Friday, June 10, 2022

Part I

---

Where Did All the ‘Women’ Go?: The Cultural Disappearance of Women in the Wake of Language Shift Towards ‘Pregnant People’

Have you noticed in our society who’s increasingly missing? Women. Women are missing. Now, don’t look around the room. You’re likely to find just as many women as you would expect. So where are women disappearing? In America’s public discourse, in the language used by Americans. Why are women disappearing? It is because of the transgender revolution and the fact that the word women is now being replaced with such terms as pregnant people. This is not a small difference. This is not a slight change. This is a transformation of society. And as even many in the medical community understand, it is coming with lightning speed. Couple of things to note, when you think about the long march through the institutions, medicine is one of those institutions.

If you want to bring about a total revolution in society, like the cultural Marxist, they have told us ahead of time, they’ve been determined to do. Then you have to go through the institutions. Medicine is one of those institutions. But as we have seen, if you were to take say all the subjects of human learning and say these are the soft disciplines and these are the hard disciplines, you’ve had that kind of language going on for years, having to do with the liberal arts and the humanities on one side, math and science like physics and biology on the other side. You’ve had the statement even during the first postmodern turn, say in the 1980s, the statement that, well, indeed, you can deconstruct history. It’s going to be really difficult to deconstruct math.

Take an equation like two plus two equals four, but give the left ingenuity, they have now arrived at math and biology and medicine. The phrase pregnant people is just one sign of the confusion into which we are now headed. Now, this is catching the attention of at least two constituencies that are efficiently all for the revolution, but at least they have noted this isn’t going particularly well. This is a problem. For example, yesterday’s front page of the New York Times included an article. Now remember, the front page of the New York Times, liberal newspaper, perhaps the most influential newspaper in the United States and from the United States and that means throughout the world. You’re looking at a very liberal newspaper that ran the headline vanishing word in abortion debate, women. The subhead in the article, “a move toward the use of pregnant people.” And yes, I’m going to have to use this term, chest feeding.

The second place I want to point out where there are some second thoughts about all of this is in the medical community. We’ll get to that in just a moment. Let’s start with the New York Times. Michael Powell, the reporter in the story, this is something that you have probably noted. I have been following this for some time and expanding file on my desk about the replacement of women with such phrases as pregnant people or humans with uteruses. Well, here you have the New York Times taking note, telling us, “the American Civil Liberties Union, whose advocacy on reproductive rights is of more than a half century vintage recently tweeted its alarm about the precarious state of legal abortion. This is what the ACLU, the American Civil Liberties Union said. “Abortion bans disproportionately harm black indigenous and other people of color, the LGBTQ community, immigrants, young people, those working to make ends meet, people with disabilities.” Protecting abortion access said the ACLU is an urgent matter of racial and economic justice.

But if you noted all that intersectionality, that’s the claim that you have intersecting points of minority status and thus of oppression, you’ll notice that the most often cited when it comes to matters of sexuality and gender just disappeared. What’s interesting is not so much who’s on that list, but who’s not. We’re talking about abortion. The main argument for abortion made by abortion rights activists is that it is a woman’s right, but the right’s still here. Who’s disappeared? The woman, the word woman, or any related term related to women has absolutely disappeared from the case the ACLU has made for abortion. It is increasingly about pregnant people, not about women.

Now, what about the absence of women? Michael Powell explains, “This was not an oversight, nor was it peculiar to the language favored by the ACLU.” He went on to say, “Language has been changing fast even as the Supreme Court appears poised to overturn a constitutional guarantee to abortion rights and progressives face the task of spearheading opposition.” The next statement is crucial. “From Planned Parenthood to NARAL, that used to be known as the National Abortion Rights Action League, NARAL pro-choice America to the American Medical Association to city and state health departments and younger activists the word women has in a matter of a few years appeared far less in talk of abortion and pregnancy.”

Well, if anything, that’s clearly an understatement. It is not just that the word woman or women is appearing far less. It is the fact that it is officially now opposed by many. And those many are described here as allies and activists in the transgender revolution or those who simply deny, you’ve heard this phrase before, the gender binary.

We often talk about the velocity of the moral revolution. Michael Powell cites this himself. Again, front page article in the New York Times. “This speed of change is evident in 2020 NARAL issued a guide to activists on abortion that stressed they should talk about a woman’s choice.” Two years later, the same guide emphasized the need for gender neutral language.”

Okay, let’s stop here for a moment. Let’s consider the issue of velocity in moral revolutions. Let’s just consider, just to give an example that if you look at the history of say the effort to try to end the slave trade, that took something like 100 to 150 years. And by the way, that wasn’t just a legal change, it was a moral change. It was a change in society from making the moral judgment that it was okay to be involved in the slave trade to making it not only illegal, but frankly, a matter that was morally unthinkable.

