It's Tuesday, February 3rd, 2026. I'm Albert Moeller, and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. One of the things that Christians always have to think through is whether or not a current news preoccupation is really a big issue of worldview significance. Now you might think that in almost every case it would be so, but that's not the way it works in our society. Sometimes just given the way public interest works, sometimes because of the way the media operate, sometimes just because of social media and public conversation, things that aren't really worth talking about much can explode all over the place. And that's something we just need to watch because it really gives us a dual responsibility. Number one, not just to be preoccupied with whatever the society's preoccupied about. And then secondly, for Christians to zero in on what is really important. Now sometimes you have situations in which it's a bit of both. And that's certainly the situation with the late Fin and Sierra Geffery Epstein, who of course we now know is infamous for rampant sex abuse. And that includes child sex abuse and at least teenagers and includes sex trafficking. It includes criminal convictions in terms of activity with underage persons. And we now know that was just that was just the surface of the evil represented by Geffery Epstein. And we also know that this has become an issue of just constant cultural preoccupation. And for that matter of a form of just a moral leering or just moral obsession, often without any kind of moral weight to it. And you have the celebrity culture and all this intersecting as well. So let's just take it apart for a moment. Let's understand where we are right now. Here's where we are, I think right now. You had Congress come together and pass legislation that would require the Department of Justice to release millions and millions of items related to the federal investigation into the crimes of Geffery Epstein. Now there would have been had there been a trial, something of a full airing of at least much of this material. But Geffery Epstein, you'll recall, committed suicide and this preempted the trial. So this is not preempted moral attention. So as Christians, let's just say, if there are issues that are worth our moral attention, when it comes to this particular issue, there's really something here to which we need to pay close attention. The horror of all of this. And I think for Christians, one of the bigger issues here is how could someone involved in something so horrible and known to others as involved in something so horrible? And at one point, even being convicted of the crimes related to something so horrible, how could he maintain such relationships with such rich and powerful influential people in the larger society? Many of whom right now are just rightly horribly embarrassed about all of this. Now the reason why there's so much attention right now and this just comes up again. It's like a spike and a spike and a spike is because just a matter of days ago, the US Department of Justice released about three million files or three million pages of files by some reports. And this includes thousands upon thousands of photographs and other forms of evidence. And I just want to be really honest, a lot of people are running very scared and they deserve to be. They are very embarrassed and they deserve to be. But embarrassment is just, if anything, to mild a moral response to all of this. Now there's a lot of controversy about what shouldn't be released and there are all kinds of issues related to this. There are people who are claiming and this includes at least one major Republican member of Congress and one major Democratic member of Congress. You have people who are saying, look, there's a conspiracy to hide this material. Well, there is also a responsibility on the part of the Department of Justice not to release the wrong kind of information. And the numbers here are staggering, three million pages of information. And you have many who are claiming it's not enough. And by the way, one of the things they're clamoring for is the list, whether it is an actual list or not, they want to know who were the powerful men who were likely to be co-conspirators, which every Epstein in this form of horribly immoral and illegal sexual misbehavior. There are people who want to know who was it. Well, we don't have such a list. But you know, even some of those who are complaining about not getting some of this information fast enough are now looking at the three million pages or so when all those photographs and understanding, wow, there really is a lot here. And it raises huge worldview questions. So one of the hardest of these questions has to do with how anyone can be involved in this. And this is where you have a text like Romans chapter one that makes very clear that one of the patterns of human sinfulness is that human beings, sinful human beings, can give themselves over to certain sins. And then Romans one, we are told that God gives them over in judgment. If this is who you are and this is what you want and this is how you're going to act, then this is who you will be. And this is how you will be judged. And you're looking at some things that are just unspeakable and of course, we're not going to speak them on the briefing. It's enough to say we're talking about the most grotesque forms of orchestrated sexual immorality and sexual predation, having to do primarily with powerful men and vulnerable women. That is the pattern here. And it is a legitimate pattern. And it's a pattern that any Christian would recognize is something that certainly should demand our attention. The big question is not so much, however, I think for most of us how someone like a Jeffrey Epstein could exist. I think you just look through human history. Frankly, you look at the pages of scripture and you understand there are certain men, certain centers who have just given themselves over to this kind of sin. It's horrifying to look at, horrifying to hear about, but it is of such moral significance that it is addressed directly, honestly, in scripture. I want to tell you, I