The World and Everything in It: April 5, 2024

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like me. I’m Maria Kimes from Fort Wayne, Indiana. I’m proud to say I introduced my gigantic extended family to the show. Every weekend we get together and fight over, I mean, respectfully discuss the content of the week. I know you’ll enjoy today's program.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: LOL, nice. Good morning! Today on Culture Friday we’ll talk about that new law in Scotland that might make a criminal of a famous novelist and is politics upstream or downstream from culture? 

NICK EICHER, HOST: John Stonestreet will be along in just a few minutes.

Later, a new Apple TV documentary about a mock-government program for girls that remains surprisingly bipartisan.

AUDIO: I think boys feel like they can speak louder about politics because I think women, often, when we start talking politics, we get shut down.

And your Listener Feedback.

BROWN: It’s Friday, April 5th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

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

REICHARD: Up next, KENT COVINGTON with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Biden-Netanyahu: Gaza » The White House has a stern message for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: Change your policy in Gaza…or the United States will change ours.

President Biden delivered that message in a phone call Thursday. Secretary of State Tony Blinken described it this way:

BLINKEN: He made clear the need for Israel to announce a series of specific, concrete, and measurable steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering, and the safety of aid workers.

And reporters asked National Security Council spokesman John Kirby … what if Israel doesn’t meet those demands?

KIRBY: If there’s no changes to their policy and their approaches, then there’s going to have to be changes to ours.

He did not elaborate on what those changes might be.

President Biden on Thursday also called for an immediate cease-fire. The phone call came days after Israeli airstrikes killed seven food aid workers in Gaza.

Israeli officials say they will soon share the results of an investigation into the incident, which Netanyahu has called a tragic error.

Biden-Netanyahu: Iran » Despite a severely strained relationship between the White House and Netanyahu’s government, John Kirby said the two countries stand entirely united against Iran.

KIRBY: The two leaders also discussed public Iranian threats against Israel and the Israeli people. President Biden made clear that the United States strongly supports Israel in the face of those threats.

Iran has vowed revenge after an airstrike that leveled a building at Iran’s consulate compound in Syria’s capital of Damascus. The strike took out several Iranian military leaders

Iranian commanders have historically been involved in terrorist plots. And Iran has long funded and armed terror groups dedicated to Israel’s destruction.  

SOUND: [Airplane]

Yellen in China » Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen stepped onto a tarmac in Beijing on Thursday at the start of a five-day trip.

She’s meeting today with her Chinese counterpart … as the world’s two biggest economies try to hash out their differences … or at least the ground rules for how to disagree in a way that won’t ratchet up tensions.

Yellen said this week …

YELLEN: We went for too long with too little communication, and misunderstandings developed.

There are tensions over Chinese government support for the manufacturing of electric vehicles and solar panels, just as the U.S. government ramps up its own aid for those tech sectors. There are also differences on trade, ownership of TikTok, access to computer chips and national security. Yellen says the U.S. needs “a level playing field.”

SOUND: [Military band]

NATO Ukraine - Blinken » A military band welcomed allied leaders to NATO headquarters in Brussels Thursday… as the alliance marked its 75th anniversary.

STOLTENBERG: Since 1949, we have been the strongest and most successful alliance in history.

Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Europe needs the United States for its defense. And he said European members are stepping up their contributions to the alliance. He added that the United States also needs Europe.

STOLTENBERG: European allies provide world class militaries, vast intelligence networks, and unique diplomatic leverage.

Sweden took part in a meeting of NATO ministers for the first time since joining last month.

And U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken declared that Ukraine will eventually join the alliance as well. It was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that drove Sweden and neighboring Finland to seek the protection of NATO membership.

Judges reject Trump efforts to get cases tossed out » Donald Trump suffered a pair of legal defeats on Thursday, though neither was unexpected. WORLD’s Kristen Flavin reports.

KRISTEN FLAVIN: U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon rejected a request to toss out a federal case surrounding Trump’s handling of classified documents.

Defense attorneys argued that Trump was entitled, as a former president, to hold onto the records after leaving office … citing the Presidential Records Act. But Prosecutors said the statute had no relevance in a case concerning classified documents. And Cannon sided with the government in a three-page order.

Meantime, the Georgia judge overseeing the election interference case against Trump and others … rejected arguments that prosecutors were seeking to criminalize protected political speech.

Both decisions allow the cases to proceed

For WORLD, I’m Kristen Flavin.

