The World and Everything in It: August 16, 2024

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like us. I am Lisa Peterson and I am a wife, mom and third generation corn and soybean farmer in northern Iowa. Our family is proud to help supply safe and affordable food to help feed the world. I hope you enjoy today's program.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning!

Today on Culture Friday: Evangelicals for Harris. But what makes an evangelical an evangelical?

And …

AUDIO: Hands up, don’t shoot (chant)

10 years after the Ferguson riots, has the Black Lives Matter movement run its course?

NICK EICHER, HOST: John Stonestreet is standing by. Also today, a film about an unlikely friendship between a fisherman and a penguin.

MARIA: Why is a penguin in our home?
JOAO: He needs our help.

And 20 years of music from the CCM group Casting Crowns. Paul Butler has a review.

BROWN: It’s Friday, August 16th. 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!

BROWN: Up next, Mark Mellinger with today’s news.

MARK MELLINGER, NEWS ANCHOR: Gaza cease-fire talks » International mediators are gearing up for a second day of talks to stop the Israel-Hamas war and secure the release of hostages.

The talks in Qatar involve mediators from the U.S., Egypt, Qatar, and an Israeli delegation. But Hamas, saying it lacks confidence in the process, is sitting out this round.

Under the proposed agreement, Hamas would release hostages it took in last October’s attack on Israel in exchange for a lasting cease-fire, the release of Palestinian hostages, and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.

White House National Security spokesman John Kirby…

KIRBY: We’re at a point now where the framework is generally accepted. And where the gaps are, are in the execution of the deal.

Since the agreement was first proposed, each side in the conflict has accused the other of making new, unacceptable demands.

Mediators hope a deal would stop Iran from attacking Israel over the recent killings of top leaders of Iran-backed Hamas and Hezbollah.

Death toll in Gaza surpasses 40,000 » Meantime, a grim milestone: The death toll in Gaza has reportedly passed 40,000 since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

That’s according to the Gaza Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory. The actual number could be lower.

Regardless, U.S. State Department spokesman Vedant Patel says…

PATEL: Any number above zero when it comes to the number of civilians who have lost their lives over the course of this conflict is saddening, is troubling, is heartbreaking.

The Gaza Health Ministry’s count does not distinguish civilians from militants.

Israel blames Hamas for civilian deaths, claiming Hamas hides out in and launches attacks from residential neighborhoods.

Zelenskyy says Russian town has fallen » Ukraine’s president says his forces have taken over a key town in Russia’s Kursk region.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy says his country’s troops now have full control of Sudzha, which is the administrative center for the border region of Kursk.

It’s the largest town taken in the Kursk offensive, as the U.S. talks up Ukraine’s momentum. Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh…

SINGH: We’re always assessing what they need on the battlefield to be successful. And we believe the capabilities that we continue to provide them are… You’re seeing those successes come to fruition.

No immediate response from the Russian government to Zelenskyy’s claim.

Since the start of the Kursk incursion last week, Russia says more than 120,000 civilians have evacuated.

AUDIO: [Reporters talking to Biden]

Biden supports Venezuela election redo » Speaking to reporters outside the White House, President Biden said he agreed with calls for Venezuela to hold another presidential election.

Venezuela’s election two weeks ago stirred controversy after the incumbent, Nicolas Maduro, claimed victory.

But election officials still haven’t shown detailed voting tallies to back up that claim. And his opponent, Maria Corina Machado, claims he lost by a more than two-to-one margin.

Still, Machado rejected calls for a re-vote.

MACHADO: [Speaking in Spanish]

That’s Machado asking what will happen if Maduro doesn’t like the results of the second election. Will there be a third, or fourth, or fifth? She says he’ll just require more votes until he likes the result.

Venezuela’s supreme court says it is investigating the vote count at the request of President Maduro.

AUDIO: Thank you, Joe!

