It's Monday, January 26, 2026. I'm Albert Mohler and this is the Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. So much of the nation's attention continues to be directed to the state of Minnesota, to the two cities known as the Twin Cities there, Minneapolis and St. Paul, and that's because of a long standing and now deadly standoff between local protesters, including a good number of leftist activists, and on the other side, federal agents, law enforcement officers, especially those with immigration and customs enforcement. And we are looking at the fact that this standoff, as I say, has turned deadly. A matter of a couple weeks ago, the shooting of Renee Good and then just over the weekend, the shooting of Alex Pretty. Both of these events have become highly controversial. Both involve the shootings of these two people, both of them involved in some form of protest or obstruction in terms of the action of the federal agents, both of them in the context of what can only be described as a very confusing situation on the ground there, and more about that in just a moment. In both cases, you have federal agents, federal law enforcement officers saying that they acted only in response to a clear and present danger to themselves, not just impeding their work but representing a threat, and in both cases, a deadly threat, one with a car and another with what was identified as a gun. Now, as I said, both of these are controversial. The basic facts are very much in dispute. And it is interesting that you have officials in the Trump administration who have come out and said, this is what happened. These are the facts on the ground. They're backing up the officers and the agents in terms of the use of deadly force. On the other hand, you have activists and others there in the Twin Cities who are saying the facts are simply not as the federal law enforcement agents have claimed or the Trump administration has claimed. This is a very, very difficult tangle of issues to, well, untangle. And frankly, this is where we have to understand as Christians, we either operate with respect for the rule of law or we do not. If we operate with respect to the rule of law, then we understand there are systems and structures of accountability. Law enforcement is responsible in terms of their own codes, their own policies, and there will be an investigation. And I'm sure you have the use of this kind of deadly force. Some kind of investigation is going to be done. Now that doesn't mean that it's an investigation that meets the demands of the liberal activists. That's just not the way law enforcement works. But the law enforcement officials who are officials after all of the immigration and customs enforcement agency of the United States government, and by the way, there are other agencies that are also involved one degree or another. They are accountable to the federal government. They're accountable to federal law. They're accountable to the rules and procedures by which they are to operate. But we need to understand that right now what we have on the ground there in the Twin Cities, it's happened elsewhere, but right now ground zero for all of this is Minneapolis and St. Paul. What we have on the ground is intentional confusion. And it is not intentional confusion brought about by law enforcement. It's intentional confusion brought about by very well-organized leftist activists. And even though the mainstream media are suggesting there's not necessarily a direct tie between this individual or another individual with these activist groups, the fact is that anyone who knows the situation on the ground understands that this is very much a form of organizing and protest and intervention and obstruction that is right out of the leftist organizational playbook. At this point, let's just say there is no one sufficiently naive not to understand what's going on here. And what's going on is sheer mayhem and intentional chaos and confusion. So for example, you have some of these activists who are armed with loud whistles. And it's not just one person with a whistle. It is many people with whistles whistling, and their intention, they're right up front with it, is to warn persons who might be arrested or interrogated by federal agents of the presence of these federal agents in order that they may flee. But of course, this also leads to an absolute ear-splitting cacophony. And what you have here is the intentional insertion of confusion, and it's done by the liberal activists. And liberal is not the right word in this case. We really need to say leftist activists who are seeking basically not just to impede the work of ICE and other federal agents when it comes to this crackdown and enforcement on undocumented people in the United States. It is also very much something that they are intending to bring about in order just to stop the federal effort. And they believe they can do so with this kind of activist obstruction on the streets. What they cannot accomplish, say, in Congress, they want to accomplish on the streets through this kind of protest. That creates a very volatile situation. And that's not to say that federal law enforcement agents can do no wrong. That's not to say that in any sense. It is to say that when you have activists, they're confronting these agents, trying to create a situation of maximum confusion. Well, if you create a situation of maximum confusion with law enforcement agents who are there with the full force of the federal government, and also if you present any kind of danger or any kind of threat, I think there should be no surprise that this will end very, very badly. And again, we have to understand that for Christians, we either believe in the rule of law or we do not. If we believe in the rule of law, and I think that comes right down to model some of the Old Testament and to an authoritative text in the New Testament for us in this respect, such as Romans 13, I think it helps us to understand that we either understand that there is legitimate authority and it will have to handle this through processes of investigation and adjudication. We either believe in that or we don't. Otherwise, it's just whatever side will declare whatever justice on the streets. And we understand that in biblical terms, that's not justice. And that means that we have to wait. That is one of the hardest things. That is one of the hardest disciplines for human beings period. It's a hard discipline in the Christian life. We have to wait for these processes to work. But we also have to understand that if you are involved in this situation, as say an ICE agent there on the ground, you don't have time to wait in terms of what is presented