Introducing WORLD Opinions

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Thursday, September 9th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Awesome new product announcement to tell you about here at WORLD: Introducing WORLD Opinions—daily opinion columns from respected Christian voices—talking about the ideas and events that are attempting to redefine our world today.

It is my honor to tell you that leading this effort for us is Albert Mohler—you know him from the Briefing podcast—you may know him from his books or from his leadership of Southern Seminary. He’s adding WORLD Opinions to his portfolio and we’re thrilled to have him.

So I’ll say welcome to WORLD Opinions editor Al Mohler. Good morning to you!

AL MOHLER: Nick and Mary, it's great to be with you and to all the listeners of The World and Everything in It. Glad to be with you this morning.

EICHER: Tell me, why WORLD Opinions and why now?

MOHLER: Well, Nick, you know, the reality is that we are living in a great battle of ideas. We're living in a war of ideologies. And this is as practical as the decisions that Christians have to make every single day and how we engage with the headlines around us. And what we need—and the need for this has been made so clear among conservative evangelicals—what we need is one place with authoritative, respectful, thoughtful, unequivocally Christian and conservative opinion, from a range of voices who share that commitment.

And that range of voices, by the way, is going to bring some of the most important conservative Christian commentators alive today, into this project of WORLD Opinions.

I'm very excited about it. Now is the time and WORLD has the reputation, deservedly, to be the place where evangelical Christians would turn for just this kind of opinion—even as for so many decades, they've turned to WORLD for news and analysis. This is going to be adding to the WORLD universe with what is straightforwardly WORLD Opinions.

And those opinions are going to be as relevant as the daily headlines and as permanent, as what T.S. Eliot referred to as “the permanent things.” We're going to speak without hesitation in defense of objective truth, in defense of right. And in defense of conservative principles, the permanent things, enduring eternal truths. We're going to be helping Christians to join in the defense of those principles. In the midst of a tumultuous age. It's a high calling. And I think now is exactly the time when something like WORLD Opinions is so desperately needed.

EICHER: WORLD Opinions comes bundled with your subscription to WORLD Magazine. If you’re a subscriber, a WORLD member, then you already have an online login and you'll have full access to WORLD Opinions to be delivered each weekday morning beginning October 1. Now, you’ll be working with our WORLD Digital team—led by Tim Lamer—but tell us about the young man you’ve tapped as managing editor of WORLD Opinions and what he brings to this.

MOHLER: I'm very, very thankful that Dr. Andrew Walker is going to be serving as the managing editor for WORLD Opinions. He's one of the most important, most incisive, and most faithful, young Christian thinkers in the world today. And furthermore, he is already tested and tried and true.

He is a well-known writer. He is a very, very important public intellectual among Christians in the United States, and it's going to be a great, great pleasure to work with him. He's already my colleague on the faculty at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Now he's going to be my colleague in this great task as well. And we are eager to get started.

EICHER: That’s Albert Mohler, editor of WORLD Opinions, coming to us—coming to you, at WNG.org October 1. More to come. Lots of work to do between now and then and I’m thrilled to be working with you. Thanks so much!

MOHLER: Thanks, Nick. You know, this is a grand adventure, it's going to demand our very best and that's absolutely what we're determined to bring to it. Thank you.

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