Friday, October 9, 2026

0:00It's Friday, October 9, 2026. I'm Albert Molar, and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. The Wall Street Journal recently gave about half-page in the print edition in asking the question, why are so many adults cutting off their parents? It's an article about what is known as family estrangement, where told that it's on the rise as the journal says, quote, driven by shifting norms and changing therapy practices, we are now at a cultural tipping point. It says, okay, so we are talking about something big, and I want to tell you this is discussed today because it's Friday, and I can tell you that even as we'll turn to questions in a bit, I've received a remarkable number of questions about this issue. I am actually shocked by how many have written to me saying, I either have experienced something like this, or I know a family that's really being traumatized by this, I go to church with a family, this is very much an issue.

1:02You have older teenagers, and especially adult children just cutting their parents off, saying that the relationship with their parents was just toxic, and for their good, they need to just cut it off. Cut off all communication, just basically declare themselves to be independent of the family. Cutting off parents is the main form of the kind of estrangement we're talking about here. Now, I think there are situations in different families where this estrangement may come in a different pattern, but the big pattern, what's caught the attention of so many, is young adults cutting off parents. Sometimes one, sometimes the other, sometimes both, and as a matter of fact, an awful lot of the evidence is that it's often both. They just want to do something completely new. So Elizabeth Bernstein, writing for the Wall Street Journal, says this, quote, when Robin Brill walked into a conference for a strange parents this summer in Chicago, she was stunned by the crowd. More than 200 moms and dads filled the chairs, some of whom had traveled from as far away as Australia, another 250 watched a livestream.

2:05Like Brill, whose 28-year-old son cut off contact three years ago, these parents were seeking one thing, answers. One parent said, we want to know what makes all these kids want to do this because whatever the individual case may be, they're all saying the same thing. They say things like my mom is a narcissist. My dad is self-absorbed. It's your fault. Something is wrong. These are young people who are saying, I want to break off the relationship with my parents because it is by the younger person's definition, a toxic relationship. Now this has become such a thing that the Wall Street Journal sees the thing, gives it a half-page in the prendition and the weekend edition, and also starts out with this kind of anecdote about the fact that there are now conferences being held for parents that have found themselves cut off from their adult children. Listen to this from the Wall Street Journal article, quote, many experts believe a strange bit between adult children and their parents are becoming an epidemic in the US just like divorce in the 1970s.

3:06Much like then, the movement is driven by a convergence of large societal trends this time to rise of social media algorithms, changing therapeutic approaches, and a broadening definition of trauma. William Dordy, a therapist and professor emeritus of Family Social Science at University of Minnesota says, quote, we are at a cultural tipping point. A confluence of forces is leading to certain actions and choices that were considered taboo before now, becoming acceptable and even celebrated. And then they spread via social contagion. All right, listen to this. One Cornell sociologist has now estimated that 10% of the US population is estranged from or has cut ties with a parent or child at any given time, while 25% report themselves as estranged from any close relative. Okay, we have entire new categories that are now coming to the fore. For one thing, there has been the discussion ever since the sexual revolution and the destabilization of the natural family.

4:06There has been the talk of the chosen family. And so the idea is, and one of the things that's going to show up is that some of these patterns are very predictable. The increasing pattern is, you have people who say, my own family, my birth family, my natural family is toxic to me. Therefore for my own psychological well-being, I'm going to cut myself off, presumably by the way forever. It's unclear as to whether there's any intention at any time to do anything in order to bring about some kind of healing. The assumption is no. This is being described by some as an estrangement crisis. And it's even producing people on social media who are now known as estrangement influencers. In other words, people famous for telling other people they need to break ties with their parents and have nothing to do with their natural, their birth family. Okay. So something big is going on here. If it were not big, we wouldn't have books coming out on it. We would not have a paper of the stability of the Wall Street Journal looking at this as