Biden & Harris jointly tout lower prescription drug costs » A familiar face campaigned with Vice President Kamala Harris Thursday. President Biden appeared with the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee for the first time as a campaigner since his decision to bow out of the race.

They were in Maryland announcing price cuts the U.S. has negotiated for ten top-selling prescription drugs used by Medicare.

HARRIS: Big Pharma has often inflated the price of life-saving medications, often charging many times what it would cost just to make, just to increase their profits. And millions of Americans have suffered as a result.

Harris credited the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act for the price drops. The law allows the government to negotiate prices for some of the costliest drugs Medicare covers.

Biden praised Harris for casting the tie-breaking vote in the Senate…that ultimately got the law to the finish line.

BIDEN: I believe that healthcare ought to be a right, not a privilege in America.

Critics say empowering the federal government to negotiate with drug companies only stifles innovation and ultimately fuels inflation.

Trump blames Harris for high prices » Meantime, former President Trump spent Thursday accusing the Biden Administration of causing economic misery, especially zeroing in on his opponent in this year’s election, Vice President Harris.

During a news conference at his golf club in New Jersey, Trump pointed out how prices have risen over the past few years on everything from groceries to housing.

TRUMP: You add it all up, it’s thousands and thousands of dollars that she and he have cost people.

Harris plans to give her own economic policy speech in North Carolina today.

The Labor Department says year-over-year inflation just hit its lowest level in three years, sparking hope that the country’s long struggle with inflation is finally easing.

I’m Mark Mellinger.

Straight ahead: Evangelicals and elections on Culture Friday. Plus, a review of My Penguin Friend.

This is The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Friday the 16th of August, 2024.

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

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

It’s Culture Friday, and joining us now is John Stonestreet. He’s president of the Colson Center. He’s host of the Breakpoint podcast. And he’s here now. Good morning, John!

JOHN STONESTREET: Good morning.

BROWN: John, a couple of weeks ago we talked about the different groups of people coming together to support the campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris. Well, make room for another one: Evangelicals for Harris

WORLD Opinion’s contributor, Denny Burk wrote about this group of Christians who aim to convince evangelicals of Harris’ walk with Jesus. Here’s the thing: on their website, an entire page is devoted to her faith story, a story that never mentions Jesus. Never.

Conversely, Donald Trump doesn’t give evidence that he is a Christian, even though he says he’s closer to God after his near brush with death. But John, is that even the point? Are we looking for the most credible Christian testimony or are we looking for something else? What’s the best way to think about this?

STONESTREET: Well, you know, I think it's notable that many people have said, you know, historically, people of faith, Christian leaders, that, you know, what you want is the best person for the job when you're talking about a political candidate. And if the better person for the job is not a Christian, then that's the leader that you want to have. That's not really relevant to this conversation, I don't think.

However, given that the list of Evangelicals for Harris really just shows that we need to either lose the word evangelical or finally define it once and for all. Because it means anything to everyone. I mean, the headline of the website, evangelicalsforharris.com and I quote here, “Faithful, compassionate evangelicals exercising our God-given citizenship.” I mean, they should be proud of that humility, how faithful and compassionate they are. I mean, that's, you know, if people are going to take seriously the teaching of Jesus, which is what they say over and over and over, there maybe should be something here about not having your, you know, righteousness worn out and announced in public, because that's literally the headline right on the center of the website. Not to mention the list of folks in this group includes those who can't even in any sort of sense to define the word evangelical. Change that to even define the word Christian, could be considered Christian. 

If Christian has anything to do with believing who Jesus said he was, that the church has historically understood Jesus to be, for example, the work and actually paying for our sin on the cross, literally rising from the dead, that the Gospel accounts of Jesus are things to be believed, then a lot of these folks actually don't belong. I mean, there's individuals on this list who think Jesus sinned, who think Jesus was homophobic and repented of his homophobia, and this is the sort of bizarre stuff you see they post of themselves, of course, on X and Instagram. 