But as you’re looking at other issues, say the civil rights movement, it took at least a half century. Indeed, you could argue it’s taken a great deal more than that. You look at other efforts, efforts to try to, for instance, liberalize divorce that took at least 80 to 100 years. Efforts to try to redefine marriage. Well, let’s just say that’s only as old on a national basis in the United States as the year 2015. Just about everyone listening to The Briefing today was alive then. But when you’re talking about the LGBTQ revolution and you’re talking about the T transgender, well, I think you’ve noticed by now it’s coming with the speed without parallel in human experience.

You’re also looking at a change that can be documented right here into two years. The years between 2020 and 2022, with just one liberal organization, the pro-abortion organization known as NARAL Pro-Choice America. Two years ago, it was actually telling its activists they should use the term woman as in a woman’s choice back there again in ancient history. 2020, that long ago in the blink of an eye, basically, since we have been talking about COVID-19, the rules of language have fundamentally changed. Now, NARAL is telling its own activist don’t use the term woman. And as a matter of fact, you better watch your language lest you be accused of a failure to deploy gender neutral language.

Okay. Now, let’s just talk about the depth of this rebellion. How deeply in a rebellion does one have to go until you’re replacing the word woman with supposedly pregnant people? Well, by the way, Christians believe in pregnant people. We certainly do. In fact, we rejoice in pregnant people, but those pregnant people are first and most fundamentally known as females known as women. And even as you’re looking throughout the entirety of human history, and frankly, even as you’re looking at biology, right now, there is no human being who is pregnant, who is not female. And thus, if an adult is not a woman.

The whole idea, the ideology of the gender revolutionaries and the most important cutting edge in that is the transgender revolution. The most radical jump those activists are saying, “No, that’s just not true, because you now have genders separated from sex.” You have biological sex, it’s back there, but gender’s the big issue. Now, we deny biological sex and we explicitly deny that biological sex implies gender. And so now, even when talking about biology, we talk about pregnant people. Well, there are actually other terms that are used here. And I mentioned one of them before, I’m not going to repeat it, but there are others that are extremely graphic and they are intended to be used in public using particular organs, particular physical dimensions, describing human beings as human beings with those.

There is actually a kind of terminology that is appearing of course, for men as well, because the transgender revolution supposedly works not only both ways but all ways, an infinite number of ways. For example, in the medical community, there are those who are now talking about individuals who are prostate havers, those who have a prostate, otherwise known as men or as males as boys or as men. Most boys don’t know they have one. Men eventually figure out they actually do. Trying to defend this, to explain this revolution, a deputy legal director for the ACLU Louise Melling explained, “Language evolves, and it can exclude or it can include.” “It’s really important to me,” she said, “that we think about pregnant people, it’s the truth. Not only women give birth, not only women seek abortion.”

Well, we’re just going to have to disagree with that. Not just a little bit, but in totality. But there you look at the collision between reality, truth and for that matter, the entire order of creation and the basis of civilization throughout the entirety of human experience, that’s on one side. On the other side is the ridiculous ideology of the transgender and gender revolutionaries. And what they’re basically calling for is don’t trust what you see. Don’t trust who you are. Don’t trust even your genetic makeup. Don’t trust your doctor two years ago. Just trust us. You are who you say you are. You are who you think you are. Everyone else, including medical professionals, doctors, nurses, researchers, you get on the list is going to have to adjust.

But I think it’s important before I leave this article to point out that the very appearance of this article on the front page of the New York Times tells us something. And the very fact that the New York Times is acknowledging this just might not be going so smoothly. That tells us something. Now, it doesn’t tell us anything about the retreat to the revolutionaries. Indeed, the article makes very clear what you already know. The revolutionaries are undeterred. They’re undeterred by the fact that the revolution’s not going all that smoothly because they are undeterred by biology. If you could be undeterred by biology, well, ladies and gentlemen, you can be undeterred by anything.

And furthermore, let’s just rehearse a basic fact of human existence. It still takes a mommy and a daddy to make a baby. And one more fact, daddy’s not given birth to the baby. One thing that will not happen is that a human infant is not going to pass through a male pelvis. The language police may try to force any number of compromises and surrenders upon us. But the one thing they can’t do is make the impossible happen.

But what you have here is the fact that they’re making the impossible linguistic, and they are seeking to make the language obligatory. And so the moral revolution is taking place at the expense of objective truth, the order of creation, the entire moral order of the universe, but it’s really not slowing down.

