The World and Everything in It: April 1, 2026

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.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Good morning!

The Supreme Court takes up the question of birthright citizenship. Today on Washington Wednesday we'll talk about the Constitutional history. 

COOPER: No one argued that foreign citizens temporarily visiting the United States are regarded as part of our people rather than part of the people of a foreign power.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Hunter Baker is standing by.

Also today, NASA’s new mission. Later: a new children’s book traces the full story of Easter—from betrayal to resurrection.

BOSWELL: Teaching children the darkness of the passion narrative makes the life and resurrection all the more bright. 

And WORLD Opinions Commentator Daniel Darling on those who would root against their country.

MAST: It’s Wednesday, April 1st. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. 

I’m Lindsay Mast.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

MAST: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: National voter list » President Trump has signed an executive order directing the creation of a national list of eligible voters. It’s part of what the administration calls an effort to ensure election integrity. The president told reporters at the White House:

TRUMP:  This came up, uh, with some great legal minds. They looked at the various documents and everything that was going on because the cheating on mail-in voting is, is legendary.

White House Staff Secretary Will Scharf explained explained that the process would start with federal data:

SCHARF:  We're going to ensure that each state's election officials are provided with a comprehensive view of who the eligible voters in their jurisdiction actually are. Allowing them to properly verify that everybody voting in their elections is legally able to vote.

The order calls on the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to build the list and instructs the Postal Service to send mail ballots only to verified voters on it.

Ballots would also be required to carry unique tracking barcodes. States and localities that don't comply could lose federal funding.

The move is drawing immediate legal pushback with various groups and some state election officials pledging to sue within minutes of the signing.

Iran war latest » The president last night also said once more that he does not see the war in Iran stretching on much longer.

TRUMP: And I think within maybe two weeks, maybe a couple of days longer to do the job, but we wanna knock out every single thing they have.

The president says it's possible Iran reaches a ceasefire deal before then, but he said, one way or the other, the important thing is to accomplish the primary objectives. And the president said that is to put Iran’s military and nuclear program “into the stone ages.”

And Secretary of State and Acting National Security Advisor Marco Rubio added that the United States has already largely destroyed Iran’s airforce:

RUBIO: We were going to destroy their navy, which we have largely achieved, that we were gonna destroy a significant percentage of their missile launchers. We are well on our way to achieving that, and we were gonna wipe out their defense industrial base, meaning the factories that make the drones in the missiles.

President Trump plans to address the nation about the war in Iran tonight at 9pm Eastern Time.

Israel buffer zone » Meanwhile, in southern Lebanon:

SOUND: [Israel strikes Beirut]

Israel continuing strikes targeting the Iran-linked terror group Hezbollah in Beirut.

A spokesman for the European Union Tuesday condemned strikes that killed UN peacekeepers in Lebanon, calling the events deeply troubling.

ANOUNI: We call for a thorough investigation to shed light on these grave attacks. These attacks are a grave violation of international law, are totally unacceptable and must stop immediately.

But Israel's ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said Tuesday, his country is not to blame.

DANON: One thing is clear: this did not happen in a vacuum. Israel did not choose this conflict, Hezbollah did.

He went on to say it was Hezbollah explosives—not an Israeli airstrike—that killed the peacekeepers.

Israel’s government says it plans to create an expanded buffer zone in southern Lebanon to push Hezbollah terrorists away from Israel’s northern border.

Supreme Court rules against Colorado » The Supreme Court almost unanimously affirmed the free speech rights of a Christian counselor in Colorado.

WORLD’s Harrison Watters has more from Washington.

HARRISON WATTERS: Colorado state law bars mental health professionals from trying to help minors overcome same-sex attraction — a practice critics call “conversion therapy.”

In the 8-1 decision, the court ruled that Colorado’s ban regulates speech based on viewpoint and that violates the First Amendment.

That came after counselor Kaley Chiles sued the state in 2022.

The justices said lower courts wrongly agreed with Colorado’s argument that talk therapy can be regulated as professional conduct.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented arguing the decision would open the door to substandard care.

But Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the majority, said the First Amendment stands as a shield against government efforts to censor speech it may deem harmful.

The case heads back to lower court for further review, with instructions to take Chiles’ First Amendment claim more seriously.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Harrison Watters in Washington.

