The World and Everything in It - April 12, 2022

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

Today the war in Ukraine from the perspectives of Christians on opposing sides.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also dozens of Navy SEALS fight the military’s Covid vaccine mandate in court. We have the latest.

Plus a historic speech about U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

And lessons on the unsinkable ship 110 years after the sinking of the Titanic.

REICHARD: It’s Tuesday, April 12th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

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

REICHARD: Now news with Kent Covington.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Biden urges Modi not to step up Indian use of Russian oil » The White House is urging India not to accelerate the buying of Russian oil as the West ratchets up sanctions and pressure on Moscow.

President Biden met remotely with Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi on Monday. And Press Secretary Jen Paski told reporters …

PSAKI: The president also made clear that he does not believe it’s in India’s interest to accelerate or increase imports of Russian energy and other commodities.

India only imports about 1 to 2 percent of its energy from Russia. But Biden told Modi that the U.S. government could help India diversify its sources of energy.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also chimed in on Monday.

AUSTIN: Now more than ever, democracies must stand together to defend the values that we all share.

The two leaders ended the meeting with Biden saying they committed to strengthening their relationship.

But Modi made no public commitment to refrain from Russian oil and that has become a source of tension with the United States.

India’s neutral stance in the war has raised concerns in Washington and earned praise from Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. He lauded India this month for judging the situation—quote—“in its entirety, not just in a one-sided way.”

Biden takes aim at ‘ghost guns,’ announces pick to head ATF » At the White House on Monday, President Biden once again took aim at so-called ghost guns. Those are privately made firearms without serial numbers, often assembled from kits.

BIDEN: These guns are weapons of choice for many criminals. We’re going to do everything we can to deprive them of that choice.

Biden said the Justice Department will make it illegal to manufacture a gun kit without serial numbers on each of the parts or for firearms dealers to sell them without a background check.

Some gun rights groups have pledged to challenge the new rules in court.

The president on Monday also announced his new nominee to run the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. He has tapped former U.S. attorney Steve Dettlebach for the post.

Biden had to withdraw the nomination of his first ATF nominee, gun-control advocate David Chipman. His nomination stalled out after months of opposition from Republicans and some Democrats in the Senate.

Growing wave of violence in Middle East » A growing wave of violence has erupted in the West Bank. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin has more.

KRISTEN FLAVIN, REPORTER: Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian man near Bethlehem on Sunday. The Israeli military said the man was throwing a firebomb at an Israeli vehicle driving on a West Bank highway

The unidentified man was the fourth Palestinian killed in a 24-hour span.

Ramadan this year converges with major Jewish and Christian holidays. Last year, protests and clashes in Jerusalem during Ramadan boiled over into an 11-day war between Israel and Gaza militants.

Israel has stepped up its military activity in the West Bank after Palestinian attackers killed 14 Israelis in four deadly attacks inside Israel in recent weeks.

At the same time, it has taken a series of steps to try to calm the situation. Those included granting Israeli work permits to thousands of Palestinians from the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

Gender ‘x’ option now available on U.S. passport applications » U.S. travelers can now officially select gender “x” on passport applications, rather than choosing male or female. The change took effect on Monday.

President Biden announced the change last month along with other transgender accommodations.

The TSA is also replacing what it called gender-based body scanning technology with new scanners.

Musk not joining Twitter » Elon Musk has changed his mind. He is not joining Twitter’s board of directors after all. WORLD’s Anna Johansen Brown has that story.

ANNA JOHANSEN BROWN, REPORTER: The billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX was awarded a seat on the board after buying a 9 percent stake in the company. And Twitter announced that he would soon join the board.

Musk then teased possible changes to Twitter, including the addition of an edit button and making the site ad-free. Nearly 90 percent of Twitter's revenue last year came from ads.

Musk has been critical of Twitter’s moves in the past, including its censorship policies.

Responding to news that Musk won’t join the board, Twitter’s CEO Parag Agrawal wrote in a note originally sent to Twitter employees—quote—“I believe this is for the best.”

Agrawal did not offer an explanation for Musk's decision.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Anna Johansen Brown.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: evangelicals in Russia and Ukraine discuss the conflict between their countries. 

Plus, lessons from the Titanic.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 12th of April, 2022.

You’re listening to The World and Everything in It and we’re so glad to have you along today. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. First up: divided by war.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has claimed thousands of lives and created 4 million refugees.