5:10a major development. Okay. There is also some other language that's coming up. One language, one vocabulary issue is concept creep. And that comes up. It comes up in several different sources here with several different authorities. Concept creep is something that a worldview analysis, we need to pay attention to. That is when a concept means this and then it gets expanded to something else. And so one of the things to watch is the creep of a term like toxic. Now when you use a word like toxic, of course it means poisonous. It means deadly in terms of its classic meaning. And you come to understand that if you can say something toxic, well then you can describe and fully rationalize what you want nothing to do with it. Now the word toxic in the age of therapy has been redefined. Toxic in the past referred to a medical toxicity, a physical toxicity. Now it's emotional. And then the therapeutic revolution, so big, 50, 60, 70s, 80s, 90s, this turn towards the inner self, this turn towards secular therapy, this turn away from the, the outside world

6:15has expectations on me that are real and good to the outside world has expectations on me that are toxic. You have the logic of the therapeutic movement that says it's something's toxic, then for your own health, for your own good, you have to cut yourself off from it. And so you see this now, concept creep means yeah, it really began with reference to medical toxicity. Then it gets expanded to something that is a direct threat, you know, and then in a therapeutic context, no, it's just whatever you perceive to be something that threatens your own security, self security, well being, harmony with the universe, et cetera. This Wall Street Journal article also says, and again, I have no idea how they counted this, that there are at least 138,000 pieces, articles on the internet basically championing this idea of family estrangement, of just to cutting off people. Most often that means cutting off parents. Okay, you say there must be more to this and you would be right. And I want to bring in a book on this, Noel Meringue, who is a fellow the Ethics and Public

7:19Policy Center in Washington, DC. She has written, I think, a really good book entitled No Contact, the Subhead, How a Seductive Ideology Broke Families and Friendships and how we can repair them. I think one of the strengths of this book is that she actually tracks this concept creep and how it came about. She has a section of which she talks about broadening the definition of trauma. And it is interesting that a lot of the definitions and the diagnoses of trauma these days aren't even backed up by anything official in something like the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. In other words, the claims here about personal trauma are way ahead even of some of the coding that goes on in the therapeutic world. Speaking of the concept creep and Nick Haselam is credited with coming up with that term, she writes, quote, the new definition of trauma has become culturally normative. Universities, for example, often provide counseling services, safe spaces and other resources in response to political events, framing them as traumatic.

8:22And that's exactly what you see. And by the way, this is very much, very much something that affects America writ large, but it is socially contextualized in a very concentrated way on the ideological left, which by the way also tends to be far more secular and to follow a far more secular understanding of therapy. By the way, one of the things also revealed in this is that there is a lot of circular reasoning. And she writes about what she calls the infallibility narrative. This is Noel Maring. She says on a video on his YouTube page, she mentions one person who, quote, explains not only that parents are wrong to question their adult child's decision regarding a strangement, but also that their questioning demonstrates the family's toxicity. So this is really interesting when you talk about the circular argument, because as you see here, you have young people who say they have broken their relationship with their parents because of its toxicity. And the parents say, we don't understand what you're talking about. And the young person comes back and says, see, that's exactly why I need to be cut off from you permanently.

9:22There's also what she calls an asymmetry and imbalance here. Listen to this quote. This asymmetry plays out in the no-contact community. Parents who have been cut off and tell their stories online are regularly subjected to derision and armchair psychoanalysis, while adult children are almost unanimously affirmed in their decision in such forums. For these communities and therapists that advise them, there can be powerful incentives to defend adult children against all scrutiny, not necessarily out of ill will, but because doing so affirms their own interpretive framework and reinforces a model of care centered on continued therapeutic dependence. By the way, I have often pointed out that that's a part, a rather dangerous part of a lot of the therapeutic culture. If people get well, they don't need more therapy. So the therapy just gets extended and extended and extended. Speaking of how all this comes about, she explains it in an historical context. Listen to this. In the 20th century, family estrangement underwent a multi-pronged transformation, paving the way for the modern no-contact movement. First, estrangement had functioned to uphold communal stability and reinforced cultural norms.

10:27In the last century, it was reframed as an active liberation from inherited tradition and a means of destabilization. Second, familiar divisions had often been unintended consequences of larger societal forces like war or exile. In contrast, modern ideological movements have increasingly treated estrangement as an end in itself, a way to break generational continuity and subordinate relationships to a new revolutionary future. All right. Let me point to some specific issues to watch here. One of them has to do with a shift in which you have a division between the parents who may be believing, confessing Christians and a young person who is not and who says, just to be free of that toxic background. You see this. There are books being written by young people who say, I had a toxic background because my parents were Orthodox believing biblical Christians. Then that points to another big thing. The gender non-binary and the LGBTQ issue plays out massively in this.

