Well, here is a debate that’s worth having: Was the American experiment blessed by God and guided by divine providence? The very mention of divine providence is enough to make modern secularists fume, but references to divine providence were central to just about every formative American moment. One of those moments crystalizes the issue.

Could it have been a mere coincidence that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, two of the most central characters in the American revolution, deeply involved in the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, both died on the 50th anniversary of July 4, 1776? Americans at that time were astounded—and modern Americans should pause to think. Here were two of the most central figures in American history—once friends, then enemies, then friends again—whose personal contributions to American independence were beyond question. They had served together, at times eagerly and at times awkwardly. They represented opposing polarities in the American mind of the revolutionary generation. Adams was the Yankee realist, committed to the revolution but concerned about limiting revolutionary ardor. Jefferson was the Virginia idealist, more radical than Adams but also more optimistic about human nature.

By July of 1776, the revolution was well underway and George Washington was already leading in active military conflict. The Battle of Bunker Hill had been fought more than a year earlier, and the Second Continental Congress had gathered to make a public declaration of their independence from Britain and to make a statement of liberty for the ages. Adams was central to that project, but he was aware of the fact that bringing the southern states into a strengthened compact would be more likely if Jefferson, a Virginian, was known to be the main author. As we now know, the basic structure of Jefferson’s original draft became the Declaration of Independence, though many editorial changes were made (usually for the better).

As untold millions of American schoolchildren were taught, Jefferson was the main author of the Declaration, but the authors of American liberty represented a much larger group of visionary patriots, now willing to put their signatures on the document and their lives very much on the line. As Dr. Benjamin Rush soberly observed, the signers were almost silent as they “were called up, one after another, to the table of the President of Congress, to subscribe what was believed by many at the time to be our own death warrants.”

Fast forward a decade or so to the ratification of the Constitution and the formation of national government and realize that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were by then political antagonists and, at least in some ways, bitter adversaries. In 1796, they ran against one another for the presidency and the right to succeed President George Washington—a formidable political challenge under any circumstance. Adams won and, by the rules of that time, Jefferson became his vice president. It was an awkward situation, to say the least. Things didn’t become more peaceful when the two faced off again in the 1800 election, when Jefferson was elected president and John Adams was retired to Massachusetts.

That might have been the end of their relationship, but for intervention by Dr. Rush, who thought the nation would be strengthened and both men blessed by a restoration of their relationship. Even recently, they had been involved in controversy over the authorship of the Declaration of Independence and subsequent developments. They remained very different, and both remained, each in his own way, quite difficult at times.

But their relationship was reborn into something quite remarkable. The Yankee and the Virginian became friends again, exchanging letters and clearly concerned for one another. Then they both died, on the same day, which happened to be the 50th anniversary of July 4, 1776. Once this fact was understood, the nation was astounded.

The reestablishment of their friendship, with all the continuing disagreements, was a gift to the nation. Each constantly seemed to think of the other. On his death bed, Jefferson mustered the strength to ask, “This is the Fourth?” before closing his eyes and crossing the bar. Far away in Massachusetts, John Adams knew he was dying. “Thomas Jefferson survives” were his last words. As we now know, Adams was wrong. Jefferson had died just hours earlier.

Modern Americans cannot enter into the mental world of July 4, 1826, but, at the very least, we must understand the shock of discovering that these two famous revolutionaries, friends and then enemies and then friends again, both having served as presidents of the United States, should die on the same day—and that the day would be none other than the 50th anniversary of American independence.

It was Daniel Webster who found the right words: “It cannot but seem striking and extraordinary, that these two should live to see the fiftieth year from the date of that act, that they should complete that year, and that then, on the day which has fast linked for ever their own fame with their country’s glory, the heavens should open to receive them both at once.”

Webster’s following words are also worth our attention: “No two men now live, fellow-citizen, perhaps it may be doubted whether any two men have ever lived in one age, who, more than those we now commemorate, have impressed on mankind their own opinions more deeply into the opinions of others, or given a more lasting direction to the current of human thought. No age will come in which it will cease to be seen and felt, on either continent, that a mighty step, a great advance, not only in American affairs, but in human affairs, was made on the 4th of July, 1776.”

Even at the time, Americans were confronted with two and only two alternative explanations for what had just happened. Either the deaths of the two patriots on the same day, exactly 50 years after the Declaration, was a mere coincidence, or it was a clear display of God’s providence. There are only two alternatives, then and now.

To put the matter bluntly, the vast majority of Americans alive at the time saw the deaths of Adams and Jefferson as a sign of God’s providence in the American experience. Interestingly, neither Jefferson nor Adams was a conventional Christian. Both were theologically heterodox, and both believed in some form of divine providence. Jefferson was more eager to claim divine providence for the young nation, while Adams was concerned about the danger of national arrogance.

As a good many Americans observed at the time, when it came to that debate between Adams and Jefferson, on their mutual death day, the very anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson effectively won the argument.

Interestingly, modern Americans are faced with the same question of God’s providence in American life. One modern historian, looking at this very event, sees danger. Jim Rasenberger argues that the idea of God’s providence in American history and destiny is “one of its most dangerous.” It’s an old debate, but the observance of July 4, 2026, the 250th anniversary of the American experience, is also the bicentennial of July 4, 1826, when the old patriots, Jefferson and Adams both died.

Christians firmly believe in God’s providence, but that is joined in biblical theology by the assurance of God’s judgment. When it comes to the revolutionary generation, there are some big moral issues to consider. As for the secular mind, there is no providence, just coincidence, and no divine judgment, just unceasing moral conflict.

This has to be a good and healthy opportunity for today’s Americans to understand anew what is at stake. It’s all either coincidence or providence. What is your answer?

This article originally appeared at WORLD Opinions on July 6, 2026.

The post The battle over divine providence: So, is God part of the American story or not? appeared first on AlbertMohler.com.

As Kirk argued, “To protest against the existence of order is to protest against well-being, justice, freedom, and prosperity.” The good things that come as American promises must rest on something solid and cannot survive on their own. The American order, and the American achievement of ordered liberty, were established upon an order of truth, principle, virtue, reason, morality, and self-government. Those who founded this nation understood this order full well, and they understood the fragility of the nation if the foundation of American order were to be subverted, forgotten, or even weakened.

The tradition of American order reaches back to Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome, directed and inspired by prophets and teachers and statesmen. Americans are the inheritors of an unprecedented experiment in ordered liberty that has now reached 250 years, but faces unprecedented challenges.

