Tuesday, May 13, 2025

Part I

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Have You 'Evolved' in Moral Conviction? Watching the Language of the Cultural Left, Certain That History is Moving Their Way

There are some patterns in terms of the way language is used that betray something far more important, something far deeper, which is actually in process. In particular as you look at the LGBTQ revolution, you look at the vast redefinition of the entire moral structure in Western civilization, you understand that there are certain logics that have been playing into this, certain dynamics that give a lot of energy to the revolutionaries.

One of those dynamics is the idea that some change in moral judgment is simply the process of evolution and that evolution is always from what should be left behind to what should be embraced now. The entire worldview of progressivism is you’ve got to progress, you’ve got to move forward, you’ve got to make progress from one position to another. At one point, there was an understanding that homosexual behavior was sinful, but now we have, through progress, arrived at a very different moral consensus, they make the argument, and that moral consensus is going to just continue to develop in a leftward direction.

All of this comes to light in graphic ways. As a matter of fact, in the recent election of the new pope of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Leo XIV, and of course the big question now is how will this pope pope? What’s he going to do? What’s going to be his use of the papal authority? What is going to be the direction of its pontificate? What’s this going to have to do with LGBTQ issues? That’s one of the big, big questions and the national media can’t stop asking this question. It just tells you who’s obsessed with this.

USA Today just yesterday ran an article, the headline: “LGBTQ+ advocates see hope in Pope Leo.” The subhead, ” “They look to his closeness to Francis.” Everyone’s trying to read the situation in the Roman Catholic Church. From our perspective today, the important thing is understanding how moral arguments are made and how moral movements clash and just detecting in a very significant way what is going on here, which is this argument about progressivism, about moral progress, always from traditionalism to a brave new future, leaving behind the morality that gave birth to Western civilization and now embracing something new. That’s the essence of the argument.

The big argument now is what will the new Pope mean for all of this. But what it means for us as evangelical Christians is here’s an argument we really need to track. USA Today offers this headline about LGBTQ+ advocates seeing Hope in the new Pope. But Mark Ramirez, the reporter in the story, says that there is guarded hope here. Francis DeBernardo identified as executive director of the New Ways Ministry identified further as a “national catholic outreach group promoting LGBTQ acceptance and equity.” Francis Bernardo said, “We’re going to take a wait and see approach.” Listen to this. “There’s a great possibility that he will have a positive effect on LGBTQ ministry.”

Now, everybody knows what’s going on here. The reporter knows exactly what’s going on. The man interviewed here knows exactly what’s going on and this is offered not just as an honest response to the question, what do you expect, it is also offered as public relations for the LGBTQ movement. But what turns out to be really interesting are statements made by the same man and by others of a similar perspective. Later, Meli Barber identified as president of DignityUSA today, a national organization we’re told working for LGBTQ inclusion in the Roman Catholic Church and society, said that 2012 was “a really different time in our church and our society.” Why the statement about 2012? Well, it’s because in 2012, the new pope, Pope Leo XIV then as Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, he had made statements very clearly indicating a negative moral judgment on homosexuality.

As a matter of fact, in an address given at the world’s Synod of Bishops in 2012, the man who is now the pope said then that “Western mass media is extraordinarily effective in fostering within the general public enormous sympathy for beliefs and practices that are at odds with the gospel. For example, abortion, homosexual lifestyle, euthanasia.” There is the new pope in a statement made now 13 years ago. Now, this is exactly the way this works, because if you have a Pope, Roman Catholics are going to have to look for everything the man has said and as indications about what he might say in the future, indications about what he might do on LGBTQ issues in the future.

That 2012 address reflects what would have to be understood as a rather conservative understanding of those issues: abortion, homosexual lifestyle, euthanasia. In one sense, evangelical Christians would agree those are at least the big three. Extended comments made also dated back to 2012 include this statement, “Catholic pastors who preach against the legalization of abortion or the redefinition of marriage are portrayed as being ideologically driven, severe, and uncaring.” Again, that’s a statement that would appear to come from a rather conservative perspective, but here’s something really, really interesting and an argument that was published in The Guardian.

