The World and Everything in It: August 28, 2024

PREROLL: The World and Everything in It is made possible by listeners like us. My name is Joseph Dowsley. I live in Greenville, South Carolina, and I work as a physical therapist. I hope you enjoy today's program.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Good morning! Today on Washington Wednesday: the Kennedy voters, will they still follow RFK Junior?

NICK EICHER, HOST: Also today, what’s behind the closings of thousands of churches in Rwanda? And later, film tourism. Cashing in on curiosity about where famous movies were shot.

AUDIO: They always ask “where is the bench?” and “where did the feather fall from?”

And WORLD Opinions commentator Joe Rigney on how Christians ought to think about voting.

MAST: It’s Wednesday, August 28th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Lindsay Mast.

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

MAST: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

AUDIO: [Brother of hostage]

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Hostage rescue » An Israeli man has been reunited with his family after being held hostage by Hamas for nearly 11 months.

AUDIO: [Brother of hostage]

The brother of that freed hostage heard there, speaking at a hospital. Doctors there were treating 52-year-old Qaid Farhan Alkadi after Israeli forces rescued him from a tunnel in Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that his country is committed to bringing every hostage home.

NETANYAHU (translated): We do this in two main ways, through negotiations and rescue operations. Both ways, together require our military presence on the ground and unceasing military pressure on Hamas. 

Israel estimates that there are still more than a hundred hostages remaining in Hamas custody.

SOUND: [Ukraine rescue efforts]

More Russian attacks in Ukraine » In Ukraine, rescue workers dug through the rubble of buildings blown apart by Russian missiles and drones.

SOUND: [Ukraine rescue efforts]

Moscow’s forces on Tuesday bombarding civilian areas for a second day.

After the latest attacks, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy renewed calls for the U.S. to lift restrictions and let Ukraine strike military targets deep inside Russia.

But Pentagon spokesman, Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters:

RYDER: The Ukrainians can use U.S. security assistance to defend themselves from cross-border attacks, in other words, counter-fire. But as it relates to long-range strikes, deep strikes into Russia, our policy has not changed.

Western-supplied F-16 fighter jets were able to shoot down some of the incoming threats on Tuesday, but the airstrikes still killed at least 5 people.

Zelenskyy plan to end Ukraine war » Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he has a plan that he believes will end war in his country.

ZELENSKYY: [Speaking in Ukrainian]

He says part of the plan involves what he calls a powerful package of coercion to force the Kremlin to the bargaining table.

Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s ongoing offensive in the Russian border region of Kursk is a key part of that plan.

Ukraine says it’s seized about 500 square miles of the region. That’s about the size of Los Angeles.

Grossi at Russian nuke facility » And the head of the United Nation’s nuclear agency was on on-the-ground in the Kursk region of Russia Tuesday amid concerns over fighting near the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant. Rafael Grossi said he’s working to develop a plan to prevent any accidents amid the war.

Pennsylvania Face Act » The Justice Department is suing a Pennsylvania man for allegedly interfering with operations at an abortion facility. WORLD’s Christina Grube reports.

CHRISTINA GRUBE: Matthew Connolly entered a Philadelphia abortion facility in August 2021 and locked himself in the bathroom, causing the facility to close early and call the police.

The Department of Justice is now suing Connolly under the FACE Act, a federal law which makes it illegal for anyone to hinder access to abortion facilities.

But Monica Miller Citizens for a Pro-Life Society shot back, accusing federal authorities in their suit of attempting to “twist and stretch the language” of the law.

For WORLD, I’m Christina Grube.

New Trump indictment » Special counsel Jack Smith has filed a new indictment against Donald Trump related to the Capitol riot. The new filing keeps the same criminal charges but narrows the allegations against him, after a Supreme Court opinion conferring broad immunity to presidents for official acts.

The new indictment removes a part of the indictment that dealt with Trump’s interactions with the Justice Department.

The stripped-down case represents a first effort by prosecutors to comply with the Supreme Court opinion.

I’m Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: RFK Jr. joins team Trump on Washington Wednesday. Plus, World Tour.

This is The World and Everything in It.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: It’s Wednesday the 28th of August.

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

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Time now for Washington Wednesday.