But by and large, it's basically made up of a rehash list of the Biden Evangelicals for Biden, plus extras who really don't even fall into the category of Christian, much less evangelical in any sort of historic doctrinal sense. This movement is certainly not helpful, because at some level, you've got to figure out how the progressive ideology that the Harris campaign and Harris the candidate has so clearly aligned, how that aligns in any sense whatsoever with evangelicalism. And it doesn't.

EICHER: John, it’s been ten years since the death of Michael Brown, Jr. In 2014 he was killed in Ferguson, Missouri by a police officer, after a fight with that officer. The incident sparked protests across the country.

In Ferguson, a suburb of St. Louis, the anniversary was remembered one week ago. One of the Black Lives Matter local organizers was Cori Bush, now the member of Congress from the district.

CORI BUSH: There has still not been accountability. There has still not been justice for this family. There has still not been change. Not enough for black folks to feel it.

She’s complaining that a local grand jury declined to indict the officer in the killing and the Obama justice department declined to bring federal charges.

Speaking of Cori Bush, she just got thrown out of office, as reported by WORLD’s Leo Briceno this week.

What do you think John, have we learned anything in ten years? How do we move forward from this?

STONESTREET: Yeah. I mean, it is probably time to do a kind of a “you are here” moment on this whole thing, on all sides of it. I mean, for example, here we are at a time when the Black Lives Matter organization is really in shambles, racked by scandal, leaders who clearly abused the system, took lots of money. You've got narratives, narratives that remain firmly embedded, even though, to your point, in the Michael Brown case and in a few others, the details, you know, don't always clearly fit the narrative. And then, of course, overlaying all this is the dominant mood of American culture, which we've called here, I've called here the critical theory mood. And that is that this has become the theory of everything, to completely see who we are as people and others according to race or tribe, some sort of group that fits into either in a category of being in oppressed or being oppressed. 

And you know, at the end of the day when that oppressed-oppressor narrative or framework becomes the theory of everything through which we see everything, rather than something that happens in a fallen world, but not who we are as created in the image of God and also not a permanent situation based on these kind of characteristics by which, you know, we didn't choose and all that that means, it's going to be hard to get anything right. In reaction to what is a mistake in ideology, we've failed to actually think well about what it means to be human in our racial identities. So, we have kind of entire movements, many of them politicized, which basically say any mention of systemic evil is just a form of critical race theory. 

Well, that's not the case. Abortion is a form of systemic evil. In fact, I would say abortion, the way it's implemented in America, is a form of systemic racism. And so we know from our Biblical categories that sin can be, is both personal and sourced personally in human behavior, but it can take on systemic realities. And and our inability to think about that and talk about that means we haven't been able to really move forward in the conversation. And you know, part of that is being force fed CRT in every different way. And people are tired of being told that their race or something else is what determines who they are and everything about them. And it hasn't gone well. At the same time, Christians need to have Biblical thinking and Biblical categories on this. And hopefully, you know, we can show a better way forward. Because I do think we're seeing a bit of exhaustion, at least in these theories.

BROWN: Another anniversary to note.

It’s coming up on 35 years since Dr. Jack Kevorkian performed his first public-assisted suicide using a euthanasia device he devised and constructed.

Today a 3-D printed suicide machine has been developed, dubbed the Tesla of Euthanasia. It’s slick and high-tech. New look, same outcome.

At least one country has said, “No, we don’t want it.” Is this a positive sign or is there something under the surface we need to be concerned about?

STONESTREET: I don't know if it's even on the surface anymore, but yes, this is something to be deeply concerned about. The movement towards so called Death with Dignity, or, as the Canadians have called it, medical assistance in dying, which isn't medical, it's not assistance, and it's not in dying. It's elimination and it's to die, not in dying. The whole thing is upside down, but it has more goodwill, more social momentum than ever before. 