We’ll have more on this case later in the program.

Consumer confidence » American consumer confidence is up this month, holding its ground even as gas prices have surged amid the war in Iran.

The Conference Board reports its confidence measure rose modestly to 91.8 in March up from 91 in February. And spending has been holding steady, according to credit card data.

The survey did show, however, that consumers are expecting prices to climb higher, with gas prices now topping $4.00 on average in the U.S.

I'm Kent Covington. 

Straight ahead: Birthright citizenship at the Supreme Court. Hunter Baker is here for Washington Wednesday. Plus, how hymns can help bring the aging back to the Lord.

This is The World and Everything in It.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: It’s Wednesday, April 1st. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Time now for Washington Wednesday! 

Joining us now is political scientist Hunter Baker. Good morning Hunter!

HUNTER BAKER: Good morning!

EICHER: Well Hunter, I’m glad we’ll be able to tap your legal education today—because there is a lot going on at the Supreme Court.

There’s an oral argument coming up later this morning in a major immigration case … but first, a decision the Court handed down yesterday—one you would normally expect much later in the term… sometimes even the final day.

It is the case Chiles v. Salazar—Chiles, a licensed professional counselor… Salazar, the attorney general of Colorado.

At issue: a state law banning so-called “conversion therapy.”

And the law was… gaudy in its one-sidedness.

It allowed counselors to push clients toward an LGBT identity… but specifically banned counselors—like Chiles—from helping clients move away from one.

The Supreme Court made quick work of that—calling it a clear violation of the First Amendment.

And remarkably—it was one vote away from unanimous.

Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor joined Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas in the majority.

Only Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented—and she felt strongly enough about it to read that dissent from the bench.

But let’s get to the analysis.

How broad an impact do you think this ruling will have, and do you think it could lead to policy changes beyond Colorado—even from Washington?

BAKER: I'm really thrilled by this ruling. I'm honestly it should have been unanimous. Truly, it's this is a tremendous reaffirmation of free speech, free speech and freedom more generally, because this was pure viewpoint discrimination, that you simply are not allowed to give particular advice or say particular things because it's at odds with sort of the modern orthodoxy. It really made me think about Orwell in 1984 and Newspeak, you know, where they were slowly reducing the size of the dictionary so that certain thoughts would become impossible to have. That's what, that's how I view this law that it was trying to make certain thoughts impossible to have or to share. So this ruling turns back a tremendous threat. They tried to enforce this regulation by aiming it at a specific profession, but it was really making certain ideas radioactive and forbidden, and specifically for our purposes, it was aimed at making Christian thought about human sexuality pathological and illegal.

EICHER: You know, Hunter, you said it took you back to 1984. It took me back to 2019, and 2020, around the time of COVID. And so I guess you're kind of agreeing with the idea that this is kind of a sign of the times, because it is, frankly difficult to imagine the Supreme Court, or any court, really going against the LGBT movement like this, again, Sotomayor and Kagan came out for the First Amendment rights of Christian counselors to help families with children who have unwanted same sex desires. I think it's pretty significant.

BAKER: Well, that period you mentioned was a very challenging period. It was sort of peak woke, not to kind of use the slang, but that's that was what it was. It was sort of the height of the, of the woke movement. And I remember at the time how stunned I was at how casually the younger generation was sort of throwing away constitutional values. But I'm going to say this. I mean, people criticize the Supreme Court. This was a tremendous demonstration of the court's independence and of the court's value of protecting the U.S. Constitution.

EICHER: I want to move to the case at hand today. Now Hunter, this centers on a practice grounded in the 14th Amendment, what we call birthright citizenship. Now, the 14th Amendment is not a neat, single purpose amendment, like one you'd find in the Bill of Rights. This has five sections to it. It deals with insurrection, public debt, congressional representation, voting rights, due process, equal protection.