think the harder question is, what about all these people who are hanging around him? And you know, this is a bipartisan list. President Trump's name has appeared here. He was very much a part of the elite power structure there in New York City, the social structure in which Jeffrey Epstein was also a part. And the president said he was involved in no sexual misbehavior. This is bipartisan in just about every way you can imagine. You have a congressional committee that has demanded direct testimony from both former president Bill Clinton and former First Lady Hillary Clinton concerning their relationship with Epstein and appears that Bill Clinton flew on the jet several times and let's just say, he's already quite associated with sexual immorality. And of course, this was a scandal going all the way back to 1992 and he was running for president. And so we do see a bipartisan pattern of sin here. There's no doubt about it. The bigger question for us is a politics. However, you look at all the people involved and you just asked the question, how could persons justify in any sense hanging around Jeffrey Epstein? And you could draw a line and it's interesting. This is where a lot of people will say, well, we can now see this line. There's a moral line of what was known about him before. He actually reached a deal with prosecutors there in South Florida. And then afterwards when he was basically a certified sex offender, there's certainly a before and after. That doesn't mean his character changed. It doesn't mean that there was less known in a public sense before and there's no way not to know now. And so one of the biggest questions is, how could people justify having anything to do which Jeffrey Epstein after that fact? And you know, there's a lot of attention in the press to the morally significant questions. I'm just going to say, I think that is one of the biggest of these questions. It's one thing if you didn't know and you have some ability to say you didn't know. But it's also interesting. And so let's just talk about this pattern without having to put a name on everybody. There were certain people who said, you know, I thought he was kind of slimy and he was clearly overtly sexual and there were all these young women around, but I didn't know it was that. Well, you know, here's something we just need to understand. When you look at a culture and you look at the sexual principles, moral behaviors, laws, principles, moral judgments that are all a part of this, you know, it all becomes very clear that one of the things that marks many societies is you have an elite that believes itself to be above those rules and just without accountability to those rules. Those rules are for just common people. And as a matter of fact, the elites in the 20th century sometimes spoke dismissively of traditional Christian morality as middle class morality. Okay, that's good for middle class people, but once you reach this elite level, all the rules are off. And this certainly points to elite. We're talking about elite. One of the biggest questions, just of fact, how in the world did someone like Jeffrey Epstein develop relationships with even a man who was then a prince of England, prince Andrew, now former prince Andrew, then the Duke of York, now the former Duke of York. The fact is that you have even photographs of the former prince Andrew, very embarrassingly related here. And one of the big questions is what in the world is the current monarch of Great Britain, King Charles III, what in the world was he going to do about this? And you could say what is already taken action to strip his brother, royal titles and all the rest. Yes, but we are talking about the fact that he should be required to come to the United States and testify before official legal and if necessary congressional bodies about these matters. This accounting is nowhere near done. You also the fact that a congressional committee, as I said, has subpoenaed about Bill and Hillary Clinton and they're trying to deny it or to resist it. But the interesting thing is that there were Democrats who joined with Republicans to vote for a contempt citation action against the former president, the former First Lady for refusing to testify. Now, one of the big things in politics is when you have Democrats voting in this case to hold in contempt a former Democratic president of the United States, that requires a whole lot of explanation and so far as I know nothing of that precedent has happened in American history. This tells you that the moral importance of this is not getting lower. The public is not looking at this with lessened moral attention. It's with heightened moral attention. I want to keep our attention to this issue in a Christian frame. And looking at this, it's not just salaciousness. It just raises huge questions. Is this how said it operates? And the answer evidently is yes. You know, sin makes you look stupid, by the way. And just to give one example, Peter Mandelson, Lord Peter Mandelson, member of the House of Lords, former ambassador of Great Britain to the United States as a matter of weeks ago, he is embarrassed because and all I have to do is just say this and you're going to say why? He was embarrassed because one of the photographs that was released is of himself, the former ambassador talking to a woman in his underwear. That doesn't exactly follow diplomatic protocol. The current British Prime Minister, Kierstarmer, required him to resign from office and as appointed a new diplomatic links to the United States. The point is we are looking here at a very messy situation and it's only going to get messier. The big question to us is how can a human being do this? And this is Romans 1 telling us that we can give ourselves so much to sin that God gives us over two such things, in which case you can also see in the Bible where there is a refutation and a rejection of conscience to the point that the conscience basically does not properly operate any longer. That's just a part of the sinfulness of sin as the Puritans called it. But it also reminds us that depravity just involves concentric circles of sin and