11:30This is where you have young people who declare themselves LGBTQ or whatever follows. Others who declare their gender identity to be different, non-binary or whatever. Parents are often quite concerned about that. I would say rightly so. And if the parents are not just unanimously, overwhelmingly, unconditionally positive and affirming, then some of the people who are behind the LGBTQ movement and the therapeutic movement that's allied with it, they simply tell these young people, we have to cut off those relationships because your parents are toxic. And this is why there has been a change in some of the secular discourse around this. And I've certainly noticed it, especially on college campuses, where young people now increasingly define ideas they don't like as toxic. Toxic is a therapeutic category the way they're using it. They're able to say, look, it's just something that doesn't make me happy to think about. I want to bring this to a conclusion before turning to questions simply to say, we are looking at the rise of the therapeutic in a very dangerous, I'll just go ahead and say,

12:34a very toxic guys. We are looking at the therapeutic worldview, which tells people whatever you feel, whatever you perceive, whatever you think your need is, that's the most real thing. It just drives people back into themselves. And when you look right now at some of the issues that are dividing parents and their children, these are the kinds of issues that are so incredibly modern, like the LGBTQ ideas and especially some of the non-binary gender ideas and all the rest. These are things that wouldn't have divided families in times past because they were not culturally available. But now we are in a culture that is tearing down all the boundaries to put it in another way. There are so many things right now that are culturally available to young adults. And the fact is an increasing number of young adults are simply defining their birth family, their natural family, their parents. And frankly, their church and just about anything else they want to name as being toxic, something they have to cut off in order to find themselves happy. I come back to the circular reasoning in so much of this, the therapeutic community

13:36simply says, look, even if you doubt the reality of this, it just shows you how seductive it is. There are so many Christian parents who are really grieving this. And this is something that's going to come up more and more in the context of the local church and in conversation. And this is where I think as Christians, we just need to make very clear. You know, it's in the Ten Commandments, honor your father and your mother. And that, of course, doesn't excuse any behavior. It doesn't endorse every single, you know, relationship between parents and children. It does set a norm and divine expectation. And let me tell you this, I think it's very important for people to realize that the argument is now you have to cut yourself off from your family in order to be who you need to be. We do need to come back to a biblical reality that says honor your father and your mother. And as is clear, that doesn't mean that justifies any particular action by a parent. And it doesn't mean that all parents act to righteously and rightly in every situation. It is to say that the modern therapeutic worldview will tear apart everything basic to

14:38human civilization. And it starts with marriage in the family. It's not an accident that the arguments used about getting out of a marriage are now the very arguments used about getting out of a family. All right. Now, let's turn to questions. And as always, I appreciate questions sent in by listeners. Sometimes they follow a pattern. Sometimes they kind of come out of the blue. This one comes from a 14 year old boy, a 14 year old young man. And he writes me saying, I'm not a Christian yet, but I want to be. I want to submit to him. But one big question is between him, he says, and belief. He says, I'm growing up in a Christian family. He knows a lot about who Jesus is. He says, he knows the basics of Christianity. And then he says, so let me give you the question, what archaeology and evidence do we have that support that the Bible exists? What proves and facts checks that the Bible is true? Because once you get the one or the rest are true. He just raises a bunch of issues. Later on rather stunningly, he writes, I believe that there is a God or some supernatural

15:38being. I think the argument made by St. Enselm of Canterbury and his whole ontological argument. So he's familiar with Enselm and the ontological argument, well, God bless you. I don't know how, but that's fantastic. He goes on asking, now why should he believe? And he says he wants to believe. He says, I don't want to go back to that. He says, I'm not a Christian yet, but I want to be. And he says, I know the basic facts of the gospel. And he says, is there a clencher? A clencher you can offer me. And so I'm going to go outside my normal envelope here and answering this young man and say, I need to talk to you very personally. I hope that's an appropriate thing here. I need to talk to you as one who was once a 14 year old boy. And I can say one who had a lot of thoughts like you think. So I want to ask myself at age 14, why did you believe in Christ? And I want to tell you why. It's not only because the gospel was preached to me, it's not only because I was surrounded of a biblical truth being raised by two Christian parents. It's not only because I had so many gospel influences in my life.