SOUND: [Taiwan chopper]

Taiwan update » A medical transport helicopter in Taiwan … heard there rushing rescued workers from a quarry to a local hospital.

And the race continues today to find and rescue more survivors after Wednesday’s powerful earthquake. Authorities said they knew of at least 700 people still trapped.

There are at least 10 confirmed deaths … with dozens still missing.

The 7.4 magnitude earthquake also wounded more than a thousand people. It was the strongest quake to hit the island in a quarter century.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Culture Friday with John Stonestreet. Plus, Listener Feedback.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Friday the 5th of April, 2024.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Myrna Brown.

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

Time now for Culture Friday. And joining us is John Stonestreet. He's president of the Colson Center, and he's host of the Breakpoint podcast. John, good morning.

JOHN STONESTREET: Good morning.

EICHER: Well, John, you have heard, no doubt, that Scotland has a new hate speech law. It took effect on April Fool's Day, so read into that whatever you wish. Reading Ross Douthat in the New York Times, he notes that this new law in Scotland criminalizes public speech deemed insulting to a protected group. Now this is a legal term of art, "insulting," as opposed to the higher legal standard of "abusive," and a prosecutor would need only prove that the speech was likely to encourage hatred, rather than being explicitly intended to do so. Ross Douthat saying, "a plain reading of the law seems like it could license prosecutions for a comedian's monologue or for reading biblical passages on sexual morality in public."

Now, the famous author J.K. Rowling has weighed in; she's objected to this. She's even dared Scottish authorities to put her in jail over it. But Douthat makes the point and I'll quote here, “Speech police tend to prefer more obscure targets, which of course, is the normal way for mild sorts of authoritarianism to work. Exceptions are made for prominent figures, lest the system be made to look ridiculous, but ordinary people, they are taught not to cross the line.” That's Ross Douthat in the New York Times.

WORLD Opinions writer Carl Truman puts it this way. “It's tossing out an old blasphemy law, and in effect, bringing in a new blasphemy law, implying this new ideology is very religious indeed.” John, what do you say?

STONESTREET: I think Carl Truman has been writing some of the most helpful stuff on really what this expansion by force really either culturally or legally or politically of the sexual agenda, what it really means, and it is a replacement of a religion. It's fascinating that in response to President Biden's announcement that Easter would be the Trans Day of Visibility, the non Christian British writer, Louise Perry, who's talked a lot about the sexual revolution, called it "repaganizing." All this fits in here.

And so for Truman to call this a new religion is exactly right. I tell you, what I don't think is necessarily the case, is what Douthat wrote, that the police won't actually go after J.K. Rowling. I think she called their bluff. I think she challenged them directly. I think she has won the first standoff. But if you think the side that pushed this law forward is going to stand by and even let J.K. Rowling get away with it? Now look, the police, they'd rather not mess with this, no question at all. But immediately when the police issued a statement saying, "Oh, yeah, this doesn't really count as what we had in mind," when by all observable---I mean, did you see the Twitter thread? It was unbelievable. She named names, she pointed to transgender, particularly men who pretend to be women actually causing abuse and damage in public and prisons. I mean, it was a direct challenge. There's no way it doesn't fit this definition.

You know, it's like what we've said for a long time, you can be as winsome as you want to be, and it's not going to keep this kind of movement from trying to enforce compliance. So we'll see what happens. I'm not sure Douthat's necessarily correct. One thing I did appreciate is somebody else brought that up saying, Well, you know, you'll get away with it, but other people will not. But at the same time, J.K. Rowling turned around and said, If somebody unknown gets in trouble for something they tweet, let me know, I'll tweet it and force the police to choose. She's not messing around.

I’ve got to say one more thing, if that's okay, Nick, and that is there's at least something that has to be noted about the number of conservative leaders and religious leaders and pastors in the United States that refuse to be really clear on this issue in case they might get in trouble. And for JK Rowling to actually come out and do it, expecting to get in trouble, there's a misalignment of courage in this comparison, and I can't help but see it and I'm sure others are too.

BROWN: What we talked about, John, with respect to Scotland, seems to be an example of politics being upstream of culture, instead of the other way around, which brings me to a point argued by Eric Teetsel in WORLD Opinions. Teetsel used to be with the Manhattan Declaration, and now he's at the Heritage Foundation. He makes the argument that the saying "politics is downstream from culture," although containing a nugget of truth, does real harm by minimizing the role of politics and policy in society, and providing an excuse to shrug off the responsibilities of citizenship. He says at the end of his article, "with so much in the culture going awry, we need to take seriously the role that law and policy play in shaping who we are, what we think and what we value." What do you think, John? Is he right, or is he wrong? 

