Monday, August 25, 2025
The Briefing with Albert Mohler
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
4.8 • 8.4K Ratings
🗓️ 25 August 2025
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Part I (00:14 – 17:25)
A Museum is an Argument: Trump Takes DEI Culture War Agenda to the Smithsonian. What’s It All About?
- President Trump Is Right About the Smithsonian by The White House
- Democratic vs. Republican Occupations by Verdant Labs
A Call to ‘Decolonize Scientific Institutions’: The Leftist Elites are Pushing Their Agenda Far Beyond DEI Initiatives
- Decolonize scientific institutions, don’t just diversify them by Nature (Tara G. McAllister, Leilani A. Walker, Niiyokamigaabaw Deondre Smiles, Lydia Jennings, Bradley Moggridge, Sereana Naepi, Brittany Kamai, Kat Milligan-McClellan)
- Notable & Quotable: Nature by The Wall Street Journal
A Lion of the Pulpit: The Life and Legacy of John MacArthur
- A lion of the pulpit, now in Christ’s presence by WORLD Opinions (R. Albert Mohler, Jr.)
- A Straight Line to the Pulpit: The Legacy of John MacArthur by First Things (R. Albert Mohler, Jr.)
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's Monday, August 25, 2025. I'm Albert Mueller, and this is the briefing. A daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. Well, the museum world is under fire. Here in the United States, President Donald Trump and his administration have sent notice to the Smithsonian |
| 0:21.2 | institution and to other institutions that, of course, receive federal funds, that they are |
| 0:26.6 | expecting a realignment of the museum's exhibits in such a way that they will present what's |
| 0:32.8 | defined as a more truthful narrative concerning the United States or telling history in a more positive way. |
| 0:40.1 | The president made a specific criticism of the Smithsonian saying that in some of its exhibits, |
| 0:46.0 | it focuses too much on, quote, how bad slavery was. |
| 0:49.6 | But it is also clear this is part of the White House attempt to try to limit and roll back DEI, |
| 0:56.5 | diversity, equity, and inclusion agendas that are basically, well, they are established in a |
| 1:02.5 | motivation that largely believes that the United States was born iniquity and that our history |
| 1:09.0 | is a history of oppression. |
| 1:12.9 | And that is showing up, |
| 1:17.7 | exhibit by exhibit, course by course, professor by professor, and museum by museum. |
| 1:23.7 | Now, the museum industry, so to speak, the cultural elite, are hitting back, saying that there is no warrant for this whatsoever, that this is the White House, treading on territory where it doesn't belong, and just also claiming that they have the right |
| 1:33.7 | to tell the story. Now, in order to understand the museum controversy, I want to make an assertion. |
| 1:38.7 | It comes in the form of a single sentence, and I'm going to stand by this sentence, |
| 1:43.2 | and that is that a museum is an argument. |
| 1:45.3 | That's what it is. A museum is an argument. It's an argument in terms of the artifacts that |
| 1:51.3 | are displayed, the story that's told, the context that is explained, the decision to put this, |
| 1:57.1 | not that in the museum, the decision to establish a museum. All of this is deeply rooted in some |
| 2:03.2 | kind of argument. Okay, let's just talk a little bit about history here because that helps us |
| 2:09.5 | to understand. There were certainly collections in times past, especially the rich, the powerful, |
| 2:15.8 | kings, emperors, pharaohs, all the rest. |
... |
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