The World and Everything in It: August 26, 2022

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning!

Winsome with backbone. We’ll talk about the head of the satire site the Babylon Bee squaring off with mega-podcaster Joe Rogan on the issue of life.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Right, John Stonestreet’s back and we’ll talk it over today on Culture Friday.

Also today: A review of the new film Beast.

And your listener feedback.

BROWN: It’s Friday, August 26th. 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, Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Trump affidavit » A federal judge has ordered the Justice Dept. to release a redacted version of the affidavit the FBI used to get a search warrant for Donald Trump’s home.

But national security attorney Mark Zaid told the PBS News Hour that anyone expecting this decision to resolve all the public’s unanswered questions …

ZAID: Is going to be probably very disappointed in what is in this partially unredacted affidavit.

Much of it will be blacked out at the FBI's request. The Justice Department argued that fully unsealing it would reveal classified information and damage its case against Trump.

The former president demanded that the entire document be unsealed, but to no avail. Trump adviser Jared Kushner …

KUSHNER: I think that’s in the public’s interest. This way people can know whether there’s a serious allegation or this is more manufactured.

The search warrant, which is already public, showed that the FBI was investigating Trump over possessing classified information and obstructing an investigation.

The judge’s decision came hours after the DOJ submitted its final request for redactions on Thursday.

Uvalde Chief » AUDIO: [Cheers]

The Uvalde school district has fired police chief Pete Arredondo amid cheers from teachers and survivors.

The school board said he did not act fast enough in May when a shooter entered Robb Elementary school and killed 19 children and two teachers.

Jesse Rizo, a relative of one of the slain students, said...

RIZO: I don’t know what I would have done… But I don’t know any training that they tell you to sit back for an hour and wait for everybody to die and then you’re going to go in and kill somebody.

Arredondo’s attorney released a document before the meeting arguing the chief warned the school board about security issues and that Arredondo was not in charge of the many law enforcement members at the scene.

Ukraine attack » In Ukraine, the death toll from a Russian missile strike on a train station rose to 25 on Thursday.

The Kremlin claims the strike targeted a train loaded with troops and military supplies.

ZELENSKYY: [Speaking in Ukrainian]

But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the missiles hit a civilian train station in the small southeastern town of Chaplyne on Ukraine’s Independence Day. He said among the dead was an 11-year-old child.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said Thursday that Russia’s crimes against civilians must be investigated.

BACHELET: The international community must insist on accountability for the many serious violations documented, some of which may amount to war crimes.

Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin ordered the recruitment of over 130,000 more Russian troops. The order will take effect January 1.

Nuclear plant update » Elsewhere in Ukraine, the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant was cut off from the power grid Thursday. That after a fire damaged a transmission line.

The incident heightened fears of a nuclear catastrophe.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre says Russia should immediately demilitarize the area …

JEAN-PIERRE: ...and agree to allow an international audit Atomic Energy Agency visit as soon as possible to check on the safety and security of the system systems.

UN nuclear chief Rafael Grossi says he hopes to send a team of investigators to the plant “within days.”

Abortion » Several states have enacted pro-life trigger laws. WORLD’s Mary Muncy has more.

MARY MUNCY, REPORTER: Pro-life laws went into effect in Tennessee, Texas, and Idaho yesterday, according to a timeline triggered by the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

All three of these states now protect babies in every case except to save the life of the mother, with one exception.

In Idaho, a judge ruled that hospitals participating in Medicare will still have to provide an abortion if the mother’s life or health is at risk.

North Dakota’s trigger law goes into effect today. There, an injunction was lifted on a law that protects babies in almost every case.

Now, doctors can get a felony charge in all four states for providing an abortion.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy.

Ohio Teachers Strike » Teachers in Ohio’s largest school district will likely return to their classrooms on Monday after the district and the union struck a deal to end the days-long strike.

Jennifer Adair is president of Columbus City Schools Board of Education.