The Guardian is a left-wing London newspaper. The response to that statement tells us also a great deal of what’s going on. DignityUSA identified as “a group that represents LGBTQ+ catholics” expressed concern about the Pope’s previous comments. One of the expressions of concern came down to this statement, “We note that this statement was made during the papacy of Benedict XVI when doctrinal adherents appeared to be expected.” Okay, so what exactly does that mean? It means that these who are pro-LGBTQ are saying yes, yes, yes, the pope did make those statements back in 2012 before he was pope, but “we note that this statement was made during the papacy of Benedict XVI,” the next words are crucial, “when doctrinal adherence appeared to be expected.”

So that’s in the past, not in the present. There once was a time, this statement obviously implies when doctrinal adherence appeared to be expected, but that statement reflects the indication that, at least in the view of those who made the statement “doctrinal adherence” doesn’t appear now to be expected. That raises another big point, by the way, which is that the doctrinal statements of the Roman Catholic Church on these issues have not changed period, haven’t changed one word period.

By the way, even as enormous authorities invested in a pope, the reality is that no pope acting responsibly can actually do much to change that official teaching without investing a great deal of energy collaborative with the bishops over a long period of time. That’s going to be very frustrating to the LGBTQ activists. What you see here is a posturing and it is interesting to see this posturing related to the new pope and the Roman Catholic Church. My point is we need to note this argument, because it’s the same kind of argument that is used against all Christian foundations on the issue of morality and doctrine.

But there’s something else going on in that USA Today article. I want to go back to it. It appeared just yesterday. It’s like a hand grenade here. It just goes off in the middle of the article. I want to note it. One of the persons cited in the article as expressing a hope that perhaps the new pope will be more liberal on these issues said, “Without knowing anything further about his stance, I just choose to be hopeful that his thinking has evolved and that we will see a continuation of the Francis Way and not see any backsliding on LGBTQ issues.” That is the person identified again as Meli Barber, the president of DignityUSA. The hand grenade is the word “evolved.”

That’s exactly what’s going on here. We need to understand it. We need to see it. We’re accustomed to it, but we still need to note it with great care, because this is another expression of that idea that moral progressivism is inevitably going to win the same way that evolution inevitably wins. You’ll notice that worldview is problematic in and of itself, but the point is they’re looking at evolution and they are saying that you look at the Roman Catholic Church, what it needs to do is evolve on these issues. You look at Pope Francis compared to Pope Benedict XVI. What’s the difference? Pope Francis had evolved on these issues. After the expectation of the new pope, well, this is a group that is at least expressing hope that he too has evolved on these issues. Evolved since when? Well, those statements, by the way in 2012 evolved since then, 13 years of potential evolution.

They’re at least investing their hope in that, but the Pope will answer that question in due time. My concern is that evangelical Christians look at this and see this is exactly the way the culture works. Well, the pope will eventually answer these questions, but my point is not to focus on the pope and the Roman Catholic Church in this respect, but rather to understand the evangelical Christian paradox. We are in a situation in which the larger world around us has, for some time now, believed that it was moving in a direction of what it would define as moral progressivism, overcoming the oppression and the authority, for example, of the Christian Church in terms of its moral judgments, and instead entering a brave new secular age in which oppression is going to be alleviated and liberation is going to be brought in all of this as a process of inevitable, unstoppable evolution.

Just to bring this to a conclusion, Christians do understand that thinking changes, that cultures change. We do not believe that there is any inevitability that this will be in the direction of any genuine progress. As a matter of fact, we should be very much aware of our concern that such a development would not be towards truth but away from it, not towards human flourishing but at the expense of it. We also have to note that our understanding of moral judgment is that it is based in reality. It is based in truth. It is based in even ontology. It is based in creation order. Those things are not evolving. Our commitment to hold to that which is true. That’s what is made necessary. That’s what’s foundational to the Christian worldview. As to the judgment of those around us, it may evolve or it may devolve. The point is it needs to be corrected by objective truth, not by some kind of myth of secular progress.

