Monday, February 9, 2026

It's Monday, February 9, 2026. I'm Albert Moeller, and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. Back in 1867, Walter Badgett wrote a book entitled The English Constitution. And in that book, he argued that there are two essential dimensions to government. He was speaking of the British government, but it applies actually to any constitutional order. There are two parts. He identified those two parts as the dignified and the efficient. Now, we have been through a very tumultuous weekend here in the United States, and other tumultuous events are happening around the world. And it brings me back to those two categories of the dignified and the efficient. Walter Badgett defined the monarchy in Britain as the dignified part of government. And he argued that the monarch's function is to embody and exemplify the dignity that belongs to the British state. The monarch's function is to be respectable, is to be dignified, and to give respect and dignity to the entire governmental order. Now, of course, this requires a dignified monarch and a dignified monarchy. Parliament and government agencies in Britain, they were seen as the efficient part. And this means where the sausage, so to speak, is made of legislation and government and policy. Badgett argued that if the British people ever really watched parliament at work, watched parliament closely, they'd be appalled. A modern government to be efficient, well, it has to be sometimes messy. Politics is messy. Sometimes the entire enterprise of politics can mean downright tawdry. In Britain, the monarch is the head of state, whereas the prime minister is the head of government. And those are two very different positions. Now, back in the time that Margaret Thatcher was prime minister in the United Kingdom, I had the opportunity several times to watch her in question time there as a guest in Westminster. And it's just very interesting sitting in the gallery to watch the British prime minister, formidable figure that she was in the debates in parliament. But the debates in the House of Commons are notoriously, let's just say explosive. And even as Mrs. Thatcher herself, Prime Minister Thatcher, later Lady Thatcher, even though she was a very dignified and respectable woman in her role as prime minister, let's just say she could slice and she could dice and she could debate with the best of them. And if you watched her closely at times, she would even let her temper show. That is something a monarch cannot do. That is something you will not see a British king or queen do, certainly in public. There is this clear distinction between the dignified element and the efficient element. In the United States, of course, it's a bit different and more about that in just a moment. But let's look at the fact that if you look at two figures, say from the last part of the 20th century, you would have seen in Britain, these two figures exemplified. You would have seen the dignified so exemplified by the late Queen Elizabeth II. She was dignified in virtually everything she did. She was so good at it and good at it for so long, the longest reigning monarch in British history, that you have one very long testimony to dignity. And she bore the dignity very self-consciously on behalf of the entire nation. She was the embodiment of the nation, even as the monarch was believed to be. And the nation's dignity is deposited in the dignity of the monarch and of the royalty. Now, you contrast that with the fact that in Britain right now, it's a very different picture. King Charles III is working hard, I think, to be dignified. But that is after very long decades in which, as the Prince of Wales, he acted in a very undignified manner. Let's just get to the point. When he married the former Diana Spencer, who became Diana, Princess of Wales, and then their tumultuous soap opera, which involved also bringing to light his long, decades-long pattern of adultery with Lady Camilla Parker, later, of course, Queen Camilla. You're talking about a situation in which You have a king who is not likely to have so long a reign, who is not likely to have enough time to catch up on all that lost dignity. And that's one of the reasons why there are so many hopes invested in his son and such expectation invested in his son, the current Prince of Wales, William, with the expectation that he may avoid much of that loss of dignity. and he comes complete with wife and children and family and a domestic tranquility, apparently, that does set him apart somewhat, even in his own family, but following the example of his grandmother. But the biggest royal scandal at present, of course, isn't about Charles the King. It is about Andrew, formerly Prince Andrew, formerly the Duke of York, but currently, simply after scandal, he is known as Andrew Albert Christian Edward Montbotten Windsor. Yes, merely that. As we all know, he has gone down big in the scandal related to Jeffrey Epstein. And it's because he played such a major part. He has mentioned so many times incriminating photographs and all the rest. And it just got worse with direct accusations made by at least one, if not more, of Jeffrey Epstein's documented victims. And so once you had that scene, you have a tawdry affair, even in the latest massive amount of material in the Epstein files that were released, what you really saw in the midst of all of that were even more pieces of evidence, including some extremely embarrassing photographs. In the long run, it is unlikely that the former prince, the former Duke is going to be able to live in Britain for long, simply because there is so much scandal attached to him. His dignity is gone along with his titles. And for that matter, probably also his wealth. Speaking of the Epstein scandal and it's ever widening circles, it's now reaching the crown or at least the crown princess in Denmark, because it turns out that the Danish crown princess carried on at least communications and friendly relations with Jeffrey Epstein after he had already pled guilty on sex charges. And so the basic reality was known And so this is bringing disrepute upon the crown prince and upon the monarchy there in Denmark Now clearly the crown prince is not yet king but the expectation is that when he would become king, the crown princess would become his queen. And