Modern Americans often misinterpret, not only Independence Day, but independence itself. The way many Americans tell the story claims that Americans sought to break with Britain and King George III through some act of national exuberance or libertarian utopianism. The founders of the nation did, as a matter of fact, declare a break with Britain. But the break they declared was not the undoing of one civilization and the founding of something breathtakingly new. The American dream of independence came only out of the frustration colonial Americans had experienced while trying to get the British king to offer relief from unfair taxation, imposed by Parliament.

Eventually, the Americans came to see themselves as a new nation, and they came to that conclusion only after, in their view, King George III had abdicated his rightful role on their behalf. At the same time, the new Americans were determined to improve upon the British political system and to create a new political order of the ages.

And yet, the American order is more rightly seen as a natural improvement on the British order. Eventually, the new order would eclipse the old. Even before July 4, 1776, some statesmen in Britain had come to the conclusion that American independence was inevitable. For one thing, America could (and did) become a transcontinental nation, possessing what appeared to be limitless abundance, resources, and strategic strength. Even at the time, Britain was an island nation that could support only a fraction of the population and power America could achieve. Though its independence was hard won, and the new nation faced unprecedented challenges, this new order seemed to be driven by limitless promise.

Now, 250 years after the Declaration of Independence was signed, the American order faces new challenges. At this point, the great danger to the American order is not external, though hostile powers do threaten. The real danger to the American order comes from within. The danger of decadence looms large and the arrogance of overreach, so tempting to great powers, is always close at hand.

But the greatest danger to American order is not produced by our fractious politics. No, this danger has produced our political perils. The greatest danger to the American order is the subversion of order itself. We are living in an age of unparalleled moral peril. Furthermore, we are living in a time of radical moral experimentation and a clash of toxic ideologies. Add to these perils the truth that many Americans living today do not even value order or acknowledge truth. Millions of Americans seem to believe that we can destroy America’s ordered liberty and replace it with disordered liberty—which is precisely what many people living today want and demand.

As Kirk noted, “To live within a just order is to live within a pattern that has beauty. The individual finds purpose within an order, and security—whether it is the order of the soul or the order of the community. Without order, indeed the life of man is poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

Those are stern and necessary words of warning. American liberty will not survive if it is severed from truth, principle, morality, and respect. Those were virtues that came to life in the Declaration of Independence and, just a few years later, in the Constitution. For the vast majority of Americans of the founding era, those virtues were deeply and explicitly rooted in the Christian faith. The rights claimed by the Americans were those endowed by our Creator. They were not merely the creation of political theorists backed up with a colonial militia.

This Fourth of July, we must pray and work for a new national commitment to the distinctively American achievement of ordered liberty. If such a recovery happens, it will come only as a result of the retrieval of American principles that rest upon truth. The 250th anniversary of America’s foundational act, the signing of the Declaration of Independence, should bring this nation great joy, prompt earnest prayer, and inspire national recommitment. America’s Christians should be at the forefront of efforts to achieve this recovery, for we must understand how rare it is that such a nation should even exist, much less exist for a quarter of a millennium.

Happy Independence Day—and may God bless and preserve the United States of America. May the glory of America’s ordered liberty be lasting, and not a fading glory.

This article originally appeared at WORLD Opinions on July 3, 2026.

The post The glory of American order: This 4th of July, the nation desperately needs a rebirth of ordered liberty appeared first on AlbertMohler.com.

Until now, that is. Buckingham Palace has announced that King Charles III will redefine his own constitutional role and will shift from serving as Defender of the Faith to a role in which he will “protect the space for faith within the multi-faith nation.” The shift from “Defender of the Faith” to “Protector of Space for Faith” is clumsy beyond reason. It represents an abject rejection of the throne titles and what they stand for. Oddly enough, but made necessary by his monarchial mandate, King Charles will remain supreme governor of the Church of England. So, Britain will have a supreme governor of the state church who wants to broaden his embrace to include all major religions, New Age nonsense, and just about anything you can package as a form of religious faith.

We were warned. Charles told us of his plans long before he assumed the throne. Decades ago, he was already talking such drivel. In a now infamous interview with journalist Jonathan Dimbleby, released in 1994, Charles revealed his intention to shift from Defender of the Faith to Defender of Faith. The removal of “the” was proposed as a way to be more inclusive, more representative of modern Britain’s multiculturalism, and more universalistic. As Charles explained, he wanted to defend all faiths in virtually all forms, which he saw as basically one reality refracted through various lenses. Charles is also radically committed to his own eccentric form of ecological and holistic teachings and practices often described as New Age. He admitted the influence of Sir Laurens van der Post, one of the best-known gurus in Britain.

Most people who knew of the interview will probably remember his admission of committing adultery when married to Princess Diana. That got the headlines, not the New Age nonsense.

Queen Elizabeth II was quite serious about her Christian commitment and she respected the leadership of the Church of England, even as the state church constantly lurched from one theological controversy to the next. Interestingly, King Charles did accept the Defender of the Faith title at his coronation on March 6, 2023. Perhaps he did so out of respect for his mother, for the monarchy, or for public opinion. He certainly did not fear the Anglican bishops, many of whom hold to their own, let’s just say, unconventional theological beliefs. As the Telegraph reported: “The Prince caused controversy within the Anglican church when he floated the idea several years ago of becoming Defender of the Faiths in an attempt to embrace the other religions in Britain. In a compromise he has now opted for Defender of Faith which he hopes will unite the different strands of society, and their beliefs, at his Coronation.” The king appears to have changed his mind. Again.

The British people are now being told that Prince William is basically an agnostic. Who knows what comes after King Charles? We don’t even know all that will happen under the reign of Charles.

The bigger issue is what all this means for the present and the future. The Church of England is in a free fall, with weekly attendance falling to less than two percent of the nation’s population. The church now has a woman serving as Archbishop of Canterbury. The secularization of the nation has reached epic proportions, even as Islam and other faiths grow in presence and influence. Authentic Christianity, with congregations and ministers faithful to the gospel, does exist, but the believing church bears witness within an increasingly hostile culture. The headwinds are strong.

About the time the palace made this announcement, it also announced that King Charles and Queen Camilla would not live in Buckingham Palace, even after a horribly expensive renovation. Tellingly, that attracted more headlines than the monarchy’s proposed changes from Defender of the Faith.

Several years ago, I was invited to be part of a small group of Christian leaders summoned to meet with Prince Charles to discuss a book he had written in favor of ecology and his mystical worldview. I can assure you that the meeting was interesting and the conversation was fascinating. Having experienced that conversation, I can assure you that this move has been a long time coming.