to you day by day, moment by moment in this action. Now let's just telescope back for a moment and understand there's a massive worldview clash going on here. It's a massive clash of worldviews. It's not just a political debate. It's not just a difference over immigration policy. It's not even just a difference over immigration policy enforcement. It's not just about even the role of law enforcement. It's about far larger issues. And so Christians are those who are not surprised when these worldviews become evident and when collisions between worldviews, frankly, are quite messy, sometimes quite volatile, even at times violent. We are looking at two clashing worldviews. One is one that believes that we have laws and those laws include immigration laws, naturalization laws, borders. And we have to respect those laws and we have to hold others to respect those laws as well. There can be provision for refugees and provision for those who are coming under special protection. There can be immigration laws. And of course the United States has such laws. But our laws are a mess. And both sides in this have to acknowledge that this is a political mess that's going to require a political solution. And that means Congress is eventually going to have to act and clarify these matters. But the worldview is between those, again, who believe in a world of order and law. And that means if you establish a law, then you obey the law. You follow the law. You enforce the law. Or what you now have is basically a movement to nullify the law, simply to declare that, yes, that's the law, but we are not going to respect the law. We're not going to respect federal law enforcement agents in this respect. Now in the history of the United States, this has been called nullification. And of course it has a very long pedigree in the United States. And that's a very sad and sometimes violent pedigree in the United States. But it comes down to whether or not, especially when it comes to border enforcement and immigration and naturalization, is that rightly the purview of the federal government rather than the states? The answer to that, by the way, has to be yes. Simply has to be yes. And there is plenty of legal basis behind that and plenty of Supreme Court precedent behind that. You can't have an operational federal government if that federal government does not have the power in all 50 states throughout the entire union to enforce federal law. If that's nullified, then quite frankly, you do not have an operational government. You don't have the rule of law. You have the rule of whatever mob is making whatever demand on whatever street. But you know there's a little more to it even than that. And in order to understand that, in more recent American history, let's just go back to 1971. Now how in the world would something in 1971 be really relevant, directly relevant to what we're talking about today? Well, that's because what we are looking at is the fact that you have cities, and in most cases these are cities, and you have some states, let's just take the cities, some have declared themselves sanctuary cities. They've made a formal designation often by action of the city commissioner, the city council, some kind of local government. They have made the declaration that this city, let's just take one city, like manyapolis, is a sanctuary city, and thus local officials are not going to work with federal law enforcement officials in terms of the enforcement of these laws. Now again, that's a form of nullification. But it happened going back to 1971. The issue then was the federal government coming after those who were evading the draft for the Vietnam War. And as you know, the University of California at Berkeley was one of the epicenters for liberal activism. In many ways, that's where the hard left really arose in recent American history. And by hard left, we mean hard and left. And the radicalism we see right now on the streets of the Twin Cities, it goes right back to Berkeley, California in the 1960s. And in 1971, the declaration is a sanctuary city. Now by the way, that really didn't stand. Federal officials didn't say, well, I guess we're going to stay out of Berkeley, California. But it was a line in the sand, and it was a leftist argument, and it has continued. The modern sanctuary city movement began in 1982. So 11 years after the Berkeley designation over the Vietnam War, you started having sanctuary cities declare themselves in opposition to the federal government on immigration and refugee policy. In the case of what emerged in 1982 and in that era, it had to do with immigrants crossing the border without documentation permission in the 1980s coming from Central America. And thus they declared themselves sanctuary cities, which meant if one of these undocumented immigrants, let's just use that language for the course of this consideration, they're undocumented, that is to say, they're illegal aliens that come into the country. They could get one of these sanctuary cities, they just might be able to find sanctuary. Now where does that word come from? Well in terms of history, the legal history is that you had certain jurisdictions declare themselves to be sanctuaries sometimes during times of conflict. So for example, it's not exactly what happened with Switzerland in terms of World War II, but it is something that happened going back to say the history of the Reformation, where you had certain cities that declared themselves to be cities of shelter for those who were fleeing one authority or the other. In this case, this meant especially those who were fleeing persecution, even to the point of death during the Reformation. There had been other sanctuary cities for different reasons throughout history, but in this case, in the American context, it means an intentional effort by some local jurisdiction to declare itself at odds with the federal government and federal law and federal law enforcement. Now let's just state as Christians, we have a big problem with that. We have a Romans 13 problem with that. If you're going to declare yourself a sanctuary city, what you're basically saying is that you do not recognize, and by the way, again, not so important that this is said by an individual, we're talking about it being said by a local jurisdiction, especially a city in this case or in some cases states. They say when it comes to these laws adopted by the United States of America, we're not going to recognize those laws. We're going to seek to impede the enforcement of those laws, and they're not doing it quietly, they're doing it quite publicly, they're making a political statement. Once again, you can't have a federal