There's a lot in that amendment, but our concern today is with the very first line of section one. It says all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States. That's the basis for this thing we call birthright citizenship. And here's where the dispute comes in. I recently interviewed investigative journalist Peter Schweizer. He also testified before Congress, and he argues that China is exploiting our current understanding of that clause. He estimates somewhere between 750,000 and a million and a half individuals born in the U.S., then returned to China in infancy, are now considered U.S. citizens. And his argument is they should not be. Now, we aired quite a bit of his testimony in a report recently here on the program, but there was another witness during this congressional testimony, constitutional Attorney Charles Cooper. He's a scholar of the Reconstruction Era, and he addressed the original understanding of that clause. Let's listen to how he put it:

COOPER: No one argued that foreign citizens temporarily visiting the United States are regarded as part of our people rather than part of the people of a foreign power. No one suggested that a child born to such foreigners while visiting here should be entitled to citizenship at birth.

So not coincidentally, that's also the position of President Trump, who signed an executive order shortly after taking office aiming to limit birthright citizenship in those cases, and that's what's now under challenge before the Supreme Court.

So here's the question for you, this kind of begins, at least for me, to sound less like a technical legal dispute and more like a foreign policy or national security issue. Do you think, Hunter, that the justices may see it that way, particularly when the U.S. government comes in and argues that an adversary like China may be exploiting the current interpretation of birthright citizenship?

BAKER: I have to say that, first of all, I think that it has been sort of a common practice, at least in the Western countries, to give citizenship to people who are born in the country, even even on a relatively short term basis, very often that that citizenship might expire when the person reaches their age of maturity. Now, with regard to China, I'll tell you so there's one way you could look at it. You could look at it and you could say they're getting U.S. citizenship for a lot of their young people. And there's something bad they want to do with that that's possible.

But there's another interpretation that I kind of have. I look at that and I say, Okay, I am in China. I'm reasonably well off. I'm well enough off to travel to the United States, and I have a baby while I'm there, who's going to get citizenship, what I see is you're living in a totalitarian country, and this maybe presents the possibility of a better life for your child, or if China really goes bad, you know, maybe this is an escape hatch. Maybe you can go to the United States, which seems more stable and secure if you're seeking a life of freedom. So I would, I would see it as possibly something aspirational that's going on there among the Chinese.

Now, the other thing is, is that when we look at this, a lot of it just really depends on what your philosophy of citizenship is. And there have been all kinds of different ways of thinking about that throughout history. You know, if we went back to Venice centuries ago, the requirement to be a citizen would be that there had to be at least three generations of your family in Venice before you could even consider being a citizen. So obviously, they're protecting a certain kind of culture, a certain sort of set of traditions.

Now the U.S. has typically been a little bit different, right? We have been sort of a propositional nation with the idea that if you're ready to come to the United States and to embrace our values and our appreciation for freedom, then you can become a citizen. Now we are becoming more concerned, right, with mass immigration, especially mass illegal immigration, with the idea that maybe that culture and those ideas are under threat, and so we're kind of tightening down. I still think that the odds are heavily in favor that birthright citizenship will continue, but we'll see what the court chooses to do.

MAST: Well, Hunter, moving away from the judiciary. Last weekend at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, there was the famous CPAC straw poll. Now a word about this poll’s strength. It isn’t great. It’s been waved away as simply a beauty contest of ideological purity and it’s got anywhere from 33% to 40% accuracy. That said, it’s not a terrible indicator. CPAC picked George W. Bush in 2000, Mitt Romney in 2012 (he won four straw polls), and Donald Trump all through the 2020s.

This year’s results had Vice President J.D. Vance winning with 53% of the vote… Now that is a smaller margin than last year… and comes as Secretary of State Marco Rubio takes on a larger public role in the administration… he got 35% of the vote.

Now that’s a race with more time to simmer… unlike the midterms. That same straw poll had the Texas Senate runoff between Attorney General Ken Paxton and Senator John Cornyn going to Paxton–67% to 21%. Cornyn didn’t attend CPAC, but here’s Paxton on stage:

PAXTON: And so, as I move forward in the next two months, I'm very optimistic. In Texas, runoffs tend to favor the most conservative person—if you'll remember, Ted Cruz run, won a runoff against David Dewhurst, and he had finished pretty far back, like 20 points back in the first round. Ended up winning uh handily in a runoff. It's because more conservative voters vote in the runoff than they do in the primary.

Hunter, what do you make of those straw poll results…and Paxton’s confidence in the conservative vote in Texas?