It’s also caused a rift between Christians in both countries.

Some Russian Christians have fallen for Kremlin propaganda. But others are counting the cost of speaking truth about the war in a country where the state is always listening.

WORLD correspondent Jill Nelson reports.

MAGDYCH: I do understand that they're being afraid. They are afraid of Putin. I do get it. But from the other hand, I don't understand it.

JILL NELSON, REPORTER: Oleg Magdych is a Ukrainian pastor from Kyiv who struggles to understand why Russian Christians aren’t more vocal.

He abhors what Russia has done to his country since the first invasion eight years ago. And now he’s part of a territorial defense unit fighting against a second deadly invasion.

MAGDYCH: This war has gone on for eight years now. And during this eight years, I've been in many discussions on Facebook with Russian Christians trying to tell them that what's going on is not right. And they as Christians, they have to stand for truth.

He points to the 2014 Maidan protests when Ukrainians said “enough” to President Viktor Yanukovych, the Russian puppet leading their country. Nearly 100 people died, including Christians Magdych knew.

MAGDYCH: They were ready to die for what was right. So I know what it's like, and I don't understand Russian Christians.

Magdych isn’t alone.

Oleg Vasilevsky is a Ukrainian who operates Christian summer camps. Hundreds of Russian Christians have attended his camp training seminars in Russia, and he’s become friends with many of them. He expected his friends to immediately reach out after the February invasion.

VASILEVSKY: Only one person contacted me and asked me how everything was going on with us. I was so hurt that we serve people so much. You can serve people and they can turn around and kill you. You know that’s kind of the feeling.

Russian pastor Andre Furmanov sympathizes with the hurt and anger of Ukrainians. He too is frustrated with Russians who believe the Kremlin lies. But he says sometimes there’s a deeper reason for Russian Christians adopting a less vocal stance against the war.

FURMANOV:  Here in Russia, we have been treated as enemies for a long, long time. And if pastors just stand up and just say, okay, people off with Putin, off with his head and stuff like that. I love Ukraine, which we can do, but it's like they're going to kill us. Who's going to teach the truth? Who's going to help people figure out things? Because unfortunately as I’ve noticed people can’t really think for themselves.

He has traveled to Ukraine for ministry events and noticed how friendly Ukraine is to evangelical Christians. But in Russia, both the state and the Russian Orthodox Church are hostile to religious minorities.

FURMANOV: We've been very closely watched, kicked out of like, in the case of my church, we literally have been kicked out of every place we ever rented. We bought a place and it was destroyed by the pro Orthodox extremists who would actually call us extremists …

Moscow has stepped up its persecution of religious minorities in the past three years by expanding laws they say protect the country from religious extremism. As a result, some pastors have been arrested and churches raided.

FURMANOV: There is always a choice that we need to make. Like, even what I'm saying on social media, that's enough to put me in jail for 15 years. And all of my friends, literally all of my friends have said, be wise in choosing the hills to die on…

Moscow recently passed an amendment that establishes a 15 year prison sentence for anyone who portrays the war in a negative light. It requires Russians to use the term “military operation” instead of “war.” And police in Russia have arrested more than 15,000 anti-war protesters since the invasion began.

Moscow blocked popular social media sites in March, although many Russians have ways around the ban. Thousands of Russians have sensed a new iron curtain descending on the country and have left. Furmanov says he thinks the situation will only get worse.

FURMANOV: At this point, I know that they listen to my phone, they record my conversations. I know they do.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has increasingly targeted Christians since he came to power 22 years ago. Furmanov says his church is being watched.

FURMANOV: I also understand that we have rats in our Church. So being watched every step, every word.

He says if Christians in Russia want to be effective, they have to come up with less obvious ways to spread truth.

He regularly invites people into his home to discuss Kremlin propaganda, and as a result, few in his congregation support the official state position. And he helped write a letter for a young man who was drafted into the Russian military. It explained that he could not go to Ukraine because of his Christian values.

He says all the pastors he knows in his town of Vyborg are against the war. And he wants Ukrainians to know they are speaking out.

FURMANOV: I just want them to know that the fact that they don't see it outwardly doesn't mean that people are not doing things. People are. And one of the greatest things that the Russian pastors who are convinced, who know the truth and who believe the truth, they teach their flock and encourage the flock to pass on the truth to those who have been contaminated by the falsehood, by the lies.