government operating as a federal government by federal law, rightly adopted by federal jurisdiction, in this case, it means Congress signed by the president or the official executive actions or policies adopted according to federal law. If indeed you have an opposition to that, you declare yourself an opposition, it makes no sense that in the United States we would allow cities or states to declare this kind, basically of nullification, of absolute resistance to federal law, regardless of the issue, by the way, and we can see that this kind of pattern could spread to issues far beyond immigration, and especially on issues like the LGBTQ revolution or abortion or other things. We need to understand there are activists who are basically calling for a form of nullification in many of those policies and laws as well. There's a precedent here, it's a very dangerous precedent. I think you'd be surprised how many jurisdictions in the United States have declared this kind of sanctuary status. Let's just look at the states, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Illinois, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. Four counties, at least by the count of the U.S. Department of Justice, Baltimore County, Maryland, Cook County, Illinois, San Diego County, California, and San Francisco County, California. Let me just take, looking at the map of red and blue America, there's no great surprise here. All right, cities. This is the epicenter right now, the Twin Cities. Cities include Albuquerque, New Mexico, Berkeley, California. Again, that's where the whole thing started in 1971. Boston, Massachusetts, Chicago, Illinois, Denver, Colorado, East Lansing, Michigan, Hoboken, New Jersey, Jersey City, New Jersey, Newark, New Jersey, Patterson, New Jersey, also add New Orleans, Louisiana, and New York City, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Portland, Oregon, Rochester, New York, Seattle, Washington, and San Francisco, California. There you have it. There is, so far as I know, one city that was on this list that is now off of that list, and that's by an agreement with the federal government and the city of Louisville, Kentucky. Louisville, Kentucky was on this list. It is now off this list. It declared itself a sanctuary city, but threatened with federal action, it has backed down. We can only hope that we'll have other cities and states and, frankly, jurisdictions of any kind that will recognize the lawful authority of the federal government and also understand the constitutional issues that are at stake, and also come to understand that when they create mayhem in the streets intentionally, when that is right out of the playbook of the radical left, they are creating mayhem. That's not to say, again, that all parties are not responsible for maintaining order, respecting order, respecting the law. All parties are, but when you put people or they put themselves on the streets to impede federal law enforcement, then they are creating a situation that, as we know now, at least in two deaths, is unquestionably downright deadly. It's also intentional. We need to understand that. The media coverage on this has been predictably confusing, and I think sometimes deliberately so. I think one of the most interesting pieces is one that ran just over the last several hours in the New York Times. Here's the headline, How the Trump Administration Rushed to Judgment in Minneapolis Shooting. So here you have two reporters for the New York Times saying that the Trump administration rushed to judgment by supporting the law enforcement side in the account of what happened in the tragic death of Alex Pretty. But what they aren't acknowledging is that the national media have largely rushed into judgment. Certainly, the activist community has rushed into judgment. But rushing into judgment is a part of the radical playbook. And quite frankly, the left and the right can both fall into that trap and, quite frankly, later be embarrassed by facts. If indeed, they have any respect of the facts in the first place, whether they're capable of being embarrassed in this case. I guess that's up for question. But we as Christians understand we can be embarrassed by rushing to judgment. We indeed can be embarrassed by discovering we made the wrong judgment. We can be embarrassed and should be embarrassed by a rush to judgment. And it is Christians who need to understand, once again, the rule of law is not something that we should see as anything less than a massive achievement for human history. And the rule of law only works if there is respect for the rule of law. And as Christians, we need to understand that the alternative to the rule of law is the rule of force, brute force. The rule of no law, and that the Bible makes very clear, is the worst situation of all. OK, now with a much less urgent, but still very important dimension to the question of the rule of law, what can the law approve and what can the law forbid? This issue of approval, even to the point of commandment in the sense that, again, in the Ten Commandments, thou shalt and thou shalt not, where you have the affirmative command or the absolute prohibition, thou shalt and thou shalt not. That's a pattern we understand. And all legal systems that in any sense claim plausibility come down to that. But every rule of law has to make some decision about what's going to be covered by the law and what's not. And in the American experiment, of course, this goes back, especially in our constitutional order, to the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights was in place to say that all federal laws must recognize and fully respect this Bill of Rights, this list of constitutionally recognized rights that no legal jurisdiction in the United States may violate. So of course, this is really important. So this leads to legal disputes. And in Florida, they're getting ready to have a big legal dispute. And it is going to involve federal courts as well. And it is over drag shows. OK, that is when you have persons who are seeking, at least in terms we are told, of the first purpose being entertainment, but it's also tied to political protests. You have persons of one sex presenting themselves as being of the other sex. So you could use the word gender here because of course it is an expression. And so basically, the big business here is biological males, men dressing up as women. Now here's the point. And here's the big moral background to this. Number one, the scripture says, don't confuse things this way. In the Old Testament, it's made really clear that a man is to appear as a man and a woman is a woman. And I think that's also very clearly followed as a pattern