BAKER: I don’t have a lot of confidence in straw polls. People definitely manipulate them. I can remember, you know, there were years where I used to go to the Values Voters Summit in Washington, D.C. And I remember one year Mitt Romney set out to win it and paid for several of the students from my university to go on the condition that they would vote for him in this, in the struggle. I think a lot of that kind of thing goes on, people just paying for people to show up and vote in these straw polls. So it's not, it's not very impressive, but Rubio's star is rising. And you know, if you pay much attention to social media, he has better memes than JD Vance does.

I'm not surprised that that he's becoming more prominent, but Paxton. Paxton is very much about Trump loyalty. You know, John Cornyn has occasionally been critical of Donald Trump, you know, has said things like he thought that Donald Trump was finished, you know, or probably supported a different candidate. And so in the past, I think it would be a lock that Donald Trump would support the other candidate, but I think that he has become a little bit more savvy about that kind of thing. The thing about John Cornyn is he's a lock. John Cornyn has proved time and again that he wins statewide in Texas. So do you want to risk that? Do you want to risk the guy who's a dead lock to win that Senate seat, or do you want to go with somebody else? I mean, Paxton has some drawbacks. He's going through a very messy, public divorce where his wife says she has biblical grounds for divorce. So that's the candidate you're talking about. But then again, whether it's Cornyn or Paxton, they're up against Talarico. And I've expressed my opinion here that I think Talarico is a lot less promising than the Democrats think he is.

MAST: Speaking of the midterms–let’s talk about the No Kings protests that took place over the weekend. Organizers estimate some 8 million people came out to protest against President Trump and according to the signs, virtually everything related to the administration. Times, they say, are very bad indeed.

Here’s Senator Bernie Sanders at the flagship rally in Minneapolis

SANDERS: The future of our country and in fact the entire world is hanging in the balance.

Hunter, you’ve said before that you see these protests as being less about the turnout on the streets and more about the turnout for the midterms–if that’s true, and the protests have grown, what does that tell you?

BAKER: Yeah, I mean, I'm very clear eyed about this, and my cold analysis is that it's just this is pure voter mobilization. I am confident that we would be able to find big money being spent here, lots of money on consultants and organizers and comms folks. And that's not to say that people don't have real feelings that they want to go out and express on the streets. I mean, that's always there, right? But this is, this is definitely something that is done as a prelude to the midterms, because if you get people to leave their house to go out to spend a day protesting in the streets, when you know there's all kinds of other things they could do with their time, well that's an awesome indicator that they're going to go out and vote in those midterms and encourage other people to do the same. So that's what's going on. I mean, you can idealize it any way you want to but what it really is is genius voter mobilization.

MAST: Hunter Baker is a WORLD Opinions Contributor and provost at North Greenville University. Thank you, Hunter.

BAKER: Thank you.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: World Tour.

For decades, so-called experts warned about global overpopulation. That included people like popular author Paul Ehrlich, who died in March.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: But recent headlines in Asia and the West have begun warning of the exact opposite—underpopulation. Fertility rates have fallen dangerously below the replacement rate, and the results are rapidly aging populations.

EICHER: That’s the case for the UK. But some say the problems bring opportunities. WORLD’s Amy Lewis has this World Tour special report.

AMY LEWIS: The population of the UK is shrinking. Last year fertility rates in England, Scotland, and Wales plummeted for the third year in a row. Birth rates are now the lowest since record-keeping began in 1938. But that’s not the only problem.

The population is also getting older.

GREGORY THWAITES: 2026 may be the last year when births exceed deaths.

Gregory Thwaites is the research director of Resolution Foundation, a UK think tank.

THWAITES: And from then on, the natural rate of increase of population growth will be negative.

With better healthcare, people are living longer.

THWAITES: The oldest baby boomers are now 81. And they’re moving into this final stretch.

That final stretch can bring complex needs, like dementia. About a million Brits currently have a dementia diagnosis. That’s about 1% of the population. But diagnoses are expected to triple in the next 15 years. That concerns many lawmakers and aged care workers. A bigger population of older people will need help, and the lower fertility numbers mean fewer younger workers will be there to help.

But some view the growing elderly population differently: as a promising mission field.

Pippa Cramer is the Pastoral Care and Seniors minister at Holy Trinity Claygate, an Anglican church southwest of London.

PIPPA CRAMER: It's not rocket science. Jesus tells us to love our neighbors.