And he has this final message for Christians in Ukraine:

FURMANOV: Please tell them how they're loved and how they're prayed for. I pray for total victory of Ukraine, and a lot of people here do as well, understanding that when that happens, it's going to come back at us in a very negative way, but it’s the right thing.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Jill Nelson.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Up next: Vaccine mandates in the military.

Thirty-five Navy SEALS applied for and were rejected in their quest for a religious exemption to the vaccine mandate.

The Navy SEALS sued the Biden administration over it and in January, a federal judge in Texas ruled in their favor.

But last month, the Supreme Court partially blocked that ruling. The court restored the Navy’s ability to consider vaccine status with regard to assignments and deployments.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Then this week the same federal judge in Texas expanded the injunction from January to include all U.S. Navy service members who request a religious accommodation from the vaccine mandate. Not just the dozens of Navy SEALS who initially sued.

EICHER: The First Liberty Institute is fighting the mandate in court on behalf of service members.

On the line now is Mike Berry. He’s an Afghanistan war vet and a Marine reservist. He’s First Liberty’s Director of Military Affairs and Senior Counsel.

REICHARD: Mike, good morning!

MIKE BERRY, GUEST: Good morning. It's great to be with you.

REICHARD: Well, this fight has bounced around quite a lot. First, tell us the origins of this case and why file a lawsuit?

BERRY: Well, the case started last year when the Biden administration and the Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, issued the DoD vaccine mandate that applied to everybody in the military. And of course, we know that there were many, many, I mean, thousands of people serving in the military who have religious objections to the vaccine mandate. And these objections are based on their sincerely held religious beliefs. And under federal law, and under military regulations, when you have a sincerely held religious belief that prohibits you from doing something, you're entitled under the law to ask for a religious accommodation. And that's exactly what our clients did, which, as you mentioned, it started with 35 Navy Seals and other special warfare personnel. They requested religious accommodations. And although the military has publicly stated the Navy specifically has publicly stated that they've approved hundreds of medical and administrative exemptions, they had not granted a single religious accommodation. And to us that that stood out as blatant religious discrimination, and that's illegal. It's unconstitutional. And so that's why we felt the need to pursue a legal remedy and that led us to file a lawsuit.

REICHARD: Did the Defense Dept. build any accommodations into its vaccine mandate? Religious or otherwise?

BERRY: Well, the Defense Department has always had on its books a regulation that allows for religious accommodations. And if the DoD issues an order, saying everybody has to be vaccinated, and you have a sincerely held religious belief that conflicts with that, you have the ability, under DoD regulations and under federal law, to ask for a religious accommodation. And the important thing here is that the way that the regulation is written the way the DoD policy is written, it says that the DoD shall accommodate.

So it's a default that the service members' religious beliefs should normally prevail. And the only way the DOD can deny your religious accommodation is if it can show that it has a compelling government interest. So in other words, a really, really good reason, and that there's no least restrictive means. In other words, there's no other way for the military to accomplish whatever it's trying to do that doesn't infringe upon your religious beliefs. And that's really, the the crux of this case is that the Navy has yet to provide any evidence that the vaccine is actually effective at stopping the spread of the virus. And they've shown no evidence that people who have natural immunity, so if you've gotten the virus, the Coronavirus, COVID, and you've recovered from it, and you're healthy again. And the Navy is completely discounting that along with discounting everybody's religious beliefs. So, for us, that's really the crux of this case.

REICHARD: Back to the particulars of this litigation. Does the lawsuit only pertain to COVID-19 vaccines or to others as well?

BERRY: In this particular lawsuit, it only applies to the COVID-19 vaccine.

And it’s because of the unique way in which the DoD is handling this one. With other vaccines, we're actually aware of service members, many service members who have religious exemptions, religious accommodations, from other vaccines, whether it's, you know, chickenpox, or, you know, vaccines along those lines, sort of the conventional vaccines. But with COVID, they've treated it very differently. And they've said their policy is that nobody will be given a religious exemption. And to us that, again, really gets to the heart of this is that the DOD, the Pentagon, the Navy, they seem to be perfectly okay with people serving in the military who are unvaccinated. It's the reason why they're unvaccinated that these personnel are being targeted. And it's that if you have a medical reason, or an administrative reason why you can't get the vaccine, the Navy has no problem with you continuing to serve. But if you have a religious reason why you can't get the vaccine, that's when the Navy is going to come after you and try and they were punishing service members. They were involuntarily separating them. Some of them were being threatened with court martial. They've been treated as the worst of the worst, purely because they have a religious objection.