16:40It was because when I closed my eyes, I could not imagine a situation in which Christianity was not true. In other words, there was an assurance in my heart and in my mind, and I ask a lot of the questions you ask. I want to say to this young man, I admire you asking these questions and I really admire your honesty about you asking these questions. They all came back to the fact that I can't explain why I exist. I cannot explain why I have a consciousness. I cannot explain why I have a conscience. I cannot explain why I experience love. I cannot experience moral choice without knowing that somehow these are gifts to me by a creator who made me. Then the question in this young man says he believes there's a God or some supernatural being. I just want to say, I came to the conclusion in my heart that I really did believe that the witness of Scripture is true. It wasn't so much because of some kind of external evidence. I'm going to say that that, at least for me, was not that big an issue. It was the consistent witness of Scripture.

17:41I will say that now I would explain as a much older man. I would explain to my 14-year-old self that is because the Lord by His grace opened your heart to see and to believe. You have seized upon Christ precisely because of the illumination and the effect you will call that is come from God. I want to say to this young man, I see evidence of that even in the way you ask this question. I mean this as a form of challenge and assurance. I just want to tell you, I believe the fact that you're even thinking about Enselm's ontological argument for God's existence, which is the very existence of being. Being applies a creator and that creator, the way the being exists, it goes on in its ramifications. It was a personal God who has made the creation for His glory. The very fact that I exist is explainable only by the fact that there's a God, a creator who made me. That's where the argument has to be expanded because if he made me, he didn't just make me. He made me for a reason. I'll just tell you, Christianity is the only possible answer to that question that I've

18:43ever found. I just want to come back and say that Christianity is based on space-time true claims. God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself. Jesus died on the cross, four hour sins. He was bodily raised from the dead by the power of the Father. He's ascended into heaven and will come once again to claim His own and to reign in glory. I believe all those things in the space-time continuum, but I also believe them. I just want to say to this 14 year old young man because at the end of my ability even to think logically, I can find no other plausible explanation for the universe, for the cosmos, for my dog, or for why I exist as I am. I ask these questions. My dog doesn't. I want to say this, amen. I pray you come to a saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and I just want to say a part of that is understanding that faith is a truss that rests in Christ. And you know, that's more than just an intellectual equation. It is based upon the truths revealed in Scripture.

19:44Maybe you'll come to the place where you say, I simply surrender to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ simply because there is no other plausible explanation for why I know my life and why I know my own heart and why I have any hope for that which is yet to come. If that happens, the Holy Spirit will convict you in your heart of your sin and make you desire a Savior will present Christ unto you. You will seize upon Christ and trust in Christ and in Christ alone. And by the way, I did not cease my questions when I was your age, even with that understanding that there was no other plausible explanation for the universe or from my own heart or for my own center, from my own hope other than the gospel of Jesus Christ. I also understood there are a lot of things that God evidently means for me to think about. And I have sought to think about them rightly from then until now. And to my young friend, I will say, I'm still working on it. Okay. Another listener writes in and I appreciate careful listening. And this listener was listening as I talked about the European Union and Robert Schumann,

20:47the German statesman who really was so central to forming what would become the European community and who had written saying simply, democracy will be Christian or it will not be. And this listener says the idea makes a lot of intuitive sense to me, but how do you account for the democracies in ancient Greece or the Roman Republic, both of which developed before the influence of Christianity? You know, I suppose they another really smart question, but the answer is they didn't last. They didn't actually last long at all. And one of the reasons was I think they were built on impossible foundations. And I think that actually makes Robert Schumann's point that democracy will be Christian or it will not be. Another way to put it is that democracy will be Christian or it will not last. And I think when you look at the Greek and the Roman experiments with democracy, they are a part of the intellectual and historical background that makes our modern democratic project make sense. But they also point to a severe word of warning. These things do not last if the foundations be destroyed.