Part II

---

Biomedical Researcher Argues for Usefulness of Term ‘Woman’ in Healthcare — In the Ancient Year of 2020

As I said, I’ve been working on this issue for a very long time. Indeed, since the publication of my book, We Cannot Be Silent dealing with these issues and the revolution. The revolution’s speeding up on this issue and that’s what we need to note. But I have been building a file. And that file is where I’m going to turn right now, because in addition to this front page article in the New York Times, that is a good catalyst for our discussion, there’s some interesting serious discussion in the medical literature.

Now, here’s the thing. The medical establishment, just to give one example, I mentioned the Lancet in the United Kingdom, the most oft cited, the most venerable medical journal in Great Britain, it’s doing everything it can to join the revolution. Many others are trying to do the same. You see the incredible pressure being brought on and even by groups, such as the American Medical Association.

One article I want to mention has appeared in the British Medical Journals by Sarah Dolan. And in this particular editorial piece, she is arguing against just collapsing the category of women into pregnant people. She says it being done in the name of gender inclusivity, but is being done at the expense of, well, the vast majority of females who are very glad, indeed, insistent upon being recognized as such.

My favorite part of this editorial is when there’s a citation from Lord Hunt, he is a member of the House of Lords in the British parliament. Now, remember, lord and lady are gender specific terms, but in this case, this member of the House of Lords seems to be confused by the kind of change in language that wants to speak about persons with this or that rather than men and women, males and females, boys and girls. He simply asked, “Do we really want to use these terms?” The very same editorial raised the deeper issue, “A deeper concern is whether gender inclusive linguistic changes could have the unintended consequence of making biological sex conceptually less visible and much more difficult to clearly explain in healthcare and medical education.”

Well, that’s sort of like asking, is water wet? The answer is implicit in the question. That’s exactly what is going to happen. By the way, in another academic paper, the same researcher, Sarah Dolan, this journalist, the new bioethics, she notes and I quote, “Biological sex is fixed, set by empirically observable, genetic and developmental factors. Humans cannot change biological sex.” She goes on to say “That such physical changes may be achieved through inducement of secondary sex characteristics via administration of cross sex hormones, surgical alteration.” I’m not going to read further there. “Or excision of reproductive organs. However, the notion that these interventions actually change an individual’s underlying sex is untrue. And she went on to say, and I quote, “If this were true, this position would imply that the reproductive system a person was born with no longer holds relevance to the meaning of the word sex, uncoupling the concept from its role when describing the mechanism of human sexual reproduction.”

Now, I just want to underline the fact that is common sense. It’s objectively true, and it’s likely to get her in big trouble. That article appeared in the new bioethics long ago in ancient history in the year 2020. It is already politically incorrect. And what you see now is the circling of the wagon so to speak. Throughout professions, throughout institutions, throughout different levels of society saying you better get with this revolution fast, you potentially pregnant person.

Well, there’s much more to be said about that. We’ll be tracking that issue. It’s just humbling. Indeed, it’s quite bracing to consider the challenge of the sexual revolution, gender revolution before us and the velocity of it as well. Who knows what we’re going to be talking about two years from now as if now, the present time, is ancient history.

As I said, I’ve been working on this issue for a very long time. Indeed, since the publication of my book, We Cannot Be Silent dealing with these issues and the revolution. The revolution’s speeding up on this issue and that’s what we need to note. But I have been building a file. And that file is where I’m going to turn right now, because in addition to this front page article in the New York Times, that is a good catalyst for our discussion, there’s some interesting serious discussion in the medical literature.

Now, here’s the thing. The medical establishment, just to give one example, I mentioned the Lancet in the United Kingdom, the most oft cited, the most venerable medical journal in Great Britain, it’s doing everything it can to join the revolution. Many others are trying to do the same. You see the incredible pressure being brought on and even by groups, such as the American Medical Association.

One article I want to mention has appeared in the British Medical Journals by Sarah Dolan. And in this particular editorial piece, she is arguing against just collapsing the category of women into pregnant people. She says it being done in the name of gender inclusivity, but is being done at the expense of, well, the vast majority of females who are very glad, indeed, insistent upon being recognized as such.

My favorite part of this editorial is when there’s a citation from Lord Hunt, he is a member of the House of Lords in the British parliament. Now, remember, lord and lady are gender specific terms, but in this case, this member of the House of Lords seems to be confused by the kind of change in language that wants to speak about persons with this or that rather than men and women, males and females, boys and girls. He simply asked, “Do we really want to use these terms?” The very same editorial raised the deeper issue, “A deeper concern is whether gender inclusive linguistic changes could have the unintended consequence of making biological sex conceptually less visible and much more difficult to clearly explain in healthcare and medical education.”