All this raises a most interesting question: Where is King Henry VIII when you need him? For all his many faults, I am quite confident that Henry would know what to do in this situation. King Charles intends to defend faiths, but not the faith “once for all delivered to the saints.”

This article originally appeared at WORLD Opinions on July 30, 2026.

The post Britain’s post-modern, post-Christian monarchy: Buckingham Palace announces that King Charles III will redefine what “Defender of the Faith” means appeared first on AlbertMohler.com.

That pretty much summarizes the situation, but the denomination still had money and social status. Arguably, the Episcopal tradition stood at the top of the denominational status pyramid for something like 200 years of American history. Even a brief glance at the church’s history in the United States reveals a denomination that once was absolutely supreme in financial power and unchallenged in cultural power. Just go to New York City and see the massive and elegant Episcopal parish churches, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and Trinity Church in the heart of historic Manhattan. See St. John’s Church on Lafayette Square, where U.S. presidents appear for inaugural services. Look at the statistics ranking the Episcopal Church in terms of Ivy League tradition, representation in Congress, residence in the White House, and family wealth.

The Episcopal Church was created out of the emergency situation created by the American Revolution. Let’s just say that identification as the Church of England presented a pretty powerful challenge as the colonists declared independence and went to war against King George III, who included among his royal titles “Supreme Governor of the Church of England.” The Anglican tradition would continue after the revolution, but was recast in the new nation as The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. They worked out a plan for a succession of bishops and set to work building America’s elite Protestant culture.

The Washington Post has observed that The Episcopal Church had dominated elite culture through much of the nation’s history: “Half of America’s founders were Episcopalians, the American counterpoint to the Church of England. More U.S. presidents have been Episcopalian than any other faith group, and until recent decades the denomination was shorthand of crème de la crème of American society.”

But theological liberalism began to spread in the denomination by the early decades of the 20th century, and it was largely driven by shifts among the intellectual and cultural elites. Like the Church of England itself, the Episcopalians could pull off the attempt to look conservative (with the Book of Common Prayer, robes, choirs, and stunningly beautiful churches) and at the same time shift in a decidedly liberal direction. Over the last several decades, the Episcopalians had joined the sexual revolution, ordained women as priests, moved toward the full blessing of the LGBTQ spectrum, and embraced radical theology.

The Episcopal Church ordained women as priests in the 1970s, consecrated its first woman bishop in 1989, and consecrated an openly homosexual man, Rev. Gene Robinson, as Bishop of New Hampshire in 2003. Its clergy marched steadily leftward and its left wing, driven by various forms of Marxism, liberal theology, critical theory, and social activism, increasingly dominated. Even in the early years of the 21st century, there were still conservative clergy and evangelical believers within the church, but the move toward enthusiastic embrace of the entire LGBTQ agenda forced a conservative exodus, largely to newly formed Anglican groups in North America.

Since the 1970s, The Episcopal Church’s membership rolls have been plummeting. We are talking about absolute collapse. That’s why sociologist Wade Clark Roof predicted extinction more than 30 years ago. Roof broadened his prediction of doom to most of the established denominations of liberal Protestantism, but the Episcopalians were at the top of the charts.

As of this year, the denomination has lost well over half of its historic membership in the 1960s, numbering some 1.5 million on the rolls today. But the problem is even worse when the aging of members and clergy is taken into consideration.

In recent days, the church has announced plans to sell its Manhattan headquarters, formally known as the Episcopal Church Center. A press release from the Episcopal News Service indicated that the sale of the church’s 63-year-old headquarters building, located at a prestigious New York City address, might be in order. As far back as the 1970s, the denomination had considered the sale of the facility. Now, the church’s presiding bishop has announced the intention to sell the building, if the real estate will bring an adequate price. The church’s leadership indicated that they would be open to co-development proposals and other options. It is also clear that any specific proposal to sell the facility will be hotly debated and, if financially adequate, might still trip ideological and social justice tripwires within the denomination.

In any event, the announcement of the intention to sell the denomination’s headquarters is deeply revealing. The story has to include the displacement of The Episcopal Church in American culture. The church of presidents has moved so steadily to the left that it has become a parable of postmodern Christianity—what’s left when the gospel is sidelined and the Holy Scriptures are undermined.

Even as this news story broke, a series of unrelated articles in the media considered what would happen to abandoned church buildings in American cities. Mayors and others are looking to abandoned churches for repurposing as social centers or subsidized housing. The hard fact is that even healthy denominations may decide to sell real estate—even a venerable headquarters building. But it’s a very different thing when denomination collapse is on the horizon. That’s the parable visible in this announcement from The Episcopal Church. In that sense, the sale of a building is the least of its problems.

This article originally appeared at WORLD Opinions on July 23, 2026.

The post The Episcopalian heads for extinction: Denominational collapse is announced with plan to sell NYC headquarters appeared first on AlbertMohler.com.

Sadly, this is serious, and the subversion goes well beyond motherhood. The legislature has already passed the legislation, and it is now before New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who faces one of those moments that determine whether civilization stands or falls. That’s no exaggeration.

As the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal notes, the effort is part of legislation intended to “purge gendered language from state family law.” Just ponder that for a moment. The natural family is predicated upon the fundamental truth that God made human beings as male and female, assigned marriage as the union of one man and one woman, and assigned the task of being fruitful and multiplying and filling the earth with children to that married couple. Henceforth, the male parent is the father and the female parent is the mother. This pattern has been assumed and unconfused throughout most of human history. Until now, that is.

The moral revolutionaries and gender ideologues are determined to subvert creation order, and the subversion of language is one of their central strategies. They have worked hard to redefine marriage, going so far as to demand the legalization of what they call same-sex marriage. They also want to subvert parenthood, which actually becomes quite necessary if same-sex couples, who cannot produce a child, nevertheless demand children and legal recognition as parents.

The advent of IVF and surrogate motherhood (combined into a vast commercial industry, by the way) allows same-sex couples and single individuals to “have” a baby without actually having a baby in the natural sense. But, wouldn’t you know it, the language just doesn’t cooperate.

Just a few weeks ago, Americans celebrated Mother’s Day. Even in our morally confused age, the vast majority of Americans still know what a mother is. Father’s Day now looms before us, and most Americans also know what a father is. For good reason, family law assumes that distinction. As a matter of fact, a good portion of family law exists to identify mothers and fathers and to assign their respective duties and roles. The language of mother and father is absolutely central and essential to that civilizational project.