ADAIR: It's really a package that was created with student outcomes at the center and what it was we needed our classrooms and our teachers and our education system to start to be.

Teacher's demands included safer buildings, better climate control, and smaller class sizes.

The deal will take effect pending a final vote by school workers and the school board.

I’m Kent Covington. Straight ahead: The head of the satire site the Babylon Bee, squaring off with a mega-podcaster on the issue of life.

This is The World and Everything in It.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It's the 26th day of August, 2022. 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. It’s Culture Friday!

Let’s bring in John Stonestreet. He’s the president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint podcast.

Good morning!

JOHN STONESTREET, GUEST: Good morning.

BROWN: John, this was the big pro-life culture moment and I just heard about this. It was an exchange between pro-choice podcaster Joe Rogan and Babylon Bee CEO, Seth Dillon.

It’s pretty long, but I edited really tightly just to show how Dillon was able to hold firm and it seemed like he turned Rogan around. So again, this is my editing job, I’ll admit. It doesn’t go this fast. But it does go. I think. Listen.

“If a 14-year-old child gets raped, you say that they have to carry that baby? I don’t think two wrongs make a right… I don’t think murder fixes a rape.”

“What if we’re talking about an abortion when the fetus is literally like six weeks? Well I just disagree…. I would lay it out like this. It is wrong to intentionally kill a human life. Abortion intentially kills a human life. Therefore abortion is wrong.”

“Do you think that once the conception happens, there’s some sort of miraculous event…at some point you’re going to have to say it was a magic moment that happened because you believe that we eventually become valuable humans right? Where’s the moment when you think the magic moment happens?

“We’re talking about a procedure that ends innocent human life and we’re calling it healthcare. That’s like calling rape lovemaking. And this is why it’s such a human issue. I see what you’re saying.”

John, did it hit you the same way it hit me? What do you think?

STONESTREET: Oh, absolutely. I thought it was just a terrific dialogue. Congrats and thanks to Seth for standing up that way and being really clear and being prepared. And I think there's a number of things that stood out to me. The first is this very important response to what we often hear, what is often kind of presumed that we're just talking about a clump of cells. And if it's only six weeks, it's super small. And it's all and what's missing in that conversation is the very important question that, at some point, if you're going to reach a conclusion that humans are worthy of protection at any stage, you've got to have some magic moment where a person becomes a person. And the only place to really put that in any sort of logical sense. And of course, according to embryology is the moment that the sperm and the egg combine, because prior to that, you have two different things that's merman an egg when sperm and egg combined something miraculous as the word goes, happens, and now we have a completely different entity. And that's an impossible thing to avoid. Now, it also brings up something that I think is really important, which is, if you don't know how to have these conversations in the public square, if you don't know how to have these conversations, and make these very important, you know, thoughtful, not, you know, not profound, like not none of the things that Seth said we're you know, kind of, as my old friend in Tennessee would say it ain't rocket surgery. I mean, this is like kind of real basic, straightforward, you know, sorts of things that you can make never quoted a Bible verse never, you know, pointed to a my religious beliefs say, but you know, made, you know, argument, if you don't know how to do that, then really, that's your fault. And I think there's this thing where a lot of people haven't taken the time to look into it. And the times that we live in demand that we know, it demands that we're able to articulate this, and too many pro-lifers, then either go silent or go angry, because they can't do something as simple as this. I mean, you go back and listen to it. And that's the thing, you know, you won't listen to this and think, well, that guy must have a PhD and work at a top tier university, you just think he's an interesting guy having a conversation and making some really important points. And we all can do that. And we'll have that moment. It might not be with Seth Rogen on a, you know, the biggest podcast in the world. But we'll have that moment on an airplane with a kid with a with a friend with a neighbor, and we should be ready. And if we're not ready, that's on us.