On Friday, Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suspended his campaign and endorsed former President Donald Trump.

His decision comes as Kamala Harris has taken a slight lead in six of the seven swing states, according to recent data from the Cook Political Report. Those states are Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

MAST: Might the Kennedy endorsement help? World’s Washington Bureau reporter Leo Briceno has the story.

LEO BRICENO: By the end of his campaign, Kennedy was polling at around seven percent nationally—a steep drop from the 20 percent he had in several polls back in November of 2023. But that’s still millions of potential votes. And in a tightly contested election, they could be decisive in November.

JASON AMATUCCI: There will be a lot of people from the campaign that follow him and follow his lead…

Jason Amatucci is a former director for the Kennedy Campaign in Virginia. He spoke to me by phone right after getting the news about Kennedy.

AMATUCCI: This new unity ticket, as they’re calling it, I think is a very powerful coalition that will combat a lot of the forces that are working against America right now.

Amatucci declined to definitively say how he’ll vote this fall, but he said that he’ll follow Kennedy’s lead.

AMATUCCI: And I support Kennedy and his mission and his issues and wherever that takes me, I will go.

The question for Kennedy supporters eyeing the Republican ticket is whether Trump will take the same positions as Kennedy on key issues. The question for Trump is whether there are enough Kennedy voters to improve his odds in swing states.

Polling by Mainstreet Research in June found that Kennedy had a sizable presence in contested battlegrounds. In Pennsylvania for instance, he was polling at around eight percent back in June. In Wisconsin, he had 13 percent. And in Michigan, Kennedy was polling at around 11. Meanwhile, recent polls show that Harris and Trump are either dead even or within two points of each other in all three of those states.

In his campaign-ending speech on Friday, Kennedy articulated why he felt that his voters should support Trump going forward. He pointed to areas of overlap between him and the former president that had become apparent over private conversations between the two.

JOHN F. KENNEDY JR.: Last summer it looked like no candidate was willing to negotiate a quick end to the Ukraine war, to tackle chronic disease epidemic, to protect free speech, our constitutional freedoms, to clean corporate influence out of our government or to defy the neocons in their agenda of endless military adventurism. But now one of the two candidates has adopted these issues as his own—to the point where he has asked to enlist me in his administration.

Kennedy didn’t mention what kind of role he hopes to take on in a potential second Trump administration. But supporters like Amatucci hope that that possibility, whatever it looks like, means their campaign wasn’t in vain.

AMATUCCI: If he’s actually going to be in government, making decisions and making things happen, I think that’s huge. I think that’s a big thing, I don’t really understand the mindset of like ‘oh this is ending’ and ‘this is all down the tube and there’s nothing happening next.’

Fighting chronic illness wasn’t really a part of Trump’s campaigns in 2016 and 2020, but he’s always had a more critical eye toward America’s role in conflicts overseas—especially during his presidency. And he has put a lot of emphasis on combating the administrative state.

Here’s Trump in his first address to a joint session of Congress.

DONALD TRUMP: We have begun to drain the swamp of government corruption by imposing a five-year ban on lobbying by executive branch officials.

The same day that Kennedy dropped out, Trump started incorporating some of the language that the third-party candidate had made a fixture of his campaign.

TRUMP: Millions and millions of Americans who want clean air, clean water, and a healthy nation have concerns about toxins in our environment and pesticides in our food. That’s why today I am repeating my pledge to establish a panel of top experts working with Bobby to investigate what is causing the decades-long increase in chronic health problems and childhood diseases.

But some long-time Kennedy supporters aren’t so sure. Esther Maynard worked on the Kennedy campaign in Virginia as a volunteer, and she’s skeptical about Trump’s promises on the campaign trail.

ESTHER MAYNARD: I’m not sure there’s very much that Trump could say that would convince me to trust him. I don’t think I’m going to trust him until if he becomes president, he’s able to follow through with action.

She pointed out that in 2017, Trump pledged to work with Kennedy on a panel on immunization safety. But that didn’t happen.

That said, she thinks she’ll probably end up voting for him anyway.