Nevertheless, New York’s state legislature wants to redefine mothers as “gestating parents” and fathers as “non-gestating parents.” Clearly, they want to subvert the entire order of nature with a new ideological order intended to deny the fact that the gestating parent is a mother and the non-gestating parent is a father.

But wait just a minute. The subversion is actually even greater than first imagined, since if you have a baby born to one woman in what New York recognizes as a same-sex marriage, the other woman would become the “non-gestating parent.” Thus, the category of “non-gestating parent” would quickly include both fathers (forgive the use of that archaic word for a moment) and the non-gestating woman married, presumably, to a gestating woman (or something like that). In the case of a male same-sex couple, both would be “non-gestating” though one of them at least could have donated the semen. Perhaps New York will have to define a “sperm-donative parent,” who, even at this point in modern technology, still must be a biological male, and thus, brace for it, a man.

The legislation also calls for the replacement of “putative father” in paternity cases with “alleged parent.” An article in the Advocate, a national LGBTQ publication, describes the legislation as a bill “that would make the state’s child custody laws gender neutral.” Gender neutral? The proposed language is downright Orwellian.

The Advocate also reported that a document from New York’s Family Court Advisory and Rules Committee recommended that the state “substitute existing gendered terminology in the state’s family court law with gender neutral terms.” A draft of the report claimed that ideas about parenthood “have shifted dramatically in recent years” The report continued: “The committee is proposing a measure to fill this gap and to modernize New York’s statutory structure.”

So, words like mother and father would disappear entirely. We can presume that the state will still try to locate “alleged parents” for child support. With mothers and fathers gone, all that is left is the gestating parents and non-gestating parents, but that distinction cannot bear the legal weight. Gender-neutral pronouns will be mandated, which will mean that the state will be concerned with finding neglectful non-gestating parents while acting as if it does not know that the gestating parent is a woman or that the non-gestating parent is a man. The transgender ideology is central to this entire project, for these are the people now telling us that women can have prostate glands and men can menstruate.

Bless their hearts, New York’s Catholic bishops released a statement accusing the legislators of action that “will further muddy what is true and good.” They are right of course, but they seem to miss the point that muddying and subverting what is good and true is the central goal of the entire project. The goal of this insanity is nothing less than the collapse of truth, creation order, marriage, morality, and civilization itself. Verbicide is the next step, but it’s not where this ends.

This article originally appeared at WORLD Opinions on June 13, 2026.

The post Mass verbicide in New York: State legislature moves to replace mother and father with “gestating parent” and “non-gestating parent” appeared first on AlbertMohler.com.

Last week, Christopher Rufo and Jonathan Choe of the Manhattan Institute ran a report with this headline: “California provides sex-change procedures to homeless illegal aliens,” published in City Journal. The report looked like satire. Rufo and Choe stated: “We discovered not only that the shelters were housing illegal immigrants but also that they were apparently housing a population of male-to-female ‘transgender’ illegal aliens, who had hoped to obtain ‘gender-affirming care.’ And, to our shock, state and local governments are providing it.”

Providing it … as in paying for it. So, get the word out. If you are in another country and you want a sex-change operation, just illegally work your way across the American border, get to California, declare yourself homeless, demand that California taxpayers pay for your treatments and “male-to-female” surgery—and be sure to pack your makeup.

Rufo and Choe had heard from a whistleblower who reported that San Francisco was housing illegal immigrants in homeless shelters. They checked it out and discovered the sex-change angle. Apparently, the issue was visible and the stories came flowing. As Rufo and Choe reported from San Francisco, “Among the shelter’s residents was a group of Hondurans who identified as transgender.”

You don’t actually have to read much more of the report to get the full picture. It is no accident that “a group of Hondurans who identified as transgender” ended up in the same San Francisco homeless facility, and at least some of them admitted their illegal status. The point was clear enough. They were coming to California for free transgender treatments, free rent, and other benefits, all paid for by California taxpayers.

The report quoted “Lyca” and “Alondra,” both of whom “identified as transgender women.” Lyca told Rufo and Choe that he was an illegal immigrant, that the shelter didn’t even ask, and that the homeless illegal immigrants were offered full coverage under California’s Medi-Cal program. This “full scope” coverage includes what is defined as “gender affirming care” and transgender procedures. Lyca reported he had received hormone treatments, and the City Journal team colorfully explained, he “bore the physical signs of doing so.” Another housed at the facility revealed having received both hormone treatments and breast implants. Speaking of the latter, this man explained, “Even though you’re undocumented, you can get them.” I’ll leave it at that.

Some of the illegal immigrants were awaiting so-called “bottom surgery.” As Christopher Rufo posted on social media: “California is giving free sex-change procedures to homeless illegal aliens. Our team went into the shelters and discovered that trans migrants are coming to the state for hormones, breast implants, and ‘bottom surgeries’—all on the taxpayer dime.”

Rufo knows his business and has been one of the most effective critics of the cultural left and its atrocities. At the same time, you have to wonder if this one surprised even him.

The story gets even more interesting, since no less than the Washington Post editorial board came out with a statement of outrage against the policy and nailed liberal California Gov. Gavin Newsom as bearing responsibility. As the editors of the Post explained, even as California was facing a massive budget deficit of $68 billion in 2024, Gov. Newsom “extended the state’s Medicaid program, called Medi-Cal, to cover hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants.”

Furthermore, the editors explained that the Medi-Cal coverage extends even to “government-funded breast implants for anyone who wants to transition from male to female, regardless of whether they’re in the country legally or not.”

Gov. Newsom’s office vociferously defended the policy. The editors of the Post then openly questioned Newsom’s political future, noting that a similar stance had been fatal to the candidacy of Kamala Harris just two years ago.

The editors called Newsom’s position a “transgender gamble,” and they went on to suggest it would lead to political death on the national stage.

It’s worth remembering that back in 2025, with a presidential race already clearly in mind, Newsom made news in a podcast with the late Charlie Kirk, in which Newsom appeared to express concern that his party had lost its way on trans issues, specifically boys playing on girls’ teams. It was clear then that he didn’t really have a coherent policy. Then comes this. And Newsom’s office refused to back down.

The main point in all this is that such insanity is spreading. The transgender ideology is marching onward unabated, at least among adults—even among illegal migrants. To the political left, it is a matter of non-negotiable policy, paid for by taxpayers. California is now a destination goal for those seeking such procedures, supported with taxpayer monies—amounting to untold millions of dollars.

