May 16, 2026 — Taiwan Warning, Abortion Pill Ruling, and Mengele's Files

This is The Gospel Briefing. I'm Charles King. Today... the President warns Taiwan from the Oval Office, the Supreme Court keeps a chemical abortion pill available nationwide, and Switzerland cracks open a seventy-year-old file on one of history's most notorious war criminals. Headlines... Heartbeat... Hope. Let's get into it. [TRANSITION] We start at the White House. Hours after a summit with China's Xi Jinping, President Trump issued a public warning — not to Beijing, but to Taipei. He told Taiwan not to declare independence. He said both sides need to, quote, cool down. That's a significant shift in tone. For decades, American policy toward Taiwan has been deliberately ambiguous. Support the island. Don't provoke Beijing. Walk the wire. What the President said yesterday leans, at least rhetorically, toward Beijing's preferred framing. Taiwan is a democracy of twenty-three million people. China claims it as its own. And the United States has, for generations, been the quiet guarantor that the island stays free. Christians are going to disagree about the geopolitics here. Some will say cooling tensions saves lives. Others will say appeasement invites aggression. Both instincts come from real places. Here's what I keep coming back to. Proverbs 21:1 says, "The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord. He turns it wherever he will." Every president — ours, Xi's, Taiwan's — every one of them is a stream of water in the hand of God. That doesn't mean every decision they make is righteous. It means none of them are sovereign. Only One is. Pray for Taiwan this weekend. Pray for wisdom in Washington. And pray with the confidence of a person who knows who actually runs the river. [TRANSITION] Second story. The Supreme Court ruled this week that mifepristone — the chemical abortion pill — will remain available nationwide. This is a reversal of sorts. Just two weeks ago, on May first, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals handed the pro-life movement what legal analysts called its most consequential win since Roe was overturned in 2022. That ruling, in a case brought by Louisiana, would have restricted access to the drug significantly. The Supreme Court declined to let that ruling stand. For those who have spent years praying, marching, voting, and serving women in crisis pregnancy centers — this is hard news. It's whiplash, as Christianity Today called it. I want to be careful here. The fight for the unborn is not won in a single courtroom. It was never going to be. Overturning Roe didn't end abortion in America. It returned the question to the states and to the conscience of the people. And the conscience of the people is where the deeper battle has always lived. Psalm 139 says, "You knitted me together in my mother's womb." That verse was true before Roe. It was true after Roe. It is true today. No court can rule it out of existence. If you've worked in this cause for years and you feel weary tonight, I'd point you to Galatians 6:9. "Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up." Due season. Not our season. His. [TRANSITION] Third story takes us to Switzerland. The Swiss government announced this week it will open its secret files on Josef Mengele. The Nazi doctor at Auschwitz. The man prisoners called the Angel of Death. Mengele performed unspeakable experiments on children. Twins. Pregnant women. He sent thousands to the gas chambers with the flick of a hand. After the war, he escaped Europe and lived as a free man in South America until he drowned in Brazil in 1979. He was never tried. Never punished. Never held to account in this life. For decades, there were rumors he passed through Switzerland during his flight. The Swiss kept those files sealed. Now, eighty years after the camps were liberated, the files are opening. Eighty years. Think about that. There's something the human heart cries out for when it hears a story like Mengele's. It's the cry of every martyr in Revelation 6:10 — "How long, O Lord, holy and true, before you will judge?" The Bible's answer is not "never." The Bible's answer is "not yet." Hebrews 9:27 — "It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment." Mengele escaped every earthly court. He did not escape that one. No one does. And that is sobering for him. And it is sobering for us. None of us walk into that courtroom on our own record. We walk in covered in the righteousness of Christ — or we walk in alone. [TRANSITION] Now to your quick briefs. President Trump announced overnight that a joint US-Nigerian operation killed Abu Bakr al-Mainuki, described as the second-in-command of ISIS globally. Details are still emerging. Pray for the soldiers — American and Nigerian — and for the persecuted church in northern Nigeria, where Christians have suffered terribly under ISIS-affiliated violence. In Louisiana, Republican Senator Bill Cassidy is fighting for political survival. He was one of seven GOP senators who voted to convict President Trump after the 2021 impeachment. Now the President is backing his challenger. Whatever you think of the politics — Proverbs 29:25 reminds us that the fear of man lays a snare. Every elected official, every voter, will eventually answer to a higher authority than a primary electorate. The Trump administration is planning a major prayer event on the National Mall. All but one of the announced speakers is Christian. A new survey shows many Americans are uneasy about mixing faith and politics. That tension is as old as Daniel in Babylon. Christians have always had to figure out how to be faithful in public without confusing the kingdom of God with the kingdom of men. And finally — passengers from a hantavirus-exposed cruise ship are now in a forty-two-day quarantine in Nebraska. Forty-two days of waiting. If you've ever wondered what Psalm 27:14 — "wait for the Lord, be strong, and let your heart take courage" — looks like in real time, ask someone stuck in a Nebraska hotel room this weekend. [TRANSITION] In a moment you'll hear today's verse. What you do with it after — that's where Bible Copilot comes in. It's an inductive Bible study app — open any verse, ask anything about it, and it walks you through it: observe, interpret, apply. One rule: Scripture interprets Scripture. No outside commentary. No agenda. Free — no ads, no account, no data collection. Pro is five dollars a month for unlimited studies and guided reading plans. Search "Bible Copilot" in the App Store. Link's in the show notes. Today's verse is Psalm 75, verse seven. "It is God who executes judgment, putting down one and lifting up another." Presidents warn. Courts rule. War criminals slip through nets for eighty years. But God executes judgment. Every throne. Every gavel. Every file finally opened. He sees it all. And He will set it all right. Thanks for listening to The Gospel Briefing. If today's episode helped you, send it to one friend who needs a steadier signal than the news cycle is giving them. The headlines change. The Judge does not. I'll see you Monday.