Listener Feedback

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Friday, January 29th. 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. Next up: your listener feedback.

REICHARD: We’ll start the way we usually do by admitting our faults.

EICHER: Do we really have that much time today?

REICHARD: Haha! Good for the soul.

Well, let’s begin with a news-story correction.

We reported on the death of singer Gerry Marsden, and inadvertently referred to his music group as Gerry and the Peacemakers. It’s actually Gerry and the Pacemakers. And really this falls into the category of a slip of the tongue. We’d written it properly, but when the time came to read it, well, you know what happened.

EICHER: Been there, done that. Next one comes from a recent WORLD History Book. We referred to John F. Kennedy as the youngest U.S. president. That’s partly correct. He was the youngest man ever elected president. But Teddy Roosevelt was the youngest to hold office when he got the job after William McKinley’s assassination.

REICHARD: Let’s hear from listener Frances Cook who brought to our attention something really important.

COOK: We celebrated Monday, January 18th as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday here and I was disappointed that the podcast made no mention of the holiday. Otherwise, thanks for a great news program. I listen every morning.

EICHER: Absolutely right. Regrettable oversight. Very sorry we missed that. Shouldn’t have. Appreciate the gentle correction!

REICHARD: Turning now to the segment that generated the most feedback this month: last week’s Culture Friday interview with popular podcasters Darryl Harrison and Virgil Walker. We’ll start with listener Matt Brown from Boone, North Carolina.

BROWN: Outstanding. So desperately needed in this time to get clarity, to get the still thinking, to get worldview that we as Christians need to be embracing. Convicting. Challenging. Thanks for that interview and I would hope that we could hear from them again, periodically, since they are so clear in how they state the mission and challenge of the church.

EICHER: Listener Chris Kinsinger wrote in to register his disagreement. He says he thinks evangelicals have developed a reputation that overemphasizes politics.

He thought Harrison and Walker conflated 

allegiance to Christ with … allegiance to the political ideology of the Republican Party. It sounded [to him] like a call to oppose the Biden administration and continue the division that is dominating our society.

[He says he thought it was a missed opportunity] to  bring healing to those wounds on Friday.

REICHARD: Moving on now to another segment that generated quite a bit of feedback: Emily Whitten’s interview with Krysten Getty about teaching hymns to children. Here’s listener Austin Smith.

SMITH: I thought it was full of some very helpful suggestions, as well as provided a great window into the life of the Getty family and what life can look like for one family of Christians seeking to raise their children and give them the gift of music and the gift of sound doctrine. I did want to say that I thought you missed an opportunity to include fathers in that important formative role of the children in the home. So, thank you for sharing it and maybe next time you could get Keith to chime in as well or find other ways to emphasize that both mothers and fathers have important, unique roles to play in the formation of their children.

EICHER: Next, we’ll hear from a listener who noticed a new look to our podcast logo.

MCALLISTER: Hi there. My name’s Ian McAllister. I’m listening from Western Massachusetts. Just wanted to say I love the new show logos, the icons that show up on the website and in the podcast app. Great redesign. It looks really good.

REICHARD: We should mention, of course, that not everyone liked the new color scheme. We understand that. Hopefully it will grow on you!

EICHER: I’ve been around for a very long time. Can’t tell you how many design tweaks we’ve made to the magazine, the website and, yes, change isn’t always welcome. The idea was to bring some unity to all the different podcasts we’re doing.

Ok, well we have one more call today and that’ll bring us to the end of this month’s feedback. So last word from listener Rick Kellum who wanted to offer some praise for this week’s commentary from Kim Henderson.

KELLUM: I felt like the perspective was right on, biblically, and one that we really need to remember as believers. The quotable was, “For most Christians the war isn’t in Washington. It’s within.” How true. Thank you so much, Kim, and thank you to the team at The World and Everything in It.

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.