And I’ve got to be honest. I'm a little cynical on this one. I'm a little frustrated on this one. I appreciate it. I didn't remember that it had been 35 years since Kevorkian. But you remember back then, he was pretty widely considered to be an outlier doctor of death. We named him that, right? And now what he was advocating for has, is now legal in far more states than then, and also just in the last five years in more states. 

And for me, it'll go back to what happened in my state. I think the critical moment isn't so much that Jack Kevorkian made headlines when he did. I think a way more critical moment in this whole thing, at least in my state, was when it was put on the ballot and a group of us, a group of ministries, got together and we put together an incredible set of resources, everything from full on, have a whole service on talking about the sanctity of life at the end of life, to here's a wonderful testimony from the husband of the wonderful late Kara Tippett and her story and why she did not choose what Brittany Maynard chose. All these were headline stories about this at the time, and having conversations with two pastors in the state. Grateful for my pastor who was unequivocal in his support on this. But pastors of the two largest churches in my area both told me that it was too political and they weren't going to get involved. 

So, when I think about this and why we're at where we're at, Kevorkian, honestly, was a blip in the radar. It has been the thoroughgoing embrace of a culture of death that has happened since then, and also the failure of the church to prevent that in any meaningful way. Mainly because of its capitulation to a compartmentalized, truncated faith where certain things are Christian. We talk about those things on Sunday, and anything not having to do with personal morality or my personal sense of meaning and fulfillment. We won't touch that, even if it involves the threat of real lives. 

So, that's what I remember. That's where I stand. And I think that's what we'll look back for. You know, what was it Francis Schaeffer famously said, that abortion is legal with the approval of the church. I think he said something along those lines. And I think that could be repeated, that if doctor-assisted suicide in all of its forms and all of its nomenclatures and false names ever does become the law of the land any more than it already has, it'll be because the church granted permission with its silence.

EICHER: Alright, John Stonestreet is president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint podcast. Thank you John!

STONESTREET: Thank you both.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Friday, August 16th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: a family movie for animal lovers.

Movies about the bond between humans and animals tend to tug at the heartstrings a little more than other types do. Just about everyone has a favorite, of course, and typically it’s a dog movie. But how many films can you name about the special relationship between humans and birds?

EICHER: Well, I wouldn’t count the Hitchcock “Birds” movie, rather an unhappy relationship. But seriously, this weekend a new film debuts in theaters about the special bond between a fisherman and a penguin. Here’s WORLD’s arts and culture editor Collin Garbarino.

COLLIN GARBARINO: My Penguin Friend is a cute family movie inspired by the true story of a very special penguin that visited the same old man at the same time of year on the same beach for eight straight years.

French actor Jean Reno plays a Brazilian fisherman named João who finds a penguin that got caught in an oil spill. The old man cleans the penguin’s feathers and nurses him back to health by feeding him sardines.

JOÃO: Don’t move. No. Don’t move. Don’t do that. My goodness.

João launches into taking care of this poor penguin but doesn’t think to warn his wife Maria that she’ll be sharing her house with a wild animal.

MARIA: Why is a penguin in our home?

JOÃO: It needs our help.

MARIA: What?

Mexican actress Adriana Barraza plays Maria. She’s pretty surprised to have a convalescing penguin in her humble home and at first she’s not too happy about it.

JOÃO: He was covered in oil and barely alive.

MARIA: Huh. That’s why the oil’s all over my kitchen.

JOÃO: Yes.

But Maria soon realizes that her husband needs to save this bird. She even joins in on some of the fun.

Eventually the penguin makes a full recovery. João attempts to reintroduce him into the wild, but the penguin returns to his house the very next day. João’s penguin friend becomes a celebrity around the village, and the bird gets the name DinDim.

Then one day he’s gone.

Like many other birds, this particular species of penguin migrates, and Dindim undertakes a yearly 5,000-mile journey from Brazil to the penguin breeding grounds in Argentina. There, DinDim stumbles into a subplot, meeting a trio of researchers who notice his unique behavior. But then after a few months, it’s time to make the 5,000-mile return trip to visit his old friend João.