For Christians in the United States, this is yet another piece of evidence pointing to the great moral conflict of our age. For Christians in California, it’s also a matter of your money. For anyone with moral sanity, it’s also an alarm of impending cultural crisis. You can’t cover that up with lipstick.

This article originally appeared at WORLD Opinions on April 20, 2026.

The post This is insane, but to California it makes sense: Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration defends the state paying for transgender surgeries for illegal aliens appeared first on AlbertMohler.com.

Media reports indicated that Räsänen’s conviction for a form of hate crime came only after two lower courts had exonerated her. The country’s chief prosecutor pressed the case until the Finnish Supreme Court ruled against the parliamentarian and former government minister. The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) defended Räsänen throughout the trials, asserting her right to free speech and religious liberty—both supposedly protected by Finland’s law and constitution.

A report from ADF revealed that Räsänen is the mother of five children and has twelve grandchildren, and that “her Christian faith is a large part of her life, including inspiring her to hold elected office.” She is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland.

The ADF statement also accused Finnish officials of “blatantly attacking free speech,” even as the nation claims to protect free expression and the right “to express, disseminate and receive information, opinions and other communications without prior prevention by anyone.”

Despite those claimed protections, the government investigated Räsänen under Finland’s War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity Law, which could include offenses such as spreading “an expression of opinion or another message where a certain group is threatened, defamed or insulted on the basis of its race, skin color, birth status, national or ethnic origin, religion or belief, sexual orientation or disability or a comparable basis.”

In response, Räsänen stated: “I cannot accept that voicing my religious beliefs could mean imprisonment. I do not consider myself guilty of threatening, slandering, or insulting anyone. My statements were all based on the Bible’s teachings on marriage and sexuality. I will defend my right to confess my faith, so that no one else would be deprived of their right to freedom of religion and speech.”

Finland’s minister of justice, Leena Meri, described the nation’s law in this case as “not sufficiently precise and especially not predictable as required by the principle of legality in the criminal code.” She went on to state the obvious truth: “It is very difficult for people to know what is prohibited and what is permitted.”

Responding to Päivi Räsänen’s conviction, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Riley Barnes stated forcefully: “Holding Christian convictions isn’t a hate crime. Finland’s ‘hate speech’ conviction of MP Päivi Räsänen—for simply writing a pamphlet defending the Bible—shows the tragic state of religious freedom in the West. The United States stands opposed to these ideological attacks against the Christian faith.”

The state of religious freedom in the West is indeed tragic, and the collision between Christian conviction and LGBTQ ideology is already clear on both sides of the Atlantic. Back in 2019, in an event billed as a CNN Equality Town Hall, contenders for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination revealed that the danger is very close. Don Lemon, then a CNN anchor, asked former Congressman Beto O’Rourke this question: “Do you think religious institutions like colleges, churches, charities, should they lose their tax-exempt status if they oppose same-sex marriage?”

O’Rourke responded, “yes,” and received loud applause from the audience. He went on to state: “There can be no reward, no benefit, no tax break for anyone or any institution, any organization in America that denies the full human rights and the full civil rights of every single one of us.”

Years ago, back as far as 2005, a major figure like attorney Chai Feldblum, who would hold a seat on the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), would state openly that religious liberty and what she called “identity liberty” would come into eventual collision, and that in such a collision, religious liberty would have to give way. Feldblum described the nature of the collision and then stated that a point would come when “an inevitable choice between liberties would come into play.” She stated her case succinctly and clearly: “In making that choice, I believe society must come down on the side of protecting the identity liberty of LGBT people.” Religious liberty just has to give way.

Dr. Päivi Räsänen has indicated that she will press her case for religious liberty to the European Court of Human Rights. It is also apparent that religious liberty is in real danger, not only in Finland and Scandinavia, but throughout Europe. I was with Dr. Räsänen last year at a meeting in Berlin. I can assure you that she is both kind and courageous in her convictions.

Christians everywhere must pay close attention to this case. There are many on the left who want the United States to adopt similar hate crime and hate speech legislation. Far too many Americans take comfort that such prosecutions can’t happen here. Christians in Finland have just been stripped of that comfort. Christians all over the world must see the danger clearly. At the same time, we have no choice but to stand on the authority of the Bible and speak the truth. It may well come with an increasing cost and even larger threats. Just ask Dr. Päivi Räsänen.

Disclosure: I am very proud to disclose that Assistant Secretary of State Riley Barnes, who responded for the U.S. State Department, is my son-in-law.

This article originally appeared at WORLD Opinions on March 27, 2026.

The post Religious liberty crashes in Finland: Christian legislator found guilty of “incitement” for teaching biblical truth appeared first on AlbertMohler.com.

Britain already had one of the most liberal abortion laws in the world, allowing women to seek abortions through 24 weeks of pregnancy, and even later under many circumstances. The new measure removes all criminal sanctions for any woman who seeks or self-administers an abortion at any point in the pregnancy, for any reason. It will result in abortion on demand that extends from the moment of fertilization all the way to the moment prior to birth.

Tellingly, the measure does not decriminalize a physician’s involvement in elective abortions after 24 weeks. Thus, under the new legislation a woman could abort her own child at the latest stage of pregnancy, by use of the abortion pill, for example. That is why so many people opposed the measure, for a woman could use a drug like Mifepristone to cause the death of a fully developed infant, but the baby’s dead body would remain in her womb and could not safely be expelled. Thus, in the name of a woman’s personal autonomy the British government would put the mother’s own life in danger. Make no mistake: The Culture of Death kills, and it kills both babies and their mothers.

Allison Pearson, columnist for The Telegraph, referred to the “sickening change in the abortion law” that the bill proposed, calling it legalized infanticide. Pearson referred to Britain’s already radical abortion laws, which she described as “shockingly out of step with the majority of European countries.”

She continued: “The only other country with our brutal disregard for the unborn child is China, where abortion is generally legal at any stage of pregnancy.” She pointed out that even China disallows abortion for reason of sex-selection, but Britain’s shocking new abortion would not. Sex-selection abortions would be of no legal consequence. Want a boy? Just abort the girl. A woman would be able to end her pregnancy at any point, for any reason, without legal consequence.

The debate yesterday in the House of Lords went on for hours, going late into London’s night. The votes finally came and the House of Lords went home, handing the Culture of Death yet another huge victory. Britain’s upper house would not even slow the legislation, abdicating its historic responsibility. The Lords Spiritual—Church of England bishops seated in the House of Lords—did register their support for the amendments, or at least for further study of the matter and the impact on women’s health.

