The World and Everything in It: August 11, 2025

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning!

The Supreme Court will hear two cases this term testing both sides of the First Amendment—the right to speak and the right not to. One of the cases begins in the counselor-client relationship.

CAMPBELL: They tell a counselor you can help a child down the so-called path of transition, but you can’t help a child become comfortable with their bodies.

NICK EICHER, HOST: That’s ahead on Legal Docket.

Also today, the Monday Moneybeat with David Bahnsen.

Later, the WORLD History Book.

LEWIS: Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life, and you will save it.

A series of radio addresses during World War II becomes one of the greatest books of the 20th century.

REICHARD: It’s Monday, August 11th. 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: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Trump-Putin meeting » President Trump and Russia's Vladimir Putin are slated to meet in Alaska on Friday to discuss ending the war with Ukraine.

Trump has suggested that some exchange of territories could be a part of a peace deal. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, however, says his country will not acknowledge Russia’s annexation of any of its regions.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce:

BRUCE:  No one's going to be happy. That would have to be considered when you think about how do we get to a ceasefire. But the point is that the killing has to end.

Zelenskyy says he also will not agree to Moscow’s demands that Ukraine give up any future in the NATO alliance.

The Ukrainian president will not be a part of this week’s meeting between Trump and Putin. But Vice President JD Vance says Zelenskyy could be a part of another such meeting soon.

VANCE:  Vladimir Putin said that he would never sit down with Zelensky, the head of Ukraine, and the President has now got that to change. We're at a point now where we're, we're now trying to figure out, frankly, scheduling and things like that around when these three leaders could sit down and discuss and into this conflict.

And Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.S. Oksana Markarova said Zelenskyy is ready to have that meeting.

MARKAROVA: We have shown that he is ready to be anywhere to advance the, the agenda of peace.

Vice President Vance met Saturday with European and Ukrainian officials in England … to discuss bringing peace to Ukraine.

Netanyahu defends planned offensive » Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is defending a new military offensive in Gaza … that’s more sweeping than previously announced.

In the face of growing criticism from world leaders, Netanyahu said Sunday:

NETANYAHU: Look,  maybe some choose to forget October 7th, we, we will not forget what happened and we will, uh, do whatever it takes to defend our country and defend our people

He said his country “has no choice but to finish the job and complete the defeat of Hamas.” And he said Israel will do that “with or without the support of others.”

Netanyahu said his security cabinet last week instructed the dismantling of Hamas strongholds not only in Gaza City but also in the “central camps” of Muwasi.

NETANYAHU:  Our goal is not to occupy Gaza. Our goal is to free Gaza, free it from Hamas terrorists. The war can end tomorrow if Gaza, or rather if Hamas lays down its arms.

That comes after UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk condemned Israeli military preparations to establish security control throughout Gaza … saying it “runs contrary” to international law and “the right of Palestinians to self-determination.”

House Intel members defend Israel after Gaza visit » And several U.S. lawmakers are coming to Israel’s defense … against growing criticism over a deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Democratic Congressman Josh Gottheimer joined a bipartisan delegation from the House Intelligence Committee. The group recently visited a humanitarian aid staging site at the southern tip of Gaza. He said Sunday:

GOTTHEIMER:  Hamas won't let the aid get from Gaza, the border, from the Carlo crossing where we were. It's stuck there because they keep looting the trucks, the UN trucks, they're stealing the aid.

He added that he believes Israel must “crush Hamas,” to “get humanitarian aid” into the territory … and establish “a new governing structure.”

Republican Congressmen Rick Crawford and Ronny Jackson joined Gottheimer on that trip. The group met with Prime Minister Netanyahu and other leaders, as well families of Hamas hostages.

Texas redistricting » The Texas House is expected to try again to reach a quorum today … to hold a vote on a new Republican-drawn congressional map.

But as of Sunday, more than 50 Democratic lawmakers were still camping out in places like Chicago … in order to block that vote.

Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker:

PRITZKER: The Texas Democrats that are here, uh, are welcome. We're providing them a safe haven, a place for them to visit and stay, uh, breaking quorum because they're heroes.

But Republicans note that Illinois has what is widely considered to be one of the most thoroughly gerrymandered congressional maps in the country, heavily favoring Democrats.

And GOP Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says that by fleeing the state, those Democratic state House members have forfeited their seats.

ABBOTT:  Lawmakers are violating the law in Article three of the Texas Constitution where they are required to act on bills because they're violating that constitutional mandate … that means they are not fulfilling their oath of office … and they can be removed from office.