LUCIA: DinDim’s Back!

This is a beautiful movie, filmed on location in Brazil and Argentina. It’s hard to mess up tropical beaches with clear blue water, but even João and Maria’s modest home and the neighbors’ ramshackle fishing boats possess a worn beauty. That beauty is also reflected in the people. The filmmakers used local villagers and fishermen to fill out the cast.

Jean Reno is probably best known in America for portraying hard-eyed assassins in movies like Léon: The Professional and Mission: Impossible, but the 76-year-old actor also starred in numerous romances and comedies. In this film, Reno gives a quiet performance playing an old man carrying an emotional burden. He offers viewers an affecting portrayal of love mingled with sorrow. And we get the sense that as João heals DinDim’s body, this act of kindness helps heal João’s hurting soul.

TOURIST: Is he your pet?

JOÃO: Not my pet. He is my friend.

MARIA: He chooses to be with João.

JOÃO: With us. He chooses to be with us.

Both Reno and Barraza give great performances. But it doesn’t really matter how good they are. It’s the penguin who steals the show.

The filmmakers rely on practical effects and a half dozen trained penguins to create the movie’s main character.

Much of the story progresses from DinDim’s charming perspective. He’s an amusing protagonist, waddling into mini-adventures around the house, through the village, and down to Argentina. In fact, DinDim’s adorable waddling and childlike curiosity reminded me of the lovable extraterrestrial E.T. DinDim might not be as cuddly as the fluffy dogs that star in canine adventures, but since he walks upright, he gives off a personality that feels more intelligent and human-like.

JOÃO: DinDim comes and goes as he pleases.

PAULO: As he pleases.

The film boasts that it’s “inspired by a true story.” And if you stick around for the credits, you’ll see photos of the real-life João and DinDim. But you should be aware that most of the movie’s plot is fictitious. The real-life João did clean up DinDim after finding him in oil, but it’s unlikely the real DinDim traveled 5,000 miles to Argentina every year. In actuality, he was visiting João while the other penguins were nesting in Argentina. No one knows where he went during his five-month absences. Maybe he was foraging in the open ocean with other penguins before heading back to his personal nesting ground in João’s backyard.

Despite the alterations intended to make DinDim’s story more dramatic, this film about a man and his bird friend is a satisfying agenda-free movie that the whole family can enjoy.

I’m Collin Garbarino.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Friday, August 16th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. In 2003, youth pastor Mark Hall led his local Baptist church worship band in releasing its first commercial project—co-produced by well-known artist Steven Curtis Chapman.

The band took the name Casting Crowns, a reference from the book of Revelation. The Christian rock group became one of the fastest selling debut artists in CCM history.

BROWN: Over the last two decades Casting Crowns has toured around the world. It’s released an impressive catalog of chart-topping songs, while earning dozens of awards, and selling millions of CDs.

But from the beginning, the seven members of Casting Crowns have made a priority of being home most weekends to serve the local church, something unique in CCM. And most of their music begins in church ministry.

EICHER: Last year Casting Crowns organized a celebration tour—marking two decades in the industry. The band’s just released a recording from one of those concerts … live album number six, titled: A 20 Year Celebration, Live at The Ryman Theater…

The project features twelve of Casting Crowns’ most loved songs. WORLD’s Paul Butler has a review.

MUSIC: [IF WE ARE THE BODY]

PAUL BUTLER: The latest live album from Casting Crowns holds few surprises—but fans will find themselves singing along with every well-known song.

The project kicks off with “If We are the Body” which also happens to be the first song frontman Mark Hall wrote for the band. He took a few minutes to talk to me by phone earlier this week before heading out of town with his family. He says a lot of radio stations were nervous about playing that song when it first came out…

MARK HALL: You know, I wrote that for my people at my church. And if you speak the truth in love, people can handle it. If it’s not: “hey Church this is what you need to do better.” It’s: “Hey, here’s where I’m lacking. Is anyone else dealing with this too? You know, let’s let God get us through this.”

