role. And quite honestly, Catholic leadership in the United States has largely allowed him to get away with it.

When it comes to the Pope, a couple of other big stories. The Wall Street Journal reports on the first one. “Pope Francis has named Cardinal Robert McElroy, a critic of Donald Trump, as the next Archbishop of Washington DC two weeks before the president-elect takes office.” “The Pope is installing one of the country’s most progressive Catholic leaders to oversee the more than 600,000 faithful around the capital. Cardinal McElroy has been an ally to the Pope and a supporter of migrants and LGBT people. He has been the bishop of San Diego for nearly a decade, and the Pope named him a cardinal in 2022.” I can assure you that conservative Catholics in Washington and beyond are extremely disappointed, indeed even frustrated by this appointment. But this is the kind of appointment a Pope gets to make, unilaterally. And there it is. 

But it certainly points to the fact that in Washington DC, you’re now going to have a lLiberal Cardinal Archbishop rather than a conservative. And you can count on the fact that that’s going to make a lot of difference, because you’re going to have Roman Catholic legislators and political leaders who are going to claim the cover of the Roman Catholic Cardinal there in Washington as they move left. Just watch and see and understand.

Part V

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The Vatican’s New Guidelines Opens Door for Homosexual Priests: The New Guidelines Reveal Identity Politics Plus Moral and Theological Issues

The second big development came in a report in The New York Times. The Vatican has now stated that seminaries in Italy may be open to gay men. In fact, the headline in the article in The New York Times is simply this, “Seminaries in Italy Open to Gay Men, Vatican Says.” Well, there’s a big story here. It begins this way. “The Vatican has approved new guidelines for Italy that say an applicant for a seminary cannot be rejected simply because he is gay, if he remains celibate.” “The guidelines say that seminary directors should consider sexual orientation as only one aspect of a candidate’s personality.”

Speaking of the guidelines, the most important section is this. “They do not change the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching that homosexual tendencies are intrinsically disordered and that men with deep-seated gay tendencies should not become priests. But they clarify that if a candidate remains chaste, his sexual orientation should not disqualify him from entering the priesthood.” Now, of course, this is the kind of news that’s going to make the big secular newspapers here in the United States, and of course the left in the United States is going to think that this is exactly the direction the Roman Catholic Church should go.

But when you look at this in the context of the Roman Catholic Church and recent developments over the last several years, it is not clear that this is as big a story as The New York Times would have us to think. For one thing, there are an awful lot of conditionals in this paper. There’s an awful lot of conditionality written into these guidelines. And so it is a matter of may and should and might under certain circumstances, but nonetheless, it is an opening of sorts. But it does indicate that at least some in the Roman Catholic Church here, even in the process of say selecting young men to go to the seminaries to become priests, have bought into the idea that you can be chaste and still identify as LGBTQ.

Now, here’s one of the problems that, well, at least as evangelicals would understand, the identity politics side of this, the identity claim in this is itself a huge problem. And so even as we’re talking about patterns of temptation, yes, there’s some very real things, and we understand that is related even to this issue. But when you identify as LGBTQ, that is a particularly important step morally and politically, and it comes with consequences. And the Roman Catholic Church has dealt with such an avalanche of controversy and lawsuits and scandals over this issue, you would think that the Pope and the Vatican would be holding a very clear line on this issue.

And as you look at the guidelines, it is not clear that they have significantly retreated from the position of the judgment of homosexuality being intrinsically disordered. But at the same time, the very fact that they have written this ambiguity into the guidelines, and produced this kind of story in The New York Times, tells you that this is exactly what religious leadership should not do. This is exactly what, just watching as a lesson, looking at the Roman Catholic Church as an evangelical, this is exactly the kind of thing we must not do. It completely confuses the situation. If indeed there’s a material change in doctrine, then own it. But there isn’t a material change in doctrine here.

And this is where you also have many evangelicals, squishy leftist evangelicals who don’t want to admit they’re changing their position on the biblical teaching on homosexuality. On the other hand, they don’t want to hold that position too firmly either. And so you end up with a lot of people who want to claim evangelical identity, who quite frankly begin sounding like Pope Francis on this issue.

Part VI

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Conservative NT Scholar Turned LGBTQ Supporter: The Tragic Death of Richard Hays

But then, sadly, we have to turn to the story of the death of Richard B. Hays, former Dean of the Duke Divinity School and very prominent New Testament scholar. And listeners to The Briefing will recognize we discussed Richard Hays just in recent months because of the book he wrote with his son, Christopher Hayes, and it really represented an absolute reversal of his position on the compatibility of Christianity and homosexuality.

And it was the same Richard Hays who, years ago, had written a book entitled The Moral Vision of the New Testament. That was 1996, in which he made very clear that the clear teaching of the New Testament is that homosexual relationships cannot be affirmed by the church. In that 1996 book he had written, “The New Testament offers no loopholes or exception clauses that might allow for the acceptance of homosexual practices under some circumstances.” He went on to say that the New Testament “requires a normative evaluation of homosexual practice as a distortion of God’s order for creation.”