And Abbott’s administration wants the Texas state Supreme Court to declare the seats of absent lawmakers vacant … on the grounds of “abandonment from office.”

Astronauts return from International Space Station » Four astronauts are back on Earth after a five-month stay at the International Space Station.

Their SpaceX capsule parachuted into the Pacific off the California coast over the weekend.

SOUND: [SpaceX splashdown]

The crew consisted of two Americans, one Japanese and one Russian.

They launched in March as the replacements for the NASA astronauts that had been stuck at the space station for 9-plus months … due to a problem with Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft.

This was SpaceX’s third Pacific splashdown with people on board, but the first for a NASA crew in 50 years.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: a preview of a couple cases heading to the Supreme Court. Plus, the Monday Moneybeat with David Bahnsen.

This is The World and Everything in It.

I'm Kent Covington. 

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s The World and Everything in It for this 11th day of August, 2025. Thank you for joining us today. Good morning! I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. It’s time for Legal Docket.

We’ll begin with 10 key words from the text of the First Amendment: Congress shall make no law (that’s five) abridging the freedom of speech (that makes 10). Ten words that protect far more than public speeches. They cover political advocacy, art, even private conversations in the office of a counselor. Sometimes, they protect the right NOT to speak, to keep certain information private. This term, the Supreme Court will hear two cases that test those boundaries.

REICHARD: One of them comes from Colorado. Licensed professional counselor Kaley Chiles works with teens on trauma, addiction, sexuality, and gender identity. She integrates her Christian faith into her sessions. But she’s challenging a state law that stops her from doing that. She says it violates her right to free speech.

Alliance Defending Freedom is representing her. Here’s ADF Chief Legal Counsel Jim Campbell:

CAMPBELL: Counseling conversations, when Kaylee sits down with one of her clients — those conversations are protected by the First Amendment to the US Constitution. And as a result, The government has no business telling Kaylee what she and her client can discuss. 

EICHER: When someone challenges a law under the First Amendment, the first question is: what’s being regulated.

Is it speech itself, or is it conduct that just happens to involve speech?

The answer matters, because the court uses different standards to decide if the law is constitutional.

REICHARD: Laws that target speech have to clear the highest bar, called strict scrutiny. The government must prove a law serves a compelling interest and does so in the narrowest way possible.

If the law mainly regulates conduct and only incidentally affects speech, the bar is much lower. Think, health and safety regulations or requirements for professional licensing. The state only needs to show the law is reasonable. That’s rational-basis review. Easy to meet; most any reason will do.

EICHER: Back to Kaley Chiles.

Six years ago, Colorado passed the Mental Health Practice Act. It bans certain counseling for minors with gender dysphoria—what the state dismissively terms “conversation therapy.” And the law defines that term in only one direction. Campbell explains:

CAMPBELL: Colorado says that Kaylee can’t help these kids — that if she is going to help a child dealing with issues of gender confusion, she has to counsel them in a way that she thinks is irresponsible. And she wants to be free to counsel them consistent with their faith.

Campbell says the law is a textbook case of viewpoint discrimination: when the government allows only one side of a debate but bans the other. That’s a serious First Amendment problem:

CAMPBELL: They tell a counselor you can help a child down the so-called path of transition, but you can’t help a child become comfortable with their bodies. That kind of viewpoint discrimination is directly in conflict with the First Amendment.

REICHARD: I called the office of the Colorado Attorney General but didn’t hear back. So I’ll summarize Colorado’s view by what the state has said in court filings. One key contention Colorado makes is that Chiles the counselor is engaged in conduct, not speech—and therefore the state has legitimate authority to regulate her. That has been persuasive to lower courts, which have ruled against her. 

Another key contention of the state is related to the first: that conversion therapy is a discredited practice, which is why it’s banned. Colorado’s law defines “conversion therapy” broadly — banning any counseling for minors that aims to change their sexual orientation or gender identity. But it makes exceptions for counseling that affirms LGBTQ identity or supports a gender transition. In other words, it’s a one-way street: counseling toward transition is allowed, but counseling away from it is not.

EICHER: Campbell says that definition sweeps in a kind of counseling far removed from the coercive or shaming practices many people associate with the term “conversion therapy.” He’s talking instead about voluntary, non-coercive talk therapy — the kind where a client wants help living according to a traditional sexual ethic.