STONESTREET: I think the answer is yes. He's both right and wrong. I love Eric, I've known Eric for a long time. We both worked with Chuck Colson about the same time here, the last years of Chuck's life. And Chuck was the one who popularize - he didn't coin it, for the record, although he's been credited with that on the internet, he did not coined the phrase "politics is downstream from culture." But he did really like it. And he did really promote it. And I think he probably overstated it.

But I think, you know, Eric is overstating it as well, by saying that that idea does real harm. Look, most of the time politics is downstream from culture, or more accurate to say would be politics is downstream from the rest of culture, because politics and our laws, these are part of culture, they're inseparable from culture. But when you ask, you know, what leads what, it's the kind of cultural imagination that's oftentimes shaped primarily through ideas advanced in education and art, that leads the way, that's upstream, for the kind of laws that people can imagine having. It's just as potentially problematic to think that passing a law can change hearts and minds.

Now, there certainly are examples of both throughout history, so let me give those. The first: the Civil Rights Act. There was a whole lot of American culture not ready for the Civil Rights Act. It was upstream from the rest of culture. But let's take the Dobbs decision. There's a law now one could argue it hasn't worked its way into culture yet. But the response immediately from the electorate, and seven states, including red states, since Dobbs, has gone in a pro-abortion direction. So when people thought that the end of the law meant the end of abortion, then you're thinking that law is upstream, and it's gonna then, you know, make abortion unthinkable. And it didn't. What was unthinkable, what's proven to be unthinkable for a significant majority of Americans, is taking away that kind of final option.

Now, what's that have to do with? That has to do with this notion that the unborn are unseen, by and large, and therefore, don't merit the same value, that has to do with the constant barrage of attack from cultural institutions against pro-lifers, since the Roe decision was overturned. I think you have a basically a deep-seated culture of moral relativism, that really shapes how we see things. And so I think you have examples of both.

Now, most often, the laws passed that are thinkable, that are conceivable, and so it takes a while for the cultural imagination to make those things actually a possibility. But it does also take real moral courage for political leaders, particularly in a situation like ours, to jump ahead of culture, and to say, "This is what the right thing is to do." And then if we see it shape the rest of culture downstream. I think there's a whole lot of factors at play, right?

So I love Eric, and Ryan Anderson, by the way, also has made this case, but maybe he's overstating it a bit, just like Chuck Colson did when he said it.

EICHER: Well, John, I'd like to pick up on something that you said earlier, about the collision of Easter Sunday and the Transgender Day of Visibility. A lot of people got upset about that, as you know, but we were told there is nothing to get upset about because it's Easter that bumped into Transgender Day and not vice versa. Is there anything further to say on the subject?

STONESTREET: Well, look, I think there's a lot to say. Now how and whether and how we should be upset, I think is a legitimate conversation. But this is a moment in time. This is a marker. This is something that actually says you are here in the cultural scheme of things. But on a practical level, the excuses that this really isn't a big deal that we hear, there's a number of things that came to mind.

Number one is the voices on the religious left that told us that, and there were plenty on at least on Twitter, that said, you know, you guys get upset about nothing - that's been the response at each stage of people being concerned about these things. And it keeps getting worse and worse and worse. So you keep telling us to stop being upset about nothing. And then nothing keeps becoming more and more and more and more of a something, right. I mean, this all started, you know, with like, don't be too upset about you know, rock music with long hair and short skirts. And now we've kind of it things have escalated a bit, I guess is what I want to say.

The second thing I want to say is if this is the Trans Day of Visibility, what are the days of invisibility? Like, seriously, I mean, this is every day, and this is what happens every time we get a new kind of day that we're supposed to remember, or a month of recognition for various groups, I think, Well, isn't that what every other day is about apparently? And there was a Twitter thread that actually summed all of this up, how many days there are that are set aside specifically on the gender confusion issue in one way or another. And we're talking about three dozen days, and three entire months. So look, you know, enough.

Third, the idea that this has always been on March 31, this is a day that doesn't actually exist. Easter exists in history, because the Son of God rose from the dead. That actually happened. There has actually never been an individual who has changed their chromosomes, or their hormones, or their fundamental identity as male and female. That's never happened in the history of the world. This is a made up day. This is like the word cisgender. It's a made up word that doesn't actually exist in real life, or refer to as something that needs to be distinguished in real life. But it's used to advance an entire way of thinking about things. There's so many of these days. This is a made up day. Easter happened, this doesn't happen. But you know, other than those things, I don't have really any thoughts about this particular topic.