Twelve years ago, Cramer began a group called Connections to combat the loneliness often associated with growing older. She wanted to give seniors a place to share their interests. But she also sees her work as a mission field.

CRAMER: And the reality is, a lot more of our neighbors these days are going to be older, and we need to reach out to them.

More than half of Brits who now say they have no religion were raised as Christians.

Neurologist Oliver Sacks worked with brain damage victims and the elderly for 50 years.

OLIVER SACKS: But all of them, without exception, respond to music, especially to old songs and songs they’ve once known. And these seem to touch springs of memory and emotion which may be completely inaccessible to them.

That connection in the brain is why Pippa and her husband Steve also created a video resource called “Hymns We Love.”

CRAMER: The idea of using hymns as a very gentle way of explaining key truths of the Christian faith, but also gently sharing the gospel with older people.

AUDIO: Then sings my soul, my Savior God to thee, how great thou art, how great thou art.

Jennifer Bute knows both the need and the solution. She was diagnosed with early-onset dementia 20 years ago, at age 64. She runs a Friday service at her nursing home.

JENNIFER BUTE: And we sing one hymn. It's always the same one. Well, there are two. We sing one or other of them, so everybody knows it. It's familiar.

There’s a reason it’s familiar—they used to sing it decades ago.

BUTE: Because certainly in England, people of my age, you know, they went to Sunday school or they sang hymns. Even people who weren't Christians would do that kind of thing. So for many people in England of my age, they have got a background.

For many people, that background didn’t translate into a living faith. They wanted nothing to do with God.

BUTE: But when they get dementia, those inhibitions tend to go, so they're far more open to God.

Cramer recalls one man who tentatively came to their Connections groups and then stuck around through the “Hymns We Love” series—even though he didn’t describe himself as a Christian. Cramer visited him as his health deteriorated.

CRAMER: He told me he was no longer frightened of dying, but he'd said to me that learning about Rock of Ages, he understood why Jesus had to die on the cross for Him, and oh, it makes me cry just thinking about it.

Cramer's new resource is also reaching other unexpected places, like the older inmates in British prisons.

CRAMER: It's just been unbelievable to, to hear about one, to see light bulb moments almost as people are singing these hymns.

By the year 2045, a quarter of the UK’s population will be older than 65. That’s 18 million people—a substantial field that may be ready for harvest.

CRAMER: My big prayer is for hundreds of thousands of older people to be given the opportunity to hear the good news of Jesus before the end of their lives, and to discover how much our amazing God loves them.

That’s this week’s World Tour. I’m Amy Lewis.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Up next: Returning to the moon.

When NASA’s Artemis II mission launches, it will mark a new and historic chapter for America’s space program, moving it one step closer to putting humans back on the moon.

The unmanned Artemis One launched in 2022 and proved that NASA’s new Orion Spacecraft and new Space Launch System could withstand the harsh conditions of space.

Now Artemis II will build on that, taking humans outside of low– Earth orbit.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: It’s also a chapter in a new space race: The United States working to stay ahead of China, which expects to plant its own flag on the moon in 2030.

WORLD’s Mary Muncy reports.

MARY MUNCY: NASA is planning to launch four astronauts farther into space than any human has ever gone.

Mission Specialist Christina Koch says they’ll ride the rocket for about eight minutes, until they’re in high orbit.

CHRISTINA KOCH: We're going to stay in an amazing high orbit, reaching a peak of tens of thousands of miles while we test out all the systems on Orion and even see how it maneuvers in space. And then if everything looks good, we're heading to the moon.

But not to land on it. Instead, they’ll fly around the moon and come home—timing it just right to see the far side of the moon when it’s illuminated by the sun.

The mission will take about ten days.

Artemis II was supposed to launch at the beginning of February, but NASA scrubbed the mission due to a hydrogen leak.

NASA says it’s the first step toward putting a sustained human presence on the moon. NASA’s acting associate administrator Lori Glaze.

LORI GLAZE: We are on a trajectory to land our crew on the moon at the south pole by 2028 and I think that puts us ahead of any others (countries) that are trying to land crew on the moon.

It would also be the first time humans have set foot on the moon since 1972.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy.

NICK EICHER, HOST: South African politician Helen Zille didn’t merely toss her hat in the ring for mayor of Johannesburg.