CAMPBELL: There isn’t true medical consensus. There are many pockets of the medical community that agree that providing this kind of counseling conversation with a minor is actually in their best interest. Certainly there are many professional associations that take a different view. But they’re simply wrong. In fact, if you read what they say, they acknowledge there’s a dearth of evidence and that there still needs to be an assessment. And so At the end of the day, people should be free to set their own counseling goals and select counselors who will help them achieve those goals. The government shouldn’t be sticking its nose in the counseling room.

REICHARD: It’s not just counseling conversations under scrutiny this term. Another case asks whether the government can force nonprofits to open their donor rolls to state officials.

In effect: sticking its nose into private giving.

EIICHER: That dispute comes from New Jersey and centers on the right not to speak— to keep certain information confidential. This case is about the privacy of people who donate money to pregnancy care centers.

First Choice Women’s Resource Centers is a pro-life nonprofit that serves women in crisis. It offers free pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, counseling, and baby supplies.

REICHARD: Aimee Huber is executive director of First Choice. She says she was blindsided last November when the state attorney general’s office served her with a sweeping subpoena. The state’s demand for records went far beyond routine oversight.

HUBER: It commanded us to produce up to 10 years of documentation on our donor communications, on identities of our donors and advertising,and basically everything you could think of. You can imagine that if you’re a small nonprofit, and you usually have open staff positions and you’re busy and serving a lot of people, that just the thought of producing that much information for up to ten years is completely overwhelming and daunting. So every hour that we would be using to produce documentation would be an hour that would be taken away from serving our women.

The New Jersey attorney general didn’t respond to my request for comment. So, again, I’m left to summarize the state views based on public court filings. New Jersey has argued that its subpoena is part of legitimate oversight to ensure compliance with state laws and not engaging in misleading advertising. Huber doesn’t think so. Her view is that the demand is driven by hostility to her group’s pro-life stance.

HUBER: We don’t perform or refer for abortions, and I think that’s the reason for the attack.

EICHER: Lawyer Jim Campbell says this kind of pressure has become more common over the last three years:

CAMPBELL: Ever since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade in the Dobbs decision, there’s been an onslaught of harassment, discrimination, and vandalism against pro-life pregnancy centers. And one of the forms in which that harassment has taken is certain state attorneys general have been going after them through lawsuits and also through overbearing subpoenas and other demanding requests for their internal documents. And that’s exactly what this case involves.

Campbell points to a 20-21 Supreme Court precedent out of California: Americans for Prosperity v. Bonta. That case struck down a law requiring nonprofits to turn over their donor lists to the state. The court made two key holdings: one, the mandate violated freedom of association, and two, it wasn’t narrowly tailored to serve a state interest.

What precipitated that case was that then-Attorney General Kamala Harris and later Rob Bonta required nonprofits to disclose donors to the state. That information leaked, a challenge to the law then followed, and the Supreme Court ruled against California.

CAMPBELL: Similarly here, the state of New Jersey should have to answer in federal court for its efforts to dig into the private donor information of pregnancy centers.

REICHARD: As is so often the case, the first question for the court to answer is a basic one: Which court should hear the case?

CAMPBELL: Ultimately, it’s a jurisdictional question… Everyone whose constitutional rights are violated should be able to go to federal court. The lower courts here got it wrong.

Campbell says the decision will matter beyond the pro-life movement:

CAMPBELL: What we see around the country is lots of state officials that are using their very broad powers under the law to issue these demands for confidential and internal documents that not just include pregnancy centers. But these are going to groups on the right — like gun advocacy organizations — and groups on the left, like immigration advocacy groups,. And so there are a lot of private entities both in the for profit and non-profit sectors that have an interest in ensuring that whenever they receive these kinds of requests, if they believe those requests are violating their federal rights, they should be able to go to federal court and get a ruling.

For Aimee Huber, the executive director of First Choice, the fight’s been exhausting:

HUBER: There has certainly been a personal toll, but it has drawn me closer to Christ… The leadership of our state has made no secret of the fact that they are promoting abortion. We are a sanctuary state for abortion. We have money in our state budget to actually bring abortionists from other states to New Jersey to provide more abortions for women. So pregnancy centers like First Choice do not provide abortions or refer for abortions.

The aggression she’s seen still surprises her:

HUBER: I would hope that government and leadership would be supportive of nonprofits that provide free services to women. So I have been surprised by how long our legal battle has continued and the aggression really by our state leadership.