this gets to all kinds of complications because even when they married, there were all kinds of scandals about her previous relationships, including with some people involved in drugs and in criminal activity. We're talking about the Danish crown, one of the oldest and most established of the monarchies in all of Europe, and one of the few along the British monarchy to survive intact after the toppling of so many dynasties after World War I, just in the early decades of the 20th century. And it's not just that. The crown princess's son, who is not the son of the crown prince, is now facing multiple sex-related charges, criminal charges there in Denmark. It's a tawdry thing. It's a soap opera. My point is, when you have a royal house and it is suffering this kind of a loss of dignity, well, that really begins to undermine the very case for the monarchy in the first place. When you're looking at a monarchy, when you're looking at the dignified part of government, here's the big point. In looking at all of this, it is really clear that a government requires the dignified part. We understand the efficient part. And the efficient part in the United States government is both an executive and a legislative function. But the dignified part is also distributed throughout the government, but it is particularly centered in the president of the United States, the commander in chief, the nation's chief executive, the head of state. And in Great Britain, the head of state and the head of government are different people. Similarly, in Denmark, where you have a monarchy in the United States, we do not have a monarchy, We have an elected president of the United States. But in the president of the United States is invested much of the same authority and much of the same respect and the expectation of much of the same dignity. The president of the United States is to represent the nation. When there is a tragedy, it is the president who speaks to it. When there is a major formal announcement to make on behalf of the country, when there is some kind of national trial or moment of national meaning, one way or the other, it It is the president within the dignity of his office, within the dignity often of the White House, even of the Oval Office. It's with the dignity of the presidency as a whole in our constitutional order that the president of the United States operates. And here's something else. When a president spins down dignity, he undermines his efficiency. There is no greater example of that than Bill Clinton. when in the midst of his administration, his indignity robbed his own administration of so much moral authority. It complicated the politics for him as well, and furthermore, his place in history. Now, I think you know why I'm raising this. I appreciate so much so many of the policies of President Donald Trump. I want to see so many of those policies and plans enacted in policy, in law, lastingly. But the president needs to recover his understanding, or maybe needs to gain an adequate understanding of the dignified aspect of constitutional government. It's not clear in so many different ways that President Trump understands the dignified aspect of his office and the fact that that dignity is invested in him as the nation's chief executive, as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces and as, of course, head of state. The president in our constitutional order is an elected monarch, in effect, and looking at the British Constitution as a parallel, it's not exactly the same. But the dignity that is invested in the presidency is very similar to the dignity that is invested in constitutional monarchs in other nations. Now, the president's also an executive, after all, chief executive. There is the efficiency that's invested in terms of the political power of the White House as well. But the power of the White House, as most presidents come to understand, begins with the dignified and ends with the efficient. President George Washington, the nation's first chief executive, understood that very clearly. He set the stage. He was very, very careful, even in his gestures, even in his language, even in the way he dressed, even in the way he showed up at meetings, even in the symbolism of his office. President Washington, the nation's revolutionary hero, and the obvious man to be the first president of the United States, the man who knew he was setting and establishing a precedent for that office, he understood that he was, in effect, the embodiment of the nation, not permanently, not by inheritance, rather by vote. But the dignity required of an elected president would have to be earned even more so than the dignity that would be the inheritance of a monarchy. President Washington understood that. When you look at the tumultuous events over the course of the weekend, and by now you know there was a video the president posted, or we should say was posted, on his true social account, along with many other things within the proximity of time. It was a video, and we are told in the press and in the White House response that it was just one second in a video, just over one minute. But in that one second, there were images of former President Barack Obama, former First Lady Michelle Obama, pasted onto apes. And that led, of course, to an international firestorm. Now, as Christians, let's just understand something. One of our responsibilities is to understand dignity and honor grounded in something very different than even what the secular world understands. And that's because our first understanding of dignity is grounded in the imago dei. And there is also the responsibility to recognize when there are particular assaults on human dignity. So just to put the matter clearly, the picture of America's first black president and first black first lady pasted onto apes is basically a continuation of what was extremely well known over the course of the last two centuries a Darwinian trope And so even in terms of some of the racist arguments that came out of Darwinism it really a dark thing Now the White House said that the president did not intentionally post it, or the president didn't post it at all, was posted his account. And the president himself said he did not know about that image, which he condemned. But the whole point is this became a matter of international