Culture Friday: Naming the moment

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MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Friday, December 19th. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. It’s Culture Friday! Joining us is author and speaker Katie McCoy. Katie, I’m sorry you’re not feeling so great, but thanks for fighting through it and joining us anyway. Good morning!

KATIE MCCOY: Good morning. Thanks for having me and excusing my voice, although maybe—maybe now I finally have a radio voice, right?

EICHER: A radio voice.

Well, Katie, this is a very difficult topic to start with, but hugely important, probably the biggest story of the week: the attack at the Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach in Australia.

A reporter asked the premier of New South Wales a question that many in the West have been asking.

JOURNALIST: Premier, do we have a problem in the community [around] Islamist ideology and will [preachers] be punished?

NSW PREMIER CHRIS MINNS: Well, clearly we do. I mean, it would be self evidently crazy to see the circumstances on Sunday and turn a blind eye to that radicalisation. It's terrible to see. We need to do everything we can to ensure that we don't see it proliferate in our community, but it's a difficult task. One of the reasons why we've moved comprehensive changes to hate speech laws in New South Wales is to go in part and achieve that goal. But, I mean, I want to make it clear I indicated, immediately after hearing about the events on Sunday night, that we need to do things differently and be open to change, and that we've got a responsibility to pull the community together and not add to the division.

EICHER: Well, Katie, I think that’s a remarkably direct question and a carefully calculated political answer.

The premier names radicalization, but very quickly turns to hate speech laws and the need to avoid division, almost as if the division that seems so clearly evident is not so clear.

But let me pivot off of that and onto an argument that Albert Mohler advanced at WORLD Opinions. He said that what happened at Bondi Beach is not just a security failure or a hate crime, but evidence of a deeper civilizational conflict that Western societies are reluctant to acknowledge.

Do you think he’s right, Katie, that any kind of hesitation to speak in civilizational terms is going to leave us unable to respond honestly?

MCCOY: Such an important point, because that—that phrase, respond honestly, is pivotal.

We can’t combat something if we won’t acknowledge what we’re actually dealing with.

There are two people that come to my mind when I consider this question. The first is Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a relatively new Christian. Before that, she was an atheist, or at least agnostic, one of the most respected minds on cultural issues in the West.

Today, I encourage all of our listeners to go be familiar with her work.

But Ayaan Hirsi Ali made this fascinating point. She said that of the two biggest threats to Western civilization today, one is wokeism, and the other is what she called Islamism.

It is incompatible with Western values, because Islam as a religion is—they say—a religion of peace, but the definition of peace is the caliphate, global domination.

But that also reminds me of this: what we saw about ten years ago, fifteen years ago now, with the rise of ISIS, and what we’re seeing now too. And this Bondi Beach attack, they said, was an ISIS-inspired attack.

We are seeing from people who are on the field doing incredible Christian ministry staggering numbers of Muslims coming to Christ.

And this is not something that makes the headlines, but they are things that across disparate regions and countries people are seeing—a movement of God in the Middle East and North African region.

And it is largely because these Muslims who inherited a sociocultural religious identity of Islam, they are looking at ISIS and saying, if that is Islam, I don’t want it.

It should not surprise us to see these horrific and demonic attacks, because Satan is angry.

There are people leaving this religion of deception, and they are being brought into the light of Christ.

Lemme just tell you this: as much as we see the darkness of the world, we should always be remembering that the light of Christ is bursting forth in these nations, in these cultures, where it seems like we hear nothing from them but bad news.

But, oh, listen, the gospel is going forth in these Muslim-dominated countries. Don’t ever forget it.

BROWN: That’s encouraging.

Well, Katie, back here in the United States, we saw another shocking act of violence, this time at Brown University.

A campus Republican leader was killed during a study session for midterms.

Just a teenager. A Christian young lady from my home state, Birmingham, Alabama. She was killed along with another young man, a naturalized citizen from Kazakhstan, who hoped to become a neurosurgeon.

Now, we’ve heard some reports, but nothing credible as of the time we’re talking.

But I’ll be honest, Katie, after the killing of Charlie Kirk this year, I’ve been thinking a lot about Christians on campus as a target.

And regardless of the reason, though, someone was persuaded that a surprise attack on defenseless young people was the right thing to do.

How do you make sense of this, even if it’s to say, this makes no sense?

MCCOY: This is where our worldview is not only essential for understanding ideas, but just to live.

How do you live in a world where things like this happen on a college campus and take down two beautiful young students?

How do you live in a world like that without having categories of good and evil, of right and wrong?

The only thing that we can say about this is it is demonic.

It is the forces of hell that are trying to exert their power in the battle for life.

And we need to always remember that the enemy of God, the enemy of our souls, hates that we were created in God’s image.

And he will do everything that he can by any means, whether we’re talking about violence, abortion, war, to destroy human beings.

Why? Because God loves humanity. He made them in His image.

And so this is where our worldview helps us watch the news, because the only thing that helps it make sense is to know that this is evil, and we should call it that.