EICHER: OK, John. Maybe you’ve heard about the school near Tampa, Florida—Grace Christian School. It seems pretty mundane that a Christian school should have a statement of faith and code of conduct. But it became a story because the school put out a clarification essentially saying students would have to leave the school if they identified as LGBTQ+, that it would run afoul of the statement and the code.

But again, it was a controversy. All you have to do is Google “Grace Christian School” and you get a blizzard of news results. Really interesting headlines, things like “Christian school refuses to change long-held policy …” “Christian school will only refer to students by ‘biological gender.’” 

But journalism is not supposed to be “dog bites man.” It’s supposed to be “man bites dog.” That’s news. Christian school expects Christian conduct. That’s not news.

Or is it these days?

STONESTREET: Now, it's still not news. You know, most Christian institutions have been clear on this, that maybe they've been clear to various degrees. I think all of them need to become more clear. I mean, what Grace Christian school is doing is the kind of accepted wisdom right now. I mean, 10 years ago, you go back. And, you know, the idea was, you don't want to put too much on your website, because you might draw, you know, attention and you might become a target. And now it's you need to be able to demonstrate top to bottom, that this is a long held commitment that you consistently enforce as part of faith commitments that you consistently enforce. And that is true, whether you're talking about religious institutions, you know, hiring policies for nonprofits, or whether you're talking about even, you know, for profit, you just want to be very, very clear on this is how I'm operating. And the Constitution gives me that right to protect. That's interesting because about the same time I visited another school that recently doubled down as well on their policies. And one of the reasons was having to do with the fact that they're a covenant school now and I'm what this means is in Christian education, you have schools that are covenant schools, these are for Christians, by Christians to educate Christianly. And then there are what we might call evangelical schools or, you know, more open enrollment schools, where the parents don't have to claim to be Christians in order for their kids to attend. But there needs to be a very clear outline of this is what's going to happen to your kid. And this school, doubled down on those policies, lost 100 families right away, and then gained 100 families back because people are looking for that sort of clarity.

So yeah, there are certainly schools that are going to, you know, struggle with this. And the way these conversations are going, particularly because there's so many now different brands of nonpublic schools, at least in the traditional sense, that they're all facing different challenges. We had a colleague, you know, just recently that was enrolling at a charter school, her kids that attended that place before, all was well before. And now five years later, the question about these policies came up. And the response that my friend received was, oh, no, we are, we don't talk about that we think the best place to talk about that is home. And you know, for many parents that would have settled the issue. But my friend wisely asked, Well, wait a minute, what happens then if a student because we're talking about junior high demands, “These are my pronouns”? What would you expect of the other students? And the answer was, oh, they would need to use the preferred pronouns. And if they didn't, they would be subject to disciplinary policy. So now think about this. So we're not going to talk about this, we're not going to require some of these crazy, you know, pro LGBTQ reading materials to be, you know, shoved down the students throats. But we're going to enforce the decision that's already been made on their behalf. And there's no discussion that so parents just need to know this up one side down the other. But, you know, here's the thing. We'll continue to have these breathless headlines of can you believe this, remembering that every single school on the planet, referred to students by their biological gender, just yesterday, and what I mean by that is, within the last 10 years. This is brand new, this is brand new in the world, and social transitioning is being encouraged. And it's not actually yielding the results that we are promised. And that's why we see so many nations around the world getting a lot more skittish on what they're actually enforcing. The United States is quickly becoming an outlier and how they talk about transgender ideology, and particularly when it comes to students.

EICHER: Interesting development in Asia: Two things involving the laws of Singapore. Number one: the government is going to pursue a repeal of criminal sanctions against the practice of homosexuality, but here’s the second thing: it is also seeking to amend the constitution to safeguard the institution of marriage and prevent any future amendments from instituting a right to same-sex marriage. From our report in WORLD: “Singapore’s National Council of Churches said it wants pastors and church workers protected from ‘hate speech’ accusations and from pressure to be ‘LGBTQ-affirming’ in counseling sessions.”