She threw herself in and made quite a splash.

Wearing a wetsuit, swim cap, and snorkel, she climbed into a water-filled trench that’s been sitting in a suburban road for years.

AUDIO: Here we are with a free and wonderful Saturday afternoon snorkel…

Running as a reform candidate, Zille says years of mismanagement have left the city struggling with broken infrastructure—this trench, she says, just one example.

AUDIO: When the grader comes in the dead of night … they burst the pipe again.

Neighbors say the standing water has blocked driveways and lingered for years.

AUDIO: I wonder if any fishes in here. Let me take a look…

City officials say the pipe was repaired and the hole filled the day after her swim.

Turns out—sometimes the fastest way to fix a problem is to make it impossible to ignore.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, April 1st.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: the story of Holy Week.

Matthew Boswell is a hymn writer known for songs including “His Mercy Is More” and “Come Behold the Wondrous Mystery.” He’s also an author and his latest book is one for families called That Holy Week So Long Ago. It’s a beautiful poetic book detailing Christ’s final days that explains each day leading up to Resurrection Sunday.

He joins us now to talk about that book. Matthew, good morning and welcome.

BOSWELL: Thank you for having me. It's great to be here.

MAST: Many Bible stories for children feel like they happen in a historical vacuum. Why was it important to you to create a "bridge" between the modern world and 1st-century Jerusalem? How does that help a child see the Resurrection as a current reality rather than just a past event?

BOSWELL: I remember as a child hearing the story of Holy Week, starting with Palm Sunday, and then of course, knowing the events of Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday, but I think putting them in their context so we understand the purpose behind each of them, and then chronologically how all of these stack together in order to tell the story, yes, of what Christ has done, and also why Jesus went through these steps was the lines I was trying to connect in this book and in wanting the next generation to understand the significance of each one of these days and their unique contribution to the story of salvation.

MAST: We often rush to the "highlights" of Holy Week, but you chose to spend significant time on moments like the clearing of the temple and Judas’s betrayal on Wednesday.

Throughout Spy Wednesday Jesus taught
The people in the light.
While Judas schemed in shadows deep—
A plan by dark of night.
Just thirty silver pieces was
The price set to betray
The King of all who came in love
To take our sins away.

How do those "heavier" or more convicting days help a child understand the full character of Christ?

BOSWELL: With that poem specifically, I'm trying to contrast two people. I'm contrasting the brightness and goodness of Jesus with the darkness of Judas' heart and what he's doing to betray. And you know, that day specifically is often overlooked. Even its name is intriguing, right? Spy Wednesday is historically what it's called. But I wanted to try to get to the heart of what's happening on that day with Jesus doing what he'd always done, teaching the truth, wanting people to come to him, wanting them to know about the kingdom of God, and at the same time, showing the dramatic turn in the hearts of those who were set to not only betray him, but ultimately to take his life. And so even in that, I'm just trying to slowly drip each day of the significance of it, and thereby using contrast and even the motif of light and dark to try to teach that to young hearts. And at the same time, and this was always the case, knowing that many adults don't connect those things easily either. And so yes, trying to teach young hearts these truths, but also, know, quote, reminding parents, i.e. teaching parents along the way of what's happening in these days.

MAST: You’ve spent your career writing lyrics meant to be memorized and sung by a congregation. How did that "songwriting brain" dictate the specific rhythm and structure of the poetry in this book?

BOSWELL: So when I'm sitting down to write a hymn, I can't write anything without an opening line because that is the North Star of the hymn. And in the same way, this book, that phrase, that holy week so long ago helps set the tone. It helps shape the rhythm and the meter of it. And so it's very important to me and then just that becomes the rhythm and the rule that we follow for the rest of the poetry.

MAST: There is connection between rhythm and language–Is there a connection between meter and how a child internalizes theology?

BOSWELL: Certainly, theology is meant to make our hearts sing. And one of the ways it does that is by us being able to remember it. And poetry and rhyme helps serve the truth in that way, helping us meditate on those things while we're memorizing them and then afterward as well. And so throughout my whole life, that's been a helpful way for me to memorize scripture, to memorize how doctrines fit together. And so, I'm speaking my native language here in writing this book, just writing it in poetry for those of us who need help in remembering things.