BROWN: Katie, closer to home in the media world, Charlie Kirk was passed over for Man of the Year, even as his widow, Erika Kirk, appeared in a widely watched CBS town hall hosted by Bari Weiss.

She spoke about forgiveness. She rejected conspiracy theories.

And you know about that specifically—Erika was given the opportunity to address them. Let’s listen.

BARI WEISS: The podcaster Candace Owens, okay? At one time, a friend of Charlie’s. At one time, an employee of Turning Point, she has been one of the main peddlers of these conspiracies, and she’s making a huge amount of money on it. She is building her business. Her business off of these lies. What do you want to say to her and the other people that are putting these lies out into the world right now?

ERIKA KIRK: Stop. That's it. That's all I have to say. Stop.

WEISS: Okay.

BROWN: Okay, so Erika Kirk refused to escalate. She did not counterattack. Is that restraint strength, or does it risk being misunderstood?

MCCOY: I appreciate the grit, the backbone, the poise with which she speaks.

She did allude to some of these conspiracy theories and say, you know, I have proof of where I was on this particular date.

But I thought that she was wise to diffuse the tension.

You know, when I look at this whole saga of all of these conspiracy theories pouring out and people so quick to believe them, it reminds me that the cultural moment we are living in is one where facts and narratives are competing so often.

And because we also live in a world where we use phrases like “my truth,” “your truth,” we have a narrative, and we want to protect that narrative.

And so therefore we see facts through the lens of the narrative that we have already decided we want to believe.

And so this is one of the ways that you see that expressed.

People have a posture. They have a bias. And therefore they are going to interpret, or in some cases believe, total fabrications that align with their predetermined narrative.

EICHER: Katie, just real quickly, I thought that that was an extraordinary hour on CBS television.

You know, Erika Kirk was very forceful in condemning political violence and condemning justification of political violence.

But, you know, when she was asked directly to condemn President Trump’s rhetoric, she declined to do that, and she kind of reframed responsibility as cultural, familial, spiritual instead of personal.

And to be fair, I’m pretty sure that this was recorded before the killing of actor-director Rob Reiner and President Trump’s response to it.

But setting that aside, the unresolved question of condemning President Trump’s contribution to this political rhetoric problem in the country—can moral leadership avoid specificity without weakening its own claims?

MCCOY: Oh, what a great question.

The short answer is no. We have to be willing to call out people, even if they are in our own camp.

You know, I want to respect Erika Kirk’s relationship with the Trumps. I recognize that was probably a difficult question to field.

I appreciate that she took it to about people’s personal responsibility.

But the reality is, I’m afraid at some point it’s going to lead to some uncomfortable conversations and answers about how that applies to her own camp.

EICHER: She’s a really compelling person.

MCCOY: She is.

EICHER: I kind of think if there is one person in the world who could bring President Trump to heel, maybe it’s her. But—and listen, at the risk of hitting President Trump—I really appreciate so much about him.

I do want to ask you one more question, more or less on this topic, because we’ve been tracking some real movement within the pro-life world.

There are a lot of pro-lifers who are increasingly frustrated with the president.

Senator Josh Hawley seems to be openly trying to carve out a distinct pro-life lane for 2028.

And at the same time, the reporting is suggesting Trump-aligned operatives in the White House and even outside the White House are privately furious with Josh Hawley, arguing that abortion is a political loser and demanding what they call messaging discipline.

Now you can sit with the irony of that, but how do you read the moment here?

MCCOY: This is a fascinating story to me on a couple of levels.

So first of all, delighted again to know that there are conservatives who, on the basis of principle, are willing to break from the White House.

For all the conversations about conservative evangelicals just hook, line, and sinker to all of Donald Trump’s ideology, the fact that we have a sitting senator that is willing to make these statements, kind of make this initiative, I think is wonderful.

It reinforces that true Christian evangelicals in the public square, we are motivated by principle, not just politics, and that politics is a means to the end of achieving what is for the moral good.

So there’s that.

Setting that aside, what is going to be fascinating as we enter into a midterm election year is what are, as I mentioned, people wanting their leaders to reflect.

Is it something that is positive, or is it the tone and the tenor of what we heard in 2016, 2020, and ’24 elections?

I share your appreciation for so many of the president’s policies, but the reality is, when it comes to pro-life, we have been a pragmatic voting bloc for him.

Now, I don’t have a problem with that, like some of my brothers and sisters do. Politics is a pragmatic game.

But what that also means is that when we have a White House, and consequently an administration, that is backpedaling on that—like taking the harms of the abortion pill and saying, oh, you know, maybe we’ll get to talking about that, I don’t know, after the midterms—we need to call it out.

It’s wrong, and it’s wrong again, on the basis of principle.

And so I am a very big admirer of both of the Hawleys, both of them are total brains, and I hope that they continue to put out what is perhaps not politically expedient, but it is right.

BROWN: Author and speaker Katie McCoy. Katie, thanks, Merry Christmas, and hope you get better fast! See you next time.

MCCOY: Oh, thank you. Merry Christmas to you both.

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