EICHER: On the surface, these two disputes could not be more different: in one, a counselor’s private conversations with clients; in the other, a nonprofit’s right to keep its donor list confidential.

REICHARD: But the core of each is the same constitutional question: how far can the government go in controlling speech, whether by dictating what can be said or by discouraging certain viewpoints through exposure?

And that’s this week’s Legal Docket.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Next up on The World and Everything in It the Monday Moneybeat.

NIKC EICHER, HOST: Time now to talk business, markets, and the economy with financial analyst and adviser David Bahnsen. David heads up the wealth management firm The Bahnsen Group. He is here now. Good morning to you, David. It’s been too long, good to talk to you!

DAVID BAHNSEN: Good morning, Nick, welcome back.

EICHER: President Trump has nominated Stephen Miran to the Federal Reserve Board. Miran is currently chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers. He’s an economist with an unconventional view for the Fed—he’s suggested tariffs might not be the inflation drivers most economists think they are, and in some cases could even justify cutting interest rates. David, how do you appraise this nomination?

BAHNSEN: Well, I guess, full disclosure, I’ve known Steve for quite some time and spent a lot of time with him. In fact, I actually interviewed him several times about possibly joining our firm. He was in the Treasury Department in the first Trump administration and came back to New York to try a hedge fund startup that didn’t really go. I thought highly of his work and considered bringing him on into an analytical role at my firm.

Steve’s a very nice guy and a thoughtful guy. I confess to being disappointed in the Trump 2.0 reign in which Steve has served as the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. This is a significant role, and I think some of the things he has said about tariffs and particularly about trade deficits have been really mystifying to me. I give anyone working in an administration a lot of leeway, because I think there is a fine line between being supportive of the administration and keeping yourself in a position of influence, and yet, at the same time, holding the line on certain principles.

I will say this: I don’t mind what he said about tariffs potentially not being inflationary and potentially warranting interest rate cuts. With the right nuance, it’s actually a view I have—that tariffs can push prices up in the first-order effect, which is inflationary, but in the second, third, and fourth-order effects become disinflationary, as companies have to then respond to potentially lost market share or lost profit margin. It’s those follow-on effects of tariffs that I think compress economic growth. I’m not sure if that’s what Steven was getting at or not, but I don’t mind that.

The question for us, Nick, is whether or not the president appointed him just to fill out this term—because he has nominated him to fill out the term for Adriana Kugler, which ends, and then Stephen would theoretically be done—or is his goal here that he’ll have another spot to fill? Remember, Chairman Powell’s chairmanship ends in May, but his term does not end for two more years. There is, to my knowledge, no precedent of a chairman staying as a Fed governor, non-chairman, when the chairmanship ends, and particularly this chairman, who obviously can’t possibly be enjoying this run.

So I would assume that what President Trump is doing is appointing Stephen with the intent that he would take one of the two seats available, and then would be nominating someone else for chairman. That, I think, is a more interesting question, and it’s important because the president having to fill two Fed governorships—both of which happen to be voting members of the Open Market Committee—that’s a significant monetary policy issue in front of us.

EICHER: It’s been more than a week since President Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the federal agency that publishes the monthly jobs report and other key economic data. David, what’s your take on the potential fallout from this move—from the standpoint of the credibility of government statistics? Are the stats credible and this move undermines them, or are they not credible and this is a needed corrective?

BAHNSEN: I think that if there was a desire to improve the statistical quality of the labor data, this is the worst possible way to do it. Nobody can objectively say that what they believe the president is doing is trying to improve the statistical quality. There was no conversation about technology, about poor survey response time. There was never a meeting with the head of BLS saying, “Why aren’t more small businesses responding or responding quicker?”

It was purely: the data came out, it was bad, an hour later he fired her, and said she made the data good for Biden. So what I’ve spent the week doing in various interviews is explaining to people what I’m talking about, and then we can make a choice as to how we want to handle it.

To get to the heart of your question, Nick, what they do every month—the Bureau of Labor Statistics surveys, I believe, 122,000 businesses for their labor data, and then they true it up once a year with actual claims. But there is a question we have to answer, which is: Do we want the BLS to not provide monthly estimates on survey knowing that they’re imperfect? Or do we want them to not true it up when it does become finalized? Both of those strike me as very bad solutions.

If what we want is to figure out how to get the data to be more reliable along the way, I would first point out that there are other sources of data we should be using. There are four or five different data points that we can use to formulate a sort of global view of U.S. job status. And then there is a need to use technology to improve the accuracy of the numbers.