MAYNARD: I don't think people are going to be psyched about it, because there's a reason we were Kennedy's supporters and not Donald Trump supporters, but if we previously thought that Bobby Kennedy had a pretty good read on the situation, and had pretty good judgment, and would make a pretty good president, then I think that we should listen to him when he says that this is the smart strategic decision for how we can best preserve the republic.

Even if Kennedy doesn’t play a role in a second Trump administration, Maynard believes the issues Kennedy highlighted will still play a role in American politics—especially on chronic illness and the emergence of allergies, stunted development in children, and more.

MAYNARD: He’s kind of the canary in the coal mine but he notices the gas before the rest of us do but if we ignore it we’re going to notice it sooner or later. And if you can manage to put the pieces together for them and say ‘hey, look around you, we’re not okay, and here are the reasons why, and this is how you fix it,’ I think that that definitely has the power to stay in the national conversation. 

And there’s historical precedent for third party candidates influencing the national conversation. Daron Shaw is chair of state politics at the University of Texas at Austin. He says that issues that become important in politics often come from outside voices.

DARON SHAW: Historically, the political science literature tells us that those movements are pretty important if for no other reason than they usually force—at least if they have some kind of momentum or steam—they force the political parties to take into account the issues and the grievances brought to the table by a third party. That’s true going all the way back to the socialism and the social Democrats and Franklin Roosevelt who basically co-opted much of the socialist party agenda when he was crafting his New Deal. That’s true for Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996 when the Democrats and Republicans basically co-opted many of his ideas on the budget.

So what was the primary motivator for Kennedy supporters? His policies, or his status as a third option?

In July, the Pew Research Center found that as many as half of Kennedy’s supporters said they were open to voting for him because he provided an alternative to the two main parties. Just 9 percent of respondents said they followed him because of his policy issues. So that means it’s likely the bloc of voters that will follow Kennedy to join Trump is smaller than many think it is.

In his address, Kennedy framed his move to support Trump as the best way to continue his work. He compared it to a coalition made all the way back in 1861 that supported Abraham Lincoln’s campaign and helped him win the election.

KENNEDY: In those meetings he suggested we join forces as a unity party. We talked about Abraham Lincoln’s team of rivals. That arrangement would allow us to disagree publicly and privately and fiercely if need be on issues on which we differ while working together on the existential issues upon which we are in concordance.

Kennedy joined Trump on the campaign trail in Arizona last week and has been tapped to join Trump’s transition team.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leo Briceno.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: World Tour…

Last month Rwanda closed more than 56-hundred churches and mosques. What’s behind the closures and is it a case of religious persecution?

Onize Ohikere is out this week so WORLD Radio Executive Producer Paul Butler has the story.

AUDIO: [RWANDA PENTECOSTAL CHURCH]

PAUL BUTLER: The number of Evangelical churches in Rwanda exploded in the years following the 1994 genocide. Some missiologists described the surge as a revival … others suggested it was a reaction against the Catholic Church who many Rwandans felt was complicit or at least passive during the violence.

So, Evangelical churches started sprouting up everywhere. Sometimes in buildings that were unsafe, lacked basic amenities, or in the middle of highly populated areas.

Many Evangelical Rwandan services are exuberant. Congregants dance as singers and musicians lead in worship. And it’s not uncommon for PA systems to be pushed beyond their limits…as speakers distort and the sound carries far from the church building.

Many of these young churches haven’t exactly been good neighbors. Complaints over noise pollution and traffic jams are common…as church-goers clog streets around these make-shift church buildings without adequate parking.

But there are bigger concerns. In 2012, a scandal within one of the largest Rwandan Pentecostal denominations raised doubts over the level of oversight and training of local pastors.

PETER GITAU: Churches were basically just not doing the right thing.

Peter Gitau is the Central Africa regional administrator for Africa Inland Mission.

GITAU: And so the government decided to come up with these new rules.

In 2018 the Rwanda Governance Board—or RGB—closed more than 700 churches in the capital city of Kigali. Audio here from CBN:

CBN: Thousands of Evangelical churches in Rwanda are being temporarily shut down…it’s because of a new government requirement…

Many of those churches reopened, but the new law served as a warning shot across the bow…reform or be shut down. Rwanda gave all faith-based organizations five years to comply with the new regulations.