So my question is, do you think the repeal of criminalization will unleash changes that they can’t really stop, as we’ve in the west? Or do you see Singapore as seeing what happened in the West, and are trying to get ahead of it?

STONESTREET: Well, I think maybe the answer to both of those questions is yes, I think they are trying to get ahead of it. That doesn't mean that they will, and I don't know how the Singaporean government works or how secure it is to pass an amendment saying no future amendments can be passed. I mean, that's not a doable thing in the United States, there's been, you know, plenty of things where the, you know, including just recently in the US where the court has settled the issue or something like that, and it turns out not to be siloed at all. And there is going to be a real question in a place committed to a democratic way of life to, you know, increasing human freedom to say that there's nothing inherently wrong with this behavior, then why can't you know, people order their public lives around it? You know, maybe there's a compromise here, but I'll tell you what, it hasn't worked anywhere else. It hasn't worked in Utah, it hasn't worked in the United States the same sort of compromise solutions have been pursued in the US, including by evangelical groups, and it just, there's no reason to compromise by the side that seems to be taking so much ground day by day by day, both cultural and governmental. And so, I guess I'd have to know more about the Singapore government to know the specifics. I just, I can just tell you, the history and the history has been that there is a powerful thing that's lost when the presumed sinfulness - whether within a faith tradition or just within a cultural setting - of a particular behavior is removed. And, you know, once that gets taken out of the picture, it really seems to be impossible to stop the ball from rolling down the hill.

BROWN: Well, 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 26th. 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: man versus beast.

Arts and media editor Collin Garbarino now with a review of a new film pitting a father and his children against the king of the jungle.

AUDIO: [Scary music and lion noises]

COLLIN GARBARINO: Toward the beginning of director Baltasar Kormákur’s new movie Beast we see one of the characters wearing a Jurassic Park t-shirt. It turns out that t-shirt signals what’s to come. A dinosaur isn’t the villain in this movie—it’s a lion—but just like in Jurassic Park, our heroes will spend much of the movie in the wilderness stuck inside a jeep with a vicious predator trying to get at them.

[lion roar]

Martin: It’s all right. You’re okay. He’s just letting you know that he’s there. You see, the way it works with lions is the females do the hunting and the males protect the pride.

Norah: Protect them from what?

Martin: Usually from other lions. Any lion from outside the family that comes into their territory, Kuda and Kowa will leap onto it and start ripping it apart limb from limb or die trying. It’s the law of the jungle.

Humanity’s hubris unleashed the carnage in Jurassic Park, and humans are responsible for creating Beast’s ruthless killer—that lion wants revenge against all humans for the poaching that killed his pride.

Idris Elba plays Dr. Nate Daniels, a recently widowed father of two teenage daughters played by Iyana Halley and Leah Jeffries.

Nate: Are we safe right here?

Guide: Oh, you’re safe, you’re safe. They’ve just finished off last night’s kill.

Nate: Okay, good.

Meredith: That is insane.

[lion roar]

Nate takes his daughters to South Africa to see their mother’s homeland, and the trio head to a game reserve to spend time with “Uncle Martin” played by Sharlto Copley. Martin introduced Nate to his late wife, but now he manages the game reserve. Martin takes Nate and his daughters on a tour of the reserve, but their safari turns into a nightmare when the rogue lion starts hunting them.

Meredith: I’m going to check if I can see Uncle Martin.

Nate: Get back in the car right now.

Meredith: We have to do something or he’s going to die. I’m not…

Nate: Mer, I’ll go. I’ll go!

Norah: Dad! It’s here! It’s here!

Nate: Run, Mer! Get away from the car now! Pass me another. Pass it quick!

Beast is rated R for violence and bloody images. There’s some strong language, but it’s milder than many PG-13 movies. This film doesn’t aspire to be an epic meditation on man versus nature. It has a relatively tight 93-minute running time, and leans into the suspense genre. The first third introduces us to the characters, the second third builds tension as they unknowingly head into danger, and the last third contains the jump scares and action sequences.