Well, that’s sort of like asking, is water wet? The answer is implicit in the question. That’s exactly what is going to happen. By the way, in another academic paper, the same researcher, Sarah Dolan, this journalist, the new bioethics, she notes and I quote, “Biological sex is fixed, set by empirically observable, genetic and developmental factors. Humans cannot change biological sex.” She goes on to say “That such physical changes may be achieved through inducement of secondary sex characteristics via administration of cross sex hormones, surgical alteration.” I’m not going to read further there. “Or excision of reproductive organs. However, the notion that these interventions actually change an individual’s underlying sex is untrue. And she went on to say, and I quote, “If this were true, this position would imply that the reproductive system a person was born with no longer holds relevance to the meaning of the word sex, uncoupling the concept from its role when describing the mechanism of human sexual reproduction.”

Now, I just want to underline the fact that is common sense. It’s objectively true, and it’s likely to get her in big trouble. That article appeared in the new bioethics long ago in ancient history in the year 2020. It is already politically incorrect. And what you see now is the circling of the wagon so to speak. Throughout professions, throughout institutions, throughout different levels of society saying you better get with this revolution fast, you potentially pregnant person.

Well, there’s much more to be said about that. We’ll be tracking that issue. It’s just humbling. Indeed, it’s quite bracing to consider the challenge of the sexual revolution, gender revolution before us and the velocity of it as well. Who knows what we’re going to be talking about two years from now as if now, the present time, is ancient history.

Part III

---

Do Babies Go to Heaven? — Dr. Mohler Responds to Letters from Listeners of The Briefing

Now, let’s turn to the Mailbox.

And next week we’re going to take even more questions. We’re going to reserve time on next Friday’s edition of The Briefing, we’re going to spend just about all the time taking questions because you’re sending so many good ones.

But today, we want to turn to a few questions for one thing, a question that comes in from a student pastor saying with abortion becoming more of the conversation, the student pastor ask, “Is there a time of innocence for a baby? Essentially,” he says, “I understand we do have a sinful nature, but if the baby has not given up to that sinful nature and die or is aborted in the womb, will they go to heaven?”

Well, I wrote an article about this. Indeed, a major book chapter about this. I did so with Danny Akin, who is now the president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. And we did so because as we were ministering together, both in the context of the seminary and in the local church, we were confronted by parents who had suffered and experienced the death of children, either prenatally or as babies or infants. And the question came up, will we meet our baby in heaven? Will our baby be in heaven? And here’s where I want to answer the question in a way that I think may have been best answered by Charles Spurgeon, that great Victorian Baptist evangelical pastor, who said, “We can be assured that our little ones, our children, our babies in particular, infants will be in heaven.” And by that, we mean those who die in infancy.

We mean those that we wouldn’t look at and say “That particular baby has ever sinned.” And this youth pastor sets the issue up quite biblically by saying, first of all, that we all have a sin nature. Indeed, the scripture says all has sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The Bible makes clear that we do not have to actively sin in our human lives, our entire lifespan in order to be guilty of sin. And that means inevitably eternally separated from God. You wonder where I’m going with this? Well, this is the scripture. The Scripture tells us not just that Adam sinned and it was imputed to us. The Scripture language also tells us that in Adam we sinned.

So even as you’re looking at an infant in the crib, has that infant sinned in his or her conscious life? No, not in the form of any kind of disobedience or misbehavior. That little baby’s never told a lie. That baby has never used subterfuge. That baby is not showing arrogance or pride other than just being a baby who believes that those needs need to be dealt with right now. No, but the baby does have a sin nature. And in Adam, that baby sinned. And so that means that without Christ, there is no hope. But we’re not talking about there being no hope because we are talking about Christ. We’re talking about the atonement that the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished, for whom did Jesus die, for whom will his sins atone, who will be in heaven.

Well, for those who are say older than infancy, the reality is that the Bible holds out only one way of coming to saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and that is precisely faith coming to him by faith, believing. For God to love the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. Well, then you say, “Well, how do you get the babies being in heaven?”

Well, for one thing, as we’re looking at the pattern of biblical theology, we understand the justice of God and God is just in sending every single sinner to hell eternally. But there’s absolutely nothing in the scripture that suggests that those who have never sinned consciously are in hell. And as a matter of fact, the scripture says that those who are in hell will be punished because of the sins they committed in the flesh. And that means consciously. And so I’ll just tell you, there’s no proof text. And I want to be honest about that. There’s no proof text that says we can be certain that babies who die in infancy will go to heaven. But I believe on the basis of biblical theology that Charles Spurgeon and others have been absolutely right. And I don’t believe those babies are saved in any way, apart from the atonement accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ. But even as sin is imputed to them, I believe that according to the promise of God, he will impute belief and thus the righteousness of Christ to those whom he chooses.