21:48Okay. Another listener wrote in saying, and I quote, I'm an artist, photographer, an assistant professor of art whose Christian faith is a central theme in my creative work. The writer went on to say, quote, given your own interest in art, and I met to that right up front, I thought you might have an answer as to why Christians are numbered so few in the art world and why more Christian universities don't have serious art programs. In a quote, an interesting question, good question. And I'll simply say, I think that these kinds of things come in different cultural seasons. And I think the cultural season right now in the world of aesthetics and art is overwhelmingly liberal, overwhelmingly secular, and to a considerable degree, overwhelmingly decadent. And I think that's one of the reasons why you have a lot of Christian institutions kind of steering away from it. You know, I'll simply say this, it's sort of like walking into a major art museum and I have the honor of taking Christians into some of these major art museums all over the world. And you walk in and you know, I honestly have to say, look at this, I'll look at that.

22:48But you know, in other words, there is a different periodization, I mean, even as you know, looking at the romantics at a certain period and the exaggerated sexuality, even as they were trying to put this in a pastoral setting, I'm talking fast in order to say, there is no pure era of art. There is no season of art after Genesis 3 that's entirely honoring the God. But in the contemporary context, art has become in many ways a part of cultural resistance and a part of cultural subversion. And I'm not saying that all artists are or that all art being done now is, I'm simply saying that is what gets a lot of cultural attention. That is what gets a lot of jobs. And frankly, as you look at many of the art programs in secular universities, I mean quite honestly, you know, no one committed to any kind of traditional understanding of art really has much of a future. I also think there's one other aspect of this I just want to admit. And that is that when you look at Evangelical Christianity, there is an almost immediate question, what do I do with this? When it comes to higher education, the question is still there.

23:50What do I do with this? And that's why when you look at Evangelicals, you will see a tendency among evangelicals to move into areas of academic study and professional background training in which the answer, what do I do with this is more clear. When it comes to art, that's a harder question to answer. Let's just be honest. It also comes down that way to many other things in life. And so these days we're watching a retreat from even the classical arts and sciences, history, English and all the rest, which I think are absolutely essential as well. So you look at this and I just want to say it's just a part of the evangelical culture to want to know, okay, if I'm going to spend the money, if I'm going to pay the tuition, if I'm going to put this work in, I want to know what I can do with it on the other side. And that's where, you know, quite honestly, some areas are in a stronger position to argue than others. I think however, that's not the main issue. I think the main issue is what is understood is that a current, let's just use that word, the beginning of the program, a current toxicity when it comes to much of the art world.

24:51And you know, we need missionaries to that world. And so when I look at your message to me, I'm thankful for you and thankful for the way you think and appreciate the fact that you wrote me. And maybe one day we'll be able to talk about our mutual admiration for art. I must tell you, I love the Friday editions of the briefing when I get to turn to these questions partly because I am always astounded by the quality of the questions that are sent in. I appreciate them greatly. Thanks for listening to the briefing. At Boyce College, we believe the Christian life is about absolute faithfulness in the church, in the workplace, the family, in the world. That's why we prepare students to know the truth, to follow Christ with conviction, and to be ready for whatever the Lord calls them to do. I want to invite students to experience Boyce College preview this coming October 15 through 16. I'm going to be doing this very fast. I just want to give you a last opportunity. It's going to be held October 15 to the 16th here in Louisville, Kentucky on this campus. If you're a high school student or a parent, you're praying about college. This is the best way to see what sets Boyce College apart.

25:53You'll experience firsthand how Boyce prepares students to think clearly, to grow in godliness and to live faithfully wherever God calls them. Your visit includes two nights of complimentary lodging and meals, and the registration fee is waived when you use the promo code, the briefing. Here's me, I'll Boyce College prepare students for a lifetime of faithfulness, register at BoyceCollege.com forward slash preview. I hope to see you there. For more information, go to my website at AlbertMovard.com. You can follow me on xr twitter by going to x.com forward slash AlbertMovard for information on the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to spts.edu. From information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com. I'll meet you again on Monday for the brief.