who knows who will eventually be embarrassed and exposed, perhaps literally, in terms of those three million documents or pages of documents that were released to the photographs and all the rest. The New York Times yesterday ran a front page article of the headline, Files Rebut Elites Denials of Corgioltais to Epstein. The subtitle, business and political leaders stayed close even after his conviction as a sex offender. Nicholas Confessori is the reporter here. You know, this is the big issue. How in the world did people with so much to put it risk, put it all at risk to hang around with Jeffrey Epstein after there was no way to say you didn't know who he was and what he was about? The article says this quote, so far at least the new documents have not fundamentally altered the public understanding of Mr. Epstein or his crimes. Instead, they're replete with chummy exchanges, warm invitations and financial entanglements, quote, together the document show how Mr. Epstein's connections with people in Hollywood, Wall Street, Washington and fashion thrived even after he became a convicted sex offender in 2008. Quote, in some cases, the documents shed greater light on Epstein associates whose connections to him were already known, others revealed relationships that had remained hidden for years. End quote. I guess one final thought on this, we're a long way from our final thoughts on this. And that is because this is an unfolding story. By its very nature, there are things still to be revealed. And Christians just have to keep our wits about ourselves morally and biblically to understand, and frankly to explain even to our own children and friends what these things mean. Okay, but next I want to go back to Hillary Clinton because she's in the news for a different reason as well. She wrote a major essay published at the Atlantic, the former First Lady of the United States, the former US Secretary of State, former US Senator, has written an article on what she calls the rights war on empathy. And she has been reading, it's interesting. She's been following some of this conversation. She mentions Joe Rigni, Alibes Stucky, both of whom I've done thinking in public conversations with about this very issue. And she mentioned some others as well. And she wants to make the argument for empathy, but she's also, and this is what's most interesting. She's making an argument based in the moral understanding and reasoning characteristic of mainline liberal Protestantism. And she's often written about this and remember her controversies go way back, it takes a village and all the rest. And she's often talked about her adolescence, which was really shaped at least in large part by the methodism. And it's a very liberal methodism that was a part of her background. And she writes about this. She clearly understands that there is a radical distinction between conservative Protestantism and liberal Protestantism. She doesn't so much name it that way as she does demonstrate it in her article. So in the article, she holds up some she thinks are exemplars, just models of this kind of empathy. One of them is Mary Ann Buddy, who is the current Episcopal Bishop of Washington. And we are told that in the sermon she preached, and of course this made headlines for the inaugural ceremony. And President Trump, just to being inaugurated in a second term was there. Here's what Hillary Clinton wrote quote, the rejection of bedrock Christian values, such as dignity, mercy and compassion, did not start with the crisis and Minnesota, the tone was set right at the beginning of the second Trump presidency. The day after taking the oath of office last January, Trump attended a prayer service at the National Cathedral, the Episcopal Bishop of Washington, Mary Ann, Edgar Buddy directed part of her sermon at the new president, quote, in the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. Clinton says quote, she spoke of children of immigrant families afraid that their parents would be taken away refugees fleeing persecution, young LGBTQ Americans who feared for their lives. It was an honest police, a fuse with a kind of love and generosity toward neighbors and strangers that Jesus taught. End quote. Okay. So it's clear and Hillary Clinton actually helps to make this clear on one side is the more liberal vision. And this, this comes down to what in the 20th century, even in the late 19th century, but particularly in the 20th century, it became known as the social gospel. This says that the main thrust of Christianity is about social transformation and Christians have a main responsibility, which is in, in aiming towards certain liberal ends. Now, by the way, some of these ends historically have been good ends, clothing the naked, feeding the hungry. All, all that very good, all Christians are called to that. But you'll notice that she's the one who puts in the young LGBTQ Americans in this list. In other words, that entire world of liberal Protestantism, which by the way, originally, at least in the early 20th century, was about ditching the theology in order to keep the ethics. You know, let's just, let's just give up on beliefs such as the virgin birth, because that's not going to have traction in our, our circles anymore. But we can hold on to Christian moral judgments, such as say the definition of marriage. But you'll notice these same denominations predictably freed from biblical authority. Now are also the ones who are pushing for endorsing and conducting same-sex marriages. And so you understand, we are really are looking at a worldview divide here. And Hillary Clinton, I don't think she's going to accomplish what she wants in this article, but she's writing for the readership of the Atlantic, predictably generally pretty liberal. And she's expecting to have a lot of nodding heads in terms of what she writes here. The good guys are the liberal Protestants, the bad guys are the conservative evangelicals. So, okay, we figure out this where she's coming from. In her most recent book, she does pretty much the same thing. And remember, this is someone who is way on the left on abortion, way on the left on