conversation. And I know not who posted it. I just know that this directed attention upon the president of the United States. And quite honestly, this is one of those situations in which what we need is a very comprehensive statement of presidential dignity. I really do want to see President Trump accomplish so many of his goals. I'm thankful for so many of his actions and proposals. And quite honestly, a lot of this is just in the cacophony of politics. But one of the rules of politics is you ought not to hand your enemies a weapon to use against you. And in this case, that's exactly what this is. And the president also needs to understand that in order to maintain the political authority he has, even the political authority in his own party, the political authority that emanates from the Oval Office, he needs to add dignity continually to his administration rather than to allow by any source that dignity to be subverted and minimized and compromised. I think this is a good lesson for all of us, regardless of the responsibility we bear. The president of the United States bears an entirely unique responsibility on behalf of the entire nation. But as Christians, I think we do understand that dignity in this respect, again, human dignity and the imago Dei, this non-negotiable, it neither rises nor falls in any single human being. It is simply a creation order fact. But dignity, as Walter Badgett was talking about, as we understand it here, dignity that is, say, the expression of an office, that dignity is not something that is steady state. It's something which a leader can add to or subtract from. And honestly, it's really hard to add to it once you've subtracted too much from it. I want to say this out loud as a reminder to myself and to all of us that especially as we fulfill a role of leadership in the church, in society, frankly, in the family, in marriage, it is our responsibility to understand there has to be the efficient part, to be sure. But before that, there has to be the dignified part. And we need to keep that ever in mind. As Christians, we understand how we speak, how we act, how we present ourselves, how we respond to things. All of this either adds to the dignified part or subtracts from it. It's a matter of honor and respect. Dignity is not the wrong word. I think Walter Badgett maybe had it exactly right. It's the right word. There are two parts, the dignified part and the efficient part. We need both parts. Well, dignity is not exactly the bridge to where we're going next. Where we're going next is the Super Bowl last night. And there's not much to say about the game, but there is something to say about the halftime entertainment. And by the way, there was something to say about it before it happened. And that's part of the cultural phenomenon. So let's just think about it for a moment. The appearance of the entertainer known as Bad Bunny as the central entertainment and controlling figure of the halftime entertainment for Super Bowl 60. I mean, that was well known. It was released. It was premeditated. The NFL knew exactly what it was doing. And let's understand something, even as the press plays into this by saying this is unprecedented, nothing like this has ever happened before. This is leading to unprecedented controversy. No, it really isn't. And I'm not going to go into previous Super Bowls, but let's just say we've had exposed flesh. We've had costume accidents. It put quotation marks around accidents. We've had all kinds of things that have taken place. And let's face it, the NFL loves it. Here's what we need to understand. The NFL loves it because you're talking about it and I'm talking about it. And that leads to expectation, not only here, but around the world. There is no such thing in this context as an accident on the part of the NFL. The NFL knew what it was doing. And of course, there's more to it even than that. The choice of Bad Bunny has been reflected in a good amount of discussion, of course, in the media. Here's a New York Times opinion piece. The culture war is over. Bad Bunny won. Now, by the way, that ran before Bad Bunny entertained at the Super Bowl. But nonetheless, it's not wrong. When you understand how culture works, that's not wrong. Even by being talked about as he was talked about before the halftime entertainment. Yeah, he won. And then you had another major article in the news section, Bad Bunny will make Super Bowl history. Well, of course, I guess you could say he did. And for a couple of reasons, for one reason, so much of what he presented was in Spanish. And thus English speaking audiences were basically listening on, listening in as he was singing in Spanish. Now, given the NFL's plans, that makes perfect sense. And even the NFL admitted part of its plan, which is the NFL wants to vastly expand its audience in the Spanish speaking world. Well, what better way to do that than by taking a Bad Bunny as the central entertainer, choosing him. And by the way, they advertise in different ways. First of all, they said that his entertainment was going to be exclusively in Spanish and exclusively changed something less than exclusive just about 24 hours later. Nonetheless, it was largely in Spanish and we understand what's going on here. And by the way, Bad Bunny is very, very well known in one sense, he probably isn't more famous because of the Super Bowl, but his fame was certainly increased by the media attention and with the ongoing conversation. So why are we talking about it? Well, it is because Bad Bunny is not known for his affirmations of conventional morality, or you just understand what you're dealing with here. That's one of the reasons why Turning Point USA had an alternative halftime program, which goes to show that the divide between red and blue America has reached the point that you can look to the future. I think the Turning Point USA event is likely to be repeated over and over again, maybe by the same organization, because I think that is a very smart strategy because it the recognition that blue and red America are moving further and further apart By the way historically well I noticed that there were several news stories about unprecedented amount of Christian language or talk about the Super Bowl and an awful lot of fusion of football and faith. Well, you know, I don't know if some of the