BROWN: John Stonestreet is president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint podcast. Thanks so much, John.

STONESTREET: Thank you both.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Friday, April 5th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

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

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: a new documentary that follows politically conscious teenagers debuts today on Apple TV+. Here’s arts and culture editor Collin Garbarino to talk about Girls State.

EMILY WORTHMORE: Hello, Federalists! Chances are that you’ve already met me, but my name is Emily Worthmore, and I’m running for governor.

COLLIN GARBARINO: If Emily Worthmore sounds a little young to be running for governor, that’s because she is. Emily is just one of hundreds of teenage girls from Missouri stumbling through a mock government program known as Girls State.

EMILY: I don’t really know what to talk about in my speech because our party as a whole has no platform yet… And I probably won’t agree with the platform to be honest.

Boys State and Girls State are leadership programs sponsored by the American Legion and the American Legion Auxiliary. In 2020, documentarians Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss gave viewers a look inside the program with Boys State, a film about high-school boys in Texas who get hands-on experience with the democratic process.

Released in the midst of election season, the documentary depicted our contentious politics in microcosm. Now, just in time for another presidential election season, McBaine and Moss are back with their follow up, Girls State, focusing on the female perspective.

CECILIA: I think boys feel like they can speak louder about politics because I think women… often when we start talking politics, we get shut down.

Hundreds of girls are attending this week-long experiment with democracy, but the documentary focuses on a half dozen girls. And while all the subjects are go-getters, they come from diverse backgrounds, bringing their own assumptions with them.

TOCHI: These girls are literally from places where there are like 300 people in their town. I’m probably the first black person they’ve ever interacted with.

Not only do the girls come from different cultures and ethnicities, but we also see different personalities trying to figure out how to fit in. Some possess self-confidence, while others aren’t sure about how to navigate the relational side of politics.

NISHA: This is it. This is where I go out. They’re not going to want me after this.

Emily, the girl running for governor, turns out to be the film’s main subject. She’s politically conservative and pro-life with Christian convictions.

EMILY: I keep wanting to say that it’s more liberal girls at this camp than there are conservatives, but I can’t tell. I can’t tell for sure.

Of course, she brings her own assumptions about her fellow campers.

EMILY: I can tell the people who are definitely liberal… umm… like definitely for sure just because… I don’t know… maybe… maybe they’re just louder?

Girls State was filmed during the summer of 2022, and the Dobbs decision that reversed Roe v. Wade looms large over the documentary. The Supreme Court leak happened right before the girls head off for their week at Girls State, and the legality of abortion becomes a hot topic of conversation.

Much of that conversation will disappoint thoughtful viewers because some of the pro-life girls have trouble speaking with conviction.

EMILY: Personally, I’m pro-life, but I wouldn’t try to convince somebody who’s not… Maybe I’d share my opinion and talk to them, but I don’t think it’s something that’s worth, like… “No, become pro-life.”

The pro-choice girls, on the other hand, merely regurgitate shallow talking points from social media.

GIRL: A lot of pro-lifers aren’t actually pro-life. They’re pro-birth. Now that is a big difference.

This lack of political depth could lead some to despair over the next generation, but really these teens aren’t so different from adults in America who substitute soundbites for a consistent political ethic.

But Girls State does have some hopeful elements. We see some of the girls find their voice through failure, rather than success. And while there’s lots of feminism, sometimes we see the girls questioning rah-rah female-empowerment slogans.

EMILY: Like, I love it. Straightening each other’s crowns and all that, but the “queen girl boss slay…” It’s like… great. If I were a guy and you weren’t doing it mockingly, would you say that genuinely?

Girls State remains even-handed. The documentarians don’t try to push an agenda. Rather, we get an honest look at how teen girls think and talk. I was especially impressed that the film contains no mockery directed at Emily’s Christian faith or political conservatism.

EMILY: Most of you already know that this tree has deep roots in Christ. In addition, I’m a supporter and protector of the freedoms we have in America – the most opportunity filled country on Earth.

Perhaps most encouragingly, we see people with polar opposite political views learn that honest and open conversations can build respect, allowing us to see each other as fellow human beings, even when our politics don’t align.