REICHARD: Let’s talk about that injunction from the U.S. District Court in Texas. What’s it say and what will it do?

BERRY: Well, big picture-wise what the injunction from the past week does is it expands a lawsuit from just the 35 Navy Seals and Special Warfare personnel that First Liberty initially represented to now it literally defends every person in the United States Navy, who sought a religious accommodation, and was denied. Right? And the latest numbers I've seen is that’s somewhere over 4,000 people. They had asked for religious accommodations. They were denied. The Navy was beginning to take adverse action against them.

So the Navy is no longer allowed to take that adverse action or separation actions against them with the one caveat. The Supreme Court has said, “Well, but the one thing the Navy can do is consider vaccination status when it's making personnel decisions.” So as far as we're concerned, everything else, every other aspect of the injunction is still in play. It still applies. The only thing the Navy's allowed to do is consider vaccination status and personnel decisions.

REICHARD: And where does the case go from here?

BERRY: Well, presumably the Department of Justice will appeal this. And so it'll go to the Fifth Circuit. If they do decide to appeal, then, you know, there'll be a three judge panel at the Fifth Circuit. And then from there, I guess it really depends on what the Fifth Circuit does, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. It's very possible, possibly even likely that this could end up back at the Supreme Court again. And so as this case progresses, I think more and more evidence will begin - we're going to build a mountain of evidence to provide to the courts so that if and when this gets back to the Supreme Court, they'll have plenty of evidence to evaluate, and they'll see what's really going on that this is all a sham. This whole vaccine mandate has been a sham from the beginning, that these are foregone conclusions that anybody who asked for a religious accommodation is going to be denied and the Navy is going to try to kick them out.

REICHARD: Attorney and veteran Mike Berry with First Liberty Institute. Mike, thanks so much!

BERRY: Thanks for having me.

NICK EICHER, HOST: You’ve heard the expression, one man’s trash is another’s treasure.

Apparently, somebody tossed into a dumpster what might be a million-dollar art collection and a Connecticut business owner is now in possession.

Jared Whipple admits, he’s not really an art expert. He’s a mechanic by trade and a skate-park owner.

A friend of his let him know about the dumpster find and at first he thought the abstract art would go great in that skate park.

But it turns out the work is that of the late abstract artist Francis Hines.

Whipple retrieved hundreds of pieces by Hines including paintings, sculptures and small drawings.

The estimated value may very well be in the millions.

Not bad for a dumpster dive and too nice for the skate park!

It’s The World and Everything in It.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Tuesday, April 12th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Notable Speeches, Past and Present.

On April 7th, 1965, President Lyndon B Johnson delivered a turning-point address on the subject of Vietnam. He spoke at Johns Hopkins University and national television networks carried it live.

Johnson’s half-hour address was titled: “Peace without Conquest.” News reports at the time called it his most important foreign-policy speech to date after having won the 1964 election promising peace.

REICHARD: After he committed ground troops to Vietnam in February 1965, he faced intense political pressure. An estimated 60-million people watched as the president defended his administration’s limited-warfare goals.

The speech quickly turned opinion in his favor. Johnson’s resolve reassured those who pushed for greater involvement in the conflict. And it seemed to satisfy others who were calling for peace after he promised restraint.

Here now are excerpts from the president’s speech:

PRESIDENT B. LYNDON JOHNSON: Vietnam is far away from this quiet campus. We have no territory there, nor do we seek any. The war is dirty and brutal and difficult. And some 400 young men, born into an America that is bursting with opportunity and promise, have ended their lives on Vietnam's steaming soil.

Why must we take this painful road?

Why must this Nation hazard its ease, and its interest, and its power for the sake of a people so far away?

We fight because we must fight if we are to live in a world where every country can shape its own destiny. And only in such a world will our own freedom be finally secure.

This kind of world will never be built by bombs or bullets. Yet the infirmities of man are such that force must often precede reason, and the waste of war, the works of peace.

We wish that this were not so. But we must deal with the world as it is, if it is ever to be as we wish.

—

Why are these realities our concern? Why are we in South Vietnam?

We are there because we have a promise to keep. Since 1954 every American president has offered support to the people of South Vietnam. We have helped to build, and we have helped to defend. Thus, over many years, we have made a national pledge to help South Vietnam defend its independence.

And I intend to keep that promise.