young writers writing that stuff really think it's new because all they have to do is go back to the headline, I don't know, five years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago. You go back. Super Bowl, 60 years old. The intersection between football culture and American Christianity is very thick, if for no other reason than the entire football culture has grown up very much in the center of American cultures. The quintessentially American game, along with baseball, I don't want to get into a fight, add basketball. You have a trio of extremely American sports. The NFL wants to follow the example of some of these other major sporting leagues and export the product throughout much of the Spanish speaking world. It's an expansion opportunity. Now, so far as I know, nothing particularly salacious happened last night. And that reminds us that we also had other major sporting events. Most importantly, the opening ceremonies for the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy, not just in one site, but in two major sites, two lesser sites. And once again, you had an awful lot of the same kind of conversation going on. You also had the situation that NBC was officially covering both the Olympics and the Super Bowl. That led to some interesting scheduling issues for sure. By the way, in a very interesting piece on the bad bunny choice, going back to the NFL, we are told the NFL has made a major goal of expanding internationally, including to Latin America. And so you have a sense of the globalization that some people are looking at, the hopeful international reach of the NFL. But let's go back to the Olympics. I mean, the Olympics are, by definition, an international event in terms of the modern Olympics. And some of the things that were said about the Olympics are just way over the top. And so you are used to all kinds of claims being made about the sporting event and about the Olympics and about the possibility of world peace. And the other thing you need to note is that just about every time the Olympics is held, you have similar kinds of claims being made, just like people are saying about the Super Bowl. Why, there's so much religious talk about the Super Bowl. Yeah, since last year. And then you look at there's so much, you know, warfare around the world. But remember that recent Olympics, this isn't new in 2026. I mean, Russia had already invaded Ukraine in 2024. And before that, it was another problem. Before that, it was another problem, Russian doping scandals such that even now Russian Olympic athletes can't appear representing Russia. They have to appear representing whatever. Okay, so I want to end looking at the Olympics and the opening ceremonies again. That's just weird stuff because it's so tightly scripted. It's so ambitious. And frankly, it's very arrogant. But, you know, it's the kind of arrogance you expect every two years with Olympics opening ceremonies. It's just because it is a globalist dream. And because the modern Olympics program, it was really begun in an effort to try to promote internationalism, to try to decrease world hostilities and all the rest. One of the most interesting things I saw was that the Pope made a statement about the Olympics. Okay, so I just thought, oh, this could be interesting. And, you know, it really did turn out to be interesting. The Pope made a statement in which he called for a pause in hostilities during the Olympics. I don't understand the morality of just pausing for the Olympics. But nonetheless, I understand he felt he needed to make a statement. He said he wanted the Olympics to be, quote, a symbol and promise of a reconciled world. All right. The Pope, by the way, said he did not want politicians and others, this is Modico Rich at the Times reporting, to, quote, yoke athletic accomplishments to nationalistic pride. The paper says, though, he did not refer to anyone And specifically, let me just stop and say, from the very beginning, it has been tied to nationalistic pride. As a matter of fact, the way the opening ceremonies, the closing ceremonies and the medal ceremonies take place, it is about nationalistic pride. Saying the Olympics shouldn't be about nationalistic pride, I think, is to miss the entire point of why those those ceremonies are held, even as they are. But there's there's more coming. The pope also said, and I quote, when sports succumbs to the mentality of power, propaganda or national supremacy, its universal vocation is betrayed. I don't think that makes sense. He said, quote, major sporting events are meant to be places of encounter and mutual admiration, not stages for the affirmation of political or ideological interests. End quote. Well, you know, I'll simply say, in theory, that's right. But I want to point to a comment that has been made, and some of it's coming from the folks very much associated with the Olympics, saying, you know, nationalism and religion divide people, but sport unites people. Now, there's a sense in which, by the way, that's kind of true, but it's true in an extremely limited sense because even as sports unite people, all you have to do is go back to the Super Bowl and say, yeah, well, it divides them too. Furthermore, as we will discuss in coming days on the briefing, there are all kinds of stories tied to every major Olympic event because so much of it is now involved in drugs or the suspicion of drugs or questions about rules. and now we have rules related to costumes. And, you know, well, you probably picked up on some of the controversy about some of the ski costumes for men. Let's just say we live in a world in which evidently anything is possible. You know, just in conclusion, it is a reminder of the fact that in sports, there's simply no denying that every dimension of this is moral. But as Christians understand, even as that is true about sports, It's true about every dimension of life. It's just that in some other dimensions of life, people aren't keeping score. Thanks for listening to The Briefing. For more information, go to my website at albertmuller.com. You can follow me on X or Twitter by going to x.com forward slash albertmuller. For information on the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For information on Boyce College, just go to boycecollege.com. I'll meet you again tomorrow for The Briefing. you