FAITH: And I don’t agree with the policies she would create, but I think she’s a good human being.

I’m Collin Garbarino.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s time now for Listener Feedback which we didn’t get to because of Good Friday. So this is for the month of March.

We start with corrections and the 18th of March: Moneybeat. We discussed the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, but we put it under the wrong cabinet agency. CIFUS belongs under the Department of the Treasury.

A listener from Vietnam wrote about one of our news stories on March 21st. We mistakenly identified Hong Kong as an “island state.” It is neither island nor state. It is a peninsula and it’s been officially a “Special Administrative Region” since the UK handed it to China in 1997.

A few of you wrote in about Word Play with George Grant after he said this:

GRANT: The tale centers on the experiences of a character named Murray Tempkin. He is described as “a slim, bespeckled thirty-year-old writer…”

No, Tempkin didn’t have the measles. He didn’t have embarrassing age spots, not at age 30 anyway. George misspoke and meant of course “be-spectacled.”

Now, George, you can’t possibly feel as badly about that as I do about this. I was talking with Katie McCoy on March 15th and I was reaching in vain for a transition … when disaster struck.

EICHER: I’d like to stay in the UK for this pushback question: In Ireland, voters rejected an invitation to redefine the family...

I’ve been playing it over in my head, so why not play it again. How embarrassing! The Republic of Ireland is NOT in the United Kingdom. It’s its own country. It has been for more than 100 years. I will go to the virtual chalkboard and write that over and over.

I deserved every email that came, so thank you, friends, for being gentle.

Last month we got a lot of feedback about Washington Wednesday on March 20th. Our interview with Michael Gerhardt on the House Impeachment hearings into President Joe Biden.

We spoke with him because of his testimony as an expert witness during President Bill Clinton’s impeachment. He had been called by both Republicans and Democrats in that case as a scholar on the history of impeachment. That’s the sort of analysis we were hoping to give you about the Biden inquiry. But what we got instead was his opinion that it was a fishing expedition that had turned up no meaningful evidence.

Of course, that’s something on which competent experts disagree, but we did not present points of view that contrast with Gerhardt’s. We are working on a follow-up interview that will delve into the Republicans’ case and the evidence they’ve gathered. We look forward to presenting a fuller picture of the impeachment case very soon.

And we’ll end today’s Listener Feedback with this word from Marena Bykerk:

BYKERK: I just wanted to give you all a very delayed thanks for closing Fridays by reminding us to worship with our brothers and sisters in Christ over the weekend! It felt like an eternity over covid that your closing message was if possible or if it feels safe. Every time I hear Myrna Brown remind us that we need to gather in worship I am reminded that I have not thanked you for that reminder.

I also want to tell you how much I love the daily reminder at the end of World Watch of "Whatever the news the purpose of the Lord will stand." It always convicts me of my worry and reminds me that when life feels like it's going a little haywire, God is still in control and that I need to rejoice in that.

“For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.” Colossians 1:16.

Thanks to everyone who wrote and called in this month. We’re so thankful that you listen, and take the time to provide thoughtful feedback.

If you have comments to share with us you can send them to editor@wng.org. And if you’re writing, would you consider reading your comment and making an audio file attachment? You can do that or you can phone it in at 202-709-9595.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Well, now it’s time to thank the team who helped to put the program together this week:

Mary Reichard, David Bahnsen, Leo Briceno, Lillian Hamman, Emily Whitten, Brad Littlejohn, Carolina Lumetta, Onize Ohikere, Janie B. Cheaney, Emma Freire, Cal Thomas, John Stonestreet, and Collin Garbarino.

Special thanks to our breaking news team: Lynde Langdon, Steve Kloosterman, Kent Covington, Travis Kircher, Lauren Canterberry, Christina Grube, and Josh Schumacher.

Thanks also to our breaking news interns: Tobin Jacobson, Johanna Huebscher, and Alex Carmenaty.

And the guys who stay up late to get the program to you early: Johnny Franklin and Carl Peetz.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Our producer is Harrison Watters.

Our Senior producer is Kristen Flavin and Paul Butler is Executive producer.

Additional production assistance from Benj Eicher, Mary Muncy, and Bekah McCallum.

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 Psalmist writes, “I will sing of the steadfast love of the Lord, forever, with my mouth I will make known your faithfulness to all generations.” —Psalm 89:1

Worship with brothers and sisters in Christ in Church this weekend, and Lord willing, we’ll meet you right back here on Monday.

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.