Again, Peter Gitau:

GITAU: The government doesn't want churches to be, you know, kind of be in the wild west…

The RGB regulations require all faith based organizations—including churches—to register with the government. All places of worship must meet basic building standards, include working bathrooms, and at least some on-site parking. Church services have to fall within reasonable decibel levels, or else install sound treatment to minimize the disturbances to neighbors. Plus, pastors or equivalent church leaders must achieve an acceptable level of theological training—based on denominational or umbrella organization standards.

GITAU: Five years is enough time for people to get at least a diploma in something…It's enough time for you to fix your bathrooms and your leaking roof, to put some sound proofing…in your building.

Some faith based organizations took the timeline seriously and began implementing immediate improvements. But others couldn’t afford to make the changes, or saw the five year deadline and put off planning. Then …

AUDIO:  This looks like the world is ending. You have Corona. This is a crisis…

And many churches focused on more pressing matters.

The law’s deadline arrived last September. The Rwanda Governance Board began an extensive program checking in on more than 13,000 houses of worship. By the end of July this year, their site surveys were complete. As a result, they shut down more than 56-hundred churches.

GITAU: I don't think this time around, people were unawares. People knew this was coming.

The current Chief Executive Officer of the Rwanda Governance Board is Kaitesi Usta. Two weeks ago she appeared on a weekly TV panel program to defend the RGB’s action.

RGB SPOKESWOMAN: This is a law abiding country. We've decided to be a country governed by the rule of law. It's being compliant. That’s what faith is about in the general sense…

One Pentecostal pastor on the panel insisted that the RGB shouldn’t treat all churches across the country the same.

PASTOR KAWAGAM BEZIZA JULIUS: I will not have much problem with the standards and settings, but I have a problem with the implementation side of it…

Pastor Julius argues that some of the churches the RGB shut down for not having adequate parking include congregations where almost no one has cars or motorbikes. Another church meets in a remote area and shouldn’t be shut down because sound levels exceed the maximum allowed. And Pastor Julius was also upset over the government’s characterization that worship is noise.

JULIUS: Worshiping God is not noise pollution…

The RGB CEO Kaitesi Usta responded:

RGB SPOKESWOMAN: So I think some of these things are just more scientific than spiritual. They are more realistic than spiritual. But, the level of worship and preaching is about listening and hearing...

Peter Gitau of African Inland Mission believes the regulations may actually be an opportunity for the Evangelical church in Rwanda…to attempt to live at peace with their neighbors—as much as they can—and to remember that untrained and unaccountable church leaders often lead to trouble:

GITAU: Do you want just anyone running a church? Because in places, in a lot of places in Africa, that has proven to be not a good thing…

That said, Gitau acknowledges that now there are many Rwandans who can no longer go to church where they once did. However…

GITAU: No one is saying you cannot meet in each other's houses for fellowship. They're just saying, fix your fix your place. And you know you can meet there.

Gitau is unwilling to reveal whether he believes the regulations are more intrusive than they need to be. But even if they are, he says it’s important to not lose sight of one more opportunity.

GITAU: We can never stop praying for governments. I think, you know, the Lord put them there, although there are many times we wish he didn't, but the Lord put them there. We can not stop praying for those…

For WORLD Radio, I’m Paul Butler.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Catcher Danny Jansen had quite a ballgame the other night at Fenway in Boston.

He was behind the plate for the Red Sox … when the team finished up a rain-delayed game from June with the Toronto Blue Jays. Jansen was at-bat when it started raining and the umps had to call the game.

What’s weird, though, is that Jansen was in a Blue Jays uniform at the time.

Let me explain: Between the rain delay and Monday night, he got traded from Toronto to Boston. And so became the first major leaguer ever to play for both teams … in the same game. Never happened before.

So when he took the field for Boston in his new uniform … Jansen actually caught the strikeout of the player who pinch hit for him.

But his old team would have the last laugh: It was the former Blue Jay Jansen who struck out, ending the game for the Red Sox.

So who’s on first? … is the wrong question: Who’s in the batter’s box and why’s he now behind the plate? That’s what we need to know.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, August 28th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: film tourism in historic cities.

Overall, tourism in the U.S. is a huge industry. In 2022, it contributed to about 10 percent of the jobs in the country.