Part II

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The Report on Mifepristone Has Struck a Nerve: The Left’s Response to the EPPC's Report Reveals Deadly Commitment to Abortion

But next, as we’re considering how moral arguments are debated in the public square, we need also to note the kind of ideological combat that takes place and how framing becomes very important. Framing is the process by which both sides try to say, “Here’s the reality. Here’s what’s most important. Here’s how we should see this.” Sometimes you have a war of arguments going back and forth. Example, over the abortion pill. Those who have been pushing for the abortion pill and for expanded use of the abortion pill and for the dropping of requirements such as in-clinic visits and supervision in terms of the abortion pill, those who are pushing for the abortion pill because they want ever more widespread abortion. By the way, it’s used in now, we’re told, about two-thirds of abortions.

You have a war between the pro-abortion pill side and the anti-abortion pill side, which means the pro-life side in this case. And a big volley, as we discussed on The Briefing, was launched in recent days when the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. released a massive study debunking the claims that there are few medical complications to the use of mifepristone, the primary abortion pill pharmaceutical. As you’re looking at this, you recognize you’re going to see a battle of arguments going back and forth on these things. Right now, by the way, we see two of these right before our eyes. We just discussed on The Briefing the battle that is going on right now with the release of the report on transgender care as it’s sometimes described for children and minors, the health and human services report here in the United States, following on the heels of the Cass Review in the United Kingdom.

We have seen how you have the media going back and forth, the two sides going back and forth on this. Well, now we have it on the mifepristone question in this EPPC report, which is, by the way, stellar work and really important, showing that the pro-abortion pill side has basically been misrepresenting the genuine risk posed by mifepristone in terms of bleeding, other complications that come with the use of the drug. Now, you have the pushback and the pushback is coming, for example, in an article in The Guardian by Moira Donegan. The headline in this article, “Conservatives are Trumpeting a New Abortion Pill Study. One Problem, it’s Bogus.” Okay, well, when the word bogus is used in this kind of context, you can pretty much count on the fact that bogus is bogus.

Let’s take a closer look at the argument. The argument is that the anti-abortion movement, as she describes it, including several prominent Republican lawmakers, she says, is seeking to undo wider availability of the abortion pill. This is in the aftermath of the 2022 Dobbs decision. You also now have the claim, by the way, made in this article that as many as one out of five, 20%, of abortions in the US are now accessed via telehealth appointments, “a technological marvel that has allowed many people living in anti-choice states to avert the worst consequences to their lives.”

Just understand the propaganda that you see here. This is a very liberal newspaper. The Guardian is infamously liberal in the spectrum of the British media. Honestly, there’s not a national newspaper in the United States that quite fulfills this function. Although at times, I think USA Today is trying. 

But the bottom line I want us to see in this is that when you see this argument, it means, well, a nerve has been hit, that Ethics and Public Policy Center study has definitely hit a nerve. It’s because it focuses moral attention on the harm caused to women by the abortion pill. Now, of course, as Christians, we’re concerned with a harm to the unborn child by the abortion pill, but focusing public attention on the genuine harms to the women taking the pill and the genuine harms that were basically glossed over, if not openly denied by propagandists for the abortion pill, that’s a very important moral argument.

The fact that that argument is now gaining traction indicates why there is this response, but there’s something else very interesting in this. If you’re going to argue from the abortion right side that this is bogus, how are you going to make the argument? Well, you’re going to say you’re going to question the research. That’s exactly what’s happening in the transgender questions, we saw the battle of the reports, but you’re also going to have very vague statements made, which is exactly what takes place here. That’s why I’ve drawn attention to the word bogus. Bogus is not a scientific word. If you’re using that about some kind of scientific argument, your argument about what’s bogus just might be bogus.

But the second thing you’ll do is you’ll just say it’s all about politics. This is where we reached my favorite paragraph in this atrocious article. And in it cites a United States Senator Josh Hawley. How does it identify Senator Hawley, republican senator from the state of Missouri as “the author of a book on ‘manhood.’” Manhood’s put in quotation marks. Okay. Now you have a British newspaper trying to scare readers that there’s actually a United States senator who dares to write a book on manhood, but The Guardian is signaling its discomfort with that category by even putting the word manhood in quotation marks as if the Republican senator just made it up. 

By the way, forgive me, but I’m going to insert at this point that I had a wonderful Thinking in Public conversation with Senator Hawley about his book on manhood without scare quotes and you can find that at my website.