MAST: The book moves through some very dark, shadowy moments before reaching the brightness of the Resurrection. How can parents use that visual and narrative contrast to help their kids actually feel the relief and joy of Easter morning?

BOSWELL: I try to set that tone at the very beginning saying, yes, there are some dark moments in this story, but if you keep on reading, there is good news here that is worth repeating. And I think teaching children the darkness of the passion narrative and the shadows of Holy Week is very important. It makes the light of resurrection all the more bright. It helps prepare them for suffering in the future.

It tries not to edit the good news of the gospel that required God himself to suffer in our place so that we might be forgiven of sin. And so I think not trying to apologize for those parts of the gospel story, but presenting them, presenting them faithfully, clearly, and helpfully in wanting young hearts to understand, yes, even the dark parts of the gospel, remembering that it is bad news before it's good news, both in regard to human nature and also the cross before the crown.

MAST: Matthew Boswell is a hymn writer and author of the new book That Holy Week So Long Ago that’s available now. Matthew, thank you for your time.

BOSWELL: What a joy to be here. Thank you.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Lindsay Mast.

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

Americans have long debated foreign policy and the use of military force. But there’s a line between disagreement and something more corrosive. WORLD Opinions commentator Daniel Darling says we are crossing it.

DANIEL DARLING: It is understandable that Americans hold differing views about the conflict in Iran. What is harder to understand is the tendency on the part of some to believe and advance a view that sees America in the worst possible light. This kind of rhetoric is found across the political spectrum.

In a bizarre rant, liberal commentator Chris Hayes compared Operation Epic Fury to what the suicide bombers who flew airplanes into buildings on 9/11.

Former General Douglas McGregor falsely claimed, on former Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz’s show, that Iran is winning the current war because, as he said, every U.S. base in the Middle East was destroyed.

I support President Trump’s actions, but I recognize good people have differing views on foreign policy. There is a difference, however, between opposing policies and actively rooting against your own country.

Consider former conservative George Conway who now declares the United States to be a terrorist state, ironically while running for Congress . . . in that same United States. Or the increasingly strange rantings of podcaster Candace Owens who has accused her own country of orchestrating every tragic event from Pearl Harbor to the Martin Luther King assassination to the terrorist attacks on 9/11.

Cynicism has become currency, fuel for increasing ones online stature as influencer. These sentiments are rising as America approaches our 250th anniversary. Patriotism, according to the annual Pew Research Poll, is at its lowest point in decades.

Faithful Christians should resist this impulse. How can we “seek the welfare” of our country according to Jeremiah 29:7, while harboring hatred for her people and for her ideals? How can we love a nation we assume is always on the wrong side of every major new story?

Patriotism, of course, doesn’t imply lockstep agreement with a particular administration or policies. In fact, our love for the country may demand we oppose certain ideas. But it’s wrong to root against one’s own country. Patriotism is an expression of gratitude for the freedoms we enjoy and the people who paid the ultimate price to secure them.

This means praying for the United States to prevail against the terrorist regime in Iran, even if you disagree with the action and don’t like the President. It’s why it was right and good for conservatives to cheer when President Obama’s administration successfully captured and killed Osama Bin Laden. We shouldn’t let tribalism cloud our judgment.

Consider an example from history. Frederick Douglass, the former slave turned abolitionist and activist in the 1800’s, gave a memorable speech on the 4th of July in 1852. In which he rightly decried the awful treatment of slaves and called for abolition. Yet, he revered America’s founders and expressed his love for America’s ideals.

In other words, he didn’t root against America. It was Douglass’s love for the country that motivated his activism. And so it should be with us. Let’s fight for good policies that affect the flourishing of our neighbors. Let’s oppose evil. And let’s do it while loving the great, but imperfect land God has given us.

For WORLD, I’m Daniel Darling.

EICHER: Dan is author of the book, In Defense of Christian Patriotism.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Tomorrow: More on Artemis II. And, can government welfare crowd out private charity? We’ll have a report. That and more tomorrow. 

I’m Lindsay Mast.

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

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible says, “And when the LORD your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—with great and good cities that you did not build, and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and when you eat and are full, then take care lest you forget the LORD, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. It is the LORD your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear.” —Deuteronomy 6:10–13

Go now in grace and peace.

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.