But in the book that he and his son released, The Widening of God’s Mercy, he did something very interesting. He did not change his understanding of how the New Testament presents homosexuality. As a matter of fact, he goes on to say that the New Testament position on homosexuality is absolute condemnation. But then he made the astounding argument with his son that God has changed his mind on the issue. And he did this by simply asserting that an evolution in the wideness or the widening of God’s mercy means that those who are involved in homosexual activity can be involved in relationships and should be blessed by the church in behaviors that are accepted by the church. And as I pointed out, theologically, this is abject disaster. It is total unconditional surrender.

In the obituary of Richard Hays published in The New York Times, they cited my words to that effect. But I want to make very clear the death of Richard Hays is a tragedy, and we grieve with his family, but we also have to grieve the fact that the headlines about his death are talking about the fact that in his last months the big story is how he came to the argument that God has changed his mind on homosexuality, changed his mind after the closure of the New Testament. And I do not have time today, except to say that is absolute disaster. It is absolute theological surrender. If you can say that on LGBTQ issues, you can say it about anything. And it’s not just that. Eventually you will say it about everything. If not you yourself, then your children and your grandchildren. This is the way Christianity is absolutely lost, and lost in an instant, just with the change of a few words.

Part VII

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A Parable of Moral Revolution: The Legacy of Anita Bryant According to the Secular Left

But finally, I have to end with the related front page article just in recent days in The New York Times. The headline is this, “Entertainer whose opposition to gay rights derailed career.” It’s about Anita Bryant, who in 1959 was catapulted into stardom as Miss Oklahoma and the second runner-up to the Miss America contest. Anita Bryant was a singer and she became known for several hits including Paper Roses and In My Corner of the World. But Anita Bryant also became very famous in the 1960s and in the 1970s for being the spokesperson and the celebrity for the Florida citrus industry, and she was known for commercials shown all over the nation in which she invited people to enjoy Florida orange juice.

But she really catapulted into the front page stature of this article by her opposition to a gay rights ordinance, one of the first in the nation adopted by Dade County, now that includes Miami, Florida, by Dade County and the Dade County Commission back in the mid-1970s. She responded by calling for a reversal of the ordinance, it eventually was reversed, and by leading a movement called Save Our Children. This led to a 1977 rally that was held in the Miami Beach Convention Center. That became a turning point. Many people say it was, at least in large part, the birth of what has been dismissed on the Liberal side as the new Christian right.

I was 17 years old at the time, and I went to that event with my parents and with others from my church. My church was just a few miles up the road from Dade County. But we went out of Christian concern, and I remember the event very clearly. I remember hearing Anita Bryant sing, and she most famously sang the Battle Hymn of the Republic. But I also remember that a preacher I’d never heard of before was the speaker for the event. That preacher was Jerry Falwell. And of course, all of America would hear about him quite quickly. But the point I want to make is this, when you consider the obituaries for Anita Bryant, and by the way, she lived a rather tragic life, particularly after the 1970s, a divorce, breakup of her family. You can just imagine the kind of stresses. And quite honestly, there were many evangelicals who didn’t know what to do with Anita Bryant after, say, the 1970s into the 1980s.

But I’ll tell you this, the gay rights movement knew what to do with her, and that is to make her the poster child, so to speak, in terms of opposition to the gay rights movement and to turn that into an engine for their own political purposes. And that’s why you have headlines such as the one found at Slate, “She Launched the Modern Anti-Gay Movement.” It went differently than she expected.” And one of the things you have to take into account is that when you go back to 1977, I can assure you there was an overwhelming consensus about the morality of sexuality at the time. And that was reversed over the course of the next several decades in a stunning reversal that quite honestly still staggers the imaginatio, reversing thousands of years of human experience and moral judgment, 2,000 years of the influence of Christianity.

It is still difficult to account for how this shift could have happened so quickly, if indeed it happened at all. But it has happened and it has utterly reshaped the world around us, right down to talking about the President of the United States awarding the Medal of Freedom with distinction to Pope Francis and how on this issue both of them represent a position far at odds with at least a consistent application even of Catholic moral teaching. And then you look at the rest of the country and you can see where the gay rights movement, as it was called in the beginning and what is now the LGBTQ movement, sees itself as in the driver’s seat in this culture. And to a considerable extent, it appears that they are.

One of the techniques used to marginalize Anita Bryant was to treat her as a freak show. And quite honestly, that’s the way it went. And that’s the threat that, same movement would try to apply to every single person who would stand in its way. And if you dare to stand in opposition to that movement, guess what? You will end up on the front page of The New York Times as an obituary and the movement will claim that you deserve the ridicule. But let’s remember this as we come to a conclusion for this edition of The Briefing, the LGBTQ movement is not going to have the last say.