—

There are those who wonder why we have a responsibility there. Well, we have it there for the same reason that we have a responsibility for the defense of Europe.

World War II was fought in both Europe and Asia, and when it ended we found ourselves with continued responsibility for the defense of freedom.

Our objective is the independence of South Vietnam, and its freedom from attack. We want nothing for ourselves-only that the people of South Vietnam be allowed to guide their own country in their own way.

We will do everything necessary to reach that objective. And we will do only what is absolutely necessary.

—

Our generation has a dream. It is a very old dream. But we have the power and now we have the opportunity to make that dream come true.

For centuries nations have struggled among each other. But we dream of a world where disputes are settled by law and reason. And we will try to make it so.

For most of history men have hated and killed one another in battle. But we dream of an end to war. And we will try to make it so.

—

Every night before I turn out the lights to sleep I ask myself this question: Have I done everything that I can do to unite this country? Have I done everything I can to help unite the world, to try to bring peace and hope to all the peoples of the world? Have I done enough?

Ask yourselves that question in your homes and in this hall tonight. Have we, each of us, all done all we could? Have we done enough?

—

This generation of the world must choose: destroy or build, kill or aid, hate or understand.

We can do all these things on a scale never dreamed of before.

Well, we will choose life. In so doing we will prevail over the enemies within man, and over the natural enemies of all mankind.

To Dr. Eisenhower and Mr. Garland, and this great institution, Johns Hopkins, I thank you for this opportunity to convey my thoughts to you and to the American people.

Good night.

REICHARD: Just four short months after this speech, the Johnson administration committed to a full-scale war in Vietnam. Before the U.S. pulled out eight years later, more than 58,000 Americans died in the conflict.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday April 12th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Here’s WORLD commentator Kim Henderson on fallible humans.

KIM HENDERSON, COMMENTATOR: Funny, the mesmerizing power of the Titanic. The undertow of interest in the “unsinkable ship” has lasted 110 years this week.

But when the idea came up for a Titanic course in our homeschool co-op, I wasn’t exactly, shall we say, on board. I mean, it was a tragedy, right? How could I get students interested in that?

Well, I found out it’s not that difficult. We wound up with lively conversations and debates and a table of Titanic projects that ran the gamut—from a computerized tour of the ship to a 3-foot edible model.

I knew we’d succeeded when a mom called me that year on April 15. She said her kids woke up and the first thing they said was, ‘This was the day, Mama.’”

“The day?” she asked, thinking taxes were nowhere on their radar.

“The day the Titanic went down,” they said. “Don’t you remember?”

True enough. The largest, most luxurious ocean liner of its time sideswiped an iceberg on Day 4 of its maiden voyage. That happened at 11:40 p.m. on April 14, 1912, and within 2 and a half hours, the ship broke apart and sank. It carried enough lifeboats for only half its passengers and crew. Some 1,500 people lost their lives.

And that’s just the surface story. We dug down into the engineering aspect of watertight compartments, the class struggle evident in access to lifeboats, the science behind hypothermia, even a telling transcript from post-disaster Senate hearings. One senator grilled Frederick Fleet, who’d been in the ship’s crow’s nest, minus binoculars. Poor Fleet. He thought being bounced around between foster homes was bad, then all this happened on his first try at being lookout.

And it’s this putting of names and backstories together that really pulls the Titanic heart strings. Like Englishman John Sage and his family, who were looking to start a new life in Canada when they boarded as third-class passengers. All 11 of them died.

As did Annie Funk, an American missionary to India. And John Harper, on his way to preach at Moody Church in Chicago.

But the Titanic left a legacy that changed the seas. Ships now carry enough lifeboats for all their passengers. Radios must be monitored 24/7. An international ice patrol cruises the oceans.

We capped off our study with a banquet, where we dined on the Titanic's first-class menu and wore costumes, including a fur coat from a local junk store. I can find no better summary of what we learned than this one, from a book called The Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters:

“If the story of the Titanic is more than a mere compilation of interesting facts and details—and it is—if her lessons speak to transcendent truths—and they do—then we must be willing to remember the great ship for what she truly was—a reminder that man may plan his ways, but it is God who directs our steps.”

I’m Kim Henderson.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: sanctions against Russia. We’ll talk about how U.S. policy is working. Or not.

And we’ll meet a man from Alabama who has a unique route for mail delivery.

That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

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 that God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8 ESV)

Go now in grace and peace.

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