The new archbishop of Canterbury, Dame Sarah Mullally, who had previously served as a registered nurse, did call for a delay in the approval of any abortion measure, but her argument before the House of Lords was not marked by moral passion and abortion itself was not revealed as a great moral evil.

Calum Miller, a medical doctor and medical ethicist in Britain, lamented openly that many in Britain’s medical establishment supported the bill. “The medical profession is fundamentally untrustworthy with these people at its head,” he argued. “They have no credibility whatsoever.”

Right to Life UK released a statement immediately after the vote stating that the legislation would “make it more likely that healthy babies are aborted at home for any reason, up to birth.” The group also asserted that the measure “would change the law so it would no longer be illegal for women to perform their own abortions for any reason, including sex-selective purposes, and at any point up to and including birth.” Note those words carefully—up to and including birth.

Catherine Robinson, spokesperson for Right to Life UK, said that the abortion up to birth measure “is one of the most extreme pieces of legislation ever to pass the House of Commons and the House of Lords.” She continued: “It is a travesty that such an enormous and terrible legislative change, which will directly endanger the lives of unborn babies well beyond the point at which they would be able to survive outside the womb, as well as the lives of their mothers, has been allowed to happen.”

Later, Ms. Robinson simply stated: “A civilized society does not permit abortion up to birth.” That is certainly true, but the sentence should actually be much shorter, like this: “A civilized society does not permit abortion.”

Last night’s vote in the House of Lords tells us that a dark new age is upon us. Hug your children and grandchildren tight, and, as you hug them, pray for the unborn.

This article originally appeared at WORLD Opinions on March 19, 2026.

The post The Culture of Death wins yet again: Britain moves to decriminalize abortion right up to the moment of birth appeared first on AlbertMohler.com.

Ehrlich, who died last week at age 93, was the most consequential false prophet of the population control movement, one of the darkest chapters in modern history. Thankfully, his stark warning of unavoidable death of hundreds of millions of people by mass starvation didn’t come to pass—not even close. But the population control ideology remains one of the central ideologies of the culture of death.

Interestingly enough, Paul Ehrlich was a scientist with a specialty in butterflies. Seriously. Alfred Kinsey, another of the darkest figures of the 20th century, was a sexual pervert who emerged as the prophet of the sexual revolution, usually dressed in a scientist’s white coat for effect. His actual specialty was gall wasps. Like Kinsey, Ehrlich wanted to change the world…and he did.

His fame started with an address to a civic club in California in which he warned of a coming ecological catastrophe driven by an expanding human population. By his logic, an explosion of human beings would produce mass starvation and ecological devastation. He was encouraged to write a book explaining his theory, and so he did, joined by his wife, Anne. Ehrlich turned in a book manuscript with the title, Population, Resources, and Environment, which publisher Ian Ballentine changed to The Population Bomb. That book, with those opening words, changed the world.

The population control movement was not entirely new, and figures such as Britain’s Thomas Malthus had warned as early as 1798 of a looming population catastrophe and mass starvation. Thankfully, the Malthusian global nightmare never came, but the warning clearly had a hold on elite minds. The upper classes feared being overcome by a mass population expansion among the urban poor or third world nations.

Ehrlich and The Population Bomb were organically linked to other leftist theories of the 20th century including the birth control movement, the sexual revolution, and secular progressivism. Along with many others, Ehrlich was linked to eugenics—the argument that the wrong kind of people were having too many babies. In The Population Bomb, Ehrlich wrote about visiting Delhi in India, recalling: “The streets seemed alive with people. People eating, people washing, people sleeping. People visiting, arguing, and screaming. People thrusting their hands through the taxi window, begging. People defecating and urinating. People clinging to buses. People herding animals. People, people, people, people.”

Ehrlich became famous—as a celebrity catastrophe scientist—and he was promoted by politicians and famous personalities. Most famously, Johnny Carson repeatedly featured Ehrlich on The Tonight Show, once airing an interview that lasted an hour. In some programs the bearded scientist sat with Hollywood starlets explaining how babies were going to ruin the planet, and millions watched.

Governments also listened. In the United States, there was bipartisan concern that the population explosion was contributing to both inner city crime and other pathologies, including ecological threats. Presidents Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter all affirmed the looming threat. In China, communist authorities imposed the nation’s draconian “one child only policy” that led to mass abortion, infanticide, sterilization, and more. From the United States, the federal government pushed a population control message worldwide and Congress held numerous hearings on the challenge.

For the ideological left, the population control movement was a great gift and The Population Bomb was gift-wrapping. The abortion rights movement and the sexual revolutionaries joined the ecological movement in pushing a common message—there are too many human beings, and more are coming.

The prophets of population doom were flat wrong. They were not so much wrong in their initial run of the numbers, but they were very wrong in their analysis of how human beings would respond to rapid increases in family income and trends such as urbanization and mass agriculture. A “green revolution” in farming headed off the predicted mass global famine, and by the first decades of the 21st century, the big threat to human societies was not a looming explosion in population, but a rapid decline in birthrates. Very soon, society after society will count more annual deaths than births, and the very survival of those societies is already in question.

Paul Ehrlich was a radical leftist on several fronts, and his warnings were proved false. Nevertheless, he remained certain of his basic worldview in his old age and he also remained a celebrity figure on the left. He knew that his understanding of the world ran into direct collision with the worldview of the Bible and the Creator’s command to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. He was certain—even to the end—that he knew better.

It is certainly true that some false prophets are hard to spot, at least at first sight. On the other hand, some false prophets reveal themselves from the start, and Paul Ehrlich stands at the top of that list. It wasn’t like he was hiding from view. Sadly, his basic message seeped deep into the cultural mainstream. You want proof? Just look at the collapsing birthrate worldwide. That’s the real population bomb.

This article originally appeared at WORLD Opinions on March 17, 2026.

The post The population bomber: Paul Ehrlich, prophet of the population explosion, dies at age 93 appeared first on AlbertMohler.com.

Talarico is now the Democratic Party’s nominee for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Republican Sen. John Cornyn, who has held the seat for four terms. Cornyn, a fixture in Texas politics for decades, is an establishment Republican who has a near-perfect voting record in line with President Donald J. Trump. Cornyn looks and sounds like what he is—a respected and statesmanlike U.S. senator. He now faces a runoff with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is running as a Republican populist. Paxton carries a lot of controversy wherever he goes, and his personal and public lives are what one observer described as “rather complicated.” As you can imagine, that’s an understatement. To my knowledge, he is the first senate candidate to run for office just as his wife filed for divorce “for cause.” These are strange days, and not just in Texas.