One popular form of tourism is so-called film tourism. It’s exactly as it sounds: People visit specific locations from their favorite movies or television shows.

Personal example: Where I live in Atlanta, there are entire tours just of locations for the TV show Stranger Things.

EICHER: Oh, another TV show Burn Notice was a family favorite when the kids were all home, and I’ll never forget a to trip Miami—had to be more than a decade ago—and we had fun scouting out shooting locations. And we found a bunch of them.

Speaking of which, WJI mid-career graduate Jessica Eturralde spoke with some locals in a historic city that’s become a hot spot for precisely this type of tourism.

AUDIO: [SOUND OF HORSE CARRIAGE]

JESSICA ETURALDE: Savannah, Georgia was established in 1733. It’s the home of the nation’s largest historic district. Each year, more than 17 million visitors flock to the city that boasts of historic homes and churches with squares shaded by evergreen oaks draped in Spanish moss. But many tourists are less interested in those things. Instead, they want to see the setting of their favorite fictional films, books, and shows.

TOM HANKS: Hello. My name is Forrest. Forrest Gump. Would you like a chocolate?

TOUR GUIDE: At the beginning of Forrest Gump, a feather floats around that church steeple. It comes down here to Bull Street, the street we're on right now. Now don't look too hard, there's no bench there today. There's no bench there because that never was a real bus stop. They just made it look that way for the movie.

Forrest Gump just celebrated its 30th anniversary in July. Remarkably, three decades after the film’s premiere, one of Savannah’s most sought after requests is to take a photo with the bench from the movie.

COFFEE SHOP OWNER: I just can’t believe people are still bringing it up.

The bench is so popular that the owners of Savannah’s oldest coffee shop, Gallery Espresso, discovered that even having an ordinary bench outside the entrance posed an unexpected problem: People were obsessed with taking pictures while sitting on their bench.

COFFEE SHOP OWNER: All of a sudden, there's two fellas that are just trotting off with the bench. And it was, they brought it back, but still it was pretty obnoxious for them to do that.

Despite the bench’s absence, tourists take turns standing in the middle of Bull Street to photograph their friends squatting next to the Chippewa Square sign. The sign is posted in the middle of a plant bed where Hanks once sat. The site was originally roped off to prevent tourists from trampling the plants, but locals say they eventually gave up.

ANTHONY LUNSMAN: They always ask, where was the bench? And where did the feather fall from?

Bicycle tour guide Anthony Lunsman says that about 60% of his customers ask to go there.

LUNSMAN: That's like one of their main questions is like, “Where's the Forrest Gump bench?” Like there's the Mercer house. There's Forsyth Park. There's all, you know, there's a ton of history, but they're like, where was the bench where he sat with his chocolates? Like, that is a big question.

Savannah isn't just known for the 1994 blockbuster—it's also featured in Cape Fear and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Gallery Espresso even closed for a day to film a scene with Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore for the movie May December.

Georgia's film industry ranks third to California and New York. The state’s film tax credits provide an incentive for feature films to consider Georgia locations. Spending in the direct film industry increased from $93 million in 2007 to over $4 billion in 2022.

Films frequently choose historic cities, such as Savannah, as their backdrops. And although many locals groan, film tourism offers a unique boost to the local economy.

LUNSMAN: I mean, it was a great movie. I get that, but it's, you know, it is like, maybe like 60 percent of the time I talk to someone they want to like go to this square right here.

Lundsman is not the only one amazed by the star-struck phenomena in his city.

MUSIC: [Bill Conti - Gonna Fly Now]

In Philadelphia, where the notorious Rocky films are based, a man on Reddit wrote that he and his wife made a date one Saturday morning by counting how many people ran up the stairs and did the Rocky Pose. In one hour, they counted 110 people. Mostly dads.

Pennsylvania filmmakers are also petitioning the state to encourage more productions to film in their towns by offering better tax incentive programs.

Other historic cities, such as Santa Fe, New Mexico, are also taking advantage of film tax credits to attract productions in their historic towns. New Mexico claims over six billion dollars in film industry impact over the last decade.

As historic cities brainstorm how to maintain and expand tourism by wooing major film productions, locals can expect more fictional history enthusiasts to bypass historical places for settings tied to their favorite imaginative mediums.