Meredith: Do you see it?

Nate: I don’t see it.

Meredith: It’s right there.

Nate: Stop moving the car. Stop rocking.

Norah: Where are you going?

But even in the third act, Kormákur gives the audience time to breathe. For example, he includes a long single-take scene that helps rebuild suspense by letting the camera stalk Nate and his daughters.

Besides the thrills and action, Beast has a surprising amount of pathos. Nate feels guilty because he wasn’t there when his wife died, and he thinks he’s a failure as a father. One of his daughters thinks of him as a failure, too. Despite Elba’s hulking size, he manages to convince us he’s emotionally broken, trying to redeem himself.

Nate: So listen. Ummm… I’m going to try to come to you. Okay? Do you understand that, Martin? I’m going to try to come to you.

Martin: [in pain] Negative, Nate. I’m not alone.

Nate: What?

Martin: He’s staring right at me.

The movie’s not perfect, falling prey to some of the laziness often associated with the horror genre. Technology fails in a most unconvincing manner. Vehicles leave their occupants stranded. People decide to abandon safe places to go poking around in areas with low visibility in which a killer likely lurks.

Meredith: Dad, come back.

Nate: Okay.

Meredith: Okay, I’m going to go outside—

Norah: Wait, Mer!

Meredith: Just stay here!

Norah: Mer, please!

Nate: Hey, man. You up here? Huh? Martin!

[lion roar]

Nate: Get in the car! Get in the car now!

By the end, I found it increasingly difficult to suspend disbelief as Nate absorbs more and more abuse. And Nate isn’t the only one. The poor CGI lion takes more punishment in pursuit of his prey than Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator.

And for a scary movie, we see this persistent lion too often for him to be truly frightening—it’s the unseen danger that scares us the most. But it’s always nice to see a father in a movie play the hero and protect his children.

Norah: Dad, get the gun! Dad, grab it! Hurry up!

[lion roar]

So, if you’re a fan of Idris Elba or scary animal movies, Beast might be for you. But in the end, Beast is good, but not great—entertaining, but forgettable.

[lion roar]

I’m Collin Garbarino.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Friday, August 26th. 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. Before we get to listener feedback for August—August! The summer’s flying by, isn’t it?!

BROWN: I know!!!

EICHER: Our friend Brian Basham is here. The Big Bash. He’s program director and host of WORLD Watch—that’s our daily video news for students, daily all year long—now starting a brand-new season.

Myrna’s a host and reporter, too. You all do such a great job!

BROWN: Oh, it’s such a pleasure to do and it’s just great for homeschool families, Christian schools. I’m proud of the product and excited to be a part of it.

EICHER: And, as I say, Brian’s here to tell you about a really nice offer if you don’t have WORLD Watch yet, all-new introductory offer to get you started, why don’t you tell about that, Bash?

AUDIO: [World Watch promo]

Three times three: WORLDWatch.world. Easy to remember. WORLDWatch.world. Sign up today.

Well, on to Listener Feedback. And we begin with a few corrections.

Listener Jeff Palomino pointed out that in our August 17th newscast we reported that a Minuteman III launched from Vandenberg Air Force base. He wrote to remind us that Vandenberg is no longer an air-force base, it was renamed just last year Vandenberg Space Force base.

BROWN: On August 11th we spoke with legal-affairs reporter Steve West about a religious liberty case in Washington state. We reported that a Christian university had sued the state for investigating its stance on marriage and sexuality.

But we went through the whole segment without naming the school. Rick Franklin lives in Gresham, Oregon, and he called in to make sure you know what school we were talking about.

RICK FRANKLIN: I'm an alumnus of that school, and I'm thankful for their continued adherence to scriptural views of marriage and sexuality. And some of your listeners, especially parents considering higher education options for their high school children would be interested to know that the name of the school is Seattle Pacific University. Thanks for all you do. I listen every day and love the podcast.