by the apostle Paul, even when he gives his instruction to the young Christian churches. You should be able to look at someone and say, man or woman. And this should absolutely correspond to creation order. OK? But when you have drag shows, well, it's intentionally, it's designed to attract attention by presenting a male as a female. If you're going to do that, you're not going to do it in a nonflamboyant way. In other words, if you're going to do that, you're going to play right into all the sexualized stereotypes. You're going to play right into, well, let's just say, it's going to be borderline pornographic in all likelihood. Because you're not going to have someone in a drag show present himself as a woman in a way that is barely recognizable as a woman that would defeat the point. So instead, let's just say you're going to have an exaggeration of the female form and female dress and female gestures. You're going to have everything exaggerated to make a point. And increasingly, especially with the LGBTQ revolution, you have this intentionally presented as a form of political protest, which claims constitutional protections under free speech and free expression, such that they will claim that doing so is a constitutionally protected period. But here's where things get interesting. In 2023, the state of Florida, through its legislature, adopted what was known as Senate Bill 1438. So 1438. And it did not specifically name drag shows, according to a report in the Lakeland Ledger. But nonetheless, everyone knew that's what it was about. Quote, it blocked venues from admitting children to adult live performances. That's the term. And the line shows exhibitions or presentations in front of a live audience that quote, depict or simulate nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, specific sexual activities, lewd conduct or the lewd exposure of, let's just say, you can you can understand what's following, the physical representations. Now you have a challenge to that state law, predictably, you have a challenge to that state law. Mostly on free speech and free expression grounds. But the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has said that it's going to take up this case and it's going to hear a challenge to that law. And just remember, this law is not about whether or not you can have live drag shows in Florida. It's about whether or not you can have live drag shows in Florida to which children are exposed. Now I'll just go out on a limb here and I'll say the vast majority of Americans can figure this one out almost immediately. As a matter of fact, in most places in America, you wouldn't need to have, let's say, nearly as much language as is in this Florida legislation, Senate Bill 1438. You wouldn't need all that language. People can get the picture real fast and they can make the right moral judgment real fast. Now we can only hope that this federal court will reach the right judgment real fast and real clearly. We certainly also have to understand that might not happen and this may be a case that has to go all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States. But the big issue in worldview terms is to understand why these activists are so determined to have these drag shows before children and young people. Why is this such an issue? This came up in the, say, the last two decades over what has often been described as drag queen story hour. This was sometimes held and is still held in some public libraries, in which case you would have drag queens read stories to children in public libraries, attracting a crowd. Why? Why the attention to children? It is to break down normal creation order distinctions between male and female. It is to reach the youngest among us who are most impressionable and who, quite frankly, are going to be thrilled to sit down and hear a story. The symbolic nature of this is exactly what those behind it understand it to be. In other words, if you make this look normal, children will grow up thinking this is normal. If you normalize this, and there are few venues in which you can normalize things, at least in the view of most people, more quickly than in a public library. I mean, if in a public library, in the children's book section, reading children's books, you can have drag queen story hour, then how can there be anything wrong with anything like this? And here, of course, you're talking about drag shows. I think the Florida legislature, of course, did the right thing. I think the vast majority of Americans would recognize that. But we do also need to recognize the worldview held by many civil libertarians who want to say that any kind of expression like this that is limited in any way by law creates a situation that's unconstitutional. And you need to understand that some of these activists believe that if they accept one situation, even just one situation in which they would admit it would be wrong to have some kind of performance like this in front of children, they fully understand that if they ever admit one time that even that one time it was wrong, they have created a crack in their own wall. They've created a chink in their own armor. And they understand that if that argument falls, there are a lot of other arguments that are going to fall as well. But I think, as Christians, in conclusion, we also need to understand one other aspect of the story. And that is that when you have this kind of, well, just call it a presentation or performance, it's going to attract attention. And quite frankly, it's going to have almost necessarily a comic edge to it. And why is it? It's because one form of comedy in a fallen world is that we look at something that's not quite right. We look at something that is not as it should be, but in a fallen world at times, something like that can look funny. It can be comedic. But of course, that comes with a moral consequence. And that is the whole point. Because as feelings, as moral judgments are realigned, even in the context of something presented as farce, the moral impact is not farcical at all. It's all too real. I know the syntax is wrong here, but I simply have to put it this way to make the point. As Christians, we need to be very careful what we watch. We have to be very careful what we laugh at. Thanks for listening to the briefing. For more information, go to my website at albertmoller.com. You can follow me on Twitter or X by going to x.com forward slash albertmoller. For information on the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For information on Boyce College, just go to boycecollege.com. I'm speaking to you from Jacksonville, Florida, and I'll meet you again tomorrow for the briefing.