Locals will find ways to entertain themselves by counting the runners, or do what the workers at the Savannah Theatre do: create a bingo game with tourists' most commonly asked questions.

THEATER WORKER: There are certain questions that we get asked every day or certain scenarios that come up. So I made a bingo board of all of them. And one of them is, where's the bench? Because we get asked that so much.

Film has the potential to connect us to our surroundings. Movies are a powerful tool for revealing and proclaiming a divine Creator in a world in need of hope.

But we must remain rooted in reality.

COFFEE SHOP WORKER: So, there's the history of the squares and some of the streets kind of comes out. So, no, they don't ask specifically about that. I think they're just all star struck. [Laughs]

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Jessica Eturralde.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Today is Wednesday, August 28th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher

World Opinions Commentator Joe Rigney now on entering the voting booth without fear of those who call themselves progressives.

JOE RIGNEY: In recent months, I’ve described the need for evangelicals to break free from what I’ve called “the progressive gaze.” You know, the imaginary progressive looking over your shoulder who critically evaluates all that you say and do as a Christian. Under the progressive gaze, some Christians feel they must take into account the sensitivities, concerns, hopes, hostilities, and enemies of self-proclaimed progressives.

For many Christians, the progressive gaze affects how we approach the stewardship of our vote, leading to various distortions of what a vote means. For example, many Christians have been taught that we should view our vote in terms of evangelistic witness. Our vote is understood fundamentally as a way of establishing credibility with unbelievers. In this framework, a vote for former President Donald Trump in November would allegedly hinder our Christian witness to the unbelieving world. “The world,” we’re told, “is watching.” But note the implicit assumption beneath this exhortation. “The world” is assumed to be secular and liberal, and thus a vote for Trump will alienate our “presumed” target evangelistic audience.

But if voting is fundamentally about establishing credibility with an evangelistic audience, we might just as reasonably conclude that we should vote for Trump. That would enable evangelism to cultural Christians who rarely attend church but enthusiastically support him. A vote for Trump would signal that we care about their concerns and want to build bridges. In fact, the case might be made that these cultural Christians more closely approximate the New Testament category of “God-fearer.” They might then be regarded as fields that are “white for the harvest,” as Jesus said in John 4:35. Unlike many self-proclaimed progressives, these Americans at least respect the culture and society that Christianity produced in this country.

Consider two different motives for a Trump vote: One, Trump is an American messiah who has no faults and has never done wrong. And two, Trump is better than the high-handed wickedness of the Party of Death and Sexual Insanity. Under the progressive gaze, if you adopt the latter, you will be accused of adopting the former in hopes that you will rethink your vote, or, at the very least, you will keep your intention to yourself so others don’t follow suit.

Instead of viewing one’s vote as a matter of evangelistic witness or total endorsement of a candidate, there is a third option…to view it as a stewardship of one’s civic power in selecting the representative leaders who, once elected, seek to enact a particular agenda.

In our two-party system, this selection is frequently a binary choice. True, there are third parties, and the option to write in other names. But for most of our nation’s history, two parties have determined who runs the agencies, courts, and legislatures. Thus, we must ask some basic questions of parties or candidates. Are they aiming at good or evil as defined by God and His word? Are they attempting to promote and establish justice or injustice, righteousness or rebellion? If they are seeking what is good, then we can consider if the means they propose to achieve their ends are wise and fitting. Having answered such questions, we then compare the two to determine which will better secure justice, order, and the common good. And then we make our choice.

In terms of our motives, we may enthusiastically support a candidate. Or we may simply support a particular platform and administration. Or we may oppose the grave evil in the other party, candidate, and administration. Having made our choice, we enter the voting booth, not underneath the progressive gaze but under the Divine Gaze, seeking with God’s help to faithfully exercise our civic duty in confident reliance upon Him.

I’m Joe Rigney.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Tomorrow: Banning cell phones in the classroom. Is it helping or hurting students as the fall semester gets rolling? And, a longtime South Korean missionary’s work to help reach a remote tribe in Indonesia. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

Luke records the words of Jesus: “And he said to them, ‘Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come…eternal life.’” —Luke 18:29, 30

Go now in grace and peace.

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