David, you recall in the Old Testament was certain that he would see his dead infant in heaven. He was certain of that. I believe that Christian parents believing in the promises of God should be assured of that also.

Let me just also state that with today’s program, as it’s posted on the internet, I’m going to ask that that article be posted as well. We will post that article entitled, “The Salvation of the Little Ones.” And in that article, I go into greater length. And my hope is you will find that helpful.

Part IV

---

Should We Have a Burial Service For Baby After Miscarriage? — Dr. Mohler Responds to Letters from Listeners of The Briefing

Similar question coming in from bereaved parents. These bereaved parents tell us that they recently suffered a miscarriage and their precious baby was about 13 weeks of gestation. We’re told that a volunteer group has a practice of group burial for those babies who die during gestation by miscarriage. He says, “While our church has been very supportive, no one seems to know what we should do.” And he asks, is the burial provided appropriate? What, if any, service should be performed?

Well, first of all, I want to say to this father and to your wife, the mother, I just want to say that the heart of every Christian should be with you. The loss which comes with miscarriage is a true loss. It is a loss that in general the Christian church has incompetently handled. I say that with grief, the Christian Church should pause, should pray, should observe, should grieve the death of any child by miscarriage. And frankly should minister to the parents of that child within the church, not only with grace and with prayer and with thoughts, but with some kind of formal response.

Now, that really comes down sometimes to the parents and what will be most helpful for those grieving parents. But I believe that there should be a structured way. And indeed a funeral is one way, but if not a funeral that is held in a church and that at a grave site, at least a formal observation in which the truth of the loss is recognized. And with Christian grace and on the basis of gospel truth, Christ people respond by saying, “We believe that every single human life in the moment of conception is precious to God. We believe that you have just suffered a loss, which is known only to you in one respect, but which we know is a true genuine loss that calls out the love, the koinonia, the concern of Christ people and the grace and mercy of God.”

As for the burial practice, I just want to say I think it is wonderful that your baby will be buried. I think that befits a Christian understanding both of the life of the baby and of the reality of death, but also the promise that is given to us in Christ that the grave does not, will not have the last word.

Part V

---

Is It Okay for Christians to Use and Enjoy Humor? — Dr. Mohler Responds to Letters from Listeners of The Briefing

Finally, we’re going to end today on a very different question. Is it okay for Christians to use and to enjoy humor? The listener who asked this question says that he is talking only about good clean humor with friends and family to lighten things up. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t see any coming from Jesus or his disciples.” Well, this is an interesting question. I have to respond to this particular listener by saying, I take your question in good humor. I also want to share the confession with you I enjoy good clean humor. Why? Because I think being made in God’s image, humor is a part of the human experience. And I do think that we see it reflected even in the Proverbs and in the wisdom literature, but we also see it I think even in some of the Old Testament prophets.

I mean, as you look at the book of Ezekiel, just understand, a lot of that had to be not only biting and not only to come with judgment, but also to come in a way that is so ludicrous that like a cartoon it was in some degree humorous. Elton Trueblood was a very famous Quaker theologian in the 20th century. And he considered himself an evangelical Quaker. I got to know him. I wrote my honor’s thesis at the university level on him. And he wrote a book on the humor of Christ. And he pointed out what a lot of people just miss. And that is that if you read the New Testament and if you really understand in their context, the parables, some of the very, very biting words that Jesus used, and yes, at times, Jesus actually uses sarcasm, which is in one sense a subset or a related issue to humor.

The Apostle Paul May well be doing the same thing in some passages. And then you think about a passage like Luke 15 and the parables of lostness and foundness. You get to the parable of the prodigal son and you understand that Jesus is pulling the rug out from under those who are listening to him. Yeah, there’s humor there. Now, it is not humor that’s unholy, and it is not humor that in any way would rob God of his glory.

But if you ask about even the human experience of humor, you have to ask, where does that come from? And sometimes humor comes from just what you have to recognize is an acknowledgement of human frailty. But I’m going to end today with one of the greatest encouragements to humor in the entirety of the Christian tradition. And it comes from the great reformer Martin Luther, who said that when Christians think of the devil or face temptation, the most important thing we can do is not only resist but laugh at the devil because it is the thing he hates the most. I tend to think Luther’s right, laugh at the devil. It’ll drive him crazy.