Back to you

Editor's note: The following text is a transcript of a podcast story. To listen to the story, click on the arrow beneath the headline above.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. Time now for Listener Feedback for the month of October.

Jim Richardson of Oro Valley, Arizona, responded to a story by Juliana Chan Erikson. On October 21st, Juliana reported on adult children becoming estranged from their parents—going quote-unquote NO CONTACT.

JIM RICHARDSON: I remember back when I went to college; there were no cell phones back then, and long-distance calls cost a lot of money. So, in my generation, and I'm 81 years old, we were already separated, and my parents had no expectation of hearing from me very often from college, and I really didn't expect to hear from them very often either. Now it's completely different. Parents and children are communicating with each other every day on cell phones, sometimes multiple times during the day. When my grandchildren were in elementary school, the teachers were putting the test grades on the website, so the parent, in those cases the mom, knew the grade that the child got on the test before the child even got home from school.

So I can understand how kids now want some separation because they're just tired of constantly interacting with their parents, and parents need to give their kids some separation. My wife and I know grandparents who even now, as adults, track all of their children's and grandchildren's locations using the cell phone tracking feature. There is another reason, though, that's causing parent-child separation, and that's the LGBTQ+ issue. As one Christian mother told me, when your child comes out of the closet and declares that he or she is gay, the child puts the parents in the closet. What are the parents supposed to do? Are the parents supposed to support the child, or cut off all contact with the child, or what? We have friends that do both. Anyway, you did a very good job on this topic. Thank you very much.

EICHER: We also received a lot of feedback on Mary Reichard’s interviews with two Jewish intellectuals, Dennis Prager and Joel Alperson. Lee Alsterlund of Minneapolis had this to say:

LEE ALSTERLUND: I used to listen frequently to Dennis, and also read his book Happiness is a serious problem. I kind of stopped listening to talk radio though after I switched to The World and Everything in It, and also working from home and not spending time in my car anymore. But so I just listened to the interview on the 17th of Dennis, and I didn't know about his fall from two years ago. That was very sad. But thank you for these interviews. God has given Dennis so much wisdom. One I took to heart from your interview about the book, "If There Is No God," is that we judge others by their actions, but we judge ourselves by our intentions. To me, that was, that was humbling. 

A number of times, Alperson referred to God as his judge, and he is, and he strives to keep the law. But we know that no one can keep the law on their own, and it points to our need for our Passover Lamb to take away our sins, and so I, I pray for Dennis and Joel and all Jewish people that they would see their Messiah prophesied in their books of the law and the prophets. It was heartbreaking to hear what Joel said when when he said, "We'll have to wait and see, and I'll have to live with the consequences.” It's just, it's so sad when I hear someone say that. I, I just pray that God will, will not only be His judge but His Savior and Redeemer, and that the Lord would call them by name.

And listener Dawn Sparks disagreed with something John Stonestreet said on Culture Friday about a mom who sent her daughter to a struggling public school for the sake of the common good.

DAWN SPARKS: His comments about that to me sounded like he thought that was a completely wrong decision. That she was choosing society or some greater good over the best needs of her child.

While I can understand that reasoning, I do not think that that is always the wrong choice. I have been around many, many missionaries and other people in ministry whose call on their lives affects their family and involves their children's educational options, and they may not always be the same kind of options that you would get if you stayed in the U.S. or if you lived in a certain neighborhood rather than a different neighborhood.

So I believe that for Christians and non-Christians alike, this is a valid choice that is not necessarily wrong. That does sometimes affect your children, and we pray that God redeems this, and we pray that you know He works in our children like He is working in us in whatever situation He's placed us. But I think that this woman made a decision that I would not consider objectively wrong.

I love the program, and I've been listening since the beginning. Thank you for all that you do.

BROWN: We got a detail wrong in Grace Snell’s diving feature from October 13th. A crucial detail: the difference between goggles and a mask. It’s quite a big difference when you go scuba diving. Aspiring young journalist and experienced scuba diver Lily Roepnack explains the rest:

LILY ROEPNACK I am currently pursuing journalism in college, thanks to listening to The World and Everything in It. I absolutely loved Grace Snell's story about the 1000 Island Divers Alliance. I am a scuba diver and a former high school swimmer. I did notice one like equipment misnaming, and at the beginning of the story, Grace calls the thing that divers wear on their heads to see underwater goggles, while in fact those are masks. Goggles are really different, and they only cover your inner eye, and you should not wear those while diving because you'll get an eye injury. While masks are made with tempered glass and are much larger to prevent injuries from the water pressure. Overall, it was an amazing story, and keep up the good work world. Thank you.

Good advice to end on:

EICHER: No scuba diving in goggles!

And that’s this month’s Listener Feedback.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.