EICHER: Thanks Rick!

One more—a mispronunciation, and that happens sometimes. On August 5th we referred to the drug PAX-lu-vid but mistakenly pronounced it PAX-lu-void. It’s PAX-lu-vid and I hope I don’t need any of it. It’s an antiviral for Covid. Listener and physician Kenneth Cole heard the mispronunciation and emailed us right away. So Paul Butler recorded a quick correction and uploaded the new segment to the podcast feed—meaning some listeners heard the mistake, some didn’t—and now with the correction everyone has.

BROWN: Next a couple of additions. Jennifer Mazzella wrote in about our newscast coverage of the death of Indiana congresswoman Jackie Walorski. She died early this month in a car crash. And in the short news story we mentioned only the congresswoman’s name and not the two staff members who died with her. One of them Zachery Potts and the other Emma Thomson, a woman our listener knew from church.

EICHER: I’ll read some of our listener’s letter:

Emma was only 28, but she spent her life well for Christ in the rocky soil of Capitol Hill. I know that she is in the presence of her dear Savior, but we who are left behind will miss her so much. I know not every death can be mentioned on a podcast, but if you were going to mention the Congresswoman, it wouldn’t have taken long to have mentioned the names of the others.

Jennifer, we are sorry for your loss and our oversight. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of Jackie Walorski, Emma Thomson, and Zachery Potts.

BROWN: Another addition, this time regarding our profile of the breast milk bank in Chicago’s northern suburbs. Longtime listener and reader Rebecca Payne called in with this reminder:

REBECCA PAYNE: Hi, let me start by saying thanks for your coverage of the impact of the formula crisis on breast milk donation, particularly in a way it's impacted a rare disease family with necrotizing colitis. I also just wanted to ask why there's been no coverage of the fact that this so-called “infant formula shortage” is actually impacting 1000s of Americans that are older children and adults who still rely on formula. Thanks for the time to listen to the message and all you do.

EICHER: Rebecca, thanks for calling attention to this overlooked aspect of the formula shortage. We’ve referred to the crisis on this program as an “infant formula shortage” for two reasons: First, most of the formula is labeled and sold as “infant formula.” Second, the majority of families affected by the shortage are parents with infants. Having said that, after your message we’ve talked about this as an editorial staff and we’ve decided to refer to it more frequently as simply a “formula shortage”—to reflect the challenges older children and adults are facing as well.

One more comment today. Carrie Garrison also sent us a voice memo about a story by Leah Johansen:

CARRIE GARRISON: Thank you for your story about donor breast milk. I bawled all the way through, as I currently have an infant son on donor breast milk. It was just wonderful to hear how simple acts can help the helpless as we are called to do and how women have been uniquely designed in some ways to help those helpless. Thank you for showing what is a beautiful thing during a hard time for a lot of moms.

BROWN: Well that’s it for this month’s Listener Feedback. Thanks to all our listeners who wrote and called. If you have comments to share with us you can send them to editor@wng.org. And if you’re writing, would you mind taking a moment and recording your comments on your phone and send us the digital file? To make it easier, we’ve posted instructions on how to use your phone to make a recording. Just visit: wng.org/podcasts.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s time to give credit to the team that made this week’s programs come together.

David Bahnsen, Joel Belz, Leo Briceno, Anna Johansen Brown, Kent Covington, Collin Garborino, Anna Mandin, Mary Muncy, Addie Offeriens, Bonnie Pritchett, Mary Reichard, Jenny Rough, Josh Schumacher, Cal Thomas, and Steve West.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Johnny Franklin and Carl Peetz are the audio engineers who stay up late to get the program to you early! Kristen Flavin is our producer. Paul Butler is our executive producer.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio.

WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible says: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.” (Matthew 7:15-20 ESV)

Go now in grace and peace.

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