LGBTQ issues. And let's just say that that requires a total redefinition of Christianity. And I would say right down to its doctrinal core structure. All right. Now on the other side, is it possible that there would be conservatives who would misconstrue Christianity? Of course, that's true. Of course, that's true. But it still remains the fact that what Hillary Clinton's talking about here is not just about a misrepresentation of evangelical Christianity. It's about a refusal basically to recognize the issues that are at stake. And so, you know, when she throws in the LGBTQ issue right up front, which she has to, because that's what she's all about, the dividing line just becomes very, very clear. And you know, she really goes at Christian authors and I mentioned Elie Bestucky and Joe Rigni. Again, I had conversations with both of them about this issue. And about their dismissal of empathy, I want to take the argument even further. I want to say, even as I've been challenged on this in the last few days, it's not so much that I think empathy is wrongly defined. It is the fact that I don't think empathy is a thing. I don't think it's real. I think it is a substitute for a real Christian morality, a real Christian morality is not empathy, but sympathy. And it's feeling with, it's compassion, feeling with, and then taking the requisite actions driven by Christian conviction. That is, is I think a true Christian morality. This empathy is about social posturing. Now, I realize not everyone who uses the word means it in that way. But if it is distinct from sympathy, it's about something that is deeply politicized based in some understanding a class argument or some kind of form of oppression argument or whatever. But it is about people in general. And that's the problem. You know, it's very easy to say, I'm for people in general. The question is, what are you actually doing in terms of your life, your ministry, your church, your influence in terms of actually helping people who have actual needs? And that's where, if you bind to the empathy argument, well, you have people who immediately transfer that to identity politics and the moral revolution. And so that's exactly what the Episcopal Bishop knew she was doing when she was addressing this. And I'll be honest, she really wasn't addressing this to President Trump sitting in the congregation. She was addressing this to the media. And they laughed it up like kittens with a bowl of milk. When she said that, basically, if you have policies, and remember the president any before, had said that for his government, for the US government under his administration, male and female would be the only two designations and they would be biologically determined. Now, that, according to the left, is a demonstrated lack of empathy. I'm going to argue that it's actually a fundamental act of sympathy. It is a sympathetic understanding of what will lead to human flourishing and human good. And I'm going to argue that what the left has been arguing for an empathy there is actually a dead end. In other words, if you give all the affirmation, they demand to those who are deeply involved in transgender identity. I do not think you're demonstrating love to them. I do not think you're helping them. I do not think you're adding to human flourishing. I think you're just adding to the confusion. I think what the saddest thing is here is that a lot of people who say they are all for this, they're not all for this for their own grandchildren. They're all for this in general and in concept. All right, one of the other things that comes up here is she goes at Christian nationalism predictably. This is what she says, Christian nationalism, the belief that God has called certain Christians to exercise dominion over every aspect of American life with no separation between church and state, is ascendant and Trump's Washington. And she goes at, for instance, the current speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana. You know, the interesting thing here is that she contrasts what she calls Christian nationalism with the position of the National Council of Churches that's the liberal mainline Protestant group is in the very next paragraph that has quote warned against the dangers of Christian nationalism. I guess so. You have two very opposed positions here. I just want to tell you that if you don't want to be called a Christian nationalist, you're really going to have to go into full retreat. Because if you believe, for instance, let's just go back to the transgender issue, if you believe that God has made us in his image and has made us male and female, and you believe that a same society reflects that objective, ontological understanding of what it means to be male and female. And you have to admit that that is based in something that's absolutely consistent with your Christian worldview, then you're going to be called a Christian nationalist. If you believe that marriage should be the union of a man and a woman, and you're going to make that argument in public, you're going to be called a Christian nationalist. There's no way around it. So here's my point. And because of time, this is going to have to be the limit for today. The fact is that if you are determined not to be called a Christian nationalist, you're going to have to go along with every progressiveist policy, every redefinition of marriage and sexuality, the denial of male and female is fixed and biological categories. You're going to have to buy the entire agenda. Because if you say, I can't do that based upon anything that's even parallel with Christian conviction, well, then you are just knowingly or unknowingly a Christian nationalist. Now, there's a lot more to say about that. But I'll just say that this particular article by Hillary Clinton is about as predictable as it can get. If you disagree with this or think there's another aspect of this, we should think about, we'll just write me. I'll be glad to hear from you. These are interesting days. And in these interesting days, I think it's important that we know where we stand. 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