But it is in Texas that James Talarico, a young member of the Texas House of Representatives and a seminary student, is trying to raise the banner of religious liberalism in the name of opposing the influence of conservative Christians. David French likes what he sees. While French says he disagrees with Talarico on some issues, he says that Talarico is “giving people hope.”

Hope of what? It has been a long time since the Democrats in Texas have won an election for statewide office. Every cycle or two, the public is told that a “new” kind of Democrat is running for office, hoping to bring in the lost sheep of moderate voters. In 2018, Texans were told that Beto O’Rourke was the shiny new thing what would attract the middle. Now, it’s James Talarico. The really interesting thing about Talarico is the extent to which he pushed his personal identity with his personal religious faith, which is why David French labeled him “faith-forward.”

The Democratic Party has not been overwhelmingly positive about faith-forward candidates, and a Talarico ticket would never get far in lands of Democratic dominance. That party is rapidly secularizing as it moves ever further to the ideological and political left. But in Texas, Talarico might have a shot.

David French likes Talarico’s attack on what he calls Christian nationalism, which is all about hate. French quotes Talarico as stating in 2023: “Christian nationalism controls. Jesus saves. Christian nationalism kills. Jesus started a universal movement based on mutual love. Christian nationalism is a sectarian movement based on mutual hate.”

There is a lot to unpack there, but neither French nor Talarico bothered to define Christian nationalism. Listening to Talarico, it’s clear he refers to any Christian citizen who believes, for example, that unborn human life should be protected and who does so based in Christian conviction as a Christian nationalist. He constantly refers to conservative Christians trying to impose their values on the nation, which he declares is a threat to the republic, while peddling his own version of liberal Christianity that allows him to be enthusiastically pro-abortion and all in on the LGBTQ revolution. By his definition, the vast majority of evangelical Christians and a good number of conservative Catholics are Christian nationalists. But he says it all with a smile.

Liberal Christianity is, as Presbyterian stalwart J. Gresham Machen recognized a century ago, a new religion posing as Christianity. Talarico may be David French’s ideal of a “faith forward” politician, but Talarico’s brand of theology not only includes abortion rights and the LGBTQ revolution, but is part and parcel with the liberal theology of his own denomination, the Presbyterian Church (USA). He proudly relates that his boyhood pastor was one of the first to perform same-sex celebrations. In one video clip, Talarico has pressed even further, declaring, “God is nonbinary.”

Like the “red-letter Christians” who have sought for decades to reduce Christianity to a reduction of the four New Testament Gospels, Talarico wants to stand on the Sermon on the Mount and selected texts including the parable of the good Samaritan, while quickly directing attention away from the rest of the Bible. The Jesus he describes is the Jesus of liberal theology through the last century and more. In an interview with Ezra Klein, Talarico relativized Christianity by asserting: “I believe Christianity points to the truth. I also think other religions of love point to the same truth. I think of different religious traditions as different languages.” He continued, “I believe Jesus Christ reveals that reality to us. But I also think that other traditions reveal that reality in their own ways, with their own symbol structures.” Wow. He sounds just like a religious liberal, going back at least to the 19th century.

He cites a boyhood pastor as explaining that “religious symbols are like aspirin: In order to work, they have to dissolve.” Let that sink in. Say goodbye to Christianity as the faith “once for all delivered to the saints.”

In his column, David French states that “Talarico is one of the few openly Christian politicians in the United States who acts like a Christian, and by acting like a Christian he reveals a profound contrast with so many members of the MAGA Christian movement that’s dominated American political life for 10 years.”

A few paragraphs later, he cites Talarico as saying, “I’m tired of being pitted against my neighbor. I’m tired of being told to hate my neighbor.” Who told him such a vile thing? To state my frustration clearly, I am tired of being told about people who told him to hate his neighbor. Who told him that? To be even more clear, we know what he is doing here. He is a talented politician who is running as a “faith-forward” candidate while condemning conservatives for running as “faith-forward” candidates, and he condemns evangelical Christians for attempting to influence politics while he seeks to establish his own religious liberalism as law. Talarico wants to divide voters just as much as Donald Trump, but on different grounds and along different lines.

What is David French really telling us here? Honestly, there was nothing new about James Talarico in French’s column. What’s new is the public intensity of David French’s dismissal of conservative Christians as sold-out on the issue of character, combined with his admiration of a liberal candidate like James Talarico. I don’t think his argument will convince many evangelicals. He predicts that if Ken Paxton wins the Republican primary, evangelical Texans will still vote for him rather than Talarico.

I think he is right about that, and it’s because most evangelical Christians understand that moral character includes taking responsibility for the ideologies at stake and the policies that would result from your vote. Politics in a fallen world is messy and getting messier. This is no time for triumphalism in Christian political life. On the other hand, it’s certainly no time for deception and surrender, which is exactly what the “Talarico moment” would represent.

This article originally appeared at WORLD Opinions on March 10, 2026.

The post The great clarification: James Talarico, David French, and the battle for the evangelical soul appeared first on AlbertMohler.com.

President Donald Trump released the news early Saturday morning in the United States, and the news was already exploding around the world, even as powerful weapons were exploding all over Iran. The eventual outcome of the combined U.S-Israeli effort is still to be determined—that’s just the way history unfolds—but it is already clear that the world around us is being reshaped.

The Middle East has been in the forefront of international news for decades now, but it wasn’t always so. Seen as exotic and distant, the entire region of Islamic domination was rarely in leading Western headlines, even if it was often invoked in imagination and sometimes erupted in rebellion. All that began to change in wake of World War I and the demise of the Ottoman Empire. The region was largely under British and French control by a series of international mandates, but it became increasingly clear that rising spirits of nationalism and Islamic resurgence were reshaping the region.

Criticizing the modern age and rejecting Western imperialism, nationalist movements began to reshape imagination and redraw maps. The Shiite-Sunni divide in Islam was always apparent on that map, with the Sunni majority (close to 85%) controlling most of the territory. Nevertheless, Shiite Muslims had brought Islam to the territory of the former Persian Empire, establishing the Safavid dynasty in 1501. One hallmark of Shi’a Islam is a prominent sense of the apocalyptic, and that has in recent times been tied to zeal for rule by religious clerics known as ayatollahs.

But the region now occupied by Iran has been a center of world events, going back even before the glory days of the Persian Empire, and events such as the two world wars of the 20th century and the eventual cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union reshaped the political landscape. The establishment of autocratic rule by the Pahlavi dynasty under the reign of Reza Shah Pahlavi, friendly to Western interests, established stability in the Persian Gulf region, but at a cost. Next in the dynasty came Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, now known to most Americans as the late shah of Iran. Except for a few years of political experimentation, the shah’s rule was absolute, and, in the case of the second shah, that meant competence in repression but little competence in governance.