But going back, it’s really important to look at this article and understand this is one of those signals on the Left that’s supposed to set off all kinds of alarms. This is a senator who dared to write a book on manhood, put in scare quotes, so we can’t trust anything he would say about abortion. But the real issue is what follows. The Guardian says that the senator “went on to urge the FDA to restrict access to the drug and revert to pre-pandemic regulations in which mifepristone could only be dispensed by a doctor after multiple in-person visits, ‘a regulatory regime that would cut off abortion access to millions of women in anti-choice states.'” Notice the reference to “anti-choice states” but also notice that this is the great threat of cutting off abortion access to those millions of women identified here in anti-choice states. Notice there’s no indication of concern for their health at all.

It’s just the worst possible condition would be a restriction in abortion access. That tells you again about the ideology of the Left. The worst thing imaginable is a situation in which there is no access to abortion under any and all circumstances simply as a matter of will. At vox.com, Rachel Cohen offers an article which they headlined: “The anti-abortion movement’s plan to restrict access to abortion pills.” Now, what I want to point to there is the simplicity of that headline, which by the way is absolutely accurate. That is exactly what the pro-life movement is seeking to do. That is to restrict access to abortion pills. That’s at least a very important step.

Over at The Washington Post, representing one of the big brands in the mainstream media, Glenn Kessler offers an article headlined: “Fact checking a study on the safety of the abortion pill.” It’s presented as a more dispassionate argument, not so much ad hominem as you saw in The Guardian article, but you have scare quotes here too. For example, “We dug into the EPPC report, which calls the use of mifepristone, ‘chemical abortions’ and posed 20 questions to EPPC, et cetera.” Well, notice that line, which says that the Ethics and Public Policy Center report calls the use of mifepristone “chemical abortions.” Well, what would Glenn Kessler call such use of mifepristone? It certainly is about an abortion, because after all they call it an abortion pill. But in this case, it is likely that what is attempted here by putting chemical abortions in quotation marks is that those who are for the use of the pill and even expanded use of the pill would refer to this as a medical abortion.

Now, why would that be medical as opposed to anything else? It is because on the pro-abortion side, there’s an effort to say there are basically now two forms of abortion. There are medical abortions, that’s pill or pills, and surgical abortions, and that is exactly what you know it is. But the branding, the language is everything. In moral combat, words matter. Every single word matters. And in this case, the use of the term chemical abortions is evidently offensive to some and they’re going to have to call it something. They would rather call it medical than chemical. But you know what? Chemical is exactly what it is. Here’s the other reason medical is so morally wrong as the category here. It is because medicine is about saving life, not taking life. It is about curing disease, not inflicting death. But the important thing for all of us is recognizing how all of this vocabulary betrays the big moral issues that are right there before our eyes.

Part III

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Blue Dots in Red States: Utah and Idaho Cities Adopt Official LGBTQ Flags to Get Around State Laws

All right. While we’re thinking about how moral change takes place and even when you look at the map, you’re looking at a complex moral reality. As we often remark, the closer you get to a city, the closer you get to a coast, the closer you get to a campus, the more liberal any population becomes, regardless of whether you’re in a red state or a blue state. In some red states you have some blue dots usually associated with something like a college or university campus or, for that matter, state capital. In almost all states, even in red states, the state capitals are more liberal. A part of that is simply because of the administrative state, because of how many people are actually working for the state, the state government, or at least a part of the economy entirely dependent upon government spending and all the rest. You also have the knowledge class, other developments that are concentrated in those capital cities, a couple of other observations.

When you get into the mountain west, things get a little complicated, because there’s always been an overlay even in red states there of a worldview that you could even describe as something like new age. It’s a libertarian, often a mystical worldview. There are even tourist attractions and other institutions in some of those western states that lean into that in a big way. As you look at Salt Lake City in Boise, that’s at least a part of what’s going on. Salt Lake City, at least you think almost immediately in terms of the influence of the Latter-day Saints of the Mormon Church. You would also think in Boise about the deep red conservatism of Idaho.

