It's Wednesday, June 18, 2025.

I'm Albert Moller, and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian

worldview.

We all know that every day brings a battle of the headlines, but we also know as Christians

in particular that there are fundamental issues underneath the headlines. And sometimes these don't make the headlines, but we also know as Christians in particular that there are fundamental issues

underneath the headlines. And sometimes these don't make the headlines at all. In one strange

case, one big issue did make the headlines. It's an article by Andrew Hartz, published in the Wall

Street Journal. Hearts is a clinical psychologist and the founder of the Open Therapy Institute.

So I'm going to say right up front,

he and I see the same problem. We're going to see this problem in very different terms.

But I want to give him credit for publicly raising an issue. The headline in his article is

fundamentally important. He asked the question, why is everything an existential crisis?

And this is something we just need to note about the common vocabulary around us.

The media catches on to these things.

Celebrities, intellectual elites, they settle on these terms.

The next thing you know, you're hearing them all the time.

Climate change is an existential crisis.

Income inequality is an existential crisis. Questions about government, claims about autocracy, international situations, war, famine, all of these represent what are described as existential crises or existential threats.

And, of course, in this particular case, in the Wall Street Journal, you have someone who is a

therapist, a psychologist, asking the question, is everything really an existential crisis?

Now, I want to point to the fact that there's not even a common agreement about what this means.

And so even as many people hear the term existential crisis, they also hear existential threat. And you have had all

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