But program directors soon changed their tune…and Casting Crowns singles became CCM radio standards. If you’ve spent any time listening to the radio the last 20 years, you’ll likely recognize almost all of the cuts on this recording. Songs like “Nobody” featuring Matthew West…

MUSIC: [NOBODY] 

One of Casting Crowns’ most requested songs was also featured in The Kendrick Brothers film: “Facing the Giants.” It’s on this recording as well.

MUSIC: [VOICE OF TRUTH]

Casting Crowns has recorded eight studio CDs and dozens of singles. But as much as audiences have clamored for more, Hall and the other band members haven’t lost sight of their calling to the local church. And over the last 20 years, many of their songs have found their way into Evangelical worship services.

MUSIC MONTAGE: [EAST TO WEST / ALL BECAUSE OF MERCY / OH MY SOUL]

Live recordings are tricky, but the mastering of this project is very well done. You hear enough of the audience to feel like you’re there, but can still appreciate the musicality of the band, even hearing the supporting strings.

Hall says he loved playing at the historic Ryman theater. And the audience was clearly there to do much more than just listen…

MUSIC: [PRAISE YOU IN THIS STORM]

A “best of” CD can sometimes come off as gimmicky or too focused on the band. But I didn’t feel that way while listening through Live from the Ryman. It wasn’t really about Casting Crowns…it was about life in Christ.

Former CCM promoter and music minister Jim Dernell agrees:

DERNELL: They were just consistently God glorifying. They were biblically informed. And everything was gospel driven, you know, you could tell that was just part of the DNA of their music.

Dernell is currently a PhD student at Southern Seminary. He’s more of a traditionalist when it comes to church music, but he believes Casting Crowns’ legacy is in how they’ve encouraged the church…

DERNELL: I think it's just helping the common Christian see and praise God in everyday life. I think that's something that they do exceptionally well.

Dernell goes on to say that Casting Crowns’ songs aren’t preachy, but they are sermons. Sermons you can carry with you throughout the day. Mark Hall says that’s high praise.

HALL: There aren't a lot of people walking around humming sermons, but there are a lot of people walking around singing your song...So I've got to write arrows that point people back to Scripture and get them to see what God says about them and what God says about himself…So to me, that is the highest compliment that they’re little sermons.

MUSIC: [ONLY JESUS]

“A 20 Year Celebration, Live from the Ryman” is a dozen singable sermons that Mark Hall hopes will continue to encourage CCM audiences.

And it’s not just 20 years of music … the singer/songwriter is still a youth pastor too… he laughs as he admits he’s now ministering to teens that are children of students he served twenty years ago. He says it all proves one thing…

HALL: Proof that God can use anybody.

MUSIC: [ONLY JESUS]

For WORLD, I’m Paul Butler.

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

Steve West, David Bahnsen, Emma Perley, Mary Muncy, Lindsay Mast, Brad Littlejohn, Leo Briceno, Carolina Lumetta, Onize Ohikere, Emma Freire, Hunter Baker, Mary Reichard, Cal Thomas, John Stonestreet, and Collin Garbarino.

Thanks also to our breaking news team: Kent Covington, Lynde Langdon, Mark Mellinger, Travis Kircher, Lauren Canterberry, Christina Grube, and Josh Schumacher.

And thanks to the guys who stay up late because you expect the program 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…with additional production assistance from Benj 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 Psalmist declares, “You have multiplied, O Lord my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us. None can compare with you! I will proclaim and tell of them, yet they are more than can be told.” —Psalm 40:5

Be sure and worship Him with brothers and sisters in Christ in church on the Lord’s day. And Lord willing, we’ll meet your right back here on Monday.

Go now in grace and peace.

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