Why are we talking about those two cities? It is because in recent days, both of those cities have moved to adopt official city flags that include LGBTQ pride symbolism. Why did they do so? Why did they adopt them as official city flags? That is because both of the states, Utah and Idaho, adopted legislation, saying that there are to be no non-official flags at schools or in government buildings. These very liberal cities when it comes to these issues, especially when it comes to LGBTQ pride in Salt Lake City and in Boise, the city government said, “Well, we’ll beat you at that game because we will make it not a non-official flag. We’ll make it an official flag incorporating one way or another, or at least in some of these cases in more ways than one, this kind of pride symbolism.”

Now, it’s an official city flag. Now, it can fly over government buildings and schools. Take that, conservative state leaders. We beat you at your own game. Republican-dominated state legislators in Utah and Idaho thought that they had solved a problem by adopting legislation that would limit flags flown over such buildings to the United States flags, state flags, flags of other countries or states and college and military flags. But in unflagging effort to push the LGBTQ agenda, these cities, which are again very blue dots in this respect, in very red states, they move just to adopt the pride symbolism within an official city flag. As Christians, we just need to be aware of the constant worldview combat frankly that’s going on around us, going on in the language, going on a news coverage where scare quotes are used even around a word like manhood.

When you look for example at the flags that are now official city flags in Boise and in Salt Lake City, not by accident, they’re different now than they were a year ago, but this points to something else. And that is the fact that if you’re about cultural revolution, you’re about filling the public space with your symbolism and your messaging. Make no mistake, this is no small matter. The gay pride movement is about putting in our face all the time, even on government buildings and even at schools, a moral agenda, which after all we believe is nothing less than the undoing of Western civilization. Those who are pushing this agenda understand that they win or at least they make advance by normalizing in mainstreaming and institutionalizing their arguments in symbols that they fly quite observably in this case on a flagpole.

Part IV

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Kermit the Frog, Coming to a Commencement Ceremony Near You? The ‘Who’s Who’ of Graduation Speakers Has an Embarrassing Amphibian Guest

Well, finally, for today’s edition of The Briefing, in all likelihood, at least a good many of you attended at least one commencement or graduation ceremony over the course of the last several weeks. Tis the season these things are taking place, including right here on this campus, but I think it is interesting to note who the commencement speakers were at many institutions. They’re trying to make a statement. For example, the New York Times ran an article on the who’s who of who is speaking at some very prominent graduations. In several big flagship state universities, the governor of the state is speaking. That is true in New Hampshire and Vermont and Virginia.

Governor Glenn Youngkin in Virginia is going to speak at both Liberty University and then at the University of Virginia’s College At Wise we are told and that’s already taken place by now. Charlie Baker, the former governor of Massachusetts, who’s the current head of the NCAA, spoke to graduates at Colby College and there were a good many other governors. Maura Healey of Massachusetts, Ned Lambert, Ned Lamont of Connecticut, Westmore of Maryland, JB Pritzker of Illinois, Tim Walz of Minnesota, Steve Bullock of Montana, they spoke, but I don’t think you’ll probably find all that very interesting.

I think the most interesting aspect in terms of the list of commencement speakers and major universities of this season is the announcement that the commencement speaker at the University of Maryland was Kermit the Frog. Now at other schools you had Nobel Prize winners, you had prominent person, statespeople, governors, senators, a large number of predictable speakers at an event of this kind of dignity. What in the world are you thinking when, as the New York Times says, you invite “the amphibious orator of The Muppets” to speak at the University of Maryland?

The New York Times thought it was funny enough to say that the Maryland hosts would have to apologize for not having green among their school’s colors. But as we’re thinking about the fall of civilization and civilizational decline, something that comes slowly and then we’re told, as with bankruptcy all at once, it seems that at least one very key marker of cultural decline would have to do with a talking frog as the commencement speaker at the University of Maryland.

In this case, it’s not even interesting to know what the frog said, only that according to the university itself, it was honored to have the frog speak. I guess I’m going to let that go by saying I don’t think that says a great deal about Kermit the Frog, but it does say a lot about the University of Maryland, perhaps even more about the state of higher education in the United States. But then again, perhaps you hear that and think, “Well, Mohler’s just one of those cranky old men on The Muppets.” Well, deal with it.