By the 1970s, forces of unrest and revolution began to gather energy, and the shah fell in the wake of an uprising that toppled the dynasty. The exit of the shah coincided with the return of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who had been in exile in France and had a base of popular support for his vision of Iran brought under Islamic rule and sharia law. In a stunning succession of events, the Islamic Revolution, as it was called, eventually put Khomeini in power in 1979. In another turn, Khomeini declared an Islamic republic under his own absolute rule as supreme leader.

Relations with the United States and the West in general collapsed, but the rest of the Muslim world also looked to the Iranian regime with fear—and for good reason. By the end of the year, radical students would enter the U.S. embassy and take 52 Americans hostage for 444 days—an event that was humiliating to the United States and certainly contributed to President Jimmy Carter’s landslide defeat by Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election.

In general, relations between the United States and Iran have been bitter and tense, with the regime in Tehran turning Iran into one of the most destabilizing forces in the world, sponsoring terrorism on a scale unprecedented in human history. Iran also sought to subvert other majority Muslim nations, particularly Sunni dominated nations, directing particular ire and subversion toward Saudi Arabia and its gulf allies.

At the same time, even as Iran was seen as the main source of state-sponsored terror, it also sought to attain nuclear weapons. An unbroken series of American presidents has pledged that Iran must not gain nuclear weapons, though presidents have disagreed over how to prevent Iran from doing so. President Trump ordered direct bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites just last year, but the regime resisted any agreement that would prevent the development of weapons-grade materials.

By Saturday, the gig was up. Israel was not going to stand by as Iran gained nuclear capacity. Neither was the United States. Both had given up on any chance of an agreement, and both were advised of several crucial developments—including the facts that Iran was about to gain advanced hypersonic missiles from China, was continuing its terrorism and subversion, and was continuing its nuclear program. Late on Friday, Israeli and American intelligence determined that top Iranian leaders, including the supreme leader, were gathering. As we know now, it would be their last earthly gathering.

The military strikes continue. Thus far, the first strikes already constitute the largest aerial attack ever launched by Israel. The United States is deeply committed. President Trump has called for the people of Iran to seize political control, but the future is by no means clear. Iran’s feared Revolutionary Guards remain strong, and no one yet knows how the events will unfold. President Trump has now effectively put his own political reputation on the line, and it is not clear how events will unfold.

This much is clear: Ayatollah Khamenei will not be a part of that future. Any way you look at it, that’s good news. These massive attacks have forced open a door for a new future in Iran. Let’s pray that the right leadership emerges to point the Iranian people through that door. As President Trump said on Saturday to the Iranian people: “This is the moment for action. Do not let it pass.”

This article originally appeared at WORLD Opinions on March 2, 2026.

The post “This is the moment for action. Do not let it pass.”: The massive U.S. and Israeli strikes against Iran and the death of the supreme leader give the Iranian people a precious opportunity they had better not miss appeared first on AlbertMohler.com.

I will leave more extended analysis to the commentariat, but I do want to underline one moment of great importance last night. President Trump pointed to a young woman in the audience with her mother. The president then explained that “Sage was 14 when school officials in Virginia sought to socially transition her to a new gender, treating her as a boy and hiding it from her parents.” The president then said, “Hard to believe, isn’t it?”

Well, as President Trump also explained, 15 years ago people would have thought someone talking this way was out of his mind, asking, “What’s wrong with him?” Sadly, all this does make sense in our confused age.

Sage Blair was encouraged to “socially transition” at school, identifying as a boy, explicitly without the knowledge of her parents. In her confusion, she eventually ran away from home, came under the care of the state, and was sent to an all-boys state school in Maryland.

As the president explained, “After she was found in a horrific situation in Maryland, a left-wing judge refused to return Sage to her parents because they did not immediately state that their daughter was their son.”

The story ends with Sage identifying again as a young woman and receiving “a full ride scholarship to Liberty University.” She stood with her mother and was warmly affirmed by the Republicans in the room, receiving a standing ovation. It was a very touching moment.

The president then said this: “But surely, we can all agree no state can be allowed to rip children from their parents’ arms and transition them to a new gender against the parents’ will.” He went on to state, “We must ban it, and we must ban it immediately.”

But, looking at the audience, President Trump said that not one Democrat in the room stood up—something he was in a position to see. “Look, nobody stands up,” he said. “These people are crazy. I’m telling you they’re crazy.”

Well, they are crazy, and they are also dangerous. President Trump knew exactly what he was doing, and he knew exactly how the Democrats would respond. The simple truth is that the Democratic Party is under the control of the LGBTQ movement, and their activists are all for exactly what happened to Sage Blair and her parents. Indeed, they demand it.

It is moral insanity, but this is what the political left supports and demands. This is the prevailing consensus in many legal and academic circles. This direct subversion of sanity is combined with a subversion of the rights and authority of parents. It has happened all over the country, and it is happening still. The Democratic Party is sold out to the LGBTQ activists and the ideological left. One of the most threatening ideologies of the left is based in the claim that children and teenagers must be liberated from their parents and indoctrinated by the liberal establishment into the total redefinition of gender.

Christians must understand clearly what this represents. It is a direct rejection of Creation Order at two vital points—sexual identity and parental rights. The new gender ideologues demand a total rejection of the male-female “gender binary” and they also demand that parents be cut out of the entire situation—unless, of course, they “affirm” their son as a daughter or their daughter as a son.

This is the same president who, in his second inaugural address, stated: “As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders: male and female.”

No other president of the United States had said any such thing, and made it stick. Until recently, no president would have seen the need to say any such thing. But the Obama and Biden administrations both pushed the transgender agenda and were completely captive to the ever-expanding LGBTQ activism.

President Trump pushed back on this moral revolution hard last night, and he did so with verve. He put himself and his administration on the line, and he didn’t have to do so. It was a moment of remarkable moral clarity, and, in my view, it was the most important moment of the entire night. For that I am thankful. Moral clarity doesn’t come cheap these days, but within just a very few minutes, the nation got a full dose last night. I sure hope America saw it clearly.

This article originally appeared at WORLD Opinions on February 25, 2026.

The post “These people are crazy”: In his State of the Union address, President Trump underlined what is at stake in the war against male and female—and against parents appeared first on AlbertMohler.com.