The irony here is that the inaccuracies are all in places that make things look worse. It’s small business jobs that are deteriorating. It is small business respondents that have dropped off. They’re not responding as much, or they’re responding late, and that’s what’s creating the delay. Yes, that could be made to be more accurate, but that’s not going to improve what President Trump said. He said it was rigged, meaning it’s actually good but they’re making it look bad. I’m sorry, there’s just no support for that viewpoint.

I understand President Trump uses hyperbole and has a lot of paranoia about where there have been things done unfairly against him. Some will talk about the Fed, and we can certainly talk about the excessive lawfare that was used against him. But this jobs data has had some dispersion of results in it—up and down, blue and red—for some time.

I think we need a more sober conversation about how to improve it. But I think that immediately turning it into a political retaliatory event, an hour after a revision came, does the opposite. It doesn’t depoliticize it. It repoliticizes it. Labor data, economic data—this needs to be apolitically presented, and so I’m concerned about where this is headed.

EICHER: With U.S. tariffs ramping up on countries from Europe to Asia, Canada is looking to Mexico to strengthen trade ties. Canadian leaders say they want to deepen cooperation ahead of the review of the current North American trade agreement, USMCA. David, what do you make of this Canada–Mexico economic courtship? Does it say anything about shifting trade alliances in North America?

BAHNSEN: Not yet, although that’s certainly what I would do if I were Mexico or Canada. But the indications we have are that Mexico is staying on President Trump’s good side more than Canada is, and I don’t blame Canada. If I were them, I’d be incredibly confused about what the end run is here.

I assume that the new prime minister in Canada is working his own way towards a negotiation with the president, and that some form of alliance with Mexico would provide him a bit more leverage. But we know that the president of Mexico has been granted an extension and that they’re still operating within USMCA, and President Trump has spoken publicly favorably about where talks are headed with Mexico, but not so with Canada.

This is something that really does need to be worked out in a reasonable way for American interest. For all the talk about how they’re going to “stick it to Canada” or “stick it to Mexico,” there’s no scenario that sticks it to Canada or Mexico that doesn’t stick it to America. There is still going to be an additional cost.

It’s true that what we do that hurts America may also hurt Canada and Mexico, which is the leverage, right? But there’s no one-sided pain—especially based on the USMCA deal that President Trump himself did in the first term. I really don’t understand where a lot of this is coming from, especially on the steel and aluminum side, which is just an incredible comparative advantage, vitally important for American importers who use steel and aluminum.

I want to point this out, Nick—it undermines the deal the president made with Japan for American automakers. Now there’s a 15% tariff on American auto imports from Japan, but companies like Ford trying to make cars domestically, which is what we were told was the point, would be paying a 50% tariff on imported steel and aluminum. So we’re basically making it more expensive for American manufacturers to make things than the tariffs that were supposed to be creating an advantage for American manufacturers.

I’m hopeful that the Canada and Mexico side is headed to a better ending here. I think this is going to take at least a few more weeks, maybe longer, to play out.

EICHER: All right, David Bahnsen is founder, managing partner, and chief investment officer at The Bahnsen Group. He writes regularly for WORLD Opinions, and at dividend-cafe.com. David, thanks.

BAHNSEN: Thanks so much, Nick. See you next week.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Monday, August 11th. 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. Up next, the WORLD History Book. We return to London. August 1941.

NEWSREEL: Thick smoke lies over the heart of England as a choking dawn reveals the terrors of the night.

The Germans have dropped seven hundred tons of bombs, hitting a million homes. The Luftwaffe attack at night. Not just under the cover of darkness but for effect. A week into the bombings, Hitler confidant Joseph Goebbels writes in his dairy, “We are leading a war against sleep, then the devil will really be let loose.”

EICHER: The British Broadcasting Corporation has been hit, but it continues to broadcast. The program director invites a new guest to speak to the nation. a relatively unknown English professor. WORLD’s Caleb Welde picks up the story from here.

CALEB WELDE: On August 6th, C.S. Lewis walks into the BBC headquarters. The building has already been hit twice by bombs.

NEWSREEL: Preceded by a shower of flares, German bombers rain fire and high-explosive bombs on Londond…

The head of the Religious Broadcasting Department has just read Lewis’ book– The Problem of Pain. The department head insists Lewis’ message must be shared. He says more than a million people will be listening.

LEWIS: Good evening.

Jon Gauger as the voice of Lewis.

LEWIS: Everyone has heard people quarreling.

Lewis doesn’t mention God in his first talk. Instead, he argues everyone, whether they know it or not, believes in a moral law.

LEWIS: What is the sense in saying the Enemy is in the wrong, unless right is a real thing, which the Germans at bottom know as well as we do.

Britain responded to the London bombings, by bombing Berlin.

NEWSREEL: Ever since the war began, one important question has been will we bomb Berlin. Now we know the answer.

LEWIS: As for decent behaviour in ourselves, I suppose it’s pretty obvious that it doesn’t mean the behaviour that pays.

BBC ID: London calling in the home and European service of the BBC…

A million and a half tune in to Lewis’ third broadcast.

LEWIS: It means things like being content with thirty shillings when you might have got three pounds, staying in dangerous places when you could go somewhere safer, keeping promises you’d rather not keep, and telling the truth even when it makes you look a fool.

In talk five, Lewis argues if there’s a moral law, there must be a law giver. That it’s no use ignoring Him or saying you don’t like Him.

LEWIS: The trouble is, one part of you is on his side, and really agrees with his disapproval of human greed and trickery and exploitation.

February 1st, 1942. Sunday evening. Lewis sits down again at the mic. Pearl Harbor is fresh on the mind of the Allies. Thirty thousand London families are grieving loved ones killed closer to home during the Blitz.

LEWIS: If a thing is free to be good, it is also free to be bad.

Lewis isn’t the only one speaking. Two days earlier, in Berlin, Hitler declared, “The result of this war will be the complete annihilation of the Jews.”

LEWIS: Free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy.

While Lewis speaks, across the English channel, a Dutch woman named Corrie Ten Boom is risking her life to find safe houses for hunted Jews.

LEWIS: You must make your choice. LEWIS: Half of you already want to ask me, ‘I wonder how you'd feel about forgiving the Gestapo if you were a Pole or a Jew.’ So do I. I wonder very much. …I can do precious little. I am telling you what Christianity is.

Lewis closes his eighth broadcast talking about a man who chose to die for his enemies.

LEWIS: Either this man was and is the son of God, or else a madman or something worse. …But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher.

The talks are intensely practical. Lewis asks listeners to imagine they are a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first it makes sense what he’s doing. He’s patching the holes in the roof, etc.

LEWIS: But presently, he starts knocking the house about in a way that does not seem to make sense. What on earth is he up to? The explanation is that he is building quite a different house from the one you thought of, throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage, but he is building a palace.

Lewis gives twenty-five talks from 1941 to 1944. After the war, the talks become one of his most well known books. Mere Christianity.

MICHAEL WARD: It's been fantastically influential.

Michael Ward is a leading C.S. Lewis scholar in Oxford.

WARD: It's been translated into about 40 languages, I think. It's just it's almost impossible to measure its influence.

At the time, the public generally responds in one of two ways. A BBC producer tells Lewis,

WARD: Either everybody thinks you are the bee's knees or they think you are beneath contempt.

Lewis responds:

WARD: Well, I don't know that says very much about me, but perhaps it says something about my subject matter, namely Christianity and Christ Jesus himself.

Behind the scenes, Lewis is doing his best to respond to every serious letter from listeners. He also hosts several refugee children, works nights in a Home Guard unit, and speaks on weekends to pilots defending London.

WARD: And some of the RAF chaplains who invited Lewis to give talks were very impressed by him, because he he didn't try to sugarcoat what these men were facing.

Lewis is also still teaching at Oxford and writing. The Screwtape Letters, The Abolition of Man:

WARD: …Perelandra, That Hideous Strength, The Great Divorce, and any number of addresses and sermons and articles for newspapers.

Lewis does all this while regularly appearing on the BBC. He ends his last wartime talk with this. It’s the only known surviving recording from the presentations.

LEWIS: Give up yourself, and you will find your real self, lose your life, and you will save it. Submit to death, submit with every fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life. Look for Christ, and you will get him, and with him, everything else thrown in. Look for yourself and you will get only hatred, loneliness, despair and ruin.

For WORLD, I’m Caleb Welde.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: The U.S. and Russian presidents prepare to meet this week against the backdrop of a deepening conflict, from clashes over territory and nuclear tensions to the fate of Ukrainian children taken from their families. And, how a nationwide doctor shortage and shifting work expectations are making it harder to get some kinds of care. 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 Gospel of Luke starts by explaining why he’s writing it: “Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.” —Luke 1:1-4

Go now in grace and peace.

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