Steadying influence

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, September 23rd. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

PAUL BULTER, HOST: And I’m Paul Butler.

A few weeks ago we told you about the coming debut of WORLD Opinions—it’ll be here in a little over a week. Daily opinion columns from respected Christian voices delivered online at WNG.org—all talking about the ideas and events that are attempting to redefine our world today.

We spoke with WORLD Opinions editor Albert Mohler to introduce the idea to you—that was two weeks ago—and today Andrew Walker is here. He’s the managing editor of this new project. He’s also a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, and an Ethics and Public Theology professor at Southern Seminary in Louisville.

Andrew, good morning.

ANDREW WALKER, MANAGING EDITOR: Paul Myrna, it's great to be with you and a great honor as well.

BUTLER: Always nice to welcome a new colleague. Let’s get to know you a bit. Tell us about your background and how you feel it prepared you for this new role.

WALKER: Sure. I am a professor of ethics at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and also teach in the areas of public theology. And my entire life, as I understand God's calling on my life, is to reflect upon the ways in which Christianity contributes to the common good of our culture.

I believe Christianity is dedicated to the proposition that it is good and true. And that where Christians bring that truthfulness into every sector and arena of life, what is good, ought to follow. And so for me, whether that's been at the Heritage Foundation, where I used to work earlier in my career, or the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, I've always been focused on what are the moral implications of the gospel?

So we have been renewed in Christ. Christ places His Spirit inside of us. And that results in an outward orientation to the world around us. And as we look all through Christian history, we have seen the ability for Christians to bring about tremendous good for their culture.

Ideas like the hospital, the idea of the university. Ideas like human dignity, and equality, and human rights. All of these are the result of Christians reflecting upon their place in the world. And that's really what I'm hoping to bring to this role at World Opinions, to bring together trusted voices, who are all coming from the same place as far as their convictions about the truthfulness of Christianity, and who all share a similar kind of outward orientation, in terms of how Christian truth manifests itself socially and culturally.

BROWN: We’re so excited about WORLD Opinions. I think a lot of people are feeling anxious about the direction we’re seeing the culture go and they’re finding a lot of unhelpful sources that just amp up the division. Talk about how WORLD Opinions will be a steadying influence, respectful, hopeful, seeking to preserve and defend the truth: but without the bombast and despair that’s all too commonly available.

WALKER: Yeah, I'm so glad you use all of those terms, because those are the terms that are kind of guiding our key focus and our mission at World Opinions.

You know, our vision, and our mission can only be lived out insofar as we have the right voices coming to bear on those issues. And so my role as managing editor has been to kind of curate these types of voices who we believe are trusted.

And obviously, the main opinions editor is Dr. Albert Mohler. We all know that he is a man of stalwart conviction and has high expectations for the type of tone and approach that World Opinions is going to take. And so my job in that role is to kind of operationalize that vision.

And so the list of writers that we have right now, I cannot wait to begin to share their names publicly. Because we have a lot of high caliber names. But I would say more than that. We have a lot of trusted names. We have individuals whose convictions you don't have to worry about.

And you mentioned in your question that we live in a time where there seems to be just a growing cacophony of anger, dissension, and disorientation. We don't want to contribute to that at World Opinions, we're going to be an outlet that offers steady, sound analysis, from trusted voices.

And so what we want to do is we want to bring light ultimately to the situation. So that means cutting through a lot of the fractiousness, cutting through bombast: I have been communicating to our writers over and over again, we're going to be a place of conservative conviction, but we're not going to be angry about it. We're going to have a certain disposition, and a certain dispassion that allows us to be the type of Christians and the type of conservatives who are not, again adding more conflict to the public arena but are bringing more tranquility and more understanding to the public arena.

BUTLER: WORLD Opinions—coming October 1st to WNG.org. Andrew Walker is the managing editor. Thanks! Glad to